The Gentleman's magazine

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\

r

PROPERTY OF

Jlmts

I 8 I 7

A R r fc b M • I t N I 1 A \' b K i I i*

The Gentleman s Magazine

JANUARY TO JUNE 1878

LONDON : PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODB AND CO., NEW-STRBST SQUARR

AND PARLIAMENT STRRET

THE

Gentleman s Magazine

Volume CCXLII. t v-, ^,^ -y, I

JANUARY TO JUNE 1878

PlODESSE S' Delectare >!^Btv ^-^ E Pluribus Unum

Edited by SYLVANUS URBAN, Gentleman

CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY

1878

I ^

[TAf rrjfA/ ^ /npts/h/f'a/s is reservcii

CONTENTS OF VOL. CCXLII.

PACB

Ancient Babylonian Astrogony. By Richard A. Proctor • '319

Angling in Queensland. By Redspinner 721

Animals and their Environments. By Andrew Wilson . . 734
Byzantine Institutions in Turkey. By Arthur Arnold . .113

Carnarvon's, Lord, Resignation. ByT. H. S. ESCOTT . . . 357
" Charter of our Policy ,** The, and the Terms of Peace. By the

Rev. Malcolm MacColl 414

Cox, David. By Frederick Wedmore 330

Cmikshank, George: a Life Memory. By George AUGUSTUS

Sala 544

Dickens, Charles, as Dramatist and Poet By Percy Fitzgerald 61

Early Italian Drama, The. By George Eric Mackay . . 478

Epigrams. By Charles A. Ward • 235

Harvey, William. By Benjamin W. Richardson, M.D. . . 455

Law of Likeness, The, and its Working. By Andrew Wilson . 44

Learning and Health. By Benjamin W. Richardson, M.D. . 162

Nerves, The Origin of. By Andrew Wilson . w . . 490

Nodier, Charles. By M. Betham-Edwards .... 706
Northington, Lord. By Edward Walford . . . .597

Papal Elections and Electors. By Cyprian A. G. Bridge . . 181

Parasites and their Development By Andrew Wilson . , 342

Parish Registers. By John Amphlett 371

Petits Pau^Tes. By Arthur Rimbaud 94

Phonograph, The, or Voice-Recorder. By Richard A. Proctor 688

Primitive Moral Philosophy. By J. A. Farrer .... 209

Quevedo. By James Mew 95

Restoration Comedy and Mr. Irving's last Parts. By Frederick

Wedmore 589

Roy's Wife. By G. J. Whyte-Melville :

Chap. I. A Pint of Port i

II. A Pair of Boots 8

III. Number Forty-six 11

IV. Deeper and Deeper 16

V. A Woman's Reason *. 21

VI. So Like a Man ! 129

VII. Warden Towers 134

VIII. Royston Grange 140

IX. Strangers Yet 145

vi Contents.

Ro/s Wife. By G. J. W hyte- Melville— ir^«//V//!/^^/.

PAGB

Chap. X. Mrs. Mopus 150

XI. A Walking Dictionary 155

XII. Burton Brake 257

XIII. Sweet Sympathy 263

XIV. So far away 268

XV. The little Rift 275

XVI. The Music Mute 279

xviL Baffled 385

XVIII. Do you remember ? 389

XIX. In the Wilderness 396

XX. A Blue-Jacket 402

XXL The Girl he left behind him 408

xxn. Circe 513

xxin. Arachne 519

XXIV. Out of Soundings 525

XXV. Standing ofT-and-on 533

XXVL Counsel's Opinion 537

XXVII. The Irrepressible 641

XXVIII. Champing the Bit 649

XXIX. The Weather-Gauge 653

XXX. Watch and Watch 660

Savage Penal Laws. By J. A. Farrer 442

Shakspere's Sonnets. By T. A. Spalding 300

Slave-dealing, Domestic, in Turkey. By F. E. A 666

Spring. By MORTIMER COLLINS 370

Stanley's March across Africa. By Frederick A. Edwards . 603

Sununer in the South, A. By E. Lynn Linton .... 27
Sun's Distance, New Ways of Measuring the. By Richard A.

Proctor 193

Surface, Joseph. By Dxjtton Cook 429

Teazle, Sir Peter. By Dutton Cook 223

Terms of Peace. By Edward A. Freeman 78

Transit of Mercury, The, on May 6. By Richard A. Proctor . 569

Troja Fuit. By J. W. Hales 588

Victor Emmanuel By E. M. Clerke 288

Table Talk. By Svlvanus Urban, Gentleman :

The late Prince Consort and his economies — Servant-g^rlism —
Freemasonry and its mission — Quarantine — Thirlmere and the
haunted house — A statue of Robert Bruce — Capital punishment
— Modem civilisation — Benson and his audacity — Witch-burn-
ing in Mexico — Free libraries 122

Temple Bar — Living on sixpence a day — Victor Emmanuel —
Youthful thieves — Sipontum — A strange advertisement — Hin-
doo missionaries 252

Contents, iv

ILLUSTRATIONS TO ^' ROV'S WIFE:'
By Arthur Hopkins.

■ How HANDSOME SHE LOOKED ! " .

"I CAN SHOW YOU IN FIVE SECONDS"

" He*S CROSSED THE BROOK. NoW WE SHALL HAVE

SOME FUN ! "

•* TLL BELIEVE ALL YOU TELL ME " .

" 1 THINK YOU HAVE NOT HAD FAIR PLAY, SIR "

•* Do YOU SUPPOSE I CAN'T MEDITATE, SIR?" .

PAGB

Table Talk. By Sylvanus IJKBAS^coniinued,

Nervous system of the jelly-fish — Dogs and their fidelity —
Draining Lake Mareotis — ^The Bursar and the I-^wyer — Billion,
trillion, and quadrillion — French ignorance — The liquefaction
of gases — A whist story — Marriage and the death-rate-
Lightning-conductors — Modem drainage — Pius the Ninth . 375

A retreat for Neogams — Professor Piazzi Smyth and his pre-
dictions— The wind and the tides— Publishers and authors —
Electric mirrors — "The plague" in England — Mr. Brett and
the colour of Mars- Poison in corpses — The muscles of the
eye— Two dangers make safety — Healthiness of the liberal
professions 506

A hint to " collectors " — Political slang — Congress, Conference,
or Diet ? — Strange weddings — The Minhocao — Literary
diplomatists — The death of Charles the First — Sir John
Franklin's journals — Animal Epidemics — Brute Instinct —
Gilbert Stuart — The Fine Arts in the United States — The love
of life and suicide — Sun-spots and weather predictions . . 629

Allegory and the "Jingos" — ^" Exchange of ideas" — Sir Henry
Thompson's China— An artless child — The English drama —
The ** Earth-flatteners" again — Discrowned monarchs —
Daily dangers — Mdllc. Mars and the moujiks — A "Jingo"
libel — A Hindoo murder — Paris and London . . . .753

Frontispiece

tofacepage

'58

*

262

n

413

V

520

»

641

.■ I /,

THE

( ; FJ^JTLEMAN'S MAGAZI N E

January 1878,

ROY'S WIFE.

l;V G. J. WHYTF.-MELVILLK.

Chapter I.

A PINT OF PORJ*.

NONE of your Scotch pints, dear to hard-headed North Britons
of the last century, not even an imperial pint, containing only
one-fourth of the former measure, but an hotel pint, in hotel limits,
of hotel vintage, at hotel price. Sound, no doubt, though rough and
fruity ; strong, full-flavoured, and exceedingly restorative to body and
mind.

An open wine-book propped against an uncorked bottle offers
the produce of many European vineyards at the highest possible tariff.
In its first page alone the varieties of champagne and claret might
stock the cellar of a duke. But he is a man of unusually trusttul
nature who drinks wine in a cofiee-room at the rate of one hundred
and twenty shillings per dozen, and experienced travellers wisely
content themselves with pale ale, brandy-and-water, a glass of brown
sherry, or a pint of port

Neither wine nor wine-card have yet attracted attention from the
visitor who ordered both. A waiter, banging hot plates down under
his nose, to serve "a bit of fish," notices nothing remarkable in this
unit among many guests. His manners are quiet, he wears a good
coat, and drinks wine with his dinner ; the waiter, therefore, considers
him a gentleman. That his face should be weary, his air abstracted,
seems but the natural result of a journey by rail from London to the
seaside ; and if he thinks of him at all, it is as '' a gent from town,"
good for a shilling or two when he takes his departure, notwithstand-
ing that ''attendance " is charged in the bill.

TOU CCXLir. NO. 1765. B

i- r^^ <

THE

(iKNTLEMANS MAGAZINE

January 1878.

N

ROY'S WIFE.

i;v G. J. whyte-mi:lvillk.

ClIAPl'KR I.
A PINT OF PORJ-.

ONE of your Scotch pints, dear to hard-headed North Britons
of the last century, not even an imperial pint, containing only
one-fourth of the former measure, but an hotel pint, in hotel limits,
of hotel vintage, at hotel price. Sound, no doubt, though rough and
fruity ; strong, full-flavoured, and exceedingly restorative to body and
mind.

An open wine-book propped against an uncorked bottle offers
the produce of many European vineyards at the highest possible tarift*
In its first page alone the varieties of champagne and claret might
stock the cellar of a duke. But he is a man of unusually trustful
nature who drinks wine in a cofiee-room at the rate of one hundred
and twenty shillings per dozen, and e.xperienced travellers wisely
content themselves with pale ale, brandy-and-water, a glass of brown
sherry, or a pint of port

Neither wine nor wine-card have yet attracted attention from the
visitor who ordered both. A ^vaiter, banging hot plates down under
his nose, to serve ** a bit of fish," notices nothing remarkable in this
unit among many guests. His manners are quiet, he wears a good
coat, and drinks wine with his dinner ; the waiter, therefore, considers
him a gentleman. That his face should be weary, his air abstracted,
seems but the natural result of a journey by rail from London to the
seaside ; and if he thinks of him at all, it is as '' a gent from town,"
good for a shilling or two when he takes his departure, notwithstand-
ing that ^'attendance " is charged in the bill

VOL. CCXLir. NO. 1765. B

2 The Gentleman s Magazine.

The fish has been to London and back since leaving its native
shore, and is sent away uneaten ; but the port is sipped, tasted, and
approved. The first glass permeates through his tired frame till it
tingles at his finger-ends ; with the second, there rises a sensation of
renewed vigour and vitality in the whole man : ere he is half-way to
the bottom of the third, a change has come over himself, his surround-
ings, his past, his present — above all, his fixture — that future which
looked so blank and uninteresting ten minutes ago. The carpet
seems no longer faded, the coffee-room dingy and ill-ventilated. A
stout lady at the comer table, dining in solemn silence with two shy
daughters and an ungainly son, ceases to be an object of aversion
and disgust Even the old gentleman by the window, who gasps and
snorts during the process of deglutition, now excites no stronger feeling
than a mild hope that he will presently be seized with some kind of
fit such as shall necessitate his removal upstairs. The drinker is
surprised at his own benevolence, and wonders, not without contempt,
how such an alteration should have been wrought in his natiu'e by
warmth, food, and a pint of port !

Reflection has been forced on him in the contrast between present
inactivity and the stir of his former life. With nothing to do, plenty
of time to do it, and nobody to help him, he has become a philosopher
in spite of himself. He has acquired the habit of analysing his own
character and motives, examining them, as it were, from an outside
point of view, in a spirit of cynicism, half-scornful, half-indulgent, but
wholly without result, his speculations only leading him farther and
farther into that labyrinth of which cut bono is the centre and the goal.
He is easily depressed : no wonder. But his hopes rise quickly as
they fall. When he sat down to dinner he felt a hundred years old,
yet ere the most odorous of Cheddar cheeses can be thrust in his
face, the world we live in has acquired a new lustre, a fresh interest ;
society seems no longer an infliction, nor life a mistake. It is his
nature to accept the metamorphosis with amusement, curiosity, and
mistrust. " What an absurdity," he reflects, " is this action and re-
action of body and mind, this irregular and spontaneous oscillation
that governs the machine called man — a machine in some respects
constructed >vith such elaborate care and precision, in others lament-
ably ill suited to the purposes of life ! A steam-engine is not thrown
out of gear because we feed its fires with inferior coal, or lubricate its
hinges with an oil cheaper than the best by sixpence a gallon ; but the
man whp invented the steam-engine can be driven into madness in
three minutes with as many glasses of brandy, and only half-a-pound
of such a cheese as that, for instance, would weigh him down with a

Roys Wife. 3

depression wanting but a few grains of actual despair. If the master-
piece of nature, the lord of creation, had been made with a gizzard,
rather than a liver, would he not oftener be lord of himself? which is
more to the purpose ; and would not that self more seldom prove * a
heritage of woe ? ' I have sat here but five-and-twenty minutes by
the coffee-room clock. The waiter thinks I am the same person whose
orders he took for dinner, and who told him to remove the fish at
once. How little he knows ! That man and I are as different as chalk
itself from the very cheese that still pervades the room. He was a
pessimist — almost a devil-worshipper ; I am an optimist, and in so far
a good Christian that I am at peace with all mankind ! When I drew
my chair to this table I felt, to use the expression of an Irish friend,
as if * the back-bone was out of me.* No interest, no energy, no
concern for my luggage, no British susceptibility to imposition,
scarcely enough spirit available to have resented an insult or returned
a blow. Now I have become curious about the locality, the neigh-
bourhood, the shops, the church, the circulating library, the new pier,
and the state of the tide. I ascertain by personal inquiry that my
portmanteau is safe in No. 5. I cannot be overcharged at present,
inasmuch as I have scarcely yet laid the foundation of a bill, but I am
prepared to expend guineas rather than be cheated out of shillings ;
while, as for blows and insults, my arm has kept my head ere now.
Let the aggressor look out ; I am well able to take care of myself.
And all this has been brought about by the consumption of a pint of
ix)rt. Great heavens ! can it be possible that my intellect, my sagacity,
my nobler qualities, even my courage, are thus dependent on drink !
Life was a very dull business half-an-hour ago. The journey, though
smooth and easy, had become so slow and tiresome ; the road was
exceedingly uninteresting, leading nowhere in particular after all. For
me and for my neighbours the way made, like that of an unskilful
Bwimmer, was so out of proportion to the energy expended, the puffing
and blowing, the hurry, the effort, and the splash ! We were all, like
flies on a window-pane, buzzing to and fro, backwards and fonvards,
round and round, never relaxing our efforts, yet never penetrating an
impassable transparency that kept us from the reality outside. I
have envied a man breaking stones on the road, because with a daily
duty and a definite purpose he seemed in s^me measure to fulfil the
object of existence, and to be less of a sham and mountebank than
myself. I am satisfied now that such reflections were but results of a
languid drculation. My pulse — for I felt it when the waiter wasn't
looking — beats full and regular, seventy to the minute ; I seem still to
have duties pleasures, perhaps even happiness, in store for one whose

. R 2

4 Tlie Gentleman s Magazine.

scalp is not yet bare, and who can count the grey hairs in his whiskers.
*' Waiter, a toothpick !"

" Beg your pardon, sir ; we don't keep them in the coffee-room
now, sir."

" Indeed ! Why not ? "

**We found it didn't answer, sir. The gentlemen took them
away."

Lost in the field of reflection opened up by such an admission,
our visitor might have relapsed into something of his previous despon-
dency, but that his attention was diverted to the laying of a table at
the other end of the room with rather more preparation and nicety
of arrangement than had been accorded in his own case, though
his sense of smell caused him to suspect that the fish he had discarded
was brought to the front once more. Spoons and forks, however,
had been polished to a dazzling lustre, the tablecloth was very white,
and in its centre stood a handful of flowers in a dull glass vase.
Surveying this effort, the waiter smiled satisfaction, while our philo-
sopher threw himself back in his chair to see what would come of it
with the good-humoured indifference of a man who has dined.

What came of it was nothing unusual to the waiter, to the old
gentleman, to the mother and daughters, even to the ungainly son —
simply a single lady dining later than other inmates of the hotel ; but
to the port-drinker, in regular gradations, at a startling rate of pro-
gression,, a distraction, an amusement, a mystery, an engrossing
interest, and an irresistible attraction.

The very rustle of her dresS; as it swept the dingy coffee-room
carpet, was suggestive of grace and dignity, of a smooth, easy gait,
springing from symmetry of form and vigorous elasticity of limb.
That horses can go in all shapes is an established maxim of the stable,
but when women are good movers it needs no anatomist to assure us
that in external structure at least they have been " nobly planned."
Even the waiter seemed impressed, smirking and flourishing his
napkin with unusual emphasis, while interposing his person between
the object of his assiduities and the observer who wanted to see her
face. It vexed him that this should be completely averted. As the
lady seated herself, he could only detect the turn of a full and shapely
figure, a delicate little ear, and a white neck from which the hair was
scrupulously lifted and arranged, dark and lustrous, tight and trim, in
a fashion exceedingly becoming to the beautiful, but trying to the
more ordinary of womankind.

Many a romance has been built on a slighter scaffolding ; and no
young man of half his age and a quarter his experience was more

Roys Wife, 5

likely to make a fool ot himself about a woman than the gentleman
in question — ^John Roy, Esquire, of Royston, a deputy-lieutenant for
his county, and a magistrate who had never qualified in the Com-
mission of the Peace. There was nothing uncommon in his history.
Eton and the ten-oar — Oxford and the drag — upper division, fifth
form, at school, and a degree at college — woodcocks in Albania,
lansquenet at St. Petersburgh, Hanover for German, Paris for fencing,
and home again for real enjoyment of life — then a little Melton, a
little Newmarket, a little London, with the prospect of completing
this conventional course in a prudent marriage, and such rural vege-
tation as would tend to the increase of personal weight and pro-
longation of the family tree.

Not the best training, perhaps, even for the level path he seemed
likely to tread in the journey of life. Not the basest preparation,
certainly, for a time when there must be an end of business and
pleasure ; when tobacco shall cease to soothe, and wine to exhilarate ;
when dancing waters and June sunshine are to be exchanged for
drawn curtains and beef- tea ; when it will need neither the doctor's
grave face nor the nurse's vapid smile to tell us that we have done
with our accustomed habits, pursuits, and interests ; never to greet
our guests, ride our horses, nor balance our accounts again ; no more
to cherish a grudge, nor indulge a prejudice, nor kindle in the glow
of a kindly action on behalf of our fellow-man ! The journey is
compulsory, the destination inevitable, yet how little thought we
seem to take for here or hereafter !

In Eastern nations every male, whatever may be his rank, is
brought up to some kind of handicraft, and so far is made indepen-
dent of external fortune. In England, we pride ourselves on teaching
our sons a smattering of many things, and a thorough knowledge of
none. This we call the education of a gentleman ; but surely, in
such loose, discursive culture of the mind, we fail to stimulate that
power of concentration which can alone remove gigantic obstacles,
to encourage that habit of persistency which forms the very back-
bone of success.

John Roy received " the education of a gentleman," and did
credit to his nurture as well as another ; but there came a time, before
he was turned thirty, when he wished he had been bred a shoemaker
or a stonemason, because of the dull dead pain for which there is
no anodyne like the pressure of daily want and the fatigue of daily
work.

The lives of most of us in so far resemble a skein of silk, that they
unwind freely and readily enough until they arrive at a knot. Patient

6 The Gentleiuafis Magazine.

even pleased, we sit in a ludicrous attitude, stiffened by the voluntary
fetters that a pair of white hands have fitted deftly round our wrists,
and while we smile and look foolish, lo ! there is a jerk, a quiver, a
stop : the pretty lips tighten, the pencilled eyebrows frown, and pre-
sently the merry-go-round that went so swimmingly comes to a dead-
lock. So she brings out her scissors to solve the whole difficulty
with a vicious little snip, observing calmly, " I began at the wrong
end/'

There was a Lady Jane in Roy's life who also began at the
wrong end. She chose to fall in love with him because she was idle,
because her younger sister was engaged, because he always stood at
the same place in the park when she rode there, perhaps because the
London season is so insufferably tedious without some definite
attraction. Having decided tliat she would " like him a little,'' she
made up her mind that he should like her a great deal. There was
no difficulty in the capture. Handsome and high-bred, asked every-
where, and sufficiently admired even in London, she had but to look
her wishes ; in three days the man was at her beck and call. Such
stories have been told so often, they are hardly worth repeating. He
had never really cared for a woman before, he never cared quite in
the same way for a woman again.

Men, like animals, take their punishment differently according
to their dispositions. Some fret and chafe, and forget all about it ;
others turn cowardly and despondent, or sullen and savage; but all
lose something of that fire and dash which prompts untried natures
to achieve the marvellous in aiming at the impossible.

Lady Jane, with her new distraction, was very happy for a fort-
night, a month, six weeks ! It seemed so nice to be petted, to be
worshipped, to have some twelve stone of manhood all to oneself
She felt quite sorry for the other girls, plodding along, dismounted
as it were, while she rode her hobby in triumph with her delicate
nose in the air. Mr. Roy — she wished he had a prettier name than
John — was so devoted, so amiable, above all so true. He never gave
her the slightest twinge of jealousy (she would have liked him all the
better if he had), but told her every hour that she was too good for
him ; a princess stooping to a squire, Beauty smiling on the Beast,
and that he considered himself unworthy to wipe the very dust from
her feet. After a while she believed him, as a woman will believe
anything, if it is only repeated often enough ; and when she over-
heard Aunt Julia whisper to mamma that " Jane might do so much
better," began to think perhaps Aunt Julia was right.

" She stopped it before they were reguhrly engaged. Nobody

Roys Wife. 7

could accuse Jane of behaving badly" — so said her family-— "and
if Mr. Roy had presumed on the high spirits and fascinating manners
of a girl who was popular with everybody, he might thank his own
folly for his disappointment."

They allowed, however, that he " behaved beautifully," as did
Jane, who returned everything he had given her, except some music ;
and on the one occasion when they met in society after their rupture,
shook hands with him as kindly and .calmly as if he had been her
grandfather.

He saw a fresh admirer, with a large rent roll, put his arm round
her waist for a waltz, and stepped into the street with a strange numb
feeling, like a patient whose leg has been cut off — the sensation was
akin to relief, yet in some respects worse to bear than pain. It was
characteristic of the man that he never blamed her. " I suppose
they are all alike,'' he said to his cigar, and so, walking home in the
rain, made up his mind that this also was vanity !

Lady Jane rode in the park pretty regularly till the end of the
season, sometimes with, sometimes without, the eligible admirer;
but she looked in vain for Mr. Roy's figure at the accustomed
spot ; missing it none the less, perhaps, that she wondered what had
become of him, and whether he did not sometimes think of her
still?

John Roy was the last man to howl. Nobody else should know
how hard he was hit. His stronger nature told him that he was
meant for something better than to be the puppet of a woman's
smile, and, though they smarted intolerably, he had the grace to be
ashamed of his wounds. By the time Lady Jane went to Cowes, he
was whirling a lasso at wild horses in South America, living on beef
and water, burning quantities of tobacco, and spending sixteen hours
out of the four-and-twenty on a Mexican saddle in the open air.
Smoking and riding combined, soon modified the symptoms of
his malady ; its cure, though slow, was progressive. In twelve
months he felt resigned, and in eighteen, comfortable. After two
or three years he came back to Europe, having travelled over a
great part of the world, with nothing left to remind him of his
pangs but a cynical resolve never to be caught in such a trap again.
" Not if I know it !" says he who has once burned his fingers ; but
the spark kindles when he does not know it, and the flame consumes
him none the less greedily that he has been dried and seasoned
in the heat of a former fire.

Royston was got ready for its owner ; but he only lived there at
intervals, trying to do his duty as a landlord for a time, then flying

8 The Gcntlcniaiis Magazine.

off at a tangent to seek some distraction, in however mild a change,
from the weariness of his every-day life.

Thus it was that a September evening found him in a quiet
watering-place on the southern coast, speculating, after a coffee-room
dinner, on the beauty of features and sweetness of disposition sug-
gested by the back of a Iady*s head. Watch as he would, she never
turned it so much as an inch. There was the beautiful ear, the white
skin, the trim, dark hair, but nothing more. How if the rest of her
person should in no way correspond with this exquisite sample ?
She might squint, she might have lost her teeth, she might wear a
wooden leg. He had heard or read of such disillusions, such dis-
appointments. The uncertainty began to get irksome, annoying,
intolerable. Could he not make some excuse to walk across the
room yonder, to the chimney-piece, where he would be full in front
of her? To look at the clock, for instance ; the dial of that time-
piece being a foot in diameter, and calculated for short-sighted in-
quirers at ten paces off. He had already moved his chair, when she
rose. " Forty-six, if you please," she said to the waiter in a low, sweet
voice, as indicating the number of her apartment, for proper registry
of her bill, and so walked smoothly and gracefully to the door.

Disappointment ! disillusion ! Not a bit of it ! As lovely a
face as a man could wish to look at, set on as shapely a form ! Fea-
tures not quite classical, only because so soft and womanly ; deep
grey eyes, fringed with long black lashes ; a mouth too large, a chin
too prominent, but for the white teeth and perfect curves of the
one, the firm and well-cut outline of the other. A complexion
delicate rather than pale, a figure somewhat full and tall, a graceful
head carried nobly on neck and shoulders ; last, not least, an
abundance of dark and silky hair, growing low on the brow, square
at the temples, and drawn tight off the forehead to wind in thick
shining coils round the skull.

Mr. Roy had a habit of talking to himself. " You darling ! " he
whispered, as the door closed. " That is the nicest woman I ever
saw in my life I "

Chapter II.

A PAIR OF BOOTS.

The smoke-room, as the waiter called it, was empty ; our friend felt
pleased to find that uncomfortable apartment at his sole disposal.
Devoid of draper}-, floored with oil-cloth, bare of all furniture but

Roys Wife. 9

wooden chairs, horse-hair sofas, and spittoons — this retreat offered
few temptations to a smoker, and such guests as were devoted to the
practice usually chose to consume their tobacco out-of-doors. It
was a bright night, with a clear sky and a rising tide, yet Roy seemed
to prefer the flicker of gas in this dim, desolate apartment, to the
fresh briny air and a moonlit sea. To be under the same roof with
her was a strong point ; it would be his own fault if he could not, in
some way, make the acquaintance of this fascinating stranger before
she left the hotel. Ke was a man of the world, but he had seen a
great deal of that world with his own eyes, and travel, no doubt,
tends to simplify the character while it enlarges the mind. He did
not at once suspect evil of her, because journeying unprotected and
alone ; nor did he feel that so attractive a woman must be in a false
position without a companion of her own sex. Again and again he
rehearsed the little scene that he hoped to bring about next day.
The meeting on the stairs, the profound and deferential bow, re-
peated on the pier, so unobtrusively that to offer a newspaper, a
novel, a handful of fresh flowers, would 5eem a tribute of homage
rather than an unauthorised impertinence j then, by slow degrees,
morning greetings, afternoon conversations, perhaps at last a walk by
the sea, an explanation of motives, a hint at covert admiration from
the first, and so on — and so on — to the end

Here a memor)- of I^dy Jane made him catch his breath like the
shock of a cold bath. There was something of triumph, nevertheless,
in the consciousness that he had hoisted the flag of freedom at last,
and found perhaps to-night, by the merest accident, far more than he
looked for in those young days of weakness, folly, and despair. How
delightful it would be to instal her at Royston, to take her to London,
to introduce her to Lady Jane ! No. Already he had so far for-
gotten the ghost of his departed love that he felt perfectly indifferent
whether Lady Jane grudged him his happiness or not.

A man must marry some time, he decided. Would he ever see a
woman so likely to suit him, supposing, of course, that she proved
as charming as she looked ? And why not ? The face was surely an
index to the character. Such soft and beautiful hair, too, must
necessarily accompany an amiable disposition and well-stored mind.
His thoughts were running away with him, galloping headlong down-
hill, and had reached altar and honeymoon, when they were suddenly
pulled- up by a consideration that ought to have presented itself
sooner. " What if she were married already ? " How he cursed his
stupidity not to have scrutinised her left hand for the plain gold ring
that tells its respectable tale. Ye.s of course, she must be married ;

lo The Gentletnan s Magazine.

that accounted for her travelling by herself, her quiet independence
of manner, her dining alone in the coflfee-room of an hotel. She
came to meet her husband, who would probably arrive by the last
train, and there was an end of the whole thing ! As he dashed the
stump of his cigar into the fireless grate, he could not help laughing
aloud to think how quickly he had planned, built, furnished, and
annihilated his castle in the air ! Yet, passing 46 in the passage on
his way to bed, he could not help looking wistfully at the closed
door with its painted numerals, wondering the while how he could be
such a fool.

Roy was an early riser. The habit, acquired in warmer climates
than our own, is got rid of with difficulty even in England, where
many of us lose something like fourteen hours, or one working day,
in the week, by persistently lying in bed till eight o'clock. On his
dreams it is needless to speculate ; sleep does not always continue
the thread of our waking thoughts, but he turned out at seven, and
by half-past was shaking the cold salt water from eyes, ears, and
nostrils, as he came up aftei* a glorious " header " and struck out for
the open sea.

He was a fair swimmer, but distances are deceiving for a naked
man in the Channel, so that a few hundred yards out and in again
were as much as he cared to accomplish before breakfast. Climbing
into his machine, he experienced that sensation of renewed vigour in
body and mind which is never so delightful as after the first of our
mommg dips, if we are prudent enough not to stay in the sea too long.

Walking home through the market, with a furious appetite for
breakfast, all the despondency of yesterday had vanished, and even
the infatuation of last night seemed but a dream.

Royston was no longer a dull and moated Grange, in which life
meant stagnation; a country gentleman's duties and occupations
assumed the importance which everything really possesses that is
done heartily and for a good motive. John Roy himself had become
an enviable person, with far better luck than he deserved ; and this
fresh, quiet Beachmouth a charming little watering-phce, where he
would remain just long enough to enjoy his holiday, and return to
homely duties refreshed, invigorated, altogether a new man. If No.
46 crossed his mind, it was only that he might picture her to himself
eating prawns with her legal mate at a coflfee-room breakfast, smiling
and comely, no doubt, but not half so pretty as she looked the
night before.

Proceeding upstairs lo his own apartment he necessarily passed
her door. On its threshold rested a dear little pair of boots, left out

Roys Wife. ii

last night to be cleaned and brought back this morning, in company
with a can of warm water. It was obvious they belonged to a very
pretty foot, slim and supple, hollow and arched, that trod, light and
even, on a thin sole and low heel. For a man who admired pretty feet,
it was impossible to pass these boots without further examination.
John Roy could not resist the temptation, and stooped to pick one up.
Now the chambermaid, not wishing to go more errands than
necessary, had left a letter for No. 46 cunningly balanced on that
lady's chaussurc ; was it quite inexcusable that Mr. Roy should have
turned it over in his hand, or that his heart should have made a great
leap when he read the address —

" Miss Burton,

Imperial Hotel,

Beachmouth,"

written legibly enough in a plain, clerk-like, current hand ? Miss
Burton ! She was free, then, this goddess ; unmarried, at any ratfe,
though it would be too much to suppose that she could be without
suitors. Still, give him a fair field and no favour, why should his
chance be worse than another's? All the folly of last night, that he
thought had been washed out by sea-water, came back with a rush ;
he lifted one of the little boots in a tender, almost a reverent hand ;
but for footsteps in the passage he would have defied blacking, and
pressed it to his lips.

Instead of kissing, he dropped it like a hot potato, and hurried
off to complete his toilet, with a light tread and a bounding pulse,
but the fine appetite for breakfast completely gone.

Chapter III.

NUMBER FORIT-SIX.

He was just in time. His own scarcely closed before the door of 46
opened, and a bright, handsome face peeped out, followed by a round
white arm, that drew letter, boots, and water-can into the room.
Miss Burton then desisted from the sleeking of her dark locks, and
proceeded to read the following communication : —

** Monday evening.
** Corner Hotel, Corner Street, Strand.

" My dear Nelly, —

" You were disappointed. In course you must have been
disappointed, though I make no account of disappointments myself.

12 The Gentleman s Magazine.

being well used to them. But you arc young, which makes it
different Well, my dear, the cabman was sulky, and his poor horse
lame, and I had very little time to spare, there's no denying it, so we
missed the train. Why didn't I come by the next ? I'll tell you.
The moment I got home, meaning to take a cup of tea and a fresh
start, what should I find at the door but four arrivals, and one of them
a family of eight,, with a baby not short-coated, bless it, as hungry as
a little hawk. Nothing ready, not so much as a mouthful of toast for
the lot. Maria is no more use than a post ; and when I think of how
you would have helped me, niy dear, in such a muddle, I could sit
down and cry. ^Vhy, in your time, a queen might have eaten off the
kitchen floor, and now, I declare, I am ashamed for tlie strange ser-
vants to go into the offices. Even them foreign couriers turn up their
noses when they pass in and out ; and to be untidy, as well you know,
is the one thing that makes me mad. However, I am such a one to
busde when I'm really put to it, that I had them all settled and com-
fortable before the gas was turned on ; but it was too late to start for
Beachmouth then. I never believed much in telegraphs since the
Government took them in hand, so I thought I'd drop you a line by
post, my dear, to tell you all, how and about it.

" I made sure of being off, first thing in the morning, but we're
poor blind creatures, the sharpest of us, and half-an-hour back,
Fanny, that's the new under-housemaid, and a precious lazy one she
is, comes tapping at the door, and ' If you please, ma'am,* says she,
* Miss Collins is took bad,' says she ; and will you believe it, my dear,
there was Maria fainted dead away on the stairs, and forced to be
put to bed at once, and a doctor sent for and all ! Till he has been,
I don't know what's the matter, nor how long a job it will be,
nor when I shall get down and join you, no more than the dead.
That's why I'm writing in such a hurry to save the post, so please
excuse mistakes, and always believe me

** Your affectionate aunt,

"Matilda Phipps."

" P.S. My head isn't worth twopence, I'm that worried and put
about. Now I've forgot to say, you'd better keep your mind easy,
and stay where you are, — the change will do you good. If things go
well, I might be with you on Saturday, at soonest. I can tell you
these fine autumn days make me long for a blow of the sea-breezes
and a walk by the seaside ; good-bye."

After reading the above production more than once. Miss Burton
pulled her purse from under the pillow, and counted her money,

Roy's Wife. 13

gold, silver, copper, and a bank-note. She then completed her toilet,
took in a breakfast tray left at the door, disposed of its contents with
a healthy appetite, arranged her writing-case on the lid of a trunk,
and, in a most uncomfortable attitude, produced the following
reply : —

*' Tuesday morning.
''No. 46, Imperial Hotel, Beacbmouth.

" Dear Aunt Matilda, —

" Mind you ask for No. 46 when you arrive. It means
vie. I'm like a convict, only without a brass ring, and the people of
the hotel wouldn't know me by any other name. I hope you will be
here soon ; you would enjoy it. From my window I have such a
lovely view of the sea, and this morning I was woke by the tide
coming in. It sounded so fresh and healthy. I wonder anybody
lives away from the seaside ; not but what I was very happy with you
in Comer Street. I like to think I am of use, and one is very useful,
I suppose, managing an hotel If poor Miss Collins keeps bad, I
will come back whenever you wish. I don't want to be independent,
dear auntie, and the money left me by Cousin William I would
willingly join to yours, if you thought it a good plan, as I told you
from the first. However, in the mean time, we will hope to enjoy
ourselves for a fortnight at least in this beautiful and romantic place.
Not that I have seen much of it yet ; but directly I have posted
this, I mean to be off for a long walk by the sea. It seems like
another world, and yet I am sure I don't know why. This hotel is
comfortable enough, but I could teach them a few things, I dare say,
though to be sure we Londoners are ?pt to expect too much.
Country folks must be a little behindhand, I suppose. How you
would laugh if you were to find me settled in the bar, taking the
orders and posting the books. Wouldn't it seem like old times ?

" I was glad you told me to travel first-class, as I had a carriage
all to myself, except for two gentlemen, who got out half-way. I
never was much of a one to take notice of the men, and though they
stared more than was polite, we scarcely exchanged a word. I dined
in the coffee-room,'' where there were very few people. If it wasn't for
the sea, I should be dull enough ; but I hope to have you here in a
day or two, when we will take some famous walks, and perhaps, if it is
very smooth, go out for a sail. In the mean time I shall stay where I
am, dear auntie, till I hear from you again, and remain always

" Your grateful and affectionate niece,

"Elinor Burton."

14 Tfie Gentleman s Magazine.

Having stamped her letter, Miss Burton put on a killing little
straw hat, armed herself with an umbrella, and sallied forth to the
post-office, light of step, and blithe of heart, little knowing, like the
rest of us, what a day might bring forth.

It must not be supposed that this lady, though filling a social
position no higher than the management of an hotel owned and
superintended by her aunt, was therefore deficient in education, or
unrefined in feelings. Her father was a bookseller, her mother a
governess. Such a combination inferred a moderate share of educa-
tion and accomplishments. She could play the pianoforte, speak
French, calculate figures, order dinner, see that it was properly
cooked, check tradespeople, manage servants, and wrote, moreover,
the most beautiftil Italian hand imaginable — clear, precise, and fluent,
it seemed no unworthy index of her character.

She was now near thirty, and had, of course, received a fair
amount of attention. She might have counted her offers as tumblers
of punch are counted in Ireland, on the fingers of both hands.
Hitherto she had escaped without a wound, almost without a scratch.
Well-to-do tradesmen sued in vain. A rising artist, a popular actor
were rejected, kindly but firmly, and Nelly, in the prime of woman-
hood, could as yet find nobody exactly to her taste. Mrs. Phipps, the
aunt who had taken care of her since her mother's death, began to
fear that she was destined for an old maid. Recalling her own youth,
and its comparative scarcity of suitors, she wondered how her niece
could be so impenetrable ; and when, under the will of a cousin
deceased, Miss Burton became possessed of a small independent
fortune, the elder lady, arguing against her own interests and con-
venience, urged on the younger the propriety of at last settling in life.

Nelly did not seem to see it. When she could find leisure, and
occasion offered, she was a reader of novels and a dreamer of dreams,
though clear-headed and firm of purpose. She was also a thorough
woman, and cherished deep in her heart those generous impulses of
affection and romance which make much of a woman's pleasure in
life, and all her pain. She had formed her ideal hero, who in no
way resembled the men she was in the habit of meeting in her
aunt's private sitting-room, or at the bar of the Comer Hotel,' Comer
Street, Strand. She had not settled exactly what he was^ but had
made up her mind what he was not.

In business? — No. A mere idler? — No. Young, slim, and gen-
teel ? — No. Short, stout, and well-to-do ? — A thousand times no.
Rather, a man of a certain age, a certain standing, who had seen the

Roy's Wife. 15

world, and thought things out, and been unhappy — perhaps about some
other woman. She wouldn't mind that ; a sore heart was better than
none at all ; and — and — she felt, if she really loved him, she could
console him for anything !

When we think of a woman's nature — excitable, imaginative, and
in its affections wholly unreasonable; when we think of a girl's
dreams — tender, unselfish, and thoroughly unattainable — the wonder
is, not that here and there we shall find an unhappy marriage, but
that any two people, thoroughly disappointed and undeceived, should
be able to tolerate each other kindly and comfortably to the end.
Even for men there is an awakening from the rosy dream, usually
within two years ; but they have so many interests and occupations
into which the affections do not enter, that they prosper well enough
without these superfluities, and prefer, I believe, the bracing air and
enforced activity of the working world, to an oppressive atmosphere
and irksome repose in a fool's paradise. But it is far different with
their wives. Piece by piece the woman sees her knight stripped of
his golden armour ; feather by feather does her love-bird moult its
painted plumes, and the lower he falls in her estimation, the higher
this disappointing mate seems to rise in his own. He kissed her feet
while she thought him a prince ; he tramples on her now she knows
him a clown. After taming an eagle, it does seem humiliating to be
coerced by an owl.

And there is no salvage : all her cargo has gone down in one
ship. Is it wonderful that she looks abroad over the dreary waters,
with a blank face and a troubled eye ? AVomen are deceived over
and over again : they like it. But even the i)ure gold never rings
quite true in their ears when they have once been cheated by the
counterfeit coin.

It seems an ungenerous sentiment, but I think that man is wise
who does not allow his wife to know him thoroughly ; who keeps back
a reserve of strength, of authority, even of affection, for the hour of
need, causing her to feel that there are depths in his character she
has not yet sounded, heights she. has not scaled. Thus can he indulge
and keep alive her feline propensity to prowl, and pounce, and cap-
ture ; thus will he remain an object of interest, of anxiety, of devotion ;
thus will she continue to see him through the coloured glass of her
own imagination, and it will be the happier for both, because when
affection goes to sleep in security, it is apt to forget all about waking,
and those are the most enduring attachments in which the woman
loves best of the two.

1 6 Tlie Gentleman s Magazine.

In the mean time Nelly has posted her letter, and paid the penny
that entitled her to inhale sea-breezes on the pier.

It is an autumn day — delightful at the seaside — with a bright sun,
a crisp air, and a curl on the shining waters. All the visitors at Beach-
mouth seem to have turned out, though it is hardly eleven o^clock ;
but in the hundred or so of strangers who constitute this accidental
population there are none to be compared with Miss Burton.

Even the ladies stare at her as she walks on, and admit, frankly
enough, that she " has a fine figure for people who admire that style.
What a pity she must become coarse, even blowsy, in a year or two ;
and, after all, it's very easy to be good-looking, with dark eyes, and
all that quantity of hair, probably false ! "

The approval of the men, however, is unanimous. One youth,
wearing a complete shooting-suit, that will never go out shooting,
passes, re-passes, looks, leers, and seems about to speak ; but Nelly
is used to admiration, considering it, like beef or mutton, unpalatable
unless properly cooked, and, looking straight before her, gives him to
understand by her bearing that she is the last person with whom he
may presume to take a liberty.

Then she establishes herself at the extreme end of the jetty, as
far out at sea as she can get, perhaps three hundred feet, and pulling
some work from her pocket, gives herself up to the full enjoyment of
air and scenery, with no more self-consciousness than the grey gull
flapping and fishing not a cable's length from where she sits. Mean-
while, John Roy, deceived by a dress and a chignon^ has walked two
miles along the beach in pursuit of a figure that sets his heart beating
while he overtakes it, but on nearer inspection turns out to be an
elderly lady, ordered strong exercise for her health, who meets his
disappointed stare with a perfectly unmeaning smile, and a face
shining in perspiration under the noonday sun.

Chapter IV.

DEEPER AND DEEPER.

Events seldom come off exactly as people anticipate; yet the odds
are longer than we think on the success of a man who expends all
his energies in pursuit of any one object, great or small.

The old foxhunter's advice, " Keep your temper, and stick to
the line," is a golden rule for the conduct of more serious affairs
than bringing " the little red rover ** to hand after all the deHghts

Roy's Wife. 17

and uncertainties of a run. If we carry on the metaphor into a love-
chase, we shall find it even more appropriate to the gardens of Venus
than the woodlands of Diana. Command of temper is everything in
dealing with a woman's caprice, and that undeviating persistency
which men call pigheadedness, and gods perseverance, seldom fails,
sooner or later, to come up with and capture its prey. John Roy
resolved to keep his temper, though he had overrun the line ; and
like a thorough woodsman, adapting his tactics to the habits of his
game, he determined to " try back " without loss of time. But the pier
was deserted when he arrived there, and he sat down to consider his
next move, disappointed rather than disheartened. As he told himself,
with something of sarcasm, " He was only hotter on it than before.'*
The tide would be out in the afternoon. He reflected that no
woman, on her first day at the seaside, could resist the temptation of
wetting her feet in the little pools of salt water left, as if on purpose,
by its ebb.

So after luncheon he watched, patiently enough, and having seen
his friend of the morning packed into a watering-place fly, felt con-
fident he would be deceived by that staunch pedestrian no more.

Presently he was rewarded. Not ten paces from the rock where
he had settled himself, Forty-six came stepping jauntily by, looking
steadfastly seaward while she drank in the fresh briny air with a thirst
engendered by long months of London smoke and gas.

He could not but obser\'e how true were the lines of her un-
dulating figure, how firmly she planted her foot, how nobly she
carried her head, how smooth and level was her gait, as she stepped
bravely out across the sand.

" Watch, and your chance comes ! " muttered Roy, throwing
away the cigar he was in the act of lighting : for an occasion offered
itself when least expected, and he seized it without diffidence or
hesitation. Two children, enjoying as only children can the delight
of wooden spades and low water, had wandered, I need hardly say,
to the extreme verge of safety, and far beyond dry rocks, in pursuit
of the receding waves. Bare-footed and kilted high above their fat
little knees, they shouted, screamed, and splashed to their hearts'
content, while the nurse, seated under an umbrella with her back to
them, was lost in the pages of a novel. They were boy and girl, the
latter being the younger, and, if possible, the wilder of the two. In
her firolics she found herself parted from her brother, and to her
young perceptions cut off" from society in general by a runlet of water
nearly two feet deep. Becoming gradually alive to the horrors of
her situation^ she grasped her frock tight in both hands and roared

TOU CCXLU. NO. 1765. C

1 8 TIte GefUleman' s Magazine.

with all her might. The boy, who perhaps was turned four, made
some slight offer at a rescue, but the intervening gulf seemed too
much for him, and he also set up a hideous outcry, while the nurse
read calmly on.

Nelly loved children. Glancing on each side to make sure she
was unobserved, but neglecting in her hurry to look back, she pulled
her boots and stockings off in a few seconds, caught up her garments
as best she might, and was wading knee-deep to the rescue before
John Roy could interfere.

How handsome she looked, hugging the frightened child in her
arms, and soothing it with that beautiful instinct of maternity which
pervades her whole sex from the first moment they are big enough to
handle a do 11 !

With hurried apologies and some blushing on both sides — ^for
Roy was already hard hit, and Nelly had certainly been caught in
deshabille — he took possession of the little girl, now completely
reassured, and carried her safe to the nurse, studiously turning his
back on Miss Burton while she resumed her stockings. " He is a
gentleman," thought Nelly, " every inch of him. I dare say he's a
good fellow, too, he seems so fond of children."

Such an introduction was equivalent to a week's acquaintance.
With a little shyness, a little hesitation and incoherence of speech,
the gentleman and lady managed to communicate their respective
names, and to digest the startling intelligence that they were staying
at the same hotel, that it was comfortable but might be cleaner, that
the sea air made one hungry, and the roar of the tide kept one awake
— all which facts were self-evident, and in no way accounted for the
low tones, grave accents, or downcast glances with which they were
propounded and received.

It seemed imprudent, too, for people with wet feet to walk home
at an exceedingly slow pace, and halt so repeatedly on the way.

Each thought the distance had been much longer, and both said
so at the same moment. Then came more bowing, more blushing,
an abortive attempt at shaking hands, and an imbecile, unmeaning
kind of parting, that left John Roy standing in the entrance-hall with
his mouth open and his heart in it, while Nelly hurried upstairs to take
refuge in 46.

Her first impulse, though by no means a vain person, was to look
in the glass. \Vhat she saw there caused her to smile, sigh, and
shake her head. Then she sat down on the bed to think.

Mr. Roy, on the other hand, turned into the coffee-room, and
ordered dinner for seven o'clock, with an indifference to the bill of

Roy's Wife. 19

fare that disgusted and a positiveness that surprised the waiter —
securing also a table near the clock, at one end of the room.

For the next two or three days everything " went upon wheels."
If people are inclined to like each other, and live in the same hotel
at a small watering-place, it is probable they will meet many times in
the twenty- four hours : twice, at least, between breakfast and dinner,
on the Pier, without counting accidental encounters on the stairs, in
the streets, under the portico of the Circulating Library, by the ebb
and flow of the soothing tide, or at sunset on the beach. It is sur-
prising how soon an idea, canvassed, cherished, and combated by
turns, takes entire possession of the mind. The first day of their
acquaintance Mr. Roy and Miss Burton felt that a new element of
interest had entered into life. The second, they were perfectly happy;
quiet, contented, asking nothing better than to remain undisturbed.
The third, both had grown restless, fidgety, dissatisfied, and a crisis
was near.

It had become an established custom that they should meet in
their walks ; they had even started together from the hotel. On one
occasion, however, Miss Burton went out by herself, and took up a
position at the extreme end of the Pier. As she stated openly that
this was her favourite resort, it is not surprising that Mr. Roy should
have followed with no more delay than was requu-ed to run upstairs
and get his hat

The band had ceased playing, children and nurses were gone home
to dinner, these two had the Pier to themselves. Perhaps that was
why they became so silent, so preoccupied, believing they were per-
fectly happy, yet feeling somewhat ill-at-ease.

After the first meeting, a hypocritical " good-morning," that had
already been exchanged in the hotel corridor, neither spoke for two
or three minutes, which seemed like two or three hours. Nelly had
forgotten her work, Roy did not even attempt to smoke, and they sat
side by side staring at a grey gull who stuck diligently to his fishing,
without noticing a feather of his \vings.

" Miss Burton, shouldn't you like to be a gull ? " asked Roy pre-
sendy, with a much more serious face than the question seemed to
require.

" Mr. Roy, shouldn*t you like to be a goose ? " was the reply that
naturally presented itself; but Nelly only answered in'rather a shak-
ing voice, " Yes, I should, because it can stay at the seaside as long
as it likes."

"And can't jw/?** said Roy, taking the alarm.

She shook her head.

c 2

20 The Gentlemans Magazine.

" I don't live here, you know. I only came down for a visit ;
and I have dawdled on, expecting my aunt to fetch me home. I am
afraid now she will be prevented. And — and, I think I ought to go
back to London at once," — the last in a low tone, looking steadfastly
out to sea.

" Don't you like Beachmouth ? "
** Oh, yes ; very much."

** Haven't you been happy since you came here ? ''
" Yes ; very happy. I am so fond of the sea-air, and the bathing,
and the walks on the sands. I have enjoyed it extremely ; I shall be
quite sorry to go away."
" Only for that ? "

Her head was averted. She felt her heart beating fast, and the
colour rising scarlet to her face.
" Miss Burton."
No answer.

" Miss Burton," he repeated, clearing his voice with a husky little
cough, " I hope, I say, I hope there is something here you will be
sorry to leave, besides the bathing and the sands. I cannot expect
you to feel about it as I do ; but — but — whether you go or stay, I
must tell you the truth. Ever since the first night I saw you at
dinner, I— I have thought you the handsomest, and the dearest, and
the nicest woman in the world."
" Lor ! "

Was it a dissolution ? He hardly knew. I^dy Jane, he remem-
])ered, under similar circumstances, exclaimed, *' How can you be so
foolish ? " But at any rate he had got the steam on, and it was too
late to stop now.

" I have not much to offer," he continued. " I am many years
older than you. I am asking a great deal, with little to give in return.
You will say we hardly know each other ; but I should not be the
least afraid for the future, if you thought you could learn to like me
after a while. Perhaps I ought to have waited longer before speaking,
but when you said you were going away it put me off my guard. I
could not bear to lose my second chance in life. It is only right to
tell you. I know what disappointment is ; I loved another woman
once."

" Only once ? "

He knew he was winning now, and stole his hand into hers.
" Only once,'' he repeated ; " and it was many years ago. If you
would be my wife, 1 would try to make you happy. Do >ou think,
don't you think, Miss Burton, if I tried very hard I might succeed?"

Rays Wife. 21

"Don't call me Miss Burton. People I like call me Nelly."

"And you like wr?"

" Yes, I do."

" And you will learn to love me in time ? " His arm was round
her waist now, and her head rested on his shoulder.

" I've learned it already. I've loved you ever so long. Ever since
the day before yesterday. Let go of me, please ; there's somebody
coming on the Pier ! "

Chapter V.

A woman's RICvVSON.

For the last few days Miss Burton had sadly neglected her only
correspondent. It was so difficult to write without alluding to the
subject that filled her heart, and she had never kept anything frcm
aunt Matilda in her life. Now she could tell triumphantly and with-
out reserx^e what a lucky woman she was, and how happy. Dear
auntie would be so pleased and so proud when she learned that her
niece was going to be a real lady. I am afraid Nelly called it ** a
lady of position.' How auntie would admire Mr. Roy ! his* well-cut
clothes, his upright figure, his white hands, and his gallant bearing.
She would declare he looked like a lord ; and so he did, as there was
no earthly reason why he should not. It seemed impossible to realise
the fact that she, Nelly Burton, was going to belong to this paragon,
this phoenix, this king of men ! How she loved him, how she doted
on him, now that it was no longer humiliating nor unwomanly to
admit her affection ! Every line of his worn face, every turn of his
manly figure, every tone of his quiet, decided voice, suggested the
breeding, the education, and the unconscious self-respect of a gentle-
man. Yes, to the bookseller's daughter, in this consisted his irre-
sistible attraction. He was the embodiment of her ideal, and that
ideal had always presented itself as identified with a higher social
class than her own. He was the realisation of her dreams, and if
she might belong to him, nay, as she must belong to him, how could
she worship him enough ? What an exquisite and subtle flattery was
conveyed in his confession that she had fascinated him at once ; that
he, who might take his choice, as she implicitly believed, of all the
ladies at her Majesty's drawing-room, should have fallen in love with
her, so he declared, from the moment he saw the back of her head.
This was surely love at first sight, of which she had read, and heard,

'»'>

The Gentleman s Magazine.

and pondered, but never hoped to experience the charm. It seemed
as if nobody had a right to be so happy, and she walked up and
down the room in a transport that was only modified by those vague
misgivings, that shadowy sense of uncertainty, with which, from the
very constitution of our nature, must be tempered all extremes of
earthly joy. Then she fell on her knees to thank God, with wet eyes,
for her exceeding happiness, and so, in a more composed frame of
mind, took out her blotting-book and wrote a letter to her aunt.

"Dearest Auntie,

" I have such a piece of news ! You will never guess, not
if you try for a month. You must have wondered why I wrote so
seldom, and thought me the most ungrateful minx in the world. No ;
you would never think that. But you may have fancied I was ill. If
so, forgive me for having caused you a moment's anxiety. Dear
auntie, I feel as if I should never be ill again. I am so happy ; so
happy ! Do you remember the American gentleman who declared the
whole of out-of-doors wasn't big enough to contain his disgust ? Well,
I feel exactly the same about my happiness. I certainly am the
luckiest girl, or rather the luckiest woman, in the universe.

" You have often told me I ought to marry, and I always said,
No. It used to seem such an easy word. But I couldn't have got
it out to-day if my life depended on it, and that little syllable once
spoken would have made two people miserable for ever. Any how,
I can answer for ofie ! But I am keeping you on tenterhooks, when
I ought to make my confession. Deares^ auntie, I am going to be
married! There! Now the cat is out of the bag! And to the
noblest, the dearest, the kindest, the handsomest of men. To explain
it all I must begin at the beginning.

" The night I came here, it seems such a long time ago now, and
it isn't really more than a week, I asked to have some tea upstairs,
but I saw they didn't want to send it, so I ordered dinner in the
coffee-room, smoothed my hair and went down, not best pleased to
think I should find myself alone amongst a lot of strangers. Would
you believe it, only three other tables were laid, and I sat with my
back to them, all, so I had my dinner comfortable without noticing
anybody. There was one gentleman I couldn't help seeing, when
I got up to go away, and I won't deny that I thought him a
fine, straight-made fellow, with white hands, dark eyes, and hair
just turning grey, but I didn't notice him much, as you may
suppose. However, I do believe there is a fate in these things.
The very next day I had an adventure, and Mr. Roy — that's his
name, auntie, you'll know it better soon — appeared as the hero. I

Roys Wife. 23

was down on the sands, you may be sure, and I happened to see a
child hemmed in by streams of salt water that would have reached
to its poor littie neck. Such a darling, auntie, with great blue eyes
and beautiful fair hair ! Well, I don't like to think of it even now,
but I whipped my boots and stockings off, and waded in at once to
this poor littie Robinson Crusoe, thinking nobody was looking, or
perhaps not thinking at all, for the child seemed so frightened, there
was no time to lose. I soon had it in my arms, hiding its dear little
face on my shoulder, and there was Mr. Roy, splashing through the
water, clothes and all, to take it from me and carry it to the nurse.
I thought I should have dropped, only one never does drop, I felt so
put out and ashamed that a gentieman should have caught me with*
out shoes and stockings, like a barefooted gipsy swinging on a gate.
Dear fellow ! He has confessed since he watched me all the way
from tiie hotel. I didn't know it, then. I suppose I should have
been very angry, but I am not angry the least. I shall never be
angry with him all my life now.

" We walked home together, and though he was very kind and
polite, hoping I would not take cold with my wetting, he didn't say
much. I never supposed that he thought of me for a moment, at least
in that way, till to-day.

" I am not going to deny that I admired him, and was foolish
enough to wish sometimes there could be a chance of our meeting
after I left Beachmouth ; but I kept my wishes to myself, and
didn't even tell youy dear auntie, what a silly I could be when I am
old enough to know better. And yet, as things have turned out, I
wasn't such a great silly after all.

"You have been married yourself, auntie, and had lots of followers,
1 dare say, before you changed your name, so you know how it all comes
about At first it only seemed strange and rather pleasant to meet
Mr. Roy by accident wherever I went ; then I began to think he did
it on purpose, and I felt I ought not to encourage him. One day I
walked right away into the country, but I couldn't resist turning back
at the first milestone when I thought of his disappointed face hunting
for me all over the beach and the Pier. Then I knew I was begin-
ning to care for him, and I determined to go away from here at once.

"That was only yesterday; to-day everything is different. I went
to the window after breakfast, and watched him out of the house, as I
said to myself for the last time, meaning directiy his back was tiumed
to take my own walk in an opposite direction.

" I cried a littie ; I am not ashamed to confess it now. Wasn't
it stupid? And I shall be thirty next birthday. When he was fairly

24 The GentUmatis Magazine^

started I bathed my eyes, put on my hat and trudged off to the Pier.
There was no harm in taking a last look at everything, but I felt
very down^ though I had quite made up my mind to go.

" I wonder how he knew ! I hadn't been there ten minutes
before I heard his step. I didn't need to turn my head ; I can tell
his walk among a thousand ; and it seemed so natural for him to sit
down by me and look at the sea, that I could have burst out crying
again when I thought it was all for the last time.

" I don't know how he came to say it, auntie, but he did say it I
don't know exactly what he said, and if I could repeat it I shouldn't,
even to you ; but he confessed he cared very much for me, and asked
me to be his wife. That is enough, and more than enough for me !

" Nothing is settled. Most likely it's too great happiness, and will
never be — that won't influence my feelings. I promised him faithful,
and if I am not to belong to him, I'll belong to nobody, and die an
old maid.

" So now I have told you all about it There is little more to be
said. I think I ought to leave this at once. It will be too late to get
an answer, or I would ask your advice, though a woman doesn't want
anybody to advise her in such a matter as this. I shall be off by the
early train to-morrow morning ; you will not be taken by surprise, as
this ought to reach you first post. If Mr. Roy means fair, he will
soon follow. When I say *if,' don't suppose I have any doubts.
Could I believe he was false, I think I should just pay my penny once
more, walk to the end of the Pier, and never come back again!

" What a long letter ! Wish me joy when I see you to-morrow,
and believe me

** Always your loving niece,

"Elinor Burton."

No date, of course, but crossed, re-crossed, and filled to' the
edges. When Miss Burton had slipped it into the hotel letter-box
she returned to her room, and spent the rest of the evening i)acking
up her clothes.

John Roy, wandering to and fro like a disturbed spirit, felt griev-
ously hurt and discomposed that, after an interview which had such
decided results, he should see no more of his promised wife during
the rest of the day. Though a man cultivates less subtle feelings of
delicacy than a woman, his better nature told him she was right.
Nevertheless, like the rest of us when we are dissatisfied with our
gourd, he followed the example of Jonah, and thought he " did well
to be angry."

Roy's Wife. 25

His wrath, however, was mollified, and the reaction made him
more in love than ever, when, going to his room before dinner, he
found a pretty little note pinned on his toilet-cover, the address of
which was written in the clearest and most beautiful characters ever
beheld. He kissed it once before reading it, I should be afraid to
say how often after.

" My dear Sir, or

" My dear Mr. Roy, or

" My dear Friend, — ^What am I to call you ? Do not be sur-
prised that I write a few lines, instead of seeing you before I go, to
say good-bye. I cannot explain why, but I feel that after what took
place to-day, I ought to return home at once. I hope you will not
be hurt, and I am sure you will not be offended. I think, on reflec-
tion, it is what you would like me to do yourself. I shall not go
down to dinner, and I shall leave to-morrow morning for my aunt's
house, Comer Hotel, Comer Street, Strand. I wonder whether you
will remember the address. Even if you do not, even if I am never
to see you again, believe me always, so long as I live,

" Your oyra

" Nelly."

" P.S. It is rather an early start. I must be at the station by

/•y "

She was at the station by 7.30, and so was Mr. Roy.
Having ascertained, we need not inquire how, that Miss Burton
drank tea with the landlady the previous evening, who afterwards
assisted in finishing her packing and saw her safe to bed, he had the
goijd taste to anticipate her at the station instead of accompanying
her from the hotel, and made his farewell on the platform, where
indeed at that early hour there were but few lookers-on.

** And when shall I see you again ? " said he, after a warm though
hurried renewal of certain protestations that he felt had been unjustly
curtailed.

" It depends on yourself," was the reply, while she gave him both
hands with a look of confidence and affection that made her hand-
somer than ever. " I shall wait for you at my aunt's — waiting — always
waiting — if you never come, I shall wait for you just the same."

** I hate waiting," said he. " If I had my own way, you shouldn't
wait a minute. Why can't I get my ticket and go with you now ? "

She smiled ?ind shook her head. " A\Tiy ? " she repeated. " Tm

26 The Gentleman's Magazine.

sure I don't know why. And yet I feel it would put me in a false
position ; you see, it would not be right"
. " I don't see. Why wouldn't it ? "
'^ Because it wouldn't." And though this was a woman's reason,
it seemed to him convincing and unanswerable, as based on some
instinct of truth deeper and more infallible than all the inductions of
philosophy and all the wisdom of the schools.

( To be continued^

27

A SUMMER IN THE SOUTH.

THE winter had passed, and Rome was beginning to be as
beautiful by nature as it always is by art, by historical associa-
tion, by poetical suggestion. The various villas, purpled >\'ith violets
and anemones \ the Pincio, redolent with sweet-scented flowering
shrubs and magnificent in sunsets ; the Campagna, its silent grandeur
enlivened by broad tracts of pale narcissus ; the distant woods, as of
Castel Fusano say, full of crimson cyclamen and luscious daphne, of
delicate tree heaths and what are with us rare orchids — all were in their
first freshness ; but, though with regret, we resolved to leave the city
which strong men had once made the Queen of the World, that we
might learn the full glory of an Italian spring and summer on the
Bay of Naples.

It was an experiment for us of the far north, used to long months
of the inclemency which braces or kills, with only so short an interval
of genial summer weather ; but it was worth doing, and we were not
afraid. We thought that a little common-sense endurance of dis-
agreeable restraints would see us through the inevitable risks that had
to be run ; and the following paper is the result of our experience.
No one will find in it anything new or strange. Italy in general, and
the Gulf of Naples specially, have been written of countiess times,
and will be again ; but an old thing filtered through a new medium
sometimes puts on a different appearance, and my own keen apprecia-
tion of the beauty which was so fresh for me may perhaps give it a
gloss of freshness for others.

There can scarcely be a sharper contrast than that between Rome
and Naples. True, each has the Italian sky, each the Italian beauty,
and both speak the same language for the educated ; else, for the
people, the soft, shppery, truncated Neapolitan "dialetto" is, as
every one knows, another tongue altogether ; yet the informing spirit
of each is as different as that of London fi-om that of Paris. Rome,
grave and silent, grand with the strength of the men who were once
the conquerors and lawgivers of the world, red with the blood of its
martyrs, stained with the sins of its rulers, is the city /ar excellence of
memories where admiration, pathos, and horror are all mixed up

28 The Gmtlemans Magazine,

together ; — Naples is the incarnation of the present moment ; pic-
turesque with the strange varieties of social circumstances in close
confusion, noisy, full of colour, careless, distracting. Where in Rome
the whole influence is one of historic association, in Naples it is
nothing but the life of the day, the loves of the hour. The Appian
Way and the Chiaia — can anything be more sharply contrasted?
Not even Fleet Street at noon and the Boulevards at night could show
a stronger difference. The stately low-voiced passers up and down
the Corso and the shrieking and gesticulating throng who seem to
make life one long holiday in the Toledo — the sullen dwellers by the
Tiber and the impulsive, laughing, lounging, quarrelling, sleeping
lazzaroni about the quays and docks at Naples — the solemn, sunless
streets of Rome, and the long lines set full to the south flooded with
living light of the City of the Sea — the deserted Campagna with its
few fever-stricken peasants in sheep-skin jackets and bandaged legs,
with here and there a solitary horseman driving his fierce herd of
buffaloes before him, his long goad carried lancewise, his ample cloak
and slouched broad-leafed hat making him more like a Mexican
cattle-lifter than an honest grazier looking after his lawful stock — and
the populous plains that lie at the foot of Vesuvius, where men with
bare brown legs, short linen drawers, and sometimes, but not always,
a shirt, till the ground and sing at their work as noisily as so many
cicale in the ailanthus trees :— turn where we will, we see the same
contrast in form and s])irit — Rome, the stately Queen of the East ;
Naples, the laughing and undignified, half mendicant, half jesting,
and wholly immoral Stenterello of the present.

Naples never seems to go to bed. Early in the morning you are
roused by the tinkle of the goat-bells and the patter of multitudinous
hoofs hurrying to the pasture places by the waysides and through the
coarse half-swampy fields about Pozzuoli. Then comes the quick
tramp of regiments out for their day's exercise, headed by their
respective bands playing as they march ; alert, young, good-
humoured, but slovenly in their drill. The rattle of carts and carroz-
zelle, with the jingling trappings of the horses resplendent in brass,
gay with rosettes and feathers and foxes' tails, and mended with rope
and twine, now hung about with bells and now surmounted by a
couple of clattering metal flags clashing as they turn ; the city cries
of fish and fruit and water ; the horns of the tramway omnibuses ;
the thousand voices of men and women and children who all seem
to shout together and to shout for ever ; — all these noises begin the
day in good time and go on without intermission, save for siesta in
the summer, till far into the night, In the evening, when the sun has

A Summer in the South. 29

gone down, there are no more goat-bells nor the tramp of soldiers to
swell the ceaseless uproar ; but instead of these, mandolin players
wander from house to house, singing safely for soldi those
Neapolitan love- songs which once were sung only for love and at
risk. It is a strange fall in poetry to hear these now caressing and
now passionate strains, which were once worth so much life-blood of
gallant men and lovely women, coarsely screamed beneath the
balcony by some ragged robin who would rather die in the sun than
work in the shade, and who wanders about twanging his mandolin
and giving out his songs until he has scraped just enough for his
supper of macaroni and red wine. But very little romance is left in
the world anywhere ; and even Naples has become, in a certain
sense, prosaic like the rest.

Yet awake or asleep, mendicant or venal, Naples has always its
own enchantment. Set full in the sun ; Vesuvius, with its streaming
banner of smoke, to the side ; the deep blue sea with fair Capri in
front ; the noble curve of the bay from the point of Massa to the
headland of Misenum rounding off the picture ; the towns and villages
along the coast gleaming white from among the trees and under the
purple shadows of the terraced hills ; — what is equal to that view ?
Where else on earth can be found so much beauty, so great charm ?
From San Martino, whence you see the town lying below you in
measured blocks and patterns like an architect's model, broken only
by the shining oriental-looking cupolas of the churches — from the
Camaldoli, where you add to the well-known sea-view the country
lying backward over the volcanic regions of Agnano and Astroni —
wherever you will, you have always the same beauty, always the same
leading characteristics supplemented by new features — always the
flowng outline of the burning mountain ; the purple shadows and
noble forms of the surrounding hills ; the deep blue sea, like a
second sunny sky ; the headlands and the islands turned by the sun-
set into amethysts washed with gold; always vineyards and orange
gardens, olive-trees and broad-leaved fig-trees, and the sense every-
where of as much natural richness and luxuriance as of beauty.

There is much to see in and about Naples. The first drive
through the grotto of Posilippo has an eerie feeling with it never
to be forgotten. The yelling coachmen cracking their whips and
racing along at a hand-gallop in the darkness; the women and
children huddling to the side, but the men shouting back angry warn-
ings to take care and may the saints give them their deserts ; the
bleating flocks pressed close together as they now stand still and now
scamper forward in their fright ; the strange sense of dangers un-

30 The Gentleman s Magazine.

known and dangers foreseen, with the inevitable dread lest threatening
hands and picking fingers should make short work of your purse in the
darkness, all make the first drive in a certain sense an epoch in your life.
And if you meet a funeral procession midway — the coflin borne by the
masked and hooded white-robed Brethren of the Misericordia, while
monks in front bear candles and chant hymns which the high-arched
roof and narrow sides echo back in wild discords — you have a
glimpse of mediaeval days singularly precious to your imagination.
The poor dead creature in the cofiin there was probably an unwashed
and dishonest father of a family who sold something nasty to eat.
The Brethren of the Misericordia are men analogous to our vestry-
men, who do their social and civic duties according to the methods
prescribed by law and long usage ; but to you, unaccustomed to
those methods, that poor dead seller of doubtful meat seasoned
with garlic is a murdered Somebody carried to his last home by
friends too faithful to desert him, but too much afraid of the hostile
power which destroyed him to brave it oi)enly face to face. Ro-
mance on the one side and common-sense on the other meet and
jostle together hke the crowds in the Toledo ; but those Avith none
of the former and who have all only of the latter will miss about
half the pleasure which else the things of Italy would give them.

Of the aquarium in the Villa Reale, with its strange " ghost-fish,"
its wonderfully beautiful corallines and " flowers " and starfish and
the rest of its treasures, only a good scientist can speak as it deserves
to be spoken of ; * of the museum and churches, only a trained artist
and archaeologist. One who deals simply with the outside look of
things, and the sensations which they arouse, can neither describe
what is not scientifically understood nor paint in words what can
only be represented in lines. But there are things in the aquarium
as in the museum which of themselves would repay the most indo-
lent for the long journey to Naples ; and, for myself, the only regret
I had was for ignorance and lost time when I saw the tanks full of
living splendour in the villa and the rooms full of marble glory in the
museum. If there is nothing so divine as the Ludovisian Juno,
nothing so intensely pathetic as the Dying Gladiator, nor so purely
perfect as the Apollo, there is enough to warm the heart and feed the
imagination for a lifetime ; and the Hercules and the Flora, the Capuan
Venus, the Psyche, the Sleeping and the Dancing Fauns, the Mercury
Resting, and the Winged Victory alone give one cause for a thankful-
ness that can never fade and for precious memories that can never die.

* Professor Ray Lankesler's letters in the ** Athenaeum " jjnvc the best de-
scription of the aquarium and its contents that I have seen.

A SufHmer in the South. 31

All these things make Naples great ; and for those who are not
revolted by the filth which elbows finery, the strange confusion of
b^gary and luxury, of indecency and beauty, of careless morals and
gross superstition, of artistic perfectness and savage ornamentation,
of childish amusements and the fervid passions of ardent men, the
life that passes around, if not noble — no, by no means noble ! — is yet
fuller of charm and colour than any to be seen or felt elsewhere.

The interest to be found in the city is only a tithe of that which
is to be seen in the country round about. The excursion to Baiae
and Misenum, with all that it includes, if not one of the most beauti-
ful for scenery, is one of the most interesting for suggestiveness, as
well as for natural marvel. From the walls which surround the
burnt-out crater of Astroni, now the king's private hunting woods —
a big trap where stags and wild boars come trooping to the call lik^
cows at milking time, taking their food from the herdsman as meekly
as barn-door fowl — a magnificent view is to be had ; but the Solfatara
is perhaps the most interesting of all the places to be seen. The white
ground, with its cistuses as large as dog-roses, its magnificent yellow
broom and deep velvety orchids, crumbles under your feet like crisp
frozen snow. As you go nearer to the centre of attraction — the open-
ing of which looks something like a baker's oven — you hear by the
echo of your footsteps how thin the ground is over which you are
walking, while small jets of sulphurous smoke puff out through cre-
vices in the rocks, and the rocks themselves are covered with a pale
yellow and white efflorescence. At the opening of the oven, hot blasts
burst out and bum your face ; and you cannot put your hand into
the sulphury ashes which the guide " howks " out for your benefit.
In one place the ground has given way, so that you can look down
and see what you are standing over — a sea of black liquid mud ever
boiling and bubbling and splashing up like a huge cauldron, with
about five feet of quavering earth between you and it.

The whole region about Pozzuoli is volcanic, and is in conse-
quence made the great growing-ground for melons, because — so they
say — the earth is hotter here than elsewhere. The strangely different
springs that rise up within a stone's throw of each other about the
extinct crater of Agnano are due to the same volcanic agency. The
famous Grotto del Cane is one of these springs, where, if you have
no compassion, you may see an unhappy dog temporarily asphyxiated
under the stream of carbonic-acid gas which flows along the floor ;
but if you are not quite callous to the unnecessary sufferings of your
helpless fellow-creatures, perhaps a torch suddenly extinguished, the
smoke of which shows you the exact depth of the innsible stream,

32 Tlie Gentleman s Magazine.

will serve your purpose as well Farther on you come to the boiling
spring of the Bagni di Nerone which cooks eggs to perfection if you
care to eat those which the pale, panting, emaciated, half-naked
boy brings to you in due time when he comes back with his bucket
from the spring, streaming with perspiration as if he had been dipped
in water and trembling all over. This is one of the most weird
of all these strange sights. It is like a glimpse into the infernal
regions to look down that long, black, hot and steaming passage,
and sec the light at the end coming nearer and nearer, as the huny-
ing tread of the child's naked feet and his quick and laboured
breathing fall more and more distinctly on your ears.

It is more like the infernal regions, by many degrees, than the
I^ke of Avernus, with its sibyl's grotto and terrible repute — that lake
which, seen to-day in the light of the sun and divested of supersti-
tion, is just a disappointing sham. It is a mere tarn at the foot of
good-sized molehills; we have numbers among our own dear hills, such
as Bowscale Tarn and Styehead, which are infinitely more solemn ;
and what may once have been the truth of the various traditions
connected with this place — as, that birds could not fly across it and
live, nor anything exist near its dread banks, when the hills were
covered with wood and the sunlight was shut out — now, when it lies
full and fair in the sun and the hills are smooth and radiant, they are
palpably false. The whole thing collapses under the touch, and the
once terrible I-^ke of Death is no more hurtful than any other pond.

Alas ! for the exploded romance of Avernus and Styx and the
neighbouring Elysian fields ! AVhat shams they all were ! It dwarfs
the old life and narrows the range of its knowledge, not to speak of
its good sense and manly judgment, more than is pleasant to the
lovers of classic times, when we go to these places of deathless fame
and see with our own eyes on what slender foundations it all rested !
But truth at any cost rather than the loveliest fiction ; and better to
know the prose of the insignificant little pond, as we have it on the
way from Pozzuoli to Baise, than to believe in the terrors of the
ancient Avernus as related.

Cumoe and her Sibyl were the natural outcome of a district where
boiling springs and streams of carbonic-acid gas, of ammonia, of
sulphur, with frequent earthquakes and terrific thunderstoms, were
the ordinary phenomena of nature. That race of men which makes
the priestly ckiss all the world over, was keen enough to discern the
professional advantages of the neighbourhood ; and Cumae was as
much a logical consequence of its natural conditions as t}'phoid fever is
that of swam])y ground. The remains of this ancient city of religious

A Sumnur in the South, 33

despotism and blind belief may be seen by the light of faith and
imagination. It takes not a little of both to stand on the upper ridge
of a vineyard, and, looking across the festooned and trellised sj):icc,
believe that where that crimson-flowered pomegranate stands, there
was the scat of the Sibyl ; where the clump of orange-trees are, there
sat the judges and the monarch ; while all the space in between was
the arena and the seats of the commonalty ; and that the whole leafy
tangle was once the famous amphitheatre. The amphitheatre at
Pozzuoli is more satisfactory. There you see the arrangements of
things to perfection, and need not depend too implicitly on what
experts may choose to say. So, too, with the ruins of the Temple
of Serapis, also at Pozzuoli ; and so with the marvellous masonry
of the Piscina Mirabilis at Baiae — one of the most wonderful and
interesting of all the remains of olden times to be found any-
where.

Then, when the eye is fatigued with all these ancient buildings
and time-worn stones, to climb up that sharp ascent of the Misenum
headland, and sit there looking at the beautiful sea and sky and land,
repays one for the fatigue undergone and the disappointment expe-
rienced. Here we come to the truth — to nature and reality. Capri
in the distance, grey, unsubstantial, dreamy ; Ischia, near at hand,
sharp and positive ; Procida nestled close to its side, and apparently
only a stone's throw apart ; Nisida, with its mournful bagnio on the
summit and its melancholy lazzaretto at the base ; — there they all
are, set like jewels on the heaving sea, and we look at them till
we feel as if their beauty sinks into our very souls, as if we become
part of all that we look at. Then we turn from them to Vesuvius
with its heart of mystery and its feet of beauty ; to Naples lying, like
its own children, with its face turned full to the sun ; to Castellammare
and its cool chestnut woods ; to pretty Vico Equense and its terraced
hills ; to Sorrento and its fragrant orange-gardens ; to Massa and its
broken, bold, and rocky outlines ;— till something steals over our eyes
as the only possible expression of the passionate delight, the tremulous
rapture of the moment.

All this was done before the real heat set in, and while April
and May were still only like a warm English June and July. We
were able to go to Pompeii ; to find out the mountain walks about
Vico Equense ; to visit the Camaldoli and the Valley of the Pines
at Sorrento; and to keep up the good old English habits of
eneigy and exercise. We luxuriated in flowers — chiefly roses and
carnations — which a friendly "marinaio" used to bring us from
Naples, and which were as cheap as they were lovely ; we had

VOL. CCXLII. NO. 1765. D

34 The GenilcmaiLs Alagazuic.

cherries and strawberries, oranges and nespolas, green peas and all
manner of pleasant vegetables to be had at that time in England
only at the tables of the rich, and then only as delicacies ; and our
days were passed in one long hour of beauty. The orange-trees were in
bloom, and the effect on the senses of walking between the high
walls covered with maiden-hair fern, pellitory and small wild flowers,
over which flowed these streams of luscious and ideal perfume, was
something indescribable. It turned the whole place into a kind of
enchanted land, quite as much as did the sunsets and the sunrises.

In the vineyards the perfume was more subtle, more delicate, but
as delightful. The greatest charm there, however, was in the beau-
tiful young leaves and the play of light and shade through the trellises
and festoons ; also in the wild flowers growing on the banked terraces;
and in the interspersed clumps of olives, the grey-green of which
enhances in the most marvellous manner every colour against which
it is set Seen through the light network of these cold grey-green
leaves the intense blue of sea and sky has a value that nothing else
can give. It is the neutral tint of the landscape by which every other
is rendered doubly beautiful and precious.

The wild flowers in tliis early springtime were worth a mild
martyrdom to see. Rare orchids ; large white and rose-coloured
cistuses ; bushes of golden broom ; our sweetest kind of garden
honeysuckle ; the purple grape hyacinth, and tracts of " the little
butting cyclamen ; " scarlet i)oppies ; mesembr}'anthemums covering
the banks and walls in certain places ; a pretty pale-purple salver-
shaped flower, — a greenhouse flower at home, of which I do not
know the name ; asphodels, white and fragile ; groomwell as blue
as gentians ; rare campanulas ; gorgeous thistles, gold and purple ;
with burning pomegranates, and in time the acacia-like blossom of
the ailanthus and the delightful bloom of the oleander, are among
the most prominent in my memory. Our nosegays were always
mixed up with maiden-hair fern which grows as rank as grass or
the commonest, coarsest weed with us, with long fronds of the
black maiden-hair spleenwort, with scale- fern and trichomanes and
graceful, dainty lastneas, all of which we found in the greatest pro-
fusion in every lane, on every wall, and througli every dry bed of the
winter water-courses that we passed.

Our own private garden might have been made something as
lovely as a dream. As it was, it was delightful in the beginning,
though as the summer advanced the Italian sloth got the better of
artistic pleasure and the flowers died for want of care. The entrance
to the house was a long walk bordered on one side by bushes of the

A Slimmer in the South. 35

Arabian jasmine, of which the perfume was almost too sweet and
rich. The other side was a trellised vineyard, with flowering bushes
and olive-trees at intervals, deep in shade and sweet in fragrance.
A columned wall ran along the edge of the picturesque gorge
across which we looked on to the houses and churches of Vico
Ecjucnse with its dependent hamlets creeping up the hills at its back.
In the evening the gorge and garden were alight with fireflies ; and
when we drove along the road from Sorrento the showers of light in
the gardens and vineyards by the way were indescribably fairy-like
and fantastic These bright, quickly-moving, fluttering flakes of fire
falling by thousands among the leaves were more beautiful to look
at than the fireworks of which the Italians are so fond ; but the
heat drives the flies away, and by the middle of June they are rarely
seen.

May, the month of the Madonna, is the month of festas. Every
night we used to see rockets and Roman candles go up from the
towns and villages along the coast ; and Naples was never without
a festa in one or other of its parishes to remind the saints of their
duty, and to coax them to greater care of mortals by the honours
done to their shrine. But one festa is very much like another,
and when you have seen one you have seen all. The church
is draped in dirty theatrical finery which conceals every line and
circumstance of value, and every good architectural detail ; and the
music, if sometimes tolerable, is for the most part execrable. After
high mass the image of the patron saint or presiding deity of the
occasion is carried in procession through the village, to be saluted
with crackers and squibs, showers of rose-leaves or of the blossoms
of the broom, as it passes. Headed by the band, followed by the
village fathers in their most decent clothes — the choir boys in white
and blue — detachments of lay assistants and deacons, priests and
canons, in tippets and stoles of various colours, and carrying cruci-
fixes, banners, and the like — the procession, culminating in the chief
priests immediately preceding the sacred image, is closed by the
diildren of the Madonna and selected women in w'lite veils or
black ones, blue favours or bJack, as it may chance, and followed by
the whole population in its best attire. This p^t is chiefly composed
of women, and the bright colours, of whiclythe Italians are so fond,
make a wonderful effect when seen from a Jreight. All the procession
carries lighted candles, and when the mijftary band does not play a
waltz or a polka, the priests chant a ps^m.

In the piazza, where the " fun 7 is to be found, the stalls are
much the same as in our o^^'n fairf. Cheap clothing and common

7

36 The Gentleman s Magazine.

gewgaws, with piles of gingerbread and fancy cakes, appeal to the
two universal senses ; but we have not strings of cobnuts threaded
into chaplets as they have ; nor pictures and statuettes of saints and
madonnas, whereof the art is below contempt ; nor little shrines with
money-boxes before them, where the money paid will be so much to
your account in the heavenly bank ; nor stalls of peaches and figs
to be had for almost nothing ; nor do our local hdies go about in
veils only, and never a bonnet for their comely heads ; nor have our
peasant women piles of elaborately-dressed hair, part real, part false,
the multitudinous plaits of which are run through with a silver bodkin
of exactly the same size and pattern for each ; nor are our men
decked with gold earrings, and in shirt and trousers only, with a broad
red sash round their waists for all coat or waistcoat ; nor are our
little children dressed airily in one scanty shirt and nothing more,
unless it be a scarf tied about their middles, lifting up their " cutty
sarks" nearly to their waists, and showing their round dimpled
bodies like so many amorini or Saint Johns ; nor are our people
barefooted, while those who have shoes look as if they did not
like them, and walk as if pricked ; nor are our rural policemen
magnificent carabineers, resplendent in gold lace and cocked hats,
with long swords and spurs, and more like warrior kings than
policemen — being, in fact, all picked men whose enrolment is of
itself a tide of honour and a reward for distinction ; nor do we
take our military band into church and enliven the service with
bits from Madame Angot, or waltzes that set the bare brown feet
impatiently tapping on the pavement, and send glances round
the church not entirely devotional ; nor do we have a recognised
legion of beggars whining, howling, cr)'ing, demanding as their
right by nature, law, and prescription, that all should mulct them-
selves for their benefit ; nor do we sell ices and iced lemon water by
the gallon ; nor play " morra " for forfeits ; nor separate at ten
o'clock after the last set piece has been fired, without a drunken man
or woman to be seen in the whole crowd, though there may be a
row from je^Housy and hot blood, and sometimes an affray that
proves fatal. These are the chief features of an Italian festa, if we
except the fireworks— the chiefest of all — and undoubtedly they are
not English.

Thousands of pounds are yearly spent in these fireworks in the
villages on the Gulf of Naples alone ; and people to whom all
flowers are either violets or roses indiscriminately, who see no more
beauty in fireflies than they hear discord in the noisy cicale, stand in
ecstatic crowds in the piazza to look at the same kind of rockets

\

A Summer in tlie South. 37

which they have seen a hundred times before ; to watch, also for the
hundredth time, the same kind of set piece change from white to
red and from red to blue, and then falter out into a blackened old
crushed framework, after they had been deafened with a mock bom-
bardment which those of us who are not bom into the habit ot
hearing cannot bear without pain. Very little attempt at costume is
to be seen at these festas. Some of the older men wear velveteen
suits ornamented with fine silver buttons, their large, white, falling
collars giving ihem almost a Breton look ; sometimes, but rarely,
a woman may be seen in her embroidered, gold-laced, velvet stays
worn outside, full white sleeves, a bright skirt set in plaits both
fuller and finer than those of a highland kilt, immense hooped or
wheeled earrings, charms and gold beads round her neck, a knotted
handkerchief to cover her sleek shining head, or perhaps only
the elaborately dressed hair of her kind, with the blunt dagger
and hand holding a lily run through. But such a dress is very rare ;
and for the most part a woman makes herself beautiful in a plain full
cotton skirt with a simple bodice or jacket like the dress in common
use with us thirty years ago ; while the gay flowered kerchief crossed
over the breast, the brown, naked feet, the bonnetless head, are the
only signs that she is Italian and not English. The only artificial
signs, I ought to have said ; for those glorious eyes, those large red
handsome mouths, those low-toned velvety cheeks, and that supple
grace and upright carriage of women accustomed to bear heavy
weights on their heads and to walk with bare feet are especially un-
English ; and fair as our own pretty girls are, some of the Italian
peasants are as far superior to them as goddesses are to mortals.

And so of the men. But I confess I could not see the wonderful
beauty of the Caprese women, which has made so many " real gentle-
men " of almost all nations take them for wives. They arc not so
fine as the Iscliian women, whose Greek-like knotted kerchief gives
them a strange flavour of classicism. Nor did I see the superiority of
the tarantella over our o^^Tl local dances. It is just a tearing kind
of foursome reel, with little meaning and not much more grace ; and
the women who jump about are as lumpy and clumsy as any Molly
or Susy among ourselves. The men are better ; and the little
incidents of naked feet, white trousers and shirts and red scarfs,
earrings, the mandohn, and the soft Italian tongue, give a flavour of
romance which else the rude rhythm of the dance would not have
in itself.

But if the tarantella at Capri was a disappointment, the Blue
Grotto, the m>Ttles, acanthuses, oleanders, and butterflies were not ;

38 Tlie Gentle^ttans Magazine.

the walks and the views were not ; and many a worse asylum for old
age can be imagined than the flowery, tranquil little island of Cs^ri,
or its more pfimitivie sister, Ischia, with their natural beauty and
freedom from crime, their human kindness, and, in the former,
the pleasant colony of artists gathered there to keep thought and
intellect from stagnating.

But now the heat set in, and we were sunbound to the house.
Up to the beginning of August, though fierce it was not intolerable ;
but when it came to 86° in the shade, life naturally narrowed itself
into the smallest compass possible ; and darkened rooms for the day,
with the loggia or the garden after sundown, was the circle in which
we moved for over a month. And yet with all the physical distress
that was inseparable from the exhaustion under which we suffered,
what exquisite delight there was in the beauty in which we lived !
Those splendid sunsets which we used to watch from the loggia, when
the lower lines of the sky flowed into the sea in one band of pure
gold that gradually passed through the most delicate opalescence
overhead down to an intense purple in the east, completing the
whole chord of colour — when the long bars of gathering cloud
and the softer wreaths of light-lying vapour slowly burned into
crimson, then smouldered down to sullen purple, and finally cooled
into the restful grey of night — when the moonlight, like a paler
sunshine, wanting only its fire and passion, left the landscape
visible but made it full of a suggestive mystery that was like some
of the old stories of transformation — the same yet different — how
lovely it all was ! how richly we were repaid for the dulness of the
days and the distress of the unusual heat I The starry, moonless
nights were almost more beautiful — if less dreamy, certainly fuller of
distinct circumstance. In the moonlight everything fell back into a
misty, indeterminate idealism ; but under the stars, each point that
could be made out at all was of double force. Naples, which in the
daytime looked like a mirage Ufted from the solid earth and lying in
the quivering air, was now a stretch of fire on the horizon, and Torre
del Greco on the one side and Pozzuoli on the other continued the
line. The solitary lights of the fishing-boats lying motionless close
in shore gave one a strange feeling of romance and mystery. The
gliding hull of the pleasure-steamers, one blaze of light from stem to
stem, whence, if the night was one when sound travels fJEU", were heard
the faint echoes of music, might have been fairy palaces on which
any number of poems could have been written. The cottage lamps
of Vico shining through the trees, and those which marked out the
higher terraces of Santa Maria, San Vito, and Buon' Aria ; the

A Summer in the South, 39

swinging liantems of the careful " colono'' looking after his crops and
gathering his fruit for the early market ; the flashing of the lighthouse
out by Misenum ; the quiet stars above — the noble sweep of the Great
Bear and the bright north star pointing to home over the head of
Vesuvius ; and Vesuvius itself so often through that time with a
blood-red crown flashing fitfully against the dark sky ; the splendid
constellations, and the planets that were like minor suns, all made up
a world of passionate delight mixed with a vague kind of pain, as if
it were too much to bear because impossible to be expressed or
shared.

Sometimes we sat in the garden, in the trellised arbour with its
purple ipomea and passion-flowers shining under the lamplight, with
music and singing as our festa; the performers, to heighten the effect,
out of sight in the vine-covered " pergola," while the darker walk
was thronged with dusky flgures moving silently about like shadows,
their bare feet making no sound, till they burst into applause as the
plaintive love-song or the lively scherzo ended. In the fresh young
morning, before the *' light lay heavy on flower and tree,'* the atmo-
spheric effects were very splendid. Seen from where we were, the
sun slanting across the sea made it prismatic — a deep, dark, living blue
in its substance, with broad stretches of beryl where the shallows
came, but with a surface broken up into a ripple of rainbow colours.
It was a marvellous effect; as wonderful as that golden-green over
the base of Vesuvius flowing into the purple of the infertile lava,
till the chord there, too, was complete, and the outline of the
mountain looked as if traced in a golden thread against the sky.
After a time — Somewhere towards the second week in September—^
the extreme fervour of the heat gradually lessened, and we were
once more able to face the sun. By this time tlie grapes were
ripening in the vineyards — now no longer free for all who chose to
walk through, but protected by fierce dogs running loose — and the
fruit reason was at its height The stalb and baskets were pictures
which no painter living or dead could have justly rendered. There
were pyramids of dark green shining water-melons, the outer row
cut to show the cool frosted crimson pulp, with the big black seeds as
contrast ; while heaps of a smaller and less vivid kind, covered with
a tawny network of veins, lay on the ground as turnips might with
us. Baskets of luscious figs, purple and green, with their three signs
of "a penitent's tear, a beggar's cloak, and a hanged man's neck,"
alternated with velvety peaches and shining plums ; filberts lent the
value of tiieir golden brown to masses of scarlet " love-apples " — or, as
the Italians call them, ** apples of gold ; '* large, handsome, purple

40 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

egg-fruit ; burning red " peperon ; " capers and capsicums ; crisp,
cool, light-green salads ; rosy apples ; warm brown chestnuts ;
crooked gourds of the kind of which Cinderella's coach was certainly
made ; scimitar- shaped cucumbers and tufted Indian figs, — were all
mixed up in lovely harmonies ; while swathes and layers of cane-leaves
for a background helped the value of every colour and of all forms
with true artistic insight.

When the vintage began, again the scene shifted and we had
new pictures at every turn. It was a pretty sight, if with less
pomp and incident than in the countries where vine-growing is
the staple industry and the vintage the supreme event of the year,
^len, mounted on primitive ladders, cut with their small shaq)
sickle-shaped knives the heavy bunches which fell into long pointed
baskets hung on the branches. The boys and women emptied these
baskets into moderate-sized tubs, which then the women, poor
souls — who do so much of the hard work in Italy — carried off on
their heads to the enormous vat which, may be, stood, with true
Italian sans fa^oiiy in the middle of the high road. Some of the
younger women were pretty enough for Bacchantes of a modem kind;
but the elder were for the most part repulsive enough, battered by hard
work, poor food, exposure, and ignorance, into a kind of thing that was
" neither man nor woman — neither brute nor human." The treading
of the grapes came after the cutting, and we went to a large "fondo"
to see the process. A comely woman told us, with careful anxiety,
that the men washed their feet before they began : but belief in the
healing effects of grape-juice on sores is terribly strong in these
parts — and, "come si fa?'* — the owners of wine- vats are human —
compassion is a divine impulse — and fermentation purifies all things !

The grapes are treated by stamping and pressing. Sometimes
the men stamp with all their might, knee-deep, in the shining, slipper)-
mess, and sometimes they pile the grapes into a smoothly- packed
mound which then they press slowly and forcibly, the muscles and
sinews of their legs showing strongly and their toes gripping like
steel. Sometimes they join hands and stamp in a rhythmic way,
like a fettered dance, while one of them sings a rude chant, the
echoes of the vaulted roof flinging back his voice with painful force.
It is strange to hear the rushing of the red grape-juice flowing in a
little river into the vat beneath — strange to see those handsome men
and boys at the work which ranks among the oldest in human life.
I confess, honestly, it is in imagination chiefly that the beauty of it
all lies; the facts were sordid and ugly enough; but the imagination is
the angel which breathes the breath of life into dead matter, and

A Summer in tlie South. 41

through which homeliness becomes beauty and the commonplace
suggestive of all poetry.

After the "vendemmia" comes the olive-harvest, when the rich
slab goldm fluid, after having been pressed out of the fruit by the
rudest kind of machinery, is run into jars that no one can possibly
see without . thinking of the Forty Thieves. Oxen, or bandaged
hones, tramp round and round the narrow circle where the olives are
cautiously ^read beneath a large millstone ; the crushed mass, broken
up into bits that are more like peat than anything else, is as good as
peat for fiiel when all the oil is thoroughly extracted ; and they take
three kinds before they have exhausted it. The last serves for light
and machinery. In the same " fondo " where we saw the grape-
treading we saw the oil stores ; — a large granary — as it would have
been with us — full of these immense jars, not pointed as in the ancient
Pompeian days and thus not standing in, but on, the floor — else of
much the same shape as their predecessors. Even on the Bay of
Naples the frost breaks them at times, and the golden fluid, literally
worth its name, is scattered and lost This "fondo" was very
unlike any English farm that could be found. Its three cows were stall-
fed; there were no pasture-grounds, no grain-fields, no sheep, no
roots, no ricks nor bams, nor barn-door fowls; but instead of these
were large tracts of vineyards and olive-gardens, of orange-trees and
lemons, and in place of the farmer's " bro\m October," red-lipped
vats and barrels of pure bright wine.

The roads at this time were wonderfully picturesque. Here we
met a solitary monk with his mule laden on each side with a small
barrel of wine, the wood stained purply-red with manyoozings; in the
narrow pointed mat-work baskets, also slung across and hanging on
each side, perhaps were " pomeroli,*' perhaps grass for fodder, but
always conspicuously on the top the small wine measure as the raison
ifftrc of the whole. Change the monk for a couple of demure nun*?
wending their way silently back to their desolate home ; for a ragged
unkempt woman from the hills, her half-niikcd child perched like a
large-eyed infant Bacchus between the barrels; for a village work-
man, lean, sinewy, bare-legged, his gait that of a king, his face that of
a martyr; for an old man in his red woollen nightcap, good for
nothing now but to do a few pottering errands like this ; for a couple
of boys as mischievous as monkeys and more cruel — the mule having
a bad time of it with them, and the wine none the better for the
shaking — ^and you have one of the most prominent circumstances of
the roads at this time, set in its various frameworks. The other was —
huge sideless waggons, drai^m by oxen gaily trapped and heavily

42 Tlie Genileman's Magazine.

yoked, and laden with large red-stained wine barrels, over w^hich were
strewn layers of feathery green leaves to protect them from the sun.

Up at Gragnano, above Castellammare, the industry is neither
wine nor oil, but macaroni-making. AVhatever there is of rude in the
former finds its superlative in this last Three of the crowd of half-
naked men thronging the room sit on a long pole and jump. The
pole moves in a ratchet, and thus comes down on every part of the
paste spread on the slab to be kneaded. It is the most primitive
way of kneading, but the results are good, as we know; we do not
know how much better they might be if the machinery were of a
more scientific kind. The men all look as if they had heart-disease,
and have an odd, distressed air. None of the broad smiling faces,
bright eyes, merry half-play at their work as elsewhere; all are
grave, sad, silent, depressed, pale, and emaciated, looking as if they
found life very hard and heaven very far off ! All Gragnano is given
up to macaroni-making. The air smells of fiour; the road is lined
with frames on which the bent pipes are drying ; before the doors
are square cloths where the grain is drying in the sun; on the house-
tops men and women toss it up in showers of gold when caught in
the proper light; the whole place lives on, by, and in macaroni ; but
the corn-merchants of Naples are not over-fond of doing business
with the Gragnanesi ; and though the place and the situation are
as lovely as a dream, the morals of the people, by all one hearsf
would bear an extra wash with advantage. Beyond Gragnano, still
higher up in the mountains, is Lettere with its fine old ruined castle,
its splendid scenery, magnificent turns of road, and gradual change
of foliage and growth — where the green-husked chestnuts looked like
unripened apples, and pretty barefooted country girls sat, like creatures
in a fairy talc, among the large leaves of the fig-trees, and bandied doubt-
ful compliments with the driver or sent saucy greetings to his fare.

And now the country has put on its autumn face. The grapes
are all gathered ; the olive-trees are bare of fruit ; the oranges and
lemons for the coming season are still green and insignificant ; the
ailanthus flowers have long since turned to huge bunches of golden
brown seed, more beautiful even than the flower had been. Round
all windows are festooned melons and " pomi d'oro " in nets, stored
thus for winter use ; the manna-trees are being tapped, and the
little cups, made of an ingeniously twisted sycamore leaf, are hung
below the scored branches to catch the trickling juice ; the fruit-shops
are resplendent with purple and scarlet ; the streets are fragrant with
burning piles of fir-cones fanned by ragged children, to whom the
nuts — only to be got at through fire — are unspeakably delicious ; and
huge pumpkins, of which one is sometimes more than a man's load.

A Summer in the South. 43

abound. The women are picking the third crop of white mulberry-
leaves ; patches of cotton-plant are here and there to be recognised —
but Sca£iti is the real district for this growth ; great stretches of cane,
something between a reed and a bamboo, mark the presence of water.
About La Cava they are catching wild pigeons, just as, according to a
document in the library of La Trinitk, they caught them in 1009, and as
they catch them in the Pyrenees, namely, by flinging up white stones
from the tops of the high slender towers built for that purpose, when,
the bird stooping, it is taken. Primitive threshing-floors seem to
have been where and what they are since the day when Araunah
the Jebusite stood by his ; the " granturco " f Indian com) is being
cut and every part converted into some use, for^the grain is eaten,
the husks are burnt for fuel, beds are stufled with the dry leaves, and
the reeds are plaited into baskets and the like. Indian flgs are plen-
tiful, and the fruit is better to eat than the plant is good to look at; the
travelling world, loosened from its sun-made imprisonment, is spread-
ing itself abroad on excursions, and the local '' dazio '' is generous
in the matter of forestieri and their collazioni. Salerno, Amalfi,
Paestum, and the like wake up out of their summer sleep; and bronzes
fall into the poor feverish hands which are only too ready to receive
them. Perhaps a shivering wretch, handcufled, alone, feeble, and
marched between two stalwart mounted carabineers, heavily armed,
gives one a shuddering impression of a law which is powerful to
brutality ; but farther on, two black-browed, determined, dangerous-
looking men, also handcufled and chained together, and also on
foot between a couple of well-mounted, well-armed carabineers,
somehow redress the balance ; and, especially if we are on the
dangerous ground near Paestum, we are thankful that the law is so
strong and so unconditional in its exercise.

Slowly the golden circle of the sun draws closer and narrower in
the sky ; the fervid heat has gone, but still, in this bright November
weather, we sit with open windows, closed jalousies, and without fire
or carpet in the room. Still the same beauty lies before us — the blue
sea and the bluer sky, with the islands and the mountains now
golden under the sunrise and now flushed at its setting; still the
olive gives its wonderful value to the colours of the landscape, and
Vesuvius has its fire by night and its pillar of cloud by day to mark it
out from its twin brother Somna ; still the wonderful charm and
fascination of Southern Italy remain as powerful in one season as in
another, till life becomes a kind of divided allegiance for those of us
who have drunk of this cup of enchantment to the full; — and we stand
hesitating between Home and Beauty, human Love and impersonal
Nature. k. lvnn linton.

44 The Getitletnans Magazine,

THE LAW OF LIKENESS, AND ITS

WORKING.

THAT the offspring should bear a close resemblance to the
parent forms one of the most natural expectations of man-
kind, whilst the converse strikes us as being an infringement of some
universal law that is not the less recognisable because of its unwritten
or mysterious character. "The acorn," says a great authority on
matters physiological, '^ tends to build itself up again into a woodland
giant such as that from whose twig it fell ; the spore of the humblest
lichen reproduces the green or brown incrustation which gave it
birth; and at the other end of the scale of life, the child that resem-
bled neither the paternal nor the maternal side of the house would be
regarded as a kind of monster." Thus true is it of the humblest as
of the highest being, that the law of likeness or " heredity," as it has
been termed, operates powerfully in moulding the young into the
form and resemblance of the parent. But the kw that is thus
admitted to be so universal in its operation exhibits, at the same
time, very diverse readings and phases. The likeness of the parent
may be attained in some cases, it is true, in the most direct manner,
as, for example, in the higher animals and plants, where the egg or
germ, embryo and seed, become transformed through a readily-
traced process of development into the similitude of the being which
gave it birth. So accustomed are we to trace this direct resemblance
between the parent and the young in the higher animals and amongst
ourselves, that any infringement of the law of likeness is accounted a
phenomenon of unusual kind. Even extending to the domain of
mind as well as of body, we unconsciously expect the child to exhibit
the traits of character and disposition which are visible in its parents,
and to grow up " the child of its father and mother," as the expres-
sion runs, in every phase of its bodily and mental life.

A wider view of the relations and harmonies existing in nature,
however, shows us that this direct development of the young into the
similitude of its ancestors is by no means of universal occurrence.
Many forms attain the resemblance to their progenitors only after
passing through a series of changes or disguises, often of very compli-
cated nature. And a very slight acquaintance with the facts of

The Lata of Likeness. 45

physiology would ser\'e to show that the law of likeness, like most
other laws regulating the world of life, has its grave exceptions, and
that it exhibits certain phases of singular interest in what may be
termed its abnormal operation. The young of an animal or plant
may, and frequently do, exhibit very remarkable variations from the
parent in all the characteristics which are associated with the special
nature of the being. The circle of repeated and perpetuated likeness
may thus be broken in upon at any point, and the normal law of
heredity may be regarded as occasionally superseded in its working
by the operation of another law — that of variation and divergence.
Forms unlike the parents are thus known to be frequently prcducecl,
and these errant members of the family circle may be shown to
possess no inconsiderable influence on the nature and constitution of
the world of life at large. Family likeness, as everyone knows, lies at
the root at once of the differences between, and relationships of, living
beings. The offspring must resemble their parents and their own
kind more closely than they resemble other groups, else our know-
ledge of the relationship of one form to another must be regarded
as possessing no sound basis whatever. But admit that the young
may not resemble the parent, and a veritable apple of discord is at
once projected into the apparent harmonics of nature, and dire
confusion becomes the order of the day. As will be hereafter shown,
however, whilst the law of variation does undoubtedly operate, and
that to a very great extent, amongst living beings, other and com-
pensating conditions are brought to light by the careful study of
development at large ; and the old law of like producing like may be
seen, after all, to constitute the guiding principle of nature at large.
As a study of high interest, and one the elements of which are
afforded by our observation of the everyday world, the investigation
of the law of likeness may be safely commended to the seeking mind.
.\nd in the brief study of this law and its operations we may firstly
glance at some instances of development by way of illustration, and
thereafter try to discern the meaning and causes of similitude or here-
dity. " Rassanblom des fails pour nous donner des ideesy^ says Buffon,
and the advice is eminently appropriate to those who purpose to
enter upon a popular study of an important natural law.

One of the simplest instances of development, in which the young
are not only transformed directly into the likeness of the parent, but
represent in themselves essential parts of the parent-body, is illus-
trated by the case of the little worms known to the naturalist as
NaUUdis^ and fitmiliar to all as inhabitants of our ditches, and as
occurring in damp mud and similar situations. If a Naisht chopped

46 The Gentleman s Magazine,

into a number of small pieces, each piece will in time develop a
head and tail and become a perfect wonn, differing in no respect,
save in that of size, from the original form. A Ndis cut into forty
pieces, was transformed through the operation into as many small
worms of its own kind. Here the law of likeness or heredity operates
in the plainest and most direct fashion. The young are like the
parent-stock, because they consist in reality of detached portions of
the parent's personality. The experiments of naturalists carried out
on animals of lower organisation than these worms, such as the little
fresh-water polype or hydra, show a power of artificial reproduction
which is of literally marvellous extent; and all such animals evince at
once the simplest mode of development and the plainest reasons why
the young should exactly resemble the parent. It might, however, be
alleged that such artificial experimentation was hardly to be accepted
as illustrative of natural development; but in answer to such an
observation the naturalist might show that an exactly similar method
of reproduction occiurs spontaneously and naturally in the Ndis and
in certain other animals of its class. A single Ndis has been observed
to consist of four connected but distinct portions, the hinder three
of which had become almost completely separated from the original
body — represented by the front segment A new head, eyes, and
appendages could be traced in course of formation upon the front
extremity of each of the new segments ; and as development termi-
nated, each portion could be seen to gradually detach itself from its
neighbours ; the original worm thus resolving itself into four new
individuals. The most curious feature regarding this method of
development consists in the fact that the bodies of these worms and
of nearly-related animals grow by new joints being added between
the originally formed segments and the tail. If, therefore, we suppose
that one of these new joints occasionally develops into a head, we
can form an idea of the manner in which a process, originally intended
to increase the growth of one and a single worm, becomes competent
to evolve new individuals, each of which essentially resembles the
parent in all particulars.

The great Harvey, whose researches on animal development may
be regarded as having laid the foundation of modem ideas regarding
that process, adopted as his physiological motto the expression, omne
animal ex oi^o. Whilst it is undoubtedly true that the egg, or ovum,
must be regarded as the essential beginning and type of development
in animals, we note that, as in Ndis^ the production of new beings is
not solely dependent on the presence of that structure. Just as
plants are propagated by slips and cuttings, so animals may be deve-

The Law of Likeness. 47

Io|>cd from shoots or specially deU( hcd portions of the parent-body.
And it is in the development of the egg, or in the course of what
may be regarded as the most regular and defined stages of that pro-
cess, that the exceptions to the law of likeness are most frequently
met i^-ith. One of the most remarkable deviations from the normal
law of development is seen in the case of the little aphides^ or
plant-lice, the insects so familiar to all as the pests of the gardener.
At the close of the autumn season, winged males and females of these
insects appear amongst their neighbour aphides, and these produce
eggs, which, however, lie dormant throughout the winter. Waking
into life and development unth the returning spring, these eggs give
birth each to a wingless female ; no insect of the sterner sex being
found amongst the developed progeny of these insects. The pre-
sence of both sexes is throughout the animal world regarded as
necessary for the production of eggs capable of developing into off-
spring. Strangely enough, however, these wingless females not only
produce eggs, hatching them within their bodies, but the eggs de-
velop into beings exactly resembling themselves, not a single male
aphis being represented within the limits of this Amazonian popula-
tion. Seven, eight, nine, or even eleven generations of these wingless
females may be produced in this manner, and the swarms of plant-
lice which infest our vegetation attest the fertility of the race.
But in the last brood of these insects, produced towards the close of
dutumn, winged males appear in addition to the females, which latter
also possess wings. The members of this last brood produce eggs
of ordinary nature, which lie dormant during the winter, but which
in the succeeding spring will inaugurate the same strange life-history
through which their progenitors passed. The case of the plant-lice
may for the present be dismissed with the obser\ation that the law
of heredity appears to operate in this instance in a somewhat ab-
normal, or at any rate in a very unusual, manner. The true similitude
of the winged parents is not attained until after the lapse of months,
and through the interference, as it were, of many generations of dissi-
milar individuals : whilst no less worthy of remark is the circum-
stance that one sex alone is capable of giving origin to new beings,
which sooner or later produce in turn the natural duality of sex,
forming the nile of both animal and plant creation. And the case
of the plant-lice is rendered the more remarkable by the consider-
ation that of 58,000 eggs laid by female silk-moths which were
separated from the opposite sex, only 29 developed into perfect
caterpillars — the female plant-lice possessing a fertility under like
circumstances which would be amazing even if taking place under
the nonnal laws and conditions of development.

48 The Gentleman s Alagazine.

Cases of the unusual development of animals, which serve as
parallel instances to the case of the plant-lice, are by no means rare.
Thus in the case of the starfishes, sea-urchins, and their neighbours,
the egg gives origin to a free-swimming, active body, which develops
a structure of its own, and appears in a fair way to become, as might
be expected, the future starfish. But within the body of this first em-
bryo another formation is seea to take place ; and sooner or later this
secondary development comes to assume priority, and appears as the
true and veritable representative of the young starfish — the primitive
body or embryo which produced it being either absorbed into its
substance, or cast ofl^ on development being fully attained and com-
pleted. The production of the se<:ond starfish, as it were, out of a
first-formed cmbr}'0 is paralleled by the curious case of a certain
kind of gall-flies ( Cecidojnyia\ within the larvx or caterpillars of which
other young or larvx are produced. The present cxise partakes thus
of the nature of a striking exception to the ordinary laws of deve-
lopment, seeing that a young and immature form ]>ossesses the power
of producing other beings, immature like itself, no doubt, but capable
of ultimate development into true flies. In other words, heredity,
or the power of like producing like, which ordinar}' obsen^ation de-
monstrates to occur usually in the mature and adult being, is here
witnessed occurring in the young and imperfect form.

Certain very typical, but more complicated, cases ofanimal develop-
ment than the preceding instances arc witnessed in the reproduction
of those curious animal-colonies collectively named ** zoophytes."
Any common zoophyte, such as we may find cast up on our coasts or
growing attached to the fronds of tangle, is found to consist of a plant-
like organism, which, however, instead of leaves or flowers, bears
numerous little animals of similar kind, connected together so as to
form a veritable colony. Each of the little members of this colony
possesses a mouth, surrounded by arms or tentacles, and a little body-
cavity in which food is digested ; and it may be noted that each member
of the colony contributes to form the store of nourishment on which
all the members, including itself, in turn depend for sustenance.
Such a veritable animal-tree, growing rooted and fixed to some
object, increases by a veritable process of " budding." As the
animal-bads die and fall off", new buds are thrown out and developed
to supply the place of the lost members; the zoophyte, like the tree,
renewing its parts according to the strict law of heredity, and each
new member of the colony bearing as close a likeness to the existing
members as that borne by the one leaf of a tree to its neighbour-
leaves. But, as the tree sooner or later produces flowers which are

Tlie Law of Likeness. 49

destined to furnish the seeds from which new trees may spring, so
the zooph3rte in due time produces animal-buds of a kind differing
widely from the [ordinary units which enter into its composition.
These varying buds in very many cases appear in the likeness of
bell-shaped organisms, and when they detach themselves from the
zoophyte-tree and swim freely in the surrounding water, we recognise
n each wandering bud a strange likeness to the familiar medusae or
jelly fishes which swarm in the summer seas around our coasts.
Living thus apart from the zoophyte-parent, these medusa-buds may
pass weeks or months in an independent existence. Ultimately,
however, they develop eggs, and with the production of the eggs
the clear, elegant, glassy bodies undergo dissolution, and vanish
away amid the waters, to which, in the delicacy of their structure,
they presented so close a resemblance. From each egg of the
jellyfish-bud there is gradually developed, not a medusa, but a
zoophyte. The egg, in fact, develops a single bud of the zoophyte,
and this primitive bud, by a process of continuous budding, at last
produces the connected tree-like form with which the life-history
began. Thus the zoophyte is seen to give origin to a jellyfish, and
the jellyfish in turn reproduces the form of the zoophyte — one gene-
ration of animals, as the older naturalists believed, "alternating" in
this way witli another.

The law of likeness would at first sight seem to be ill-adapted, in
virtue of its essential nature, to explain the cause of an animal, such as
the zoophyte, producing an entirely different being, represented in the
present instance by the jellyfish-bud : and it might appear to be equally
inexplicable that the progeny of the jellyfish should revert to the zoo-
phyte-stock and likeness. The case of those curious oceanic organisms,
allied to the " sea-squirts," and known as SalpjE, presented to the zoo-
logists of former years phenomena of an equally abstruse kind. The
salpae are met with floating on the surface of the ocean in two dis-
tinct forms. One form exists in the shape of a long connected
"chain" of individuals, whilst the other form is represented by single
salpae. It was, however, ascertained that these two varieties were
linked together in a singularly intimate manner by their development.
The chain salpae were found to produce each a single egg, which de-
veloped into a single salpa ; and the latter, conversely, produced each
a long "chain" of individuals — the one variety, in fact, reproducing
the other. The apparently mutual development of the zoophyte and
the jellyfish, and of the chaiji and single salpa, is, however, explicable,
as far as its exact nature goes, on other grounds than those on which
the naturalists of former years accounted for the phenomena. The
vol, rrx Lir. NO. 1765. E

50 TIu Gatt/emaus Magazine,

jellyfish is not a distinct animal front the zoophyte, but merely one
of its modified buds, produced, like the other parts of the animal-
tree, by a process of budding, and destined for a special end — that
of the development of eggs. The latter illustrate the law of heredity
because they are to be regarded as having been essentially and truly
produced by the zoophyte, into the form of which each egg directly
develops. And similarly with the salpae. The chain-salpa may be
regarded as corresponding to the zoophyte, each individual of the
chain producing an egg, which develops again into a chain-salpa,
through the medium of the single and unconnected form.

To a still greater extent in insects and some crustaceans— such as
barnacles, &c. — may the process of development be complicated and
extended. The egg of the butterfly gives origin, not to the aerial
winged insect, but to the mundane caterpillar, which, after passing
an existence devoted solely to the work of nourishing its body,
envelops that body in a cocoon and becomes the chrysalis ; finally
appearing from this latter investment as the winged and mature form.
In the case of all insects which, like the butterfly, pass through a
metamorphosis^ as the series of changes is named, the law of likeness
appears to be protracted, and its terms somewhat evaded or extended.
The egg, in other words, develops into the mature form only after
passing through an extended development, and evolves the similitude
of the parent-form through certain intermediate stages of well-marked
kind. And so also with the well-known barnacles which attach
themselves to the sides of ships and to floating timber. The young
barnacle appears as an active little creature possessing limbs adapted
for swimming, along with feelers, eyes, and other appendages. Ulti-
mately the embryo barnacle forms its shell, loses its limbs and eyes,
attaches itself by its feelers to some fixed object, develops its flexible
stalk, and passes the remainder of its existence in a fixed and rooted
condition. The development in this latter case, although in due
time producing the likeness of the parent, clearly leads to a state of
life of much lower character, and to a structure of humbler grade,
compared with the life and organisation of the young barnacle. The
invariable law of heredity in the various examples detailed is thus
seen to operate sometimes in clear and definite manner, converting
the oftspring into the likeness of the parent directly, and with but
little change, save that involved in the process of growth, into the
parent-form. In other cases, the operation of the law is carried out
through an extended and often complicated process of development ;
and the observation of the manifold variations which the working of
the law exhibits, adds but another to the many proofs of the inherent

The Law of Likeness. 51

plasticity of nature, and the singular adaptations which are exhibited
to the varying necessities of living beings.

Amongst the higher animals, as we have noted, the process of
development for the most part evolves the likeness of the parent in
a simple and direct manner. True, in all higher animals, as in lower
animals, the mere formation of organs and parts in the body of the
developing being constitutes a process in which, from dissimilar or from
simple materials, the similarity of the animal to its parent and to the
intricacy of the adult form arc gradually evolved. But we miss in
higher animals these well-defined and visible changes of form through
which the young beinc^ gradually approvlmatcs to the parental type and
likeness. Direct heredity forms, in fact, the rule in higher life, just
as indirect heredity is a common feature of lower organisms. The
frogs, toads, and newts form the most familiar exceptions to this rule
amongst higher animals ; the young of these forms, as is well known,
appearing in the form of " tadi)oles,'' and attaining the likeness of the
adult through a very gradual scries of changes and developments.
But in no cases can the existence of hereditary influences be more*
clearly perceived or traced than in cases of the development of
higher animals, in which traits of character, physical peculiarities,
and even diseases, are seen to be unerringly and exactly reproduced
through the operation of the law of likeness ; whilst in certain unusual
phases of development the influence of the law can be shown not
less clearly than in its common and normal action.

The case of the " Ancon " or " Otter" sheep serves as an apt
illustration not only of the transmission of characters to the offspring,
but likewise of the sudden appearance and development of characters
not accounted for by heredity. In the year 1791 a ewe belonging to
a Massachusetts farmer produced a lamb differing materially from its
neighbours in that its legs were disproportionately short, whilst its
body was disproportionately long. This departure from the ordinary
type of the sheep could not be accounted for in any way ; the varia-
tion being, as far as could be ascertained, perfectly spontaneous.
The single short-legged sheep became the progenitor of others, and in
due time a race of Ancons was produced ; the variety, however, falling
into neglect, and ultimately disappearing, on account of the intro-
duction of the Merino sheep, and of the attention paid to the
development of the latter breed. The law of likeness in the case of
the Ancon sheep proved normal in its working after the introduction
of the first Ancon. The offspring of two Ancons was thus inva-
riably a pure Otter sheep ; the progeny of an Ancon and an ordinary
sheep being also pure either in the direction of the sheep or the

r. 2

52 The Gcfitleman's Magazine.

Ancon ; no blending or mixture of the two races ever taking place.
The law of likeness tlius holds good in its ordinary operation, but
takes no account and gives no explanation of the abstruse and un-
known causes arising from the law of variation, and on which the
development of the first Ancon sheep depended.

The heredity and transmission of mere influences, which have
been simply impressed upon either parent, and which form no part of
the parent's original constitution, presents some of the most marvel-
lous, as well as some of the most inexplicable, features of animal
and plant development. Thus an Italian naturalist, taking the pollen
or fertilising matter from the stamens of the lemon, fertilised the flowers
of the orange. The result was, that one of the oranges, subsequently pro-
duced, exhibited a portion of its substance which was not only coloured
like the lemon, but preserved the distinct flavour of the latter fruit
Changes of similar nature have been produced in the fruit of one
species of melon by fertilising the flowers with pollen of a different
species, and thus producing, through the operation of the law of
likeness, a blending of the character of the two species. Equally
certain as regards their effects on the young forms of animals, are
the eflfects of the transmission of influences or qualities impressed on
the parents. The birth of a hybrid foal, half quagga, half horse, has
been of sufllicient influence to transmit to the subsequent and pure
progeny of the mother, the banded stripes or markings of the quagga ;
the influence of the first male parent and offspring extending, as it
were, to the unconnected and succeeding progeny.

The case of the human subject presents no exceptions to the
laws of heredity and of hereditary influences, since the common
experience of everyday life familiarises us with the transmission of
the constitution of body and mind from parent to child ; whilst the
careful investigation of the family history of noted artists, sculptors,
poets, musicians, and men of science clearly proves that the qualities
for which they are or were distinguished have, in most cases, been
transmitted to them as a natural legacy and inheritance — so fully does
science corroborate the popular saying, that qualities of body and
mind " run in the blood."

A notable case of the operation of the law of likeness in perpetuat-
ing a singular condition of body is afilbrded by the history of the I^m-
bert family. Edward Lambert was exhibited in 1 731, at the age of
fourteen, before the Royal Society of London, on account of the pecu-
liar condition of his skin, which was covered with homy scales ; these
appendages, in their most typical development, according to one
account, " looking and rustling like the bristles or quills of a hedge-

TIu Law of Likeness. 53

hog shorn oft* within an inch of the skin." In 1757 the "porcupine
man," as I^mbert was called, again exhibited himself in London. He
had in the interim suffered from small-pox ; the disease having had the
effect of temporarily destroying the roughened skin, which, however,
reappeared during his convalescence. Lambert's children presented
the same peculiar skin- development, and the correlation between
parent and offspring in this case was most marked, even in the date
of the first appearance of the abnormality since the skin developed its
scales in each of his children, as in himself, about nine weeks after
birth. In I^mbert*s grandchildren this peculiarity was also well
marked ; two brothers, grandsons of Lambert, being exhibited in
Germany on account of their peculiar body-covering.

The history of the Kelleias, a Maltese family, is no less instruc-
tive than that of Lambert, as tending to prove the distinct and
specific operation of the laws of heredity. Gratio Kelleia — whose
history is given by Reaumur in his " Art de faire ^clore les Poulets,"
as a kind of lesson in the rearing of poultry — was a Maltese,
who possessed six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.
His parents possessed the ordinary number of digits, and hence the
law of variation may be regarded as operating in the case of the
human subject, as in the Ancon sheep and in lower animals still,
in producing sudden and spontaneous deviations from the normal
type of a species or race. Kelleia's family consisted of four
children, the mother exhibiting no abnormality of hands or feet.
The eldest son, Salvator, exactly resembled his father. George, the
second son, had five fingers and five toes, but his hands and feet were
deformed. Andr^, the third son, exhibited no abnormality; and
Marie, the daughter, had deformed thumbs. The operation of the
law of heredity was not especially marked in this first generation, but
its effects were of very striking character in the second. To begin
with the family of Andre', none of his children exhibited any diver-
gence from the normal type. Of Marie's family, only one, a boy, had
sue toes ; his fingers being normal. Of George's four children, one
boy possessed hands and feet of ordinary type ; one girl had six
fingers on each hand, but, curiously enough, six toes on the right foot
only ; whilst the remaining two girls had each six fingers and six toes
on each hand and foot. Salvator's family likewise consisted of four
children, three of whom possessed the six fingers and six toes of their
father and grand- parent ; the fourth and youngest possessing the
ordinary number of digits. The four mothers of the second genera-
tion of Kelleias exhibited no abnormality in respect of hands or
feet, and hence the hereditary influence of the female parent doubtless

54 The GentlcDuuis Afa^azinc.

made itself felt in the development of a proportion of normal hands
and feet — although, as far as the genealogy of the family is traced, the
proportion of six-fingered and six-toed members clearly tends to
exceed that of those possessing the normal number of fingers and
toes.

Having thus selected and marshalled some of the chief facts re-
lating to the occurrence of heredity or the likeness between parent and
offspring, it may be fairly urged that these facts seem to establish the
existence of some well-defined law, in virtue of which the bodily
structure, the mental characteristics, or even the peculiarities in-
duced by disease, are transmitted from one generation to another.
And it also becomes an important study to determine the causes
which operate in producing such variations in the law of inheritance
as we have endeavoured to illustrate in the case of certain groups
of lower animals. Can we, in other words, account for the simi-
larities and resemblances, and for the diversities and variations,
which living beings present, apparently as a natural sequence of their
life, arid of the operation of the laws which regulate that existence ?
The answer to some such question as the preceding closely engaged
the attention of physiologists in former years, the result of their con-
siderations being the framing of various theories whereby the facts of
heredity could be correlated and explained. It is evident that any
explanation of heredity must partake of the nature of a mere specula-
tion, from our sheer inability to penetrate deeper into the investigation
of its laws than the observation of phenomena can lead us. But
when rightly employed, generalisations and theories serve as leading-
strings to the truth ; and, moreover, aid in the most valuable manner
in connecting facts which othenvise would present a most confusing
and straggling array. We may, in truth, sketch in the outlines of the
subject in theory, and leave these outlines to be deleted or intensified
by the subsequent progress of knowledge. Buffon speculated, about
the middle of last century, on the causes of heredity, and viewed the
subject from a very comprehensive stand-point He assumed that
the ultimate parts of living beings existed in the form of certain
atoms, which he named " organic molecules," and maintained that
these molecules were received into the body in the shape of food, and
became stored up in the various tissues and organs, receiving from
each part a corresponding " impression." The molecules in each living
body were, in fact, regarded by Buffon as plastic masses, which not only
received the imprint, in miniature, of the organ in which they had
lodged, but were also fitted to reproduce that organ or part. Potentially,
therefore, each molecule might be said to carry within it some special

The Laiu of Likeness. 55

portion of the body of which, for a time, it had formed part It was
organic and, moreover, indestructible. For after itself and its neigh-
bours had been freed from corporeal trammels by the death of the
organism in which it had existed, they were regarded as being capable
of entering into new combinations, and of thus building up afresh the
forms of living animals or plants similar to, or widely different from,
those in which they had previously been contained. Buffon*s theory
liad special reference to the explanation of cases of the " spontaneous
generation " of animalcules in closed vessels, but it also served to
explain the cause of heredity. The molecules, each charged with the
fonn of the organ or part in which it existed, were believed ultimately
to pass, in the case of die animal, to the egg-producing organs, or, in
the plant, to the seed; the egg and the seed being thus formed, as it
were, from materials contributed by the entire body. The germ was
to the body at large, as a microcosm is to the greater " cosmos."

A second authority who framed an explanation of the causes of
likeness was Bonnet, who maintained that lost parts were reproduced
by germs contained in the nearest portions of the injured body ;
whilst by his theory of embcitement it was held that each germ was in
itself the repository of countless other germs, these bodies being
stored up in a quantity sufficient for the reproductive needs of count-
less generations. Professor Owen's explanation depends upon the
recognition of the fact that certain of the cells of the germ from which
the living being springs pass into its body, and there remain to
transmit to its successors the material characters which it has acquired;
whilst, also, the repair of injuries, and the propagation of new beings
by budding and like processes, are explained on the supposition that
these germ-cells may grow, increase, and operate within the organism
which they are ultimately destined to propagate. Lasdy, Mr. Darwin
has come to the solution of heredity with his theory of Pangmesis^
which may be said to avail itself of all that is reasonable and probable
in the explanations just discussed, and also to include several new
and important ideas of which the older theorists took no account.

As paving the way for an understanding of this and other expla-
nations of the law of likeness, we may briefly glance at some of the
chief facts with reference to the structure and intimate composition
of living beings, with which microscopic study has made us
acquainted. When the anatomist or physiologist seeks to unravel
the complications of human structure, or when, indeed, he scrutinises
the bodies of all animals, save the very lowest, he finds that each
organ or tissue of the body is composed of certain minute vesicles
or spheres, to which he gives the name of cells. Cells, in fact, are

56 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

the units of which the bodily whole is composed. Nerves thus
resolve themselves under the microscope into fibres, and the fibres,
in turn, are seen to originate firom cells. Muscles similarly originate
firom muscle-cells. Each tissue, however compact it may appear, is
capable of ultimate reduction to cells of characteristic kind. Nor is
this all. The cells themselves are in turn composed of smaller par-
ticles, and these smaller particles — of infinitesimally minute size —
may be regarded as consisting in turn of the essential material of
life — the bioplasm or protoplasm — with tlie name of which everyone
must lie more or less familiar from the part it lias played in more
than one grave biological controversy, liut the body of every Hving
thing is in no case stable, viewed either in its chemical or in its more
jHirely physical aspects. It is continually, as the inevitable result
of living and being, undergoing change and alteration. Chemical
action is wasting its substance and dissipating its energy with prodiga
hand on the one side, and rebuilding and reconstructing its parts
on the other. Its material particles are continually being wasted and
excreted, whilst new particles are as incessantly being added to its
frame. A never-ending action of waste and repair is maintained
within every living being ; and it is not the least striking thought
which may ensue from the study of such a subject, that, notwith-
standing the constant renewal of our frames, we continue to presenc
the same recognisable form and features. The development of new
particles in place of the old appears to follow the same course as
that whereby the first-formed particles were guided to their place in
the developing young. Germs, or "nuclei" — "germinal centres," as
the physiologist terms them — are abundantly to be descried within
most of the tissues. Imbedded amongst the fibres of muscles, for
example, are to be seen the germs from which new muscular fibres
will be developed ; and in the brain itself such reproductive bodies
are to be observed. Thus the growth and continuance of our mental
existence may be shown to be dependent on the presence of these new
particles, which are destined to renew in a material sense those
powers which, of all others in man's nature, most nearly approach
the immaterial and spiritual.

Nor, lastly, is the problem of existence and structural complexity
lessened in any degree by the consideration that man's frame, as
well as that of all other animals, originates from a minute germ,
composed primitively of a microscopic speck of living matter, and
exhibiting in its earliest stages the essential features of one of the
minute cells or units of his tissues. Through the powers \vith which
this living germ-particle has been endowed, it is capable of passing

The Law of Likeness. 57

through a defined series of changes, and of developing therefrom a
being of more or less complicated kind ; whilst the germ itself must
be regarded as transmitting in some fashion or other, and in a
material form, the likenesses which link parent and offspring together
in so close and intimate a union.

Applying the reasoning of the theory of pangenesis to the
explanation of heredity and likeness in the light of the physiological
evidence thus briefly detailed, we are required to bear in mind that,
as an established fact, the cells of which a living being is composed
increase and multiply to form tissues and organs, the new cells
retaining the form and essential characters of the parent cells. The
cell, in short, is formed, is nourished, grows, and reproduces its like,
as does the body of which it forms part. And botanists and zoolo-
gists would inform us that lowly plants and animals, each consisting
of but a single cell, not only exist, but carry on the functions of life
as perfectly, when regarded in relation to the wants of their exist-
ence, as do tlie highest animals or most highly organised plants. Each
cell, possessed thus of vital powers, may further be regarded as
correlating itself with the life of the body at large, in that it is capable
of throwing off minute particles of its substance. These particles,
named gemmules, may be supposed to circulate freely through the
system, and when duly nourished are regarded as being capable ot
developing into cells resembling those from which they were derived.
These gemmules are fiurther supposed to be thrown off from cells
at every stage of the development and growth of a living being. More
especially do they aggregate together to form the germ, or the materials
from which the germ is formed. Transmitted thus from parent to
offspring, the latter may be regarded as potentially composed of the
gemmules derived from its parent, — which, like the organic mole-
cules of Buffon, are charged ^rith reproducing in the young form the
characters they have acquired from the parent.

Regarded from a physiological stand-point, this explanation of the
transmission of likeness from parent to offspring appears, it must be
owned, to present no difficulties of very formidable kind. Scientific
evidence regarding the functions and properties of cells is thoroughly
in agreement with the theory, as far as the behaviour of these bodily
units is concerned. The exercise of scientific faith and the weighing
of probabilities commence with the assumption of the development
of the gemmules from the cells ; and it may be asked if the belief
that these gemmules are capable of transmission and aggregation as
held by this theory, is one inconsistent with the tenets and discoveries
of biological science at laige. If we inquire regarding the feasibility

58 Tlie Gentleman s Magazine.

of the mere existence of such minute gemmules, we shall find that
physical science opposes no barrier to the favourable reception of
such an idea. The inconceivably minute size of the particles, for
example, given off from a grain of musk, which scents a room
for years without losing so much of its substance as can be deter-
mined by the most acute physical tests, lies beyond the farthest
limit even of the scientific imagination. The particles of vaccine
lymph diffused through the body by the lancet of the vaccinator, are
much more minute than the smallest cells ; yet, judged by the
standard of development and by the effects of their multiplication in
our frames, their existence must be regarded as anything but pro-
blematical. Then, as regards numbers, the eggs of some animals exist
in quantities, of which, at the best, we can only form a dim and ap-
proximate idea. A small parasitic worm, the AscariSy is known to pro-
duce 64,000,000 eggs, and some of the orchids will produce as many
seeds ; whilst the fertility of some fishes is almost inconceivable. It
has been objected, it is true, to this conception of the manner through
which the law of likeness operates, that it is difficult to believe in the
complicated powers and tendencies of the gemmules to select and
carry the special qualities of the cells from which they originate ; and
that, in short, the conception credits the gemmules with powers of
too mysterious and occult a kind for ordinary acceptance and belief.
But in answer to this objection it may be urged, that the powers with
which the gemmules are credited are not a whit more extraordinary
than those possessed by cells, or than those which nerve-cells and
nerve-fibres possess, for example, in forming and transmitting the
undetermined, mysterious force which under certain conditions be-
comes resolved into thought and mind. The mere conditions of
heredity which the theory expkins constitute in fact a greater draft
upon scientific credulity than is demanded by any conditions or ideas
included in the explanation itself. Moreover, there is 'hardly a con-
dition, illustrated by the examples of heredity and animal develop-
ment already given, which is insusceptible of explanation through the
aid of this theory. The cases of fission illustrated by the fresh-water
worms, and the process of budding exemplified by the zoophyte,
become intelligible on the idea that a determination of the genunules
40 the parts concerned in these processes takes place, and that by
their aggregation they form parts resembling those from which they
were derived. The curious phases of reproduction in the plant-lice,
in which, it will be remembered, female insects were seen to be capable
of producing generation after generation of beings resembling them-
sdves without the inten'ention of the opposite sex, is likewise explained

The Lazu of Likeness, 59

by the supposition that gemmules aggregate in quantities in the egg-pro-
ducing organs of the insects. These gemmules are further regarded as
being charged with the power of perpetuating the likeness of the stock
from which they were originally derived, and being transmitted from
one generation to another, until, through some more special modi-
fication, the periodical production of fertilised eggs in autumn is
once more illustrated. The exact nature of " alternate generations "
of the zoophytes and salpae becomes clear to us if we presume that
the gemmules of the producing form, such as the zoophyte, are mul-
tiplied and specially developed to form the jellyfish-bud, which
finally, as we have seen, is launched abroad charged with the task of
reproducing the zoophyte. Each egg of the jellyfish contains thus
the gemmules inherited from, and which convey the likeness and form
of, the zoophyte ; the special development of new beings seen in this
case presenting a contrast to the ordinary increase of the single
zoophyte by budding. The metamorphoses or changes which ani-
mals undergo in passing from the egg to the adult state — well illus-
trated by the insect-class — can similarly be explained by the deduc-
tions of pangenesis, if we suppose that the gemmules which tend to
form the perfect being undergo a progressive development, and a
gradual elaboration in the earlier stages of the process. And we can
the more readily apply this reasoning to the explanation of the
manner in which the winged butterfly, for example, is evolved from
the caterpillar, when we find that within the chrysalis-case or cocoon
the body of the larvae is literally broken down and resolved into
atomic parts, whilst, by a wondrous process of reconstruction and
rearrangement of these atoms, the perfect insect is in due time
formed. Metamorphosis, in this respect, may truly be described as
a process of the readjustment and rearrangement of the atoms and
gemmules of the insect's frame. The variations of living beings may
in their turn be explained by assuming an irregularity to exist in the
arrangement of the gemmules which unite to form the germ of the
varying form. Modified cells will give out modified gemmules, and
these last will produce variations in the new being. Any cause pro-
ducing alterations in the gemmules, either in the direction of over-
fertility or in that of deficiency, will tell with corresponding eft'ect on
the germ which they tend to form. Whilst in cases in which bodily
stnictures, mental qualities, or even diseases lie dormant in one
generation, and become developed in the succeeding race, the gem-
mules may be regarded as having been transmitted in a latent condi-
tion in the former race, and as having been awakened and redeveloped
in the latter. . The transmission of active disease to a particulai

6o The Gentlcmans Magazine,

generation through an intervening and latent stage represented by
the preceding generation, is clearly explicable, if we suppose that the
dormant condition acts on the gemmules as rest acts on wearied
muscles in serving to restore their pristine strength. Some diseases
are known to gain strength and virulence after the lapse of a genera-
tion, in which they have lain dormant and inactive. And the reap-
pearance of the diseased condition becomes connected by the expla-
nation just given, to use Mr. Darwin's words, with " the wonderful
fact that the child may depart from the type of both its parents,
and resemble its grand-parents or ancestors removed by many gene-
rations."

The relativity of our knowledge, however, forms a subject which
may well be suggested as a closing thought. Whether pangenesis or
any other explanation of heredity be ultimately proved to be true or
not, the consideration must be ever with us, that we are likely to
remain ignorant of the primary causes whicli determine and regulate
the more apparent laws of likeness. We may thus scarcely hope to
reach that "law within the law" which operates through the medium
of secondary laws and ascertainable conditions. But it should form
at the same time no mean consolation, that we have been able to
approach theoretically, at least, towards an understanding of one of
the commonest, but at the same time most abstruse, parts of the
puzzle of lite.

ANDREW WILSON.

6i

CHARLES DICKENS AS DRAMA TIST

AND POET.

THE late Mr. Dickens made his fame, as the world knows, by his
romances, and by a certain sparkling form of essay, in which
acute observation of character and manners were combined with an
almost photographic presentation of material objects. In the delightful
art of letter-writing, it is needless to say, he excelled, and the specimens
given in Mr. Forster's biography make us only lament that a full col-
lection of his correspondence has not before now been made. These
agreeable compositions, in which vitality, wit, and good humour flow
abundantly, combined with excellent sense and sound knowledge of
human nature, really take rank with the best of his writings. He also
wrote some plays or fragments of plays. It is, however, well
known that he had taste for verse-making, and more particularly for
what used to be known as " occasional verses," and a little volume
might almost be made out- of those various scattered trifles.
A few of these airy triflings will be found interesting, as showing how
many-sided was the talent of the master ; and they are not presented
as founding any claim for him to the dignity of a poet — the last thing
he himself would have desired.

We will begin by some specimens of what may be called the squib
kind, prompted — as so many others of his writings were — by political
matter which had excited his indignation. Here is one from an early
number of the Daily News, whose authorship has hitherto escaped
detection, it being only signed ** Catnach " :

THE BRITISH LIOX.

A NEW SONG, BUT AN OLD STORY.

Tune— 7*^^ Great Sea Snake,

O p*raps you may have heard, and if not I'll sing

Of the British Lion free,
That w*as constantly agoing for to make a spring

I'pon his en-c-me ;

62 The Gentleman s Magazine.

But who, being rather groggy at the knees,

Broke down, always, before ;
And generally gave a feeble wheeze
Instead of a loud roar.

Right toor rol, loor rol, fee faw, fum,

The British Lion lx)ld I
That was always agoing for to <lo great things,
And was always being **sold I"

He was carried about in a carawan,

Ami was showed in couiilry jiarls,
And they said *' Walk u|> I Be in lime I He can

I'-at Corn Law Leagues like tarts I"
And his showmen, shouting there and then.

To puff him didn't fail ;
And they said, as they peeped into his den,

**0 don't he u-ag his tail I "

Right toor rol, &c.

Now the principal keepc*r of this poor old beast,

Wan Humbug was his name.
Would once every day stir him up — at least —

And wam't that a game !
For he hadn't a tooth and he hadn't a claw

In that "struggle" so ** sublime,"
And however sharp they touched him on the raw,

He couldn't come up to time.

Right toor rol, &c.

And this, you will observe, was the reason why

Wan Hi^MBi'G, on weak grounds.
Was forced to make believe that he hcartl his cry.

In all unlikely sounds.
So there wam't a bleat from an Essex calf.

Or a Duke or a Lordling slim,
But he said with a wcry triumphant laugh,

** I'm blest if that ain't him ! "

Right toor rol, &c.

At length wcry bald in his mane and tail

The British Lion growcd.
He pined, and declined, and he satisfied

The last debt which he owed.
And when they came to examine the skin,

It was a wonder sore
To find that the an-i-mal within

Was nothing lut a tjore :

Kij;ht toor ro'. cS...

rATNACH,

diaries Dickens as Dratnatist and Poet. 63

To the Daily Nercs he also contributed in the same year — »

THE HYMN OF THE WILTSHIRE LABOURERS.

' ' Don^t you all think that wc have a great need to cry to our God to put it
in the hearts of our greaseous Queen and her members of Parlerment to grant us
free bread?" — Lucy Sirapkins, at Brem Hill.

O God, who by Thy Prophet's hand

Didst smite the rocky brake,
Whence water came at Thy command,

Thy people's thirst to slake :
Strike now upon this granite wall.

Stem, obdurate, and high ;
And let some drops of pity fall

For us who starve and die !

The God, who took a little child

And set him in the midst.
And promised him His mercy mild.

As by Thy Son Thou didst :
Look down upon our children dear.

So gaunt, so cold, so spare,
And let their images appear

Where Lords and Gentry arc I

O God, teach them to feel how we.

When our poor infants droop.
Arc weakened in our trust in Thcc,

And how our spirits stoop :
I'or in Thy rest, so bright and fair,

All tears and sorrows sleep ;
And their young looks, so full of care.

Would make Thine angels weep !

The God, who with His finger drew

The Judgment coming on.
Write for these men, what must ensue,

Y.TQ many years be gone !
O (iod, whose bow is in the sky,

Let them not brave and dare,
Until they look (too late) on high

And see an Arrow there !

O God, remind them. In the bread

They break upon the knee.
These sacred words may yet be read,

** In memory of Me "!
O God, remind them of His sweet

Compassion for the poor.
And how He gave them Bread lo eat,

AnH went from door to door.

..CflARLF^ UirKKNS.

64 The Gentleman s Magazine.

Mrs. S. C. Hall, as is well known, possesses a very remarkable
album, filled with contributions, extempore and otherwise, of the most
famous persons of the time. On one page Southey had written — in
allusion to the autographs of Joseph Bonaparte and Daniel O'Connell,
which were inscribed on the next leaf-
Birds of a feather flock together,

But vide the opposite page ;
And thence you may gather I'm nut of a feather
With some of the birds in this cage.

Later, when Dickens furnished his little contribution, he wrote, in
allusion to Southey's change of opinion : —

Now, if I don't make

The complctest mistake
That ever put man in a rage,

This bird of two weathers

Has moulted his feathers,
And left them in some other cage. no/..

One would have almost wished that the well-known " Ode to an
Expiring Frog " had not remained a fragment, and that Mrs. Leo
Hunter had recited the whole. It always seemed a very perfect piece
c f burlesque, not by any means overstrained — the common fault in
burlesque — but having the earnestness that is certain to be found in
genuine perfonnances of the kind : —

ODE TO AN EXPIRING FROG.

Can I view thee panting, lying
On thy stomach, without sighing ;
Can T unmoved see thee dying

On a log,

Expiring frog ?
Say, have fiends in shape of boys,
With wild halloo, and brutal noise,
Hunted thee from marshy joys

With a dog,

Expiring frog ?

The lines which embroiled Mr. Potts with the susceptible Winkle
arc good in this way, because exactly representing the soit of stuff
that used to be found in a country newspaper : —

LINES TO A BRASS POT.

Oh! Pott! if you*d known

How false she'd have grown.
When you heard the marriage bells tinkle,

You*d have done then, I vow,

What you cannot help now.
And handed her over to W-(inkle).

Charles Dickens as Dramatist and Poet. 65

Even in a '' slang " song, this master of words could be artistic ;
and it may be fairly asserted that Mr. Weller's song to the coachmen
is superior to any of the kind that has appeared since. For it will be
seen that there is a breadth and a dramatic character about it which
are lacking in other more pretentious works : —

ROMANCE.

I.

Bold Turpin vunce on Plounslow Heath,

His bold mare Bess bestrode-er ;
Yen there he seed the Bishop's coach

A-coming along the road-er.
So he gallops close to the 'orses' legs.

And he claps his head vithin:
And the Bishop says, *' Sure as eggs is eggs,

This here's the bold Turpin ! **

CHORUS.

And the Bishop says, &c.

11.

Says Turpin, ** You shall eat your words.

With a sauce of leaden bul-let ; "
So he puts a pistol in his mouth.

And he fires it down his guMet ;
The coachman, he not likin* the job.

Set off at a full gal-lop,
But Dick put a couple of balls in his nob,

And perwailed on him to stop.
CHORUS {sarcastically).
But Dick, &c.»

In the same story is to be found a piece illustrating that fond and
romantic Christmas spirit which he always fostered, and which, alas !
exists more in the anticipation than in the reality : —

A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

I care not for Spring ; on his fickle wing

Let the blossoms and bads be borne;
He woos them amain, with his treacherous rain.

And he scatters them ere the mom.
An inconstant elf, he knows not himself

Or his own changing mind an hour ;
He'll smile in your face, and with wry grimace

He*ll wither yon youngest flower.

> ** We beg," adds the pleasant author, '*to call particular attention to the
monosyllable at the end of the second and fourth lines, which not only enables the
singer to take breath at these points, but greatly assists the metre."
VOL. CCXUI. NO. 1765. F

66 The Gentleman s Magazine.

Let the summer sun to his bright home run,

He shall never be sought by me :
When he's dimmed by a cloud, I can laugh aloud

And care not how sulky he be ;
For his darling child is the madness wild

That spurts in fierce fever's train ;
And when love is too strong, it don't last lon^.

As many have found to their pain.

A mild harvest night, by the tranquil light

Of the modest and gentle moon,
Has a far sweeter slieen for me, I ween.

Than the broad and blushing noon.
But every leaf awakens my grief,

As it lieth beneath the tree :
So, let autumn air be never so fair,

It by no means agrees with me.

But my song I troll out for Christmas stout,

The hearty, the true, the cold ;
A bumper I drain, and with might and main

Give three cheers for this Christmas old.
We'll usher him in with a merry din

That shall gladden his joyous heart,
And wcMl keep him up, while there's bite or sup.

And his fellowsliip good we'll part.

In his fine honest pride, he scorns to hide

One jot of his hard-weather scars ;
They're no disgrace, for there's much the same trace

On the cheeks of our bravest tars.
Then again I sing till the roof doth ring,

And it echoes from wall to wall —
To the stout old wight, fair welcome to-night.

As the King of the Seasons all !

In " Pickwick " will be found also the well-known and still
popular " Ivy Green ; " a really excellent song, with a very poetical
idea for its basis. Many will recall the pleasant style in which that
not ungifted " entertainer," Henry Russell, used to troll it, and the
rather seducing burden " Creeping where," &c. The music may not
be of the highest merit, but we would have no other for the words.
The pleasant Henry, with his whole hagage Utteraire of "Ships
on Fire " and ** Man the Life Boat," and his piano, on which he was
as much at home as a deft skater on the ice — who gives him a
thought now ? Yet erst he held audiences spell-bound.

TlIK IVV GRKKX.

Oh ! a dainty plant is the ivy green,

That creepcih o'er niins ohl !
Of right choice ftxwl arc his meals, I ween,

In his cell so lone ami cold.

Charles Dickens as Dramatist and Poet. 67

The wall mast be crnmbled, the stone decayed,

To pleasure his dainty whim :
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.

Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.

Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,

And a staunch old heart has he.
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings,

To his friend the huge Oak Tree !
And slily he traileth along the ground.

And his leaves he gently waves,
As he joyously hugs and crawleth round

The rich mould of dead men's graves.

Creeping where grim death hath been,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.

\Vholc ages have fled, and their works decayed.

And nations have scattered been ;
But the stout old ivy shall never fade

From its hale and hearty green.
The brave old plant, in its lonely days.

Shall fatten upon the past :
I'^or the stateliest building man can raise

Is the i\'y*s food at last.

Creeping on, where time has been,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.

Mr. Home, the author of " Orion," was the first, we believe, to

point out that many tender passages of Dickens's prose writings were

virtually blank verse, a theory well supported by these specimens

from " The Old Curiosity Shop " :—

And now the bell — the bell

She had so often heard by night and day.

And listened to with solemn pleasure,

E*€n as a living voice —

Rung its remorseless toll for her.

So young, so beautiful, and good.

Decrepit age and vigorous life.

And blooming youth, and helpless infancy

Poured forth— on crutches, in the pride of strength

And health, in the full blush

Of promise, the mere dawn of life —

. To gather round her tomb. Old men were there

Whose eyes were dim

And senses failing,

Grandames who might have died ten years ago

And still been old — the deaf, the blind, the lame :

The living dead in many shapes and forms,

To see the closing of this eariy grave.

What was the death it would shut in,

To that which still could crawl and creep above it !

h'2

68 The Gentleman's Magazine.

Along the crowded path they bore her now ;

Pure as the new-fall'n snow
That covered it ; whose day on earth

Had been as fleeting.
Under that porch, where she had sat when Heaven
In mercy brought her to that peaceful spot,

She passed again, and the old church

Received her in its quiet shade.

" Throughout the whole of the above, only two unimportant words
have been omitted — in and its ; and * grandames * has been sub-
stituted for ' grandmothers.' All that remains is exactly as in the
original, not a single word transposed, and the punctuation the same
to a comma."

Again, take the brief homily that concludes the funeral : —

Oh ! it is hard to take to heart
The lesson that such deaths will teach,
But let no man reject it.

For it is one that all must learn,
And is a mighty, universal Truth.
When Death strikes down the innocent and young.
For every fragile form from which he lets

The parting spirit free,

A hundred virtues rise,
In shapes of mercy, charity, and love.

To walk the world and bless it.

So also in " Nicholas Nickleby": —

The grass was green above the dead boy's grave,
Trodden by feet so small and light,
That not a daisy drooped its head

Beneath their pressure.
Through all the spring and summer time
Garlands of fresh flowers, wreathed by infant hands.
Rested upon the stone.

And here is a passage from " The Child's History ": —

The English broke and fled.
The Normans rallied, and the day was lost !
Oh, what a sight beneath the moon and stars I
The lights were shining in the victor's tent
(Pitched near the spot where blinded Harold fell) ;
He and his knights carousing were within ;
Soldiers with torches, going to and fro.
Sought for the corpse of Harold 'mongst the dead.
The Warrior, worked with stones and golden thread,
Lay low, all torn, and soiled with English blood.
And the three Lions kept watch o*cr the field !

Charles Dickens as Dramatist and Poet. 69

Nor should his single prologue be forgotten; one written in 1842
for Mr. Westland Marston's "Patrician's Daughter." The chief
portions are given here : —

No talc of streaming plumes and harness bright
Dwells on the Poet*s maiden theme to-night.
Enough for him if in his boldest word
The beating heart of man be faintly stirred.
That mournful music, that, like chords which sigh
Through charmed gardens, all who hear it die ;
That solemn music he does not pursue,
To distant ages out of human view.

.....
But musing with a calm and steady gaze
Before the crackling flame of living days,
He hears it whisper, through the busy roar
Of what shall be, and what has been before.
Awake the Present ! Shall no scene display
The tragic passion of the passing day ?
Is it with man as with some meaner things.
That out of death his solenm purpose springs ?
Can this eventful life no moral teach,
Unless he be for aye beyond its reach ?

.....
Awake the Present ! What the past has sown
Is in its harvest garnered, reaped, and grown.
How pride engenders pride, and wrong breeds wront;,
And truth and falsehood hand in hand along
High places walk in monster-like embrace,
The modem Janus with a double face ;
How social usage hath the power to change
Good thought to evil in its highest range,
To cramp the noble soul, and turn to ruth
The kindling impulse of the glowing youth,
Crushing the spirit in its house of clay, —
I^am from the lesson of the present day.
Not light its import and not poor its mien —
Yourselves the actors and your home the scene.

The last two *• be good rhymes."

In 1843, ^^ w^ asked by Lady Blessington, who was ever impor-
tuning her literary and fashionable acquaintances for aid for her
innumerable Books of Beauty and other annuals, to furnish a small
contribution. He struck off the following, on a theme which he
afterwards satirised in Chadband, and the idea of conversion
through the agency of suitable religious pocket-handkerchiefs. Mr.
Forster calls it "a clever and pointed parable in verse." And the
unvarying modesty of its writer is shown in the diffidence with which
he asked for it a place in his friend's journal, in case of its rejection

70 The Gcn/lcmans Magazine.

by the fashionable lady of letters. It however appeared in "The
Keepsake "* for i S44 : —

A WORD IN SEASON.

They have a superstition in llic East

That Allah, wrillcn on a piece of pa)>cr.
Is l)ettcr unction than can come of Prical,

Of rolling incense and of lighted taper :
Holding, that any scrap which bears the name

In any characters its front impressed on.
Shall help the finder through the purging name,

And give his toasted feet a place to rest on.

Accordingly they make a mighty fuss

With every wretched tract and fierce oration,
And hoard the leaves — for they are not like us,

A highly civilised and thinking nation :
And, always stooping in the miry ways

To look for matter of this earthly leaven,
They seldom, in their dust-exploring days,

Have any leisure to look up to Heaven.

So have I known a coimtry on the earth

Where darkness sat u|x>n the living waters,
And brutal ignorance, and toil, and dearth

Were the hard portion of its sons and daughters :
And yet, where they who should have oped the door

Of charity and light, for all men's finding,
Squabbled for words upon tlic altar floor.

And rent The lk)ok, in struggles for the binding.

The gentlest man among those pious Turks

Ciod*s living image nithlessly defaces ;
Their best High-Churchman, with no faith in works.

Bowstrings the virtues in the market places.
The Christian Pariah, whom both sects curse,

(They curse all other men and curse each other).
Walks thro* the world, not very much the worse.

Does all the good he can, and loves his brother.

His pleasant little opera, ** The Village Coquettes," contains a
goc,d many rhymes, wTitten professedly for setting to music. In
these will be noted feeling, and a sort of graceful sentiment, without
any pretence at powerful \^Titing. This is specially found in the
following, the chime of which haunts the ear : —

AUTUMN LEAVES.

Autumn leaves, autunm leaves, lie strewn around us here ;
Autunm leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear !
How like the hopes of childhood's day,
Thick clustering on the bough !

Cliarlcs Dickens as Dramatist and Poet. 7 1

IIow like those hojKis is their decay —
How faded are they now !
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn around me here ;
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear !

Withered leaves, witliered leaves that fly Ijefore the gale ;
Withered leaves, withered leaves, ye tell a mournful tale I
Of love once true, and friends once kind,

And happy moments fled ;
Dispersed by every breath of wind.
Forgotten, changed, or dead.
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, lie strewn an:nmd us here ;
Autumn leaves, autumn leaves, how sad, how cold, how drear !

It was set, as was the rest of the opera, by Mr. Hullah, and was re-
published a few years ago. The two heroines, Rose and I.ucy, sing
little ballads on love, which have an old-fashioned pleasantness: —

LUCY'S SONG.

T^ve is not a feeling to pass away.
Like the balmy breath of a summer day :
It is not — it cannot be — laid aside;
It is not a thing to forget or hide ;
It clings to the heart, ah, woe is ntc !
As the ivy clings to the old oak tree.

I^ve is not a passion of earlhy mould.
As a thirst for honour, or fame, or gold :
For when all these wishes have died away,
The deep strong love of a brighter day,
Though nourished in secret, consumes the more,
As the slow rust eats to the iron's core.

ROSE'S SONG.

Some folks, who have grown old and sour.

Say love does nothin.cj but annoy ;
The fact is, they have had their hour.

So envy what they can't enjoy.
I like the glance--! like the sigh - -

That docs of ardent passion tell !
If some folks were as young as I,

I'm sure they'd like it quite as well.

Old maiden aunts so hate the men,

So well know how wives are harried.
It makes them sad— not jealous— when

They see their poor dear nieces married.
All men are fair and false, they know,

And with deep sighs they assail 'em ;
It is so long since they tried men, though.

I rather think their mcm'ries fail 'cm.

72 Tlie Gmllef nan's Magazhu.

" The Squire " has another jovial, rollicking strain, such as might
have made the rafters of Dingley Dell ring.

SPRING.

There's a charm in Spring, when everything

Is bursting from the ground :
When pleasant showers bring forth the flowers,

And all is life around.
In summer day, the fragrant hay

Most sweetly scents the breeze :
And all is still, save murm*ring rill,

Or sound of humming bees.

Old Autumn come, with trusty gun

In quest of birds we roam :
Unerring aim, we mark the game.

And proudly bear it home.
A winter's night has its delight.

Well wanned to bed we go :
A winter's day, we're bl)rthe and gay,

Snipe shooting in the snow.

A country life, without the strife

And noisy din of town.
Is all I need ; I take no heed

Of splendour or renown.
And when I die, oh ! let me lie

Where trees above me wave :
Let wild plants bloom around my tomb.

My quiet country grave.

MORAL.

That very wise head, old yKsop, said,

The bow should be sometimes loose :
Keep it tight for ever, the string you sever :—

Let's turn his old moral to use: —
The world forget, and let us yet.

The glass our spirits buoying,
Revel to-night, in those moments bright

Which make life worth enjoying.
The cares of the day, old moralists say,

Are quite enough to perplex one ;
Then drive to-day's sorrow away till to-morrow,

Then put it off till the next one.

The above, however, smacks somewhat of the conventional music-
seller's ballad. The next has a more serious purpose.

HONOUR.

The child and the old man sat alone

In the quiet peaceful shade
Of the old green boughs, that had richly grown

In the deep thick forc>t glado.

Charles Dickens as Dramatist and Poet. 73

It was a soft and pleasant sound.

That rustling of the oak :
And the gentle breeze played light around,

As thus the fair boy spoke : —

•* Dear father, what can honour be

Of which I hear men rave ?
Field, cell and cloister, land and sea.

The tempest and the grave : —
It lives in all, 'tis sought in each,

*Tis never heard or seen :
Now tell me, father, I l)eseech.

What can this honour mean ? "

** It is a name— a name, my child —

It lived in other days,
When men were rude, their passions wild,

Their sport, thick battle frays :
When in armour bright the warrior bold

Knelt to his lady's eyes :
Beneath the abbey pavement old

That warrior's dust now lies.

** The iron hearts of that old day

Have mouldered in the grave :
And chivalry has passed away

W'ith knights so true and brave ;
The honour which to them was life.

Throbs in no bosom now ; ^

It only gilds the gambler's strife,

Or decks the worthless vow."

The following recalls one of the German " part songs," and we
can almost hear the sustained four voices ; the tendency to a sober,
melancholy strain is still maintained : —

EVENTIDE.

How beautiful, at eventide.

To see the twilight shadows pale
Steal o'er the landscape far and wide.

O'er stream and meadow, mound and dale.
How soft is nature's calm repose

When evening skies the cool dews weep :
The gentlest wind more gently blows,

As if to soothe her in her sleep !
The gay mom breaks,

Mists roll away.
All nature wakes

To glorious day.
In my breast alone

Dark shadows remain ;
The peace it has known

It can never regain.

74 The Gmtlcmaiis Magazine.

A "round" exhibits the same plaintive spirit, and, like the
" Autumn Leaves," lingers in the ear pleasantly.

AUTUMN DAYS.

Hail to the merry autumn days, when yellow cornfields shine
Far brighter than the costly cup that holds the monarch's wine !
Hail to the merry harvest time, the gayest of the year,
The time of rich and bounteous crops, rejoicing and goixl cheer !
'Tis pleasant on a fine spring mom to see the buds expand ;
'Tis pleasant in the summer time to view the teeming land ;
'Tis pleasant on a winter's night to crouch around the blaze ;
But what are joys like these, my boys, to autumn's merry days ?
Then hail to merry autumn days when yellow cornfields shine,
Far brighter than the costly cup that holds the monarch's wine.

I pass over some lines which are of inferior qualit)', until we come to
a sort of dancing chorus, which is full of spirit.

JOIN THE DANCE.

Join the dance, with step as light
As every heart should be to-night ;
Music, shake thy lofty dome
In honour of our harvest home.

Join the dance and banish care.
All are young, and gay, and fair :
Even age has youthful grown
In honour of our harvest home.

Join the dance — bright faces beam,
Sweet lips smile — and dark eyes gleam.
All their charms have hither come.
In honour of our harvest home.

Join the dance, with step as light
As every heart should be to-night ;
Music, shake the lofty dome.
In honour of our har\'est home.

Tlie question has often been asked why the late Mr. Dickens did not
i^-rite for the stage. Many satisfactory reasons could be offered ; those
that pressed most with him being the risk of failure, which would
have affected his position, and waste of power. Again, it would not have
" paid " him to have written plays. The time and thought necessar>' for
a drama must have been abstracted from a novel, which would have
produced three times the return. We recollect his lamenting that in
one of his little Christmas numbers, viz., " Mrs. Lirriper^" he had
wasted much that would have been valuable for a novel. That he
would have succeeded on the stage there can be no doubt, for he
possessed the two qualifications of a dramatist, the power of pre-
senting character and of construction. The novelist's mode of work

Charles Dickens as Dramatist and Poet.

/o

is of couFsc quite different ; but the basis is the same in both, and
Mr. Dickens was as familiar with the arts of the stage as a trained
actor. He delighted in it, and, when reading on his tours, often found
his way to the Httle local theatre, where he was surprisingly interested.
All his stories lend themselves to the stage, but have unfortunately
been dramatised and acted in a very coarse and broad style ; the
framework of the novels being put together clumsily, with unplaned
boards, as it were, and huge nails. . But all have interested and have
been successful, notably " David Copperfield '* with Mr. Rowe*s grotesque
Micawber ; " Pickwick," with Mr. Irving's Jingle ; the Christmas
stories with Toole and the Keeleys ; " Bleak House," with Miss Jenny
Lee, &c. Had the author come to the stage in his early days of
vivacity and enjoyment of London life, he must have succeeded ;
though this result could not have been looked for when he had taken
up the elaborate and rather strained tone of "Edwin Drood"and " Little
Dorrit," which were far too " stippled " for " the boards." In some
new edition of Baker's list of Dramatic Authors, Dickens, however,
must find his place, and figure respectably as the author of a comic
opera and a farce, and as part author of a melodrama and farce. These
pieces are ** The Village Coquettes," ** The Strange Gentleman," " No
Thoroughfare," and " Mr. Nightingale's Diar}\" The first two were
written in 1835, when he was but twenty-one years old, and the opera is
in parts quite boyish ; the third was the work of Mr. !Mark Lemon,
but, as Mr. Forster says, was so added to and enriched by Dickens as
to become a joint production. " No Thoroughfare " was written in
collaboration with Mr. Wilkie Collins. One whole scene is entirely
Mr. Dickens's, but as he was in America when the piece was being
finished and produced, it is probable that a good share of the work is
Mr. Collins's. It was written with a view to Mr. Fechter's romantic
style, and is a piece that would require the most finished acting. When
it was lately revived at the Olympic it had an old-fashioned air, and
was ineffective. It is highly popular in France under the title of
" L'Ablme," and is often played.

" The Strange Gentleman " was founded on one of his short
stories, entitled " The Great Winglebury Duel." The equivoque turns
on the confusion between a gentleman who wishes to fly from a duel,
and a lady who is anxious to elope. The scene is at an inn, and the
story is perfectly farcical and bustling. Not long ago it was actually
announced at one of the theatres. It was produced on the opening
of the St. James's Theatre, Sept. 29, 1836, and ran for some months-
The compiler of " The Stor>' of his Life," tells us that the author once
took a part in it himself. On December 6, *' The Village Coquettes *

76 The Gcntlemans Magazifie.

was produced, set off by the singing of Braham and Miss Rainforth ;
some of the songs of the former became favourites. The gifted author
was always not a little sensitive on the score of this early production,
but I confess it seems to me an agreeable, though unpretending little
production, with a pleasing sentiment running through it. The story,
in these times of highly- flavoured " Pink Dominos " and " La Mar-
jolaine," might not be acceptable, and the spectacle of a virtuous
young squire generously respecting his tenant's daughter, and, after
being vigorously reproved by the father of the young lady, allowing
him to retain his farm, might seem insipid. It will be seen that one
topic, though hackneyed enough, is treated here with humour, and
must have been highly effective under Harley's treatment. Martin
Stokes, a sort of Paul Pry, wishes to put the old father on his guard.

Ben. Well, Stokes, now you have the opportunity you have desired, and we
are alone, I am ready to listen to the- information which you wished to com-
municate.

Mart. Exactly. You said information, I think ?

Ben. You said information, or I have forgotten.

Mart Just so, exactly ; I said information. I did say information — why
should I deny it ?

Ben. I see no necessity for your doing so, certainly. Pray go on.

Mart. Why, you see, my dear Mr. Benson, the fact is — won't you be seated ?
Pray sit down {brings chairs). There now ; let me see — where was I ?

Beti. You were going to begin, 1 think.

Mart. Oh,— ah !— so I was ;— I hadn't begun, had I ?

Ben. No, no ! Pray begin again, if you had.

Mart. Well, then, what I have got to say is not so much information, as a
kind of advice or suggestion, a hint or something of that kind ; and it relates to —
eh? (mysteriously),

Ben. What?

Mart, {nodding). Yes. Don't you think there's something wrong there ?

Brn. Where?

Mart. In that quarter.

Ben. In what quarter ? Speak more plainly, sir.

Mati. You know what a friendly feeling I entertain to your family. You
know what a very particular friend of mine you are. You know how anxious I
always am to prevent anything going wrong.

Bnt. {abruptly). Well?

Mart. Yes, I see you're very sensible of it, but I'll take it for granted ; you
need not bounce and fizz about in that way, because it makes me nervous. Don't
you think, now, donU you think that ill-natured people may say — don't be angry, you
know, because if I wasn't a very particular friend of the family I wouldn't mention
the subject — don^t you think that ill-natured people may say, there's something
wrong in the frequency of the Squire's visits here ?

Bat, {starting up^furiifusly). What ?

Mart. There he goes again !

Ben, Who dares suspect my child ?

Charles Dickens as Dramatist and Poet. 77

Mari. Ah, to be sure, that's exactly what I say. Who dares ? Damme, I
should like to see 'em !
fien. Is it you ?
Mart. I ? IJless you, no, not for the world I I ? Come, that's a good one.

In his preface, he modestly apologises for deficiencies, pleading that
a libretto " must be to a certain extent a mere vehicle for the music " —
a reasonable excuse enough. Allusion has been made to the extent to
which his stories have " increased the public stock of harmless plea-
sure" on the stage. Not merely have the whole of them been dramatised,
but most have been dramatised two or three times over, and several half-
a-dozen times. Even the little Christmas " Household Words " num-
bers have found their way to the stage, and " Boots at the Holly-tree
Inn " furnished matter for three or four pieces. There can be no
doubt that, had they been adapted on scientific principles — not on those
of the tailor — such as the French employ, the genius of Dickens
would have been as conspicuous on the stage as it is in his books.

Such is a view of the great novelist in what may be considered
the by- walks of his profession; and on the principle that some careless
littie terra-cottas of a sculptor like Carpeaux, deiasscmefitsdSitx his officii! 1
labours, are found interesting and even precious, so may this collection
of trifles, the work of one so dear to the generation, be found accei)t-
able. On such specimens it would be manifestly unfair to found any
speculations as to whether he would have failed or succeeded as poet
or dramatist. They must be taken for no more than what they i)re-
tend to.

PERCY FITZGERALD.

78 The Gentlemans Magazine.

TERMS OF PEACE.

IT is curious to see, after two years of warfare in South-Eastem
Europe, how large a body of Englishmen still seem quite imable
to understand the real meaning and bearings of the struggle. The
war has had three clearly marked stages. First, the people of certain
of the lands under Turkish dominion rose to throw off the foreign
yoke which kept them down as bondmen on their own soil. Bosnia
and Herzegovina rose, and those lands have never since been fully
brought back under the old tyranny. Bulgaria strove to rise ; how
Bulgaria was brought back again for a while imder the old tyranny all
the world knows. Secondly, the neighbouring free states of kindred
blood came to the help of their brethren. Servia, brave and slandered
Servia, supported by Russian volunteers, had to submit to peace after
a gallant struggle against overwhelming odds. The unconquered
defenders of the Black Mountains gathered the neighbouring tribes
around the common standard of freedom. The Turk has indeed
carried havoc into some Montenegrin districts ; but he has not
been able to annex an inch of Montenegrin soil. Meanwhile the.
Montenegrins themselves have gone on from victory to victory ; the
area of freedom is extended by every fight, and the loss of fortress
after fortress by his discomfited troops may indeed

Teach the pale despot's waning moon to fear
'J'hc ])alriot terrors of the mountain spear.

Lastl} . when the representatives of Europe first came together to find
means to check Turkish oppression and then went away and left the
Turk with full power to oppress, one European nation scorned to
join in the general backsliding, and stood forth alone to do the work
which Europe should have done in common. The people of Russia,
kindled by the noblest emotion that ever stirred the heart of any people,
have compelled their sovereign to lead them to the war, and they
have drawn the sword in the most righteous cause in which the sword
ever was drawn. Other nations have fought for their own freedom ;
Russia fights for the freedom of her brethren. Strong in the might
of righteousness, enduring under reverses and merciful in the hour of

Terms of Peace, 79

victory, ihe warriors of this great crusade have indeed waxed valiant in
fight and turned to flight the armies of the aliens. As they advance,
the rod of the oppressor is broken, and liberated nations again feel
themselves to be men. The small uprising in a remote comer which
the blinded Foreign Minister of England deemed could be " sup-
pressed " at his bidding has grown, as those whose eyes were oi>en
knew from the first that it would grow, into one of the great crises of
the world's history. We have had our moments of doubt and fear ; but
at last the goal seems to be reached. Now at last we need hardly doubt
that, as regards a large part of the nations under the yoke, the wrongs
of 500 years are to be undone. The deliverance of the Slaves is
promised, promised by a prince whose word, we feel sure, is truth, by
the liberator of his own people. The memories of the day of
Kossovo and of the day of Nikopolis will be exchanged for memories
of the brighter days which will soon have restored Bulgaria and the
whole Servian land to Europe and to Christendom. If thus much
at least is not done, the blood of patriots and of deliverers will
indeed have been shed in vain. But that that much at least will be
done we may trust to the righteous zeal of the Russian people, to
the good faith of the prince on whom his people have laid the duty
of doing single-handed the work from which confederated Europe
shrank.

Now, to anyone who should hear all this for the first time, who
should be able to judge of what is happening by the light of reason
and experience, but who knew nothing of the cries and prejudices of
the moment, it would indeed seem strange that there should be any
man in Christian Europe who could look on such a prospect as this
with any other than feelings of rejoicing. Four hundred years back
men at least professed generous feelings. When Mahomed the Second
laid siege to Constantinople, Western Europe failed to come to
the rescue of the East ; but Western Europe at least professed to
mourn for the overthrow of the East. Now, strange to say, it is
otherwise. To a large party in England the cause of the oppressor
has some mysterious and unintelligible charm. That in a large part
of Europe the people of the land should be bondmen on their oun
soil — that they should hold their lives, their property, the honour of
their families, at the mercy of foreign invaders — seems to not a few
to be a state of things which is to be defended and kept up, some-
times, it would seem, positively for its outi sake, sometimes because
" British interests " are held to be in some mysterious way concerned
in refusing the rights of human beings to the people of Bulgaria and
Thessaly; If the area of bondage is narrowed, if the area of freedom

8o The Gcntlemans Magazine.

is increased, these men speak as if something was taken from them-
selves, as if they had a vested interest in oppression, and could not
endure that the oppressor should lose a single victim. We live in
strange times when England first, along with the other powers of
Europe, brands the evil deeds of the Turk in language stronger
than the traditions of diplomacy commonly allow, and then sends an
Ambassador expressly to announce the " sympathy " of England with
the tyrant whose evil deeds England and Europe had just branded.
" Sympathy " with the Turk, " admiration " for the Turk, liave become
stock phrases with a large party of Englishmen. They are repeated
as a formula by many who perhaj)s really do not know the meaning
of the words which they utter. Dull county members at agricultural
dinners tell hardly duller farmers that they would not be Englishmen
if they did not admire and sjinpathise with the brave and gallant Turk
fighting for his countr}'. It may even be that some specially zealous
defender of the Church as by law established, some one who loathes a
Dissenter and votes against the Burial Bill, adds, as a further merit,
that the Turk is " fighting for his religion." It is only the judgment
of charity to believe that such men know not what they say. What
they really say is that we should not be Englishmen if we failed to
give our sympathy and admiration to men who are fighting, not for
their own country, but to keep their hold on the country of other
men — who are fighting not for their own religion, but for the power
of oppressing men of other religions; who fight, stoutly no doubt —
for who would not fight stoutly in such a cause ? — for the divine right
to murder, rob, and ravish whenever the fancy takes them ; for the
pleasant licence of carr}'ing dishonour into Christian homes and
spreading havoc, slaughter, and plunder throughout Christian lands.
We should not, we are told, be Englishmen if we did not look with
sympathy and admiration on men who habitually hand over their
prisoners to the torturer, who leave their own sick and wounded to
perish, who calmly reckon that the man with a shivered limb can be
of no more service, and who forbid the surgeon to waste his skill on
saving an useless life. For men like these our sympathy and admi-
ration are challenged, while every slanderous epithet is hurled at
the Montenegrin, at the free Bosnian, at the liberating Russian.
The heroic race who have kept their mountain height unconquered
from generation to generation are reviled as rebels and marauders;
the men who have risen to free their land from bondage, their
daughters and their sons from outrage, are called in official language
brigands. And what name can be bad enough for soldiers who, while
their own captive comrades are handed over to slaughter, to torture —

Terms of Peace. 8i

to the torture sometimes at least of the sharp stake' — ^yet, when the
men who have done these deeds fall into their hands, tend them like
the sick and wounded of their own army ? For them, in the new
creed of Englishmen, there can be no sympathy — no sympathy for
the patriot, no sympathy for the deliverer; the sympathies of English-
men, we are taught, must be kept wholly for the men who are
fighting for the right divine to indulge every foul and cruel passion at
the cost of our fellow- Europeans and fellow-Christians.

With those who speak in this way, really knowing the meaning of
their own words, it is of course in vain to argue. But we may well
believe that a crowd of people so speak who have simply never taken
in the facts of the case, who are misled, partly by inveterate prejudices,
pardy by the mere abuse of words. We may be sure that many
people talk about sympathy and admiration for the Turks who have
not the faintest notion what it is that they admire and sympathise with.
When one reads the list of gifts to the Stafford House fund, and
sees such entries as " A Sympathiser with the Poor Turks," we miay
be sure that the twaddle, however silly, is genuine. Some well-
meaning old woman has been taught to believe that the oppressor is
really the oppressed. The chatterers at agricultural dinners who talk
about the big boy and the little boy are very likely in the same frame
of mind. Nobody has explained to them that the case really is, to
carry out their own metaphor, not the case of a big boy bullying a
little boy, but the case of a praeposter or prefect giving a boy of
whatever size a lawful tunding for bullying a whole form of little boys
within an inch of their lives. People are led away by mere names.
They read that the Russians have invaded " Turkey," and they think
that the case is the same as if the English had invaded France or the
French invaded England. TTiey fancy that the Russians are the
enemies of " Turkey," and that the Turks are its defenders. They talk
about the Turks defending " their country," as if the land marked
'* Turkey " on the map was the country of the Turks. The distinction
has been pointed out a hundred times ; but as long as the confusion
goes on, the distinction must be pointed out again. The Russians are
the friends of " Turkey ;" the Turks are its enemies. Nothing so offends
the Turk-lover as to be told that the Turks are an alien horde en-
camped in Europe. Nothing offends him so much, because nothing
is so strictiy and literally true. Because the statement is the driest
and soberest expression of a historical fact, the Turk-lover calls it a

' I copy from a private letter of the very highest authority from the seat of
war. •* He [a Russian prince] met one poor fellow who had been partly impaled,
and then rescued." Medical details and other cases of torture follow.
VOL. CCXUI. NO. 1765. G

82 The Gentleman s Magazme.

met2y>hon The Ottoman Turks have no country. They are nqt a
nation ; they are simply a gang encamped in the countiy of other
people. They fight, not for their country, for they have none, but to
keep Greeks, Slaves, Albanians, Roumans, Armenians' — all the nations
\yhpse lands make up the aggregate called " Turkey " on the map —
from the possession and enjoyment of their several countries. The Rus-
sian fights to give back to those nations the possession and enjoyment
of their several countries. To that, and not to an enlargement of
his own dominions, the Russian Emperor is pledged. But suppose
that the war was simply waged for an enlargement of Russian
dominion. We could not in such a case give it the same approval
which we now can ; but even in sucli a case we ought to remember
tha^, though Russian dominion is a bad thing as compared with
national freedom, it is a good thing as compared with Turkish
bondage. The imiversal wish of all the nations under the yoke is
this — " Give us neither Czar nor Sultan ; but, if we must once for
all make an irrevocable choice between Czar and Sultan, give us the
Czar and not the Sultan. Let us have freedom first of all ; but if we
cannot have freedom, let us at least have the despotism which will
protect life and property and family honour,, rather than the des-
potism which hands over all three to the caprices of every member of
the foreign horde which is encamped among us."

Now it is specially important that the whole class of confiisions
which have been just now spoken of should be altogether cast aside
whenever the time comes to discuss, what will have to be discussed
sooner or later, the terms on which the war is to end. For, even
f the war ends, as it is devoutly to be hoped that it may end, in
the speedy and utter overthrow of the Turkish power, still it must
be ended on terms in this sense, that some settlement will have to be
made for the lands which are thus set free from the yoke. It is
plain that nothing short of the utter overthrow of the Turkish power
will meet the needs of the case. As long as that root of evil exists,
the Eastern Question will spring up again in some shape or other.
Diplomatists, after the manner of diplomatists, have been striving to
put off what they call " opening the Eastern Question." That is to
say, they have been striving to win for the Turk a littie longer time to
lie, and rob, and murder, and ravish, in order to save themselves the
trouble of settling what is to be done when the Turk is got rid of. The

• What if we should add * 'Turks'* to this list ? The settled Turks of some parts
of A»ia could bring a rather long talc of wrong against the dominant Ottoman
caste. Arabs, Chaldees, and other A&iatic nations, Christian and Mussulman,
might be further added.

Terms of Peace, 83

question has been opened in spite of them ; the noble enthusiasm of
a great nation has been too strong for all their cutand-dried nos-
tnmis and formulae. What the diplomatic mind fears above all
things are what it calls *' difficulties and complications." Now as long as
the Turk is allowed to hold any Christian people under his rule in
Europe or in Asia, the Eastern Question will always be going on ;
there will always be " difficulties and complaints." That is to say,
as long as the oppressor, is allowed to keep his power of oppression,
so long will his victims revolt against him whenever they have a
chance, so long will their free brethren continue to help them in. their
revolt. The Eastera Question, with its difficulties and complications;
arises wholly out of the existence of the Turkish power. Take away
that power, and there may be Eastern Questions still, as there may
be Northern, Southern, or Western Questions; but the source of those
particular difficulties and complications which have troubled diploma-
tists for so long will be got rid of for ever.

The work then will be imperfect if the Ottoman Empire is allowed
to exist any longer. That is the plain state of the case. Two years
ago — ^a year ago — before the Russian sword was drawn, we might have
been glad to accept a system of tributary states, with a pensioned
Sultan at Constantinople. Such a scheme would have been a fair
diplomatic compromise. It is as much as could be fairly looked for
from mere talk without blows. But the days of compromise and diplo-
macy are passed Now that the sword has been drawn, now that
crusading blood has been shed, something must be had which may be
worth the price that has been paid for it. And nothing short of the
utter rooting out of the thing of evil against which we strive can be
worth such a price. The Sublime Porte must pass away, as so many
other evil things have passed away. The name of the Ottoman
Empire must pass away from Europe and from Christian Asia. Let a
Sultan of Iconium reign over those Asiatic lands where, so far as
there is any people of the land, the people of the land are Turks. Such
a Sultan might be endured ; but the dominion of such a Sultan would
not be the Ottoman Empire of diplomatists. That hateful fabric of evil
must be swept away. Nothing short of its utter sweeping away can
be accepted as a real and lasting settlement. Nothing but sheer
inability to do more could justify Russia, now she has drawn the
sword, in accepting less.

Rightly to understand the true conditions of tlie case, they must
be approached in a very different frame of mind from that which is
shown by some of our recent talkers. We have heard not a few of
tbem say tlut they hope that, now that each side has doiie enough to

84 The Gentleman's Magazhu,

vindicate its honour, both sides may be the more disposed to peace.
Some men are so blind to the real bearings of the case, that it is quite
possible that this nonsense may have been uttered in good faith. By
each side vindicating its honour is meant, in plain words, that each
side has killed a good many of the other. By this process of killing it
is supposed that the fighting power of each side has been proved, and
that therefore they may shake hands and be friends. This kind of
talk is of a piece with the other kind of talk about admiration and
sympathy for mere courage, never mind in what kind of cause the
courage is displayed. Some people have gone so far as to sup-
pose that those who condemn — as every man who knows right
and wrong must condemn — those Englishmen who have sold them-
selves to fight for the Turk, must still wish that, as they are English-
men, they may fight well and distinguish themselves. That is to
say, we are expected to wish that men whom we deem to be guilty
of the blackest of crimes may be successful in their career of crime.
The morality of such a way of looking at things is much as if a party
of Englishmen should join a band of Sicilian brigands, and if we
should be expected to wish that they may show themselves good
shots and skilful thieves. All this, like the talk about honour, comes
from failure to imderstand that the whole question is a moral one. It
comes from that false notion of honour which sets up a law of honour
distinct from the law of right. Whatever is right is honourable ; what-
ever is wrong is dishonourable. Mere courage is in itself morally
colourless, like any other intellectual or physical gift. It is good, if
put to a good use ; it is bad, if it is put to a bad use. To fight, well or
ill, on the side of the Turk is dishonourable, because the cause of the
Turk is the cause of wrong.' It is better for mankind that Hobart
and Baker should show themselves fools and cowards than that they
should show themselves men of skill and courage. But if they do
show skill and courage, no real honour can be won by such a display,
because the skill and courage are shown in a bad cause.

As for each side vindicating its honour, the Turk has no honour
to vindicate ; the honour of the Russian depends on something very
different from killing this or that number of Turks. Here is a great
work to be done ; if it could have been done without killing anybody,

* Nothing is here ruletl as lo the case of the individual Turk. There is nothing
to hinder this or that soldier in the Turkish army from acting from the highest
motives, according to his light. The Turkish power, as a power, is purely evil ;
but this or that Turk may easily be good. So might this or that Spaniarrl in the
army of Alva or Famese. But this docs not apply to the European who sells
himself to do the Turk's work of evil. He sins with his eyes open.

Terms of Peace. 85

Turk or Russian, so much the better. The killing is not, as those
who talk about "military honour" seem to think, an end in itself; it
is simply a means to an end, a means to be avoided if any other
means would serve instead. Thanks, before all men, to Lord Derby,
no other means would serve, and the killing has to be done. But the
honour is not in the killing ; the honour is in doing the work to
which the killing is a means. Or, rather, the honour is in doing all
that can be done to accomplish the work. In a good cause there is
dishonour in failure, as in a bad cause there is no honour in success.
If Russia had attempted the work, if she had done her best, and had
found that the work was beyond her power, she would have been
defeated but not dishonoured. And now the honour of Russia is
concerned in one thing only, to carry out — at least to use every means
in her power to carry out — the work which she has imdertaken, the
liberation of the Christian nations which are under Turkish bondage.
That liberation can mean nothing short of the complete overthrow
of the Ottoman power as a power. Here, again, we must avoid the
misconceptions which arise from applying to Turkish affairs phrases
which have a meaning when applied to ordinary European affairs,
but which only mislead when they are applied to a wholly different
state of things. The Turkish power is something wholly unlike
anything to which we are used in Western Europe. All our usual
words "nation," "government," "right," "conntry," "international,"
and the like, cease to have a meaning when they are applied to the
dominion of the Turk. It has been often set forth, but it must be
set forth again, that the Ottoman Turks are not a nation; that they are
simply a ruling caste, a gang of robbers, who hinder other nations from
enjoying the natural rights of nations. The Ottoman " Government "
is not a Government ; it is simply a system of organised brigandage.
Its rule is not government ; it is not even misgovemment Govern-
ment implies the protection of the governed ; it implies that the
governor secures to them at least the ordinary human rights of life,
property, and family honour. Misgovemment implies that those
duties of governors are badly or imperfectly discharged. Government
is a good thing ; misgovemment is the corruption of a good thing,
which may conceivably be set right again. But Turkish rule has
nothing in common with government or even misgovemment. It
means the hindrance of the existence of any government, the
hindrance of the existence of any protecting power, in the lands over
which it is spread. It means that, over whatever land the Turkish
power extends, those things which government is instituted to secure
shall be systematically denied to the people of that land. Turkish

86 The Gentlematis Magazine.

rule exists in Bulgaria, in Thessaly, in Crete, in this or that other land.
This means that the people of Bulgaria, Thessaly, and Crete are
shut out from the possibility of establishing any government which
shall protect them in the commonest human rights. Turkish
"government" is not government, but the absence of government ;
it is organised brigandage, and nothing else.

Now it may be answered that in all this there is nothing specially
characteristic of Turkish rule, nothing but what might be said of
many .Western Governments, past and present. It may be said that
tnefe are other parts of the world, even other parts of Europe, besides
Turkey, where men are under Governments which they wish to get
rid of, and where a foreign power stifles all national life in the same
way in which the Turkish power does. It is said, for instance, that
if the Turk holds Bulgaria, the Austrian once held Lombardy, and
that at the outside all that is needed is to set free this or that parti-
cular province, as Lombardy and Venetia were set free from Austria.
It need not follow that the whole Ottoman power should be de-
stroyed, any more than the whole Austrian power was destroyed. So
it might be argued with regard to Russia and Poland, Germany and
North Sleswick, any other country where the people are under a
foreign rule which they would gladly get rid of. But there is a JTaliacy
in ihis argument ; the cases are not really parallel. There is, in
truth, a twofold fallacy. The worst government in Western Europe
is still different in kind from the rule of the Turk. Most certainly
the Lombard under Austria was not, the Pole under Russia, the Dane
under Germany, is not, in- anything like the same case as the rayah
of the Turk. His national feelings are undoubtedly offended ; but
he is not exposed day by day to the violation of all his domestic
feelings and all his domestic rights. He is under a rule which will
not allow any political movements against its own power, but which
still dees fair justice in common matters between man and man.
This last is exactly what the Turkish power does not do. The
Christian under Turkish rule can get no redress — except sonietimes
by bribery— ^fof any wrong done by a Mussulman. The other cases
are at worst misgovemment which may be reformed ; they are not,
like the rule of the Turk, mere brigandage, which cannot be re-
formed, but which must simply be done away with. In many parts
of Western Europe, lands which were in times past brought under
their "present Governments against their will have long ago become
reconciled to their lot, and have no wish to change back again to the
Governments under which they formerly were. But lands which
have been under the Turk for five hundred years are as eager to get

Terms of Peace. 87

rid of the Turk now as they were five hundred years back. The
mi^ovemment c^ European conquerors has gradually changed
into good government, while the brigandage of Turkish conquerors
has simply got worse and worse. While in the rest of Europe
things are belter now than they were five hundred, or one hundred,
or fifty years back, in Turkey things are worse now than they were
fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred years back. In truth, they cannot
get better, and they must get worse. For the Mahometan religion
dooms men of all other religions to be the bondmen of the Mahome-
tan^ It dooms them^ not directly to personal oppression, but to
political and social degradation. And it dooms them indirectly to
personal oppression by forbidding their witness to be taken against a
Mahometan. That is, in practice the Mahometan may do what he
pleases to the Christian without fear of punishment. This state of
things cannot be made better as long as any Christian — or any man
of any other religion — is under Mahometan rule. And it is only in
the common course of human things that a system like this, which
cannot be made better, should gradually get worse and worse.

But there is again another difference between the Turkish power
and any of the other powers which have been spoken of. If we take
away from Russia or Germany or any other power those parts of its
dominions in which it is thought to be ruling t\Tongfully over men of
other nations, there will still be a great deal left. Take away all that
anyone could propose to take away, and Russia and Germany would
still remain great nations. That is because they are nations ; because,
if there are lands in which some of us may deem that they have
no business, each of those nations has a much greater extent of land
in which no one can deny that it is thoroughly at home. But take
away from the Ottoman Turk all that he holds wrongfully, and he will
have nothing left. He has no home, no country ; he is like the cuckoo ;
he has no nest of his own ; he lives in the nests of other birds; he feeds
at their expense, and often kills them or throws them out of the nest.
That is to say once more, the Ottoman Turks are not a Tiation, but
simply a band of robbers. As such they came into Europe five hun-
dred years back ; as such they have remained ever since. There is no
part of Europe where they really form the people of the land ; they
are, not in this or that comer but everywhere, mere foreign intruders,
remaining quite distinct from the people of the land, and holding the
people of the land in bondage. In Bulgaria, in Thessaly, in Crete,
everywhere else, it is the same. The people of the land are Greek,
Skve, or whatever they may be ; the Turk is simply a foreign
tia^master who has settled down among them. Nowhere is the

88 The Gentlematis Magazine.

Sultan looked on as a national sovereign \ he is not the head of the
people of the land, but merely of the horde of foreign oppressors.
In this position Mr. Layard has great sympathy for him ; but those
whom he calls his subjects call him the Bloodsucker. Wherever the
Turk is, the bloodsucking process goes on ; and wherever the blood-
sucking process goes on, those whose blood is sucked by the Turk
long, beyond all other things, to get rid of the great Bloodsucker and
of all the lesser bloodsuckers with him.

It follows then that the kind of peace with which the present war
ought to end is quite different from the kind of peace which ends
any other war. In another war the defeated side may have been
most justly defeated ; it may be perfectly right to separate some lands
from the dominion of the defeated power, to exact an indemnity in
money, to impose some pledges or guaranties for the future. It
may be perfectly right to do this, and yet it might be utterly wrong
to destroy or seriously to weaken the defeated power. That is to say,
the defeated power, though it may deserve humiliation, chastisement,
even dismemberment, may still be a nation, with a right to its national
life and freedom within those lands which are really its national
possessions. In such a case we may fairly talk of the rights, the
honour, the dignity, of the vanquished nation ; we may appeal to the
mercy and generosity of the conqueror not to press the rights of
conquest too far. But this kind of talk will not apply to the settle-
ment which must follow the present war. The misleading formulae
of diplomacy must be cast aside, and the plain facts of the case must
be looked in the face. The Sublime Porte, the Ottoman Empire, the
rights of the Sultan, and all phrases of that kind, must be cast aside.
We must hear no more chatter about the rights, the honour, the
" susceptibility " of the men who ordered the Bulgarian massacres,
and who have sent their Circassians and Bashi-bazouks to do the
like work in Thessaly and Epeiros. The Turk has no rights and no
honour, and his susceptibility does not matter. He is an intruder and
a robber, and he must be dealt with as what he is. In any other case,
the government of the land, whatever may be its form, must be taken as
representing the people of the land. In this case the first thing to be
borne in mind is that the so-called " Government " of the Turk does
not represent the land and its people, and must not be listened to as
if it did. The wishes, the feeUngs, the interests, of the Sublime
Porte — that is, of the corrupt Ring at Constantinople— must simply
go for nothing. What is to be consulted is the wishes, the feelings,
the interests, in a word, the rights, of those nations which the Turk
has so long kept out of their rights. Diplomatists may put the thing

Terms of Peace. 89

into any shape that they please. Let them by all means have the
pleasure of drawing up any documents that they like. 'J'he Last Will
and Testament of the Grand Turk, the Last Dying Speech and Con-
fession of the Sublime Porte, might not be bad headings. But the
formulae and the headings may be left to the clerks of this and that
Foreign Office. So that the Turk is got rid of, the style and title of
the process by which he is got rid of is of very little importance.

Of all cases in the world, this is a case for mercy and generosity;
but it is a case for mercy and generosity, not towards the Turk, but
towards his victims. Towards the Turk, as a power, mercy and gene-
rosity are out of place ; mercy and generosity towards the Turk mean
wrong and cruelty towards his victims. Some might call it generosity
to leave to the Turk this or that province. What that would really
mean would be to keep this or that province out of the hands of its
own people. It would mean to prolong their bondage, to deny to
them the mercy and justice which is given to others. It might be
called generosity to allow the Turk to keep this or that income. But
that would mean to wring this or that amount of money out of the groans
of suffering nations, merely to supply means for the brutal pleasures of a
pampered tyrant. Such generosity would be injustice to all those out of
whose means the Turk's income would have to be raised. The rights of
those who have rights must be respected. But the Turk has no rights to
respect ; the rights which are to be respected are the rights of those
whom the Turk has so long kept out of the exercise of their rights.

But it may be asked, what is to become of the Mussulman in-
habitants of the lands which are now under Turkish rule ? It might
be answered that, in undoing a great wrong and in setting free whole
nations, the claims of an intruding minority need not go for much.
But there is no need to make such an answer. The peaceable
Mussulman population, wherever there is any, will gain almost as much
by the overthrow of the corrupt rule of the Porte — that is, of the Ring
— as the Christians themselves. They are almost equally oppressed,
though not exactly in the same way. It is not that there are no
good Turks, but that the good Turks are powerless in the hands of
the bad ones. The Turks, as a body, have reached that lowest
pitch of degradation in which, when they find an honest man among
themselves, they persecute him. Everyone knows how, while the doers
of the Bulgarian massacres were rewarded, those Turkish officers who
behaved with humanity were none of them rewarded, while some of
them were actually punished. The degradation of the Christians
tells against the peaceable Mussulman as well as against the Chris-
tians themselves. A peaceable Mussulman has before now been

90 The Getitleman's Magazine.

wantonly murdered by a man of his own faith, and the murderer has
escaped, because the only witnesses who could prove the crime were
Christians. The peaceable Mussulman needs protection against Otto-
mnrt tyranny aknost as much as the Christian does. And that protection
may be'given by taking away the Ottoman tyranny from him as well as
from die Christian. No one wishes to impose on the peaceable Mus-
sulman the smallest disability simply on account of his religion. All
that is wanted is to hinder Mussulmans who are not peaceable from
doing wrong to men of other religions. But this object can be gained by
no means short of the utter abolition of Mussulman rule over every
land where there are men of other religions. Experience shows that
the Christian under Mussulman nile has not the slightest hope of ever
faring better than the Christian subject of the Turk fares now. Ex-
perience shows that the Mussulman under Christian rule has a good
hope of faring as well as he actually does fare under the rule of Russia,
England, and Greece ; that is, incomparably better than he fares
under the nilc of the Sultan, the Shah, or the Khedive.

Turkish nile then must cease ; but within what bounds? The
answer is simple ; it must cease wherever there are Christians to be
ruled over. Let a Sultan of Iconium rule, if anyone wishes it, over
the wasted inland regions of Anatolia ; though even there, where\'er
there is a really settled Mussulman population, they would gain by
the Overthrow of a rule which, in those lands above all, has shown
itself the very abomination of desolation. Let the Sultan rule at
Iconium ; only he must not rule over Smyrna or Trebizond, still less
must he rule over Rhodes or Cyprus. The Greek coasts and
islands of Asia, the Armenian inland country, must be delivered from
the Turkish scourge no less than the lands on the Danube or beneath
the Balkan. And, above all, the work of Alexander the Liberator
will not be done, if, in the European mainland and the European
islands, the Greek is left in bondage, while the Slave is set free. Here,
and not towards the Turk, is the true field for generosity. The Greek, as
his warmest friends must allow, has not, in these' latter days, wrought
his own deliverance as his fathers did, and as the Slave has wrought his
before our eyes. There is a free Bosnia ; there is no free Thessaly.
While the free Slave is thundering at the gates of Skodra and Anti-
vari, the army of the free Greek lingers at Thebes. Yet the Greeks
have their excuse, an excuse which may well plead for them with gene-
rous hearts, such as we believe the hearts to be alike of the Russian
Emperor and of the Russian people. Servia and Montenegro, inland
countries without a haven or an inch of sea-board, with no city of
any account save the single cnpital of Servia, may come to the rescue

Terms of Peace. ^' 91

of their enslaved brethren, and leave comparatively little of their
own open to barbarian invasion. It is anodier thing with Greece
and her endless coast, her flourishing havens, her capital within can^

•

non-shot of the shore. To the shame of Europe, the Turk has a fleet,
built with European money, fitted out by European skill, and com-
manded, to the special shame of England, by an Englishman who has
sold honour and patriotism for the gold which is wrung by stripes and
torture out of the Christian victims of the master whom he has chosen.
We can hardly expect the camp of Thebes to be moved to Larissa,
while Hobart and his ironclads may at any moment show themselves
before Peiraieus and Syra, before Corfu and Patras, while Athens
itself may be bombarded from the haven of Phaleron. Greece has
been held back from the work by the sheer necessity of self-preser-
vation. Yet that ought to be no groimd for condemning Epeirosand
Thessaly, Macedonia and Crete, the rest of the Greek coasts and
islands through Europe and Asia, to groan under the yoke, while the
yoke is taken away from the necks of Bosnia and Bulgaria. And
what justice dictates policy dictates also. As long as the Turk holds
a rood of Christian ground — ^be that rood Greek, Slave, or any odier
— the Eastern Question will still go on. There will still be massacres ;
there will still be revolts ; there will still be diplomatic chatterihgs ;
there may even be more letters written from the English Foreign
Office exhorting the Turk to " suppress " insurrections in Epeiro^ and
Thessaly — to suppress them doubtless after the fullest Bulgarian pattern
of suppression. To free the Slave and to leave the Gfeek in bondage
would indeed be to sow the dragon's teeth. It woiild be to sow the
seed of difficulties and complications, of future wars, while the work
might be done in a single war. When men go forth to a crusade,
their watchword should be, '* When I begin, I will also make an end.''
Till an end is made of Turkish oppression, Eastern Europe will
never rest The " eternal Eastern Question " will still abide for dull
diplomatists to wonder at and to sneer at. ^ ■■-■'■

And' when the rest of the land is cleansed, the head and ceiltfe/the
roof and crown of all, must not remain in the hahd^ of thit>se who
still defile it To be sure Lord Derby has said that he could not
behold with " indifference " the head and queen of nations, the New
Rotoe herself, transferred to any other hands than the hands which tlbw
possess it The doctrine of British interests seems to be getting shuthp
with in narrower geographical limits. Two years back they demanded
that Bosnia and Herzegovina should be again pressed do\vnuhd6r the
yoke. A year and a half back it was all the same to Sir Henry Elliot
whether Britfsh interests demanded the sacrifice of ten thousand or of

92 The Gentleman s Magazine,

twenty thousand Bulgarians. But now Lord Derby has grown indifferent
to these matters. He would not strike a blow, he might not perhaps
even write a letter of protest, though peace and order and justice
should be restored from the Danube to Mount Othrys. But on one point
he is not indifferent. Freedom and Christian nile may be endured
elsewhere ; but from the New Rome they must be carefully shut out.
Some little space must be saved where the sovereign rights of the
Sultan may remain untouched. That is, among the liberated lands
some oasis of bondacje must be left where deeds of blood and foulness
niay still be wrought undisturbed. If tliere should be any fear of
Constantinople being restored to Europe and to Christendom, then
Lord Derby will bluster, perhaps he will even ask that Englishmen
may fight to stop such a change. Happily for the world, specially
happily for Englishmen, the bark of Lord Derby is worse than his
bite. Even in such a moment as ♦he crowning overthrow of evil,
Lord Derby, though he might not behold the change with in-
difference, would be far more likely to write letters than to sharpen
swords. But to avoid all risks, the people of England must let him
know that they will see the change from right to wrong, from bondage
to freedom, from barbarism to civilisation, from Asia to Europe, from
Islam to Christendom, not with indifference, but with delight. They
must tell him that in no case shall the blood or treasure of England
be spent, in order that the church of Justinian may still remain the
mosque of the False Prophet, in order that the city of Constantine
may still remain the sty of Abd-ul-hamid.

For the heritage of the Eastern Caesars a nation is waiting, the
nation which, driven from its imperial seat, has never given up its
claim to its own. For the throne of Constantine another Constantine
is ready, ready to take up the line of the emperor who fell before the
gate of Saint Romanos. Constantinople must again be Greek. The
city of the two seas must go back to the people of the coasts and
islands and peninsulas. The Slave must have his own massive inland
realm, his own Hadriatic coast ; he may fairly ask for an opening
to the .^gaean at Thessalonik^. But the coasts, the islands, the
peninsulas, arc the true home and heritage of the Greek, alike on the
western and the eastern side of his own sea. Diplomatists, club-
loungers, chatterers of all kinds, will of course sneer at the chimerical
idea of a prince of Athens reigning in the New Rome. How many
years is it since they sneered no less vigorously at the chimerical idea
of prince of Turin and Chambery reigning in the Old Rome ?

And what, it maybe asked, is Russia to have as the reward of her
labours? Increase of European territory no one wishes to give her;

Terms of Peace, 9

o

she is herself ICO wise to wish for it. Increase of territory in Asia is
another matter. Armenia must be delivered from the Turk ; and it may
be that no form of deliverance is possible except annexation to Russia.
If, as the students of the small-scale maps seem to think, Erzeroum were
quite close to Calcutta, annexation to England might be better still.
But geographical science unluckily teaches the lesson that Erzeroum
is very far from Calcutta, and is comparatively near to Tiflis. The
opening of the Bospoios and the Hellespont is a matter of course.
A money indemnity is not to be thought of. The Turk has no money
of his own ; he can get money in no way but either by robbing fresh
victims or by cheating fresh creditors. What Russia will win by her
victory will be the greatest moral position that any nation in Europe
ever won. She will have won the position which, under the guidance
of a Canning and not of a Derby, England might have won. She
will have won the i)osition which, under the guidance of a Derby,
England has been obliged to stand by and see Russia take without
an effort to share her glon-. Under happier guidance England might
have stood forth in her old character as the champion of right and
freedom. As it is, blind envy of Russia has led us — at least, it has led
our momentary rulers — to take the crown from the brow of England
and to place it on the I row of Russia. Every blow that is struck,
ever)' point that is gained, in this great struggle between right and
wrong, should make Englishmen feel more keenly what it is to be
shut out from their share in the toil and the glory. It has come to
this, that we have to be thankful that the people of England have so
far prevailed as to keep the momentary rulers of England from
drawing the sword in the cause of wrong. Thus far at least we have
succeeded ; but we must still be watchful. The enemies of right
and freedom are many, and they are busy. The moment of the final
triumph of right vvill doubtless be chosen for fresh outcries, fresh
outpourings of wrath, fresh babbling about British interests, on the
part of the champions of wrong. We must stand prepared to declare
with one voice that, come what may, we will not shed one drop of
English blood or spend one penny of English treasure in the vain and
wicked attempt to prolong the foul dominion of the Turk, be it in
Constantinople or in any other spot of Christian earth.

EDWARD A. FREEMAN.

94 Tlu Genilemaiis Magazitu.

PETITS PAUVRES.

NOIRS dans la neige et dans la brume,
Au grand soupirail qui s'allumc,
Lcurs dos en rond,

A genoux, cinq petits, misfcre !
Regardent le boulanger faire
Le beau pain blond.

lis sont blottis, pas un ne bouge,
Au souffle du soupirail rouge,
Chaud comme un sein.

Voilk le boulanger qui toumc
La pite grise, et qui renfournc...
— Quand sort le pain,

Quand sous les voiites enfumc'es
Chantent Ics crodtes parfumc'es
Et les grillons,

Que ce trou chaud souffle la vie,—
lis ont leur ime si ravie
Sous leurs haillons,

lis se sentent si bieri revivre,
Les pauvres petits pleins de givre,
Qu'ils sont Ik, tous,

Collant leurs petits niuseaux roses
A la grille, et chantant dcs choscs
Entre les trous,

A genoux, faisant leurs pri^res,
Et se pressant \ ces lumit^res
Du ciel rouvert

Si fort, qu'ils crfevent leur culotte
Et que leur chemise tremblotte
Au vent d'hiver.

A&THUH lUMBAUD.

95

QUEVEDO.

IN one of Quarles's instructive epigrams we are informed that God
buys His wares by weight and not by measure, that He inclines
less to words than to matter, and prefers the balance to the yard in
His estimate of the exact value of prayer. Whether the same or a
contrary, course of proceeding be in iiscin the literary market presided
over by the public^ in whatever regard the compositions of Qiievi^do
may be considered, in whatever scale they may be laid, they axe little
likely ever to be found wanting. For his papers in quantity are
(though many have been lost) at least as numerous as those.. of
Mariner, Lope's friend, who is said to have left behind him three
hundred and sixty quires of paper full of his own lucubrations, unfor-
tunately in a exiting so exceedingly small and so exceedingly bad
Uiat no person but himself could read it, and in quality comprise
subjects most useful and entertaining, expressed in terms from which
not a single line, scarcely a single word, can well be taken away.
In Spain the name of Quevedo is about as well known and as much
talked of as that of Milton in England. His works there are as little
read as the " Areopagitica " or " Paradise Regained " here. His
reputation is in direct, but his countrymen's intelligence of its proper
cause in inverse, proportion to his merit.

Francisco Gomez de Quevedo Villegas was born at Madrid in
1580, and died at Villanueva de los Infantes, in the land which Don
Quixote made illustrious, in 1645. So far, at least, his biography has
not been, as too many biographies are, fashioned at random to suit
the reader's fancy. So far all his biographers agree; but uncertainty,
which haunts all human things, too soon arises respecting the colour
of his hair. Some say red, others, and the majority, black. In this
world it is better to agree with the majority, which thus continues the
outlines of the map of his microcosm. Fair complexion, lofty brow^,
dark eyes debased by spectacles, small moustache and imperial,
middle-sized figure, distorted feet. Such was his mind's lodging ; for
his mind itself there are his books, and, as it is written on Wren's
monument, Circumspicc. There are plenty to investigate. He was a
cd&tempowy of Lope de Vega and Cervantes, of i?^om the iovBDits

96 The Gentlema^is Magazine. .

calls him, in the seventh Silva of his " Laurel of Apollo," prince of
lyric poets and rival of Pindar and Petronius, and the latter, child
of the Sun-God. The accident of being littered in what is known
in the language of footmen as the " sphere of high life " bore for him
the bitter fruit of a Court education. He graduated in the University
of Alcala, where he became, if in this matter the singular unanimity
of his biographers can be trusted, a doctor of theology before the age
of fifteen. Such premature proficiency puts under a bushel that of
Cowley and Pope. Lisping in theology is a little more difficult than
lisping in numbers. For the former one wants something more than
bees swarming about one's mouth in one*s cradle. Nor this alone :
before he had, in the eye of our English law, ceased to be an infant,
he had studied French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Arabic and Hebrew (in
which last tongue he afterwards assisted Juan de Mariana in his edition
of the Bible), civil and canon law, mathematics, astronomy, medicine
and natural philosophy. The man seems to have suffered from a lite-
rary dropsy ; no wonder he paid for his assiduity with distorted feet
and half-blinded eyes ! A duel, of which the only certain information
is that it was fought about a woman of whom he knew nothing, and
arose in a church, the hothouse of Spanish amatory intrigue, banished
him from Madrid, and he became a Minister of Finance under the
Duke of Osuna, afterwards Viceroy of Naples. With this master,
after a stormy political life, he suffered shipwreck. He was twice
imprisoned— like Cervantes, he is the glory and the shame of Spain
— and in both cases apparently with gross injustice. During these
long-continued seclusions from worshipful society, he chewed to
considerable purpose the hard cud of oppression and poverty, of
insolence and neglect. At the conclusion of his first imprisonment
he retired to his paternal estate of La Torre de Juan Abad in the
Sierra Morena, ami there proposed, after so many years of his life
spent for others, to live the remainder for himself. " There," as he
says, " surrounded with fit books though few, I converse with the
departed, and listen with my eyes to the dead who speak to me with
a low counterpoint in life's dream. There I watch the dragging of
the harrows, and live like an ant amidst a heap of corn." There, like
a daughter of Zion, he sat down and sang by the waters of his native
stream. Well for him had he continued thus to amuse himself. But
his evil destiny reconducted him to the capital, and he was again sen-
tenced to confinement, and only released when long restraint had
ruined his health and brought him so near to the end of his days that
no indulgence could add many, no inhumanity take many away. He
had, as Tacitus tells us about the Germans, futierutn nulla ambitio.

Quevedo. 9 7

In a word, he objected to the waste of money in furnishing a
ridiculous religious farce for an idle rabble. Quoth he, la fnusica
paguela^ quien la oyere—XtX him who hears the music pay for it.
Some of the historians of his life make him lose his senses just before
his death. They declare that he begged the Holy Tribunal of the
Inquisition to correct with its prudent pen any clause which clashed
with the ideas of propriety entertained by tliat excellent institution.

It has been said that an acquaintance with Quevedo's works is
rare in Spain ; in England, even in this highly educated age, few of
us are acquainted with his name. Shortly after the Restoration, the
good knight. Sir Roger L'Estrange, made English a minute por-
tion of him, which he was pleased to christen " The Visions of Dom
Quevedo, Knight of the Order of St. James," and which was so
popular as in a very short time to reach an eleventh edition. So Sir
Roger stands out in the dark background of Time, lightened by the
halo of the glory of the intellect of Quevedo, as Urquhart by that of
Rabelais, and as Cotton by that of Montaigne. But Sir Roger's version
is not nearly so faithful as those sufficiently unfaithful of Cotton and
Urquhart It is, indeed, obviously a translation, not from the
original Spanish, but from the French of Le Sieur Raclots, taken in
its turn from that of Le Sieur de la Geneste, as may be seen from the
very first lines of the First Vision of the Alguacil Alguacilado, or
" Catchpole Possessed " : — " Going Mother day to hear mass at a con-
vent in this town, the door, it seems, was shut, and a world of people
begging and pressing to get in. Upon inquiry what the matter was,
they told me of a demoniac to be exorcised or dispossest, &c." The
corresponding French rendering has : " Ces jours passez m'en allant
ouir la messe en un couvent de cette ville, j'y trouvai la porte ferm^e
et une affluence de peuple qui tachoii par prieres d'y pouvoir entrer ;
je m'informay," and so on. Now, in the Spanish we have, first of all, a
dedication to the Conde de Lemos, President of the Indies, in which
Quevedo, after saying he well knows that, in the eyes of the
Count, the author is more bedevilled than his subject, divides the
Alguaciles, or Spanish police, into six classes : those of fire, of air,
of earth, of water, those under the earth, and those that fly from the
light. Next, in an address to the " pious reader,'' he asks him to
read his discourse if he likes, and if not, to leave it alone, as there is
no penalty for not reading it; and lastly, the subject is opened thus :
" I happened to enter St Peter's in search of the licentiate Calabres,
a man of a bonnet of three orders made after the mode of a half-
peck measure, eyes suited to louse-hunting, quick and restless ;
wristbands of Corinth, a soup^on of shirt about his neck, his sleeves

VOL. CCXUI. NO. 1765. H

98 The Genilemaiis Magazine.

as they had been in skirmish, and all the braid in tatters ; his amis
set akimbo like the handles of a pot, his hands hooked ; with a voice
between that of a penitent and one who has mortified himself with
the lash ; with a do\>'ncast look and thoughts in treble : his com-
plexion in some parts cracked, in others dull ; a dawdler at responses,
but a breviator at meals ; a mighty caster out of spirits, so much so
that he sustained his body therewith ; a good hand at uttering charms,
making in his benediction crosses bigger than belong to those that
have ' maurried • ill. His sluttishness he called humilitv, recounted
visions he had had, and if folk were too careless to believe him,
vorked miracles which wearied me. This, Sir, was one of those
.air sepulchres whitened without, and full of mouldings, but within
rottenness and worms ; feigning externally honesty, and being inter-
nally of a dissolute disposition, and of a conscience torn wide open.
He was, in ordinary language, a hypocrite, a living fraud, a speaking
fable, an animated lie."

Cowper, in his " Table-Talk," tells us that Quevedo " asked when
in Hell to see the royal gaol," and on expressing surprise at the few
kings he found there, was informed by his black attendant that all
were there that ever reigned. There is no passage like this in the
Zahurdas de Fluton, or " Pigsties of Pluto," perhaps the most pleasing
of Quevedo's " Dreams" ; it is therefore probably to be discovered, since
the singer of Olney was seldom inaccurate, in the version of Sir Roger
L'Estrange, though the writer has searched for it there also without
success. Sir Roger has not precisely preserved the elocjuent intro-
duction to the Zahurdas: Quevedo wrote — " I found myself in a i)lacc
favoured by nature with a pleasant calm, where beauty free from
malice ravished the view (mute recreation, and without human reply),
where fountains prattled among their pebbles, and trees amidst their
leaves, and where from time to time some bird sang, whether in
rivalrv or to reward them for their music I cannot determine. Look
how curious is our desire, which discovered no contentment in such a
scene !" Sir Roger translates freely, not to say elegantly. ** Being
one autumn at a friend's house in the country, which was indeed a
roost delicious retreat, I took a walk one moonlight night into the
park." T-,e Sieur Raclots has of course almost word for word the same
in French; and the Edinburgh edition of 1798 also generously accords
to us the autumn, the country house, the moonlight, and the park, of
all which, it is needless to add, there is no vestige in the original.

It is indeed difficult, as Captain Stevens, another of his translators,
says, to " make him speak English with that diverting sweetness as
he does Spanish.'* The titles even of the " Dreams " are dbtorted :

Quevedo, 99

the Visita delos Chistes becomes " Death and her empire/' and " Hell ^*
in all its naked simplicity of grandeur takes the place of the Zahurdas
de Pluton. From ignorance or indifference, from involuntary or
voluntary inaccuracy, every translator writes as if he had opened the
volume at random and taken a leaf out here and there. Only the
disjecti membra poetiR remain, a few grains of Castilian gold mixed
and scarcely seen in much French or English mud. Guided
apparentiy by that humane desire of pleasing the populace, which is
the polar star of all literary progress, Sir Roger has introduced us to
Tyburn Gallows and Ratcliffe Highway, Hackney and Covent Garden,
my Lord Mayor and Oliver Cromwell, thus adding considerably to one
of the diief literary values of Quevedo as the illustrator of the manners
of his place and age. In this latter respect UEstrange's work bears
much the same relation to that of Quevedo as Pope's Imitations of
Horace's Epistles to Horace himself. But the Bard of Twickenham
professes only to imitate, and is at least consistent. When he has
represented

Flore, bono claroque fidelis amice Neroni,

by " Dear Colonel, Cobham's and your country's friend," he docs
not afterwards translate LuculU miles by " a soldier of Lucullus."

UEstrange's book was published not to oblige the public, cr to
gratify the importunities of friends, the wearisome lie which, now pretty
well worn out, used to adorn the preface of nine publications out of
ten, but, as he himself informs us, out of pure spite for the hard
measure with which it had been me*ed unto him by physicians,
lawyers, and women. Quevedo's satire is indeed universal, but perhaps
chiefly directed against these objects of the indignation of UEstrange.
It is not to be found elsewhere more condensed than in that dream
of ^/ mundo por de dentro or ** The world from within," where we find
vice so long as it is advantageous known as virtue, and virtue when
disadvantageous stigmatised as vice, where a regard for the welfare
of others is the disguise of curiosity or pride, and where male and
female selfishness flaunt abroad boldly under the masks of honour
and of virtue.

The works of him of whom a glimpse was caught in the seven-
teenth century as of a Spanish Lucian laughing at the domus cxilis
Plutonia fabultique manes bear witness to a rare marriage, the
marriage of a native genius to untiring industry. They may be
divided into serious and comic, the religious portion of the '•former
alone being larger than all the rest, and each of these divisions may be
again subdivided into prose and poetry. The joyous satirist is also the
profound philosopher, the ascetic moralist, the consummate historian.

lOO The Gentletnan s Magazine.

But the colossal statue is seldom seen save on one side only ; the
light of Fame, like that of the sun, can, it seems, only illumine one
part at the expense of corresponding shadow on the other.

It is sad to reflect that while his "Dreams" have done most to make
him known in Spain and elsewhere, and next to them his Vida degran
TacaiiOy or" Life of a Great Rascal," his works on the scholastic divi-
nity of Catholicism; his version of the Introduction to a Devout Life of
Francis de Sales; his Virtue militant against envy, ingratitude, avarice,
and pride, the four pestilences of the world, and against the four
bugbears of life, contempt, sickness, poverty, and death; his sonnet
on the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin ; his Politics of
God and Government of Christ our Lord, in which he collects a com-
plete body of political philosophy from the example of Jesus, grounded
on the idea of Gregory that the whole of Christ's life is a practical
lesson, are rarely opened, and not a page of one of them has ever
been translated. Some few may have laughed at his letters of the
" Knight of the Nippers," but who will be found acquainted
with his " Compendium of the Life of S. Thomas of Villanueva " ?
After such an example of perversion of popular interest, no one will
wonder at the subordinate neglect of his Satires after Juvenal, his
translations of Epictetus and Phocylides, his imitations of Anacreon;
of his poetry of all kinds, xacaras, caticioncs^ endechas^ bai/cs, madri-
gals, and burlesque sonnets, which parodied the extravagant images of
the Marinists, and the affected singularity of Gongora, a fault lo
which Quevedo was himself far too liable.

An explanation of the prodigious fecundity of this magnum cans
Hispanorum^ as he is called by his friend Justin Lipsius, may be
partially found in that little labor limcf to which he submitted his
work, but lies chiefly in that order and distribution of his time to
which he rigorously adhered. Few of life's wasted opportunities can
be set to the debit side of his account. That jealous interference with
Industry on the part of Idleness, that apparently natural desire
of the unoccupied to interrupt occupation, attacked Quevedo to
no purpose. The unhappy beings sick of that sadly common disease
of nothing-to-do, who wander about, as the elder Disraeli bitterly
lamented, privileged by a charter of society to obstruct the informa-
tion they cannot impart, could little hurt a man who, like Diogenes
in his cask, took up his habitation in an inn to avoid the daily worry
and anxiety of domestic interruption, who dated his letters from its
signboard, and would receive his friends only at one appointed hour.
Liberal of all things except of time, of which alone avarice is a virtue,
he weighed the priceless moments which never return to us for

Qtievedo. .■■"'■ lOi

prayer or praise with the minutest measures of the apothecaries'
scale. The little odd intervals of existence, the drops of time which
added together make so large a draught, he carefully economised by
carrying always some book in his pocket, and so found himself never
less alone than when alone. It is even reported that he had a
revolving reading-desk, made after his own receipt, set by him at his
meals, and thus seasoned a little meat with much learning. To
Quevedo meditation was more to be desired than mutton, and the
taste of wisdom sweeter than the taste of wine. Nay, he kept a
lamp with flint and steel standing on a little table by his bedside, and
was even loth to pay the dues of that universal tax-collector, sleep.
Idleness he has himself named the moth of virtue and the holiday of
vice.

Jovial, like Sir Thomas More, and saturnine by turns, of rare
originality of thought and rarer boldness of expression, of a disposi-
tion to show at every opportunity " Trutli in her smock, only a little
less than naked ;*' Truth, whom he loved like Pius V. and would not
injure like Louis XI. ; with the (juiet independence of Voltaire, and
the bitter bile of Swift, is it a matter of wonder that he had many
enemies ? Were the jiroud hidal^uia or the nouveaux riches of Spain
likely to love a man who regarded rank and birth and riches as they
will always be regarded by him who is conscious of having in his own
mind something far rarer than these ; a man who advised the lina-
jutios, or boasters about their ancestry — a convenient term for which,
however pressing our necessity, we have in English no equivalent —
not to search into time's protocol, nor tear away the veil of ancient
silence, nor vex buried bones, wherein are more worms than blazons,
warning them with the example of Phaethon, who fell from heaven in
seeking to prove his descent from Apollo ?

Human nature never changes. Though, as a rule, the Spanish
Martial avoided the person, and sought only to punish the vice, yet
he was found guilty of being singularly wise. Envy proportional to
his merit pursued him as its shadow. Not being able to come near
him in picjuant satire, in varied extent of doctrine, in enchanting
excellence of style, his enemies published at Valencia, in 1635, a ^^^^
full of malicious misinterpretation, a work woven with the woof of
coarsest calumny and the warp of most insipid insolence. On its
title-page it bears the name, of course assumed, of the licentiate
Arnold of Francofurt as its author. Who wrote it is a matter of no
mighty moment. Probably it was a joint composition of the Doctor
Juan Perez, of Montalvan, and Fr. Diego Niseno. Only from Church
men could such a sample of Christian charity have come. Its

102 The Gentleman s Magazine,

title will certainly be quite suflicient for the satisfaction of the
reader. " The Tribunal of Just Vengeance instituted against the
Master of Errors, the Doctor of Indelicacies, the Licentiate of
Buffoonery, the Bachelor of Filth, the Professor of Immorality, and
the Archdevil of Mankind."

Instead of lowering himself and exalting his Zoilus or Zoiluses by a
reply, as h'as been in our English experience only too often the case>
he refused to answer the fool according to his folly, left the would-
be remora of his ship unnamed, asking with his comixitriot

Nam cur te aliquis sciat fuissc ?

So he suffered in patience and possessed his soul in quiet, notwith-
standing these answerers of books, as Goldsmith calls them, who,
like eunuchs in a seraglio, being incapable of giving pleasure them-
selves, hinder those that would, and who revile the moral character
of him whose writings they are unable to injure, writings which, com-
pared to their own, are as the sculpture of Michael Angelo to a
dog in Dresden china.

The " Tribunal " is only of value in determining the genuineness
of the works of the Spanish Menippus, since, with a view of discredit-
ing them, it presents a catalogue of all printed or in MS. until the
year 1635.

Quevedo's mind did not, as some of his biographers would
have us believe, decay with his body. In his " Life of Marcus
Bnitus,'* consisting of a commentary on the text of Plutarch
stuffed with moral and political reflection, which was written but
a short time before his death, is the following passage: "Justice,
clemency, valour, modesty, and temperance are virtues which the
])0])ulace seldom ap])lauds universally, inasmuch as the revenge
and envy and evil customs of most of the common sort make them
desire their king to be cruel to others, lewd to give easy access to
themselves, cowardly to allow the bargains of their craft, and unjust
to give license to their crime. Howbeit, the liberality in which nil
participate, all praise — the virtuous as their reward, the wicked as their
pay. Liberality seasons all the actions of a king ; it magnifies the
good, and excuses the bad ; it absolves him during life from accusa-
tions, and acquires tears for him at his death." Certainly his fame
was not likely to be lessened by such lines as these. To adoi)t
Garth's poetical and tender allusion, the falling off of his hair had
none other effect than to make his laurels seen the more. Per-
haps the best, or rather the least unfaithful, in the versions of
Quevedo's " Dreams," is that called in English "The I^st Judgment,"
of the Spanish El suctw dc las calavnas^ or "The Dream of the

Quevedo. 103

Skulls." The worst is that entitled "The Vision of Loving
Fools," which corresponds, or is intended to correspond, with
the Spanish Casa de locos de Amor, or " The House of those that
are Mad for Love." In this sparkling moral fantasy the lord of
Juan Abad takes for his motto that verse which Virgil took from
Theocritus —

Ah, Cor)'don, Cor)'don, quae Ic dementia cepit !

On a sudden he finds himself in a fair meadow of sweet and bitter
waters, wherein Love's servants arc dipping his shafts of gold. In
the meadow's midst is a large building of Doric architecture, with
chapter and cornice, pilasters and architrave, and frieze with bossy
sculptures graven, for all the world like Satan's Palace of Pan-
demonium, made of many-coloured stones, and with portals standing
for ever wide open. Underneath the chapter is written —

House of those that are mad for love.
Wherein unto him who best knows how to love
The best place is given.

Entering in at the door, of which Beauty is the keeper, he finds a
folk of pale and violet- hued faces, among whom all faith to friends,
all loyalty to lords, all piety to parents, is unknown, where maid-
servants become mistresses, and where mistresses ser\'e as maids.
Here Time is the only physician, and cures not a few of the sick
lovers by simply setting himself betwixt them. In the strongest part
of the house the women are confined, whose days are chiefly spent
in playing with little dogs with collars of bells, in asking fortune-
tellers how they may regain their modesty, and in %vriting love-letters
that it is given to few to read. Widows, when not occupied in
painting themselves, are weeping for their lost husbands w ith one half
of their fiice, and laughing at their new sweethearts with the other.
Maids in general, he says, desire men to be of the tribe of Dan :
''' hidalgos en dar algoy Flatones en hacerlcs buenos platosT Here it is
difficult to avoid noticing that curious affectation in language, which
sought to please the ear if not the understanding by the juxtaposition
of words widely different in sense but nearly resembling one another
in sound. For (piibbling Quevedo had, of course, the highest authority.
The Bible is beset with pims. In our own Shakspeare they meet us
at apparently the most inopportune occasions. They come in when
we should least expect them, like the singing oi^ prima donna, which
is generally loudest with her latest breath. But notwithstanding that
the good Bishop Andrews is said by such conceits to have turned
many to repentance, notwithstanding the success of burlesques
big with this play of words, in our own enlightened era on the

I04 The Gentleman s Magazine.

stage, a pun is not universall}' pleasing. Dr. Johnson, for one,
expressed his opinion on punning with the exact estimation of cha-
racter and genial view of his fellow-beings for which he is so
deservedly famous. A pun is especially provoking to a translator : it
defies illustration alike of pencil and of pen ; and Quevedo is, alas !
so passionately fond of this form of equivocal allusion as to make a
man fully understand the feeling of Shenstone, when he devoutly
thanked God for bestowing on him a name over which this particular
court of facet iousness could claim no jurisdiction.

His " Life of a Great Rascal" was inspired by the Lazarillo de
Tonnes of Hurtado de Mendoza. It is what the Spaniards call
noirla picaresca, a romance of roguery, and falls under the same
category as the Guzman de Alfarache of Mateo Aleman, the
Marcos de Obregon of Vicente Espinel, the friend of Cervantes,
to whom Le Sage is so deeply indebted, and the Diablo Cojuelo of
Luiz Velez de Guevara. The romance represents an old stor}', the
success of immorality, the flourishing of the wicked like a green bay
tree. It is the Reineke Fuchs, the Weltbibel^ as Goethe called it;
the good fortune of a fox among geese, of a knave among fools. In
compliance with what seems to have been almost a custom of the
period, the recital is left unfinished. The Rascal, whether picarillo^
^icaro, picaron, ficaronazo, or picarote^ for which it is difficult to find
corresponding terms in any other language, is invariably distinguished
by audacity and astuteness. In Quevedo's Rascal we have pictures
of inner Spanish life, painted not indeed with the superfine delicacy
of Boucher or Watteau, but with the coarse natural truth of Adrian
Brauwer and Ostade. This species of novel in Spain supplies the
place of the sentimental sort in other countries. Spain, before France
instructed her, knew nothing of that nauseous dough which, com-
pounded of the fashionable portions of passion and piety and spiced
to taste, is baked into sweet cakes yearned after and purchased by
the young. Not the least graphic of the portraits in Quevedo's sober
tale is that of the Licentiate Cabra, the Segovian schoolmaster, whose
leanness was such that you might suppose he had forgotten to have
himself buried. He was, says Paul, the protagonist, hunger per-
sonified, death's footman, a kind of ecclesiastical pea-shooter, red-
haired, with eyes that seemed to peep out of baskets, a beard colour-
less from fear of his mouth, which threatened to devour it out of
mere famine, most of his teeth banished as idle rogues and vagabor ds,
a throat like that of an ostrich, his legs like a two-pronged fork or a
pair of compasses, and when he walked came a rattling like that of
castaijnettes. On Sundays he wore a bonnet which was once of

Quevedo. 105

doth, half-eaten by rats, and bordered with dandriff and grease; each
shoe might be $1 Philistine's grave. Not a rat or spider ever reached
his room. His soup was so clear that Narcissus had run more risk
with it than with his fountain; at the bottom thereof one orphan pea
and a struggling adventurer of a turnip.

The letters of the " Knight of the Nippers " commence with the
exercise to be performed by every man, to save his money at
the hour when it is demanded of him. His daily grace is to be
" Blessed be God, who gives me an appetite, but not guests." Before
sleeping he shall utter this thanksgiving, ** Blessed be thou, O Lord,
that I strip myself, and another has not done it for me." If one
comes to ask money of him he shall be beforehand with him in
complaining of the hardness of the times, but if he cannot succeed
in this, he shall say, " I was just about to borrow a trifle of you." It
one praises anything belonging to him, he shall say, " For this reason
I shall keep it henceforth with greater care." He may express af-
fection with words but not with his purse. The letter of the " Knight
of the Nippers " to a lady with whom he had lived on intimate terms,
but who having sucked him like an orange, naturally threw him away,
and proposed pious conduct for the future, contains some amusing
lines. " I have not yet ceased crossing myself at your billet of this
morning. After having picked my body clean, gnawed my bones,
sucked up all my silver, you say, * It is a holy time ; this cannot last
for ever — the neighbours begin to talk — let us lay aside some part of
our life for God.' Painted devil ! so long as I had a halfpenny the
time was sinful, there was no neighbourhood. I find the only way to
convert you is to show you a bankrupt. You turn to God at once
when you see a man without a farthing. An empty purse is your
death's head, your memento mori, your most sacred relic. A fine
thing to lay aside a part of your life for God ! A fine life to bestow a
part of it on anybody but Lucifer. You rob man of what he wants,
and give God what he does not want. The bare-faced beggar would
be bountiful of another life ! Certainly you were bound apprentice
to learn conscience of a tailor. I will repent of what I have given
you, and you shall restore it to me to obtain God's mercy. The rest
we will leave to be decided in Purgatory — if you chance to go that
way, for if you go to Hell I quit my claim, being unwilling to sue you
in your aunt's dominions."

And the same man who wrote this, in all good faith in his life of
St. Paul the Apostle quotes the contents of a letter which the Virgin
Mary wrote to the citizens of Messina, and in his " Cradle and the
Grave,"a composition which recalls almost on every page the " Manresa"

io6 The Gentleman s Magazine.

of Ignatius Loyola, and the "Holy Living and Dying *' of Jeremy
Taylor, entertains this sentiment, which he versified a little before
his death, " Leave, O mortal, to weary thyself in the acquisition of
wealth, for at the end thou wilt lose both silver and gold, and at the
last Time will be thine heir. Live for thyself alone if thou canst,
since for thyself alone, when thou diest, thou shalt die.'

About the " Knight of the Nippers," by the way, is told a pretty
tale. A certain Bemardin monk, a conventual of Galicia, sent to the
author a packet, of which the postage, two reals, was not paid. In it he
>\Tote, " I have read with unwearied interest the letters of the * Knight
of the Nippers,' and the different manners you mention for men to
deliver themselves from all the crafts and assaults of the ladies, yet
have I discovered none to free you from paying the postage of this
packet God preserve you."

Quevcdo was somewhat of a misogynist, i He had passed through
a husband's experiences. He calls nature's fair defects "sweet-
tasted devils," and would doubtless have defended South's deriva-
tions of surrogate from sorrow-gate and matrimony from matter of
money. " I would," he says, " have my wife neither foul nor fair,
but between these extremes, or more fair than foul, for it is better to
be anxious than to be afraid, to have something to shield rather than
to shudder at. I would have her neither poor nor rich, that she be
not sold to me nor I to her. I would have her merry, for in our
daily life will not be wanting sufficient sadness for both. I would
not have her young nor yet old, not a cradle nor yet a coffin, for I
have forgotten my lullabies and have not yet learnt my responsories.
Were she deaf and tongue-tied I would give God infinite thanks for
all his goodness."

In the only two anecdotes we have touching his intercourse witli
what is so suggestively called the opposite sex he has no reason to
respect it. In the first matter he is banished from Madrid, and
the second afforded him a brave opportunity of adopting the advice
of Bacon, and being the first to laugh at his own defects in order to
mar the malicious point of his friends. One day, being at a party, or
iertulia as the Spaniards call it, one of his feet stole out by accident,
not exactly like Suckling's little mouse, from beneath a long cloak
which he wore to hide his legs from the light. " Oh what a foul foot ! '
said a lady with that ready wit and delicate sense of polite humour
which makes woman so charming. Quoth Quevedo, "There is yet
another foot more foul in this good company." Then they began to
look one on another doubting of whom he sjxike, and a general
registration of feet followed, until the philosopher, with a san^-froid

Quevedo. i o 7

which would have astonished the noble author of " Childe Harold,"
presently produced his other foot, yet more distorted.

His condemnation of women is less coarse but more cutting than
that of Juvenal or Boileau. They are forced companions with
whom you must speak under suspicion. He is the prudent person
who enjoys their caresses but never trusts them even in a trifle. Our
senses star\'e for what a woman is, and are surfeited with what she
seems to be. If you kiss her, you smear your lips ; if you put your
arms round her, you punish yourself with steel rods and make dints
in her padding ; if you bargain for her barefooted, you leave half of
her behind you, for shoes, like death, make all women equal ; if you
woo her, you weary yourself; if you obtain her, you obtain embar-
rassment ; if you keep her, you become poor ; if you leave her, she
pursues you ; if you love her, she leaves you. Reading about these
ridiculous women of Quevedo's age, two centuries and a half ago,
how sincerely thankful we ought all to feel for the many improvements
time and good sense have wrought upon those of our own.

But almost every class of society was in its turn the subject of the
satire of this Spanish Voltaire. Lawyers save their clients in a suit as
sailors their vessel in a storm, by taking out all they possess, that they
may come, God willing, void and empty to the shore. Doctors he loved
as Moli^re loved them. In the " Catchpole Possessed " a gentleman
is haled before the judgment-seat of the King of Hell, and accused
of many horrible murders. He is at once shut up with the medical
men. Next to a doctor the most dangerous disease to a wealthy
man is to make his will. The fires of Purgatory boil the priest's pot,
and to pray for the poor and to pocket for yourself is a very stale
kind of stealing. The confines are faint between resignation and
hypocrisy. In " Pluto's Pigsties " he is of opinion that he has seen
the lower regions already in the higher. On being asked how, he
answers. In the covetousness of judges; in the tongues of evil speak-
ers; to this St. James's idea is somewhat similar : in the appetites of
the luxurious; in the vanity of great men ; but the whole of Hell,
without the loss of a point, is in the pietism of the pawnbrokers of
virtue. Harder words than these he uses, inspirations of a bolder
invective, but such as cannot be interpreted in an age in which
greater vices necessitate greater delicacy of language and reserve.

In Spr^Vynowned tatters of wit and shreds of satire escheat to
Queved<' '•His country they are usually collected to adorn Dr.

Johnson '^ubbles floating on the sea of letters are absorbed

by the g. Ni^ed property accrues to the Crown. To

Cond^, ik , many flocks and herds, has been given

io6 The Gentleman s Magazine.

of Ignatius Loyola, and the "Holy Living and Dying *' of Jeremy
Taylor, entertains this sentiment, which he versified a little before
his death, " Leave, O mortal, to weary thyself in the acquisition of
wealth, for at the end thou wilt lose both silver and gold, and at the
last Time will be thine heir. Live for thyself alone if thou canst,
since for thyself alone, when thou diest, thou shalt die."

About the " Knight of the Nippers," by the way, is told a pretty
tale. A certain Bemardin monk, a conventual of Galicia, sent to the
author a packet, of which the postage, two reals, was not paid. In it he
^\Tote, " I have read with unwearied interest the letters of the * Knight
of the Nippers,' and the different manners you mention for men to
deliver themselves from all the crafls and assaults of the ladies, yet
have I discovered none to free you from paying the postage of this
packet God preserve you."

Quevedo was somewhat of a misogynist. \ He had passed through
a husband's experiences. He calls nature's fair defects "sweet-
tasted devils," and would doubtless have defended South's deriva-
tions of surrogate from sorrow-gate and matrimony from matter of
money. " I would," he says, " have my wife neither foul nor fair,
but between these extremes, or more fair than foul, for it is better to
be anxious than to be afraid, to have something to shield rather than
to shudder at I would have her neither poor nor rich, that she be
not sold to me nor I to her. I would have her merry, for in our
daily life will not be wanting sufficient sadness for both. I would
not have her young nor yet old, not a cradle nor yet a coffin, for I
have forgotten my lullabies and have not yet learnt my rcsponsories.
Were she deaf and tongue-tied I would give God infinite thanks for
all his goodness."

In the only two anecdotes we have touching his intercourse with
what is so suggestively called the opposite sex he has no reason to
respect it. In the first matter he is banished from Madrid, and
the second afforded him a brave opportunity of adopting the advice
of Bacon, and being the first to laugh at his o\in defects in order to
mar the malicious point of his friends. One day, being at a party, or
iertulia as the Spaniards call it, one of his feet stole out by accident,
not exactly like Suckling's little mouse, from beneath a long cloak
which he wore to hide his legs from the light " Oh what a foul foot ! '
said a lady with that ready wit and delicate sense of polite humour
which makes woman so charming. Quoth Quevedo, " There is yet
another foot more foul in this good company." Then they began to
look one on another doubting of whom he spake, and a general
registration of feet followed, until the philosopher, with a sa?i^'froi(i

Quevedo. 107

which would have astonished the noble author of " Childe Harold,"
presently produced his other foot, yet more distorted

His condemnation of women is less coarse but more cutting than
that of Juvenal or Boileau. They are forced companions with
whom you must speak under suspicion. He is the prudent person
who enjoys their caresses but never trusts them even in a trifle. Our
senses star\'e for what a woman is, and are surfeited with what she
seems to be. If you kiss her, you smear your lips ; if you put your
arms round her, you punish yourself with steel rods and make dints
in her padding ; if you bargain for her barefooted, you leave half of
her behind you, for shoes, like death, make all women equal ; if you
woo her, you weary yourself; if you obtain her, you obtain embar-
rassment ; if you keep her, you become poor ; if you leave her, she
pursues you ; if you love her, she leaves you. Reading about these
ridiculous women of Quevedo's age, two centuries and a half ago,
how sincerely thankful we ought all to feel for the many improvements
time and good sense have wrought upon those of our own.

But almost every class of society was in its turn the subject of the
satire of this Spanish Voltaire. Lawyers save their clients in a suit as
sailors their vessel in a storm, by taking out all they possess, that they
may come, God willing, void and empty to the shore. Doctors he loved
as Moli^re loved them. In the " Catchpole Possessed " a gentleman
is haled before the judgment-seat of the King of Hell, and accused
of many horrible murders. He is at once shut up with the medical
men. Next to a doctor the most dangerous disiease to a wealthy
man is to make his will. The fires of Purgatory boil the priest's pot,
and to pray for the poor and to pocket for yourself is a very stale
kind of stealing. The confines are faint between resignation and
hyix)crisy. In " Pluto's Pigsties " he is of opinion that he has seen
the lower regions already in the higher. On being asked how, he
answers. In the covetousness of judges; in the tongues of evil speak-
ers; to this St. James's idea is somewhat similar : in the appetites of
the luxurious ; in the vanity of great men ; but the whole of Hell,
without the loss of a point, is in the pietism of the pawnbrokers of
virtue. Harder words than these he uses, inspirations of a bolder
invective, but such as cannot be interpreted in an age in which
greater vices necessitate greater delicacy of language and reserve.

In Spain unowned tatters of wit and shreds of satire escheat to
Quevedo, as in this country they are usually collected to adorn Dr.
Johnson ; the lesser bubbles floating on the sea of letters are absorbed
by the greater; the unclaimed property accrues to the Crown. To
Cond^, who had exceeding many flocks and herds, has been given

io6 The Gentleman s Magazine.

of Ignatius Loyola, and the "Holy Living and Dying *' of Jeremy
Taylor, entertains this sentiment, which he versified a little before
his death, " Leave, O mortal, to weary thyself in the acquisition of
wealth, for at the end thou wilt lose both silver and gold, and at the
last Time will be thine heir. Live for thyself alone if thou canst,
since for thyself alone, when thou diest, thou shalt die.'*

About the " Knight of the Nippers,*' by the way, is told a pretty
tale. A certain Bemardin monk, a conventual of Galicia, sent to the
author a packet, of which the postage, two reals, was not paid. In it he
A^Tote, " I have read with unwearied interest the letters of the * Knight
of the Nippers,' and the different manners you mention for men to
deliver themselves from all the crafts and assaults of the ladies, yet
have I discovered none to free you from paying the postage of this
l)ackct God preserve you."

Quevedo was somewhat of a misogynist, i He had passed through
a husband's experiences. He calls nature's fair defects "sweet-
tasted devils," and would doubdess have defended South's deriva-
tions of surrogate from sorrow-gate and matrimony from matter of
money. " I would," he says, " have my wife neither foul nor fair,
but between these extremes, or more fair than foul, for it is better to
be anxious than to be afraid, to have something to shield rather than
to shudder at I would have her neither poor nor rich, that she be
not sold to me nor I to her. I would have her merry, for in our
daily life will not be wanting sufficient sadness for both. I would
not have her young nor yet old, not a cradle nor yet a coffin, for I
have forgotten my lullabies and have not yet learnt my responsories.
Were she deaf and tongue-tied I would give God infinite thanks for
all his goodness."

In the only two anecdotes we have touching his intercourse with
what is so suggestively called the opposite sex he has no reason to
respect it In the first matter he is banished from Madrid, and
the second afforded him a brave opportunity of adopting the advice
of Bacon, and being the first to laugh at his own defects in order to
mar the malicious point of his friends. One day, being at a party, or
tertiilia as the Spaniards call it, one of his feet stole out by accident,
not exactly like Suckling's little mouse, from beneath a long cloak
which he wore to hide his legs from the light " Oh what a foul foot ! '
said a lady with that ready wit and delicate sense of polite humour
which makes woman so charming. Quoth Quevedo, " There is yet
another foot more foul in this good company." Then they began to
look one on another doubting of whom he spake, and a general
registration of feet followed, until the philosopher, with a sau^-froid

Quevedo. i o 7

which would have astonished the noble author of " Childe Harold,"
presently produced his other foot, yet more distorted.

His condemnation of women is less coarse but more cutting than
that of Juvenal or Boileau. They are forced companions with
whom you must speak under suspicion. He is the prudent person
who enjoys their caresses but never trusts them even in a trifle. Our
senses starN-e for what a woman is, and are surfeited with what she
seems to be. If you kiss her, you smear your lips ; if you put your
arms round her, you punish yourself with steel rods and make dints
in her padding ; if you bargain for her barefooted, you leave half of
her behind you, for shoes, like death, make all women equal ; if you
woo her, you weary yourself ; if you obtain her, you obtain embar-
rassment ; if you keep her, you become poor ; if you leave her, slie
pursues you ; if you love her, she leaves you. Reading about these
ridiculous women of Quevedo's age, two centuries and a half ago,
how sincerely thankful we ought all to feel for the many improvements
time and good sense have wrought upon those of our own.

But almost every class of society was in its turn the subject of the
satire of this Spanish Voltaire. Lawyers save their clients in a suit as
sailors their vessel in a storm, by taking out all they possess, that they
may come, God willing, void and empty to the shore. Doctors he loved
as Moli^re loved them. In the " Catchpole Possessed " a gentleman
is haled before the judgment-seat of the King of Hell, and accused
of many horrible murders. He is at once shut up with the medical
men. Next to a doctor the most dangerous disiease to a wealthy
man is to make his will. The fires of Purgatory boil the priest's pot,
and to pray for the poor and to pocket for yourself is a very stale
kind of stealing. The confines are faint between resignation and
h)*pocrisy. In " Pluto's Pigsties " he is of opinion that he has seen
the lower regions already in the higher. On being asked how, he
answers. In the covetousness of judges; in the tongues of evil speak-
ers; to this St. James's idea is somewhat similar : in the appetites of
the luxurious ; in the vanity of great men ; but the whole of Hell,
without the loss of a point, is in the pietism of the pawnbrokers of
virtue. Harder words than these he uses, inspirations of a bolder
invective, but such as cannot be interpreted in an age in which
greater vices necessitate greater delicacy of language and reserve.

In Spain unowned titters of wit and shreds of satire escheat to
Quevedo, as in this country they are usually collected to adorn Dr.
Johnson; the lesser bubbles floating on the sea of letters are absorbed
by the greater; the unclaimed property accrues to the Crown. To
Cond^ who had exceeding many flocks and herds, has been given

io6 The Gentleman s Magazine.

of Ignatius Loyola, and the " Holy Living and Dying '' of Jeremy
Taylor, entertains this sentiment, which he versified a little before
his death, " Leave, O mortal, to weary thyself in the acquisition of
wealth, for at the end thou wilt lose both silver and gold, and at the
last Time will be thine heir. Live for thyself alone if thou canst,
since for thyself alone, when thou diest, thou shalt die.'

About the " Knight of the Nippers," by the way, is told a pretty
tale. A certain Bemardin monk, a conventual of Galicia, sent to the
author a packet, of which the postage, two reals, was not paid. In it he
\>Tote, " I have read with unwearied interest the letters of the * Knight
of the Nippers,' and the different manners you mention for men to
deliver themselves from all the crafts and assaults of the ladies, yet
have I discovered none to free you from paying the postage of this
l)ackct God preserve you."

Quevcdo was somewhat of a misogynist. \ He had passed through
a husband's experiences. He calls nature's fair defects "sweet-
tasted devils," and would doubtless have defended South's deriva-
tions of surrogate from sorrow-gate and matrimony from matter of
money. " I would," he says, " have my wife neither foul nor fair,
but between these extremes, or more fair than foul, for it is better to
be anxious than to be afraid, to have something to shield rather than
to shudder at. I would have her neither poor nor rich, that she be
not sold to me nor I to her. I would have her merry, for in our
daily life will not be wanting sufficient sadness for both. I would
not have her young nor yet old, not a cradle nor yet a coffin, for I
have forgotten my lullabies and have not yet learnt my responsories.
Were she deaf and tongue-tied I would give God infinite thanks for
all his goodness."

In the only two anecdotes we have touching his intercourse with
what is so suggestively called the opposite sex he has no reason to
respect it. In the first matter he is banished from Madrid, and
the second afforded him a brave opportunity of adopting the advice
of Bacon, and being the first to laugh at his own defects in order to
mar the malicious point of his friends. One day, being at a party, or
iertulia as the Spaniards call it, one of his feet stole out by accident,
not exactly like Suckling's little mouse, from beneath a long cloak
which he wore to hide his legs from the light. " Oh what a foul foot • "
said a lady with that ready wit and delicate sense of polite humour
which makes woman so charming. Quoth Quevedo, "There is yet
another foot more foul in this good company." Then they began to
look one on another doubting of whom he spake, and a general
registration of feet followed, until the philosopher, with a saii^^-froid

Quevedo. i o 7

which would have astonished the noble author of " Childe Harold,"
presently produced his other foot, yet more distorted.

His condemnation of women is less coarse but more cutting than
that of Juvenal or Boileau. They are forced companions with
whom you must speak under suspicion. He is the prudent person
who enjoys their caresses but never trusts them even in a trifle. Our
senses starN'e for what a woman is, and are surfeited with what she
seems to be. If you kiss her, you smear your lips ; if you put your
arms round her, you punish yourself with steel rods and make dints
in her padding ; if you bargain for her barefooted, you leave half of
her behind you, for shoes, like death, make all women equal ; if you
woo her, you weary yourself; if you obtain her, you obtain embar-
rassment ; if you keep her, you become poor ; if you leave her, she
pursues you ; if you love her, she leaves you. Reading about these
ridiculous women of Quevedo's age, two centuries and a lialf ago,
how sincerely thankful we ought all to feel for the many improvements
time and good sense have wrought upon those of our own.

But almost every class of society was in its turn the subject of the
satire of this Spanish Voltaire. Lawyers save their clients in a suit as
sailors their vessel in a storm, by taking out all they possess, that they
may come, God willing, void and empty to the shore. Doctors he loved
as Moli^re loved them. In the " Catchpole Possessed " a gentleman
is haled before the judgment-scat of the King of Hell, and accused
of many horrible murders. He is at once shut up with the medical
men. Next to a doctor the most dangerous disiease to a wealthy
man is to make his will. The fires of Purgatory boil the priest's pot,
and to pray for the poor and to pocket for yourself is a very stale
kind of stealing. The confines are faint between resignation and
h)*pocrisy. In " Pluto's Pigsties " he is of opinion that he has seen
the lower regions already in the higher. On being asked how, he
answers, In the covetousness of judges; in the tongues of evil speak-
ers; to this St. James's idea is somewhat similar : in the appetites of
the luxurious; in the vanity of great men ; but the whole of Hell,
without the loss of a point, is in the pietism of the pawnbrokers of
virtue. Harder words than these he uses, inspirations of a bolder
invective, but such as cannot be interpreted in an age in which
greater vices necessitate greater delicacy of language and reserve.

In Spain unowned tatters of wit and shreds of satire escheat to
Quevedo, as in this coimtry they arc usually collected to adorn Dr.
Johnson ; the lesser bubbles floating on the sea of letters are absorbed
by the greater; the unclaimed property accrues to the Crown. To
Cond^, who had exceeding many flocks and herds, has been given

io6 The Gcntlemaii s Magazine.

of Ignatius Loyola, and the "Holy Living and Dying'' of Jeremy
Taylor, entertains this sentiment, which he versified a little before
his death, " Leave, O mortal, to weary thyself in the acquisition of
wealth, for at the end thou wilt lose both silver and gold, and at the
last Time will be thine heir. Live for thyself alone if thou canst,
since for thyself alone, when thou diest, thou shalt die.*'

About the " Knight of the Nippers," by the way, is told a pretty
tale. A certain Bemardin monk, a conventual of Galicia, sent to the
author a packet, of which the postage, two reals, was not paid. In it lie
A\Tote, " I have read with unwearied interest the letters of the * Knight
of the Nippers,' and the different manners you mention for men to
deliver themselves from all the crafts and assaults of the ladies, yet
have I discovered none to free you from paying the postage of this
packet God preserve you."

Quevedo was somewhat of a misogynist. \ He had passed through
a husband's experiences. He calls nature's fair defects "sweet-
tasted devils," and would doubtless have defended South's deriva-
tions of surrogate from sorrow-gate and matrimony from matter of
money. ** I would," he says, " have my wife neither foul nor fair,
but between these extremes, or more fair than foul, for it is better to
be anxious than to be afraid, to have something to shield rather than
to shudder at. I would have her neither poor nor rich, that she be
not sold to me nor I to her. I would have her merry, for in our
daily life will not be wanting sufficient sadness for both. I would
not have her young nor yet old, not a cradle nor yet a coffin, for J
have forgotten my lullabies and have not yet learnt my responsories.
Were she deaf and tongue -tied I would give God infinite thanks for
all his goodness."

In the only two anecdotes we have touching his intercourse with
what is so suggestively called the opposite sex he has no reason to
respect it. In the first matter he is banished from Madrid, and
the second afforded him a brave opportunity of adopting the advice
of Bacon, and being the first to laugh at his o^ra defects in order to
mar the malicious point of his friends. One day, being at a party, or
tertidia as the Spaniards call it, one of his feet stole out by accident,
not exactiy like Suckling's litde mouse, from beneath a long cloak
which he wore to hide his legs from the light. " Oh what a foul foot ! '
said a lady with that ready wit and delicate sense of polite humour
which makes woman so charming. Quoth Quevedo, "There is yet
another foot more foul in this good company." Then they began to
look one on another doubting of whom he spake, and a general
registration of feet followed, until the philosopher, with a saft^-froid

Quevedo. 107

which would have astonished the noble author of " Childe Harold,"
presently produced his other foot, yet more distorted.

His condemnation of women is less coarse but more cutting than
that of Juvenal or Boileau. They are forced companions with
whom you must speak under suspicion. He is the prudent person
who enjoys their caresses but never trusts them even in a trifle. Our
senses starv'e for what a woman is, and are surfeited with what she
seems to be. If you kiss her, you smear your lips ; if you put your
arms round her, you punish yourself with steel rods and make dints
in her padding ; if you bargain for her barefooted, you leave half of
her behind you, for shoes, like death, make all women equal ; if you
woo her, you weary yourself; if you obtain her, you obtain embar-
rassment ; if you keep her, you become poor ; if you leave her, she
pursues you ; if you love her, she leaves you. Reading about these
ridiculous women of Quevedo's age, two centuries and a half ago,
how sincerely thankful we ought all to feel for the many improvements
time and good sense have wrought upon those of our own.

But almost every class of society was in its turn the subject of the
satire of this Spanish Voltaire. Lawyers save their clients in a suit as
sailors their vessel in a storm, by taking out all they possess, that they
may come, God willing, void and empty to the shore. Doctors he loved
as Moli^re loved them. In the " Catchpole Possessed " a gentleman
is haled before the judgment-scat of the King of Hell, and accused
of many horrible murders. He is at once shut up with the medical
men. Next to a doctor the most dangerous disease to a wealthy
man is to make his will. The fires of Purgatory boil the priest's pot,
and to pray for the poor and to pocket for yourself is a very stale
kind of stealing. The confines are faint between resignation and
hypocrisy. In ** Pluto's Pigsties " he is of opinion that he has seen
the lower regions already in the higher. On being asked how, he
answers, In the covetousness of judges; in the tongues of evil speak-
ers; to this St. James's idea is somewhat similar : in the appetites of
the luxurious; in the vanity of great men ; but the whole of Hell,
without the loss of a point, is in the pietism of the pawnbrokers of
virtue. Harder words than these he uses, inspirations of a bolder
invective, but such as cannot be interpreted in an age in which
greater vices necessitate greater delicacy of language and reserve.

In Spain unowned tatters of wit and shreds of satire escheat to
Quevedo, as in this country they arc usually collected to adorn Dr.
Johnson ; the lesser bubbles floating on the sea of letters are absorbed
by the greater; the unclaimed property accrues to the Crown. To
Cond^ who had exceeding many flocks and herds, has been given

io6 The Gcntlefnaiis Magazine.

of Ignatius Loyola, and the "Holy Living and Dying*' of Jeremy
Taylor, entertains this sentiment, which he versified a little before
his death, " Leave, O mortal, to weary thyself in the acquisition of
wealth, for at the end thou wilt lose both silver and gold, and at the
last Time will be thine heir. Live for thyself alone if thou canst,
since for thyself alone, when thou diest, thou shalt die.*'

About the " Knight of the Nippers," by the way, is told a pretty
tale. A certain Bemardin monk, a conventual of Galicia, sent to the
author a packet, of which the postage, two reals, was not paid. In it he
>\Tote, " I have read with unwearied interest the letters of the * Knight
of the Nippers,' and the different manners you mention for men to
deliver themselves from all the crafts and assaults of the ladies, yet
have I discovered none to free you from paying the postage of this
l)acket God preserve you."

Quevcdo was somewhat of a misogynist. \ He had passed through
a husband's experiences. He calls nature's fair defects "sweet-
tasted devils," and would doubtless have defended South's deriva-
tions of surrogate from sorrow-gate and matrimony from matter of
money. " I would," he says, " have my wife neither foul nor fair,
but between these extremes, or more fair than foul, for it is better to
be anxious than to be afraid, to have something to shield rather than
to shudder at. I would have her neither poor nor rich, that she be
not sold to me nor I to her. I would have her merry, for in our
daily life will not be wanting sufficient sadness for both. I would
not have her young nor yet old, not a cradle nor yet a coffin, for 1
have forgotten my lullabies and have not yet learnt my respon series.
Were she deaf and tongue-tied I would give God infinite thanks for
all his goodness."

In the only two anecdotes we have touching his intercourse with
what is so suggestively called the opposite sex he has no reason to
respect it. In the first matter he is banished from Madrid, and
the second afforded him a brave opportunity of adopting the advice
of Bacon, and being the first to laugh at his own defects in order to
mar the malicious point of his friends. One day, being at a party, or
tertitlia as the Spaniards call it, one of his feet stole out by accident,
not exacdy like Suckling's little mouse, from beneath a long cloak
which he wore to hide his legs from the light. " Oh what a foul foot ! '
said a lady with that ready wit and delicate sense of polite humour
which makes woman so charming. Quoth Quevedo, ** There is yet
another foot more foul in this good company." Then they began to
look one on another doubting of whom he spake, and a general
registration of feet followed, until the philosopher, with a sau^-froid

Quevedo. i o 7

which would have astonished the noble author of " Childe Harold,"
presently produced his other foot, yet more distorted.

His condemnation of women is less coarse but more cutting than
that of Juvenal or Boileau. They are forced companions with
whom you must speak under suspicion. He is the prudent person
who enjoys their caresses but never trusts them even in a trifle. Our
senses star\'e for what a woman is, and are surfeited with what she
seems to be. If you kiss her, you smear your lips ; if you put your
arms round her, you punish yourself with steel rods and make dints
in her padding ; if you bargain for her barefooted, you leave half of
her behind you, for shoes, like death, make all women equal ; if you
woo her, you weary yourself; if you obtain her, you obtain embar-
rassment ; if you keep her, you become poor ; if you leave her, she
pursues you ; if you love her, she leaves you. Reading about these
ridiculous women of Quevedo's age, two centuries and a half ago,
how sincerely thankful we ought all to feel for the many improvements
time and good sense have wrought upon those of our own.

But almost every class of society was in its turn the subject of the
satire of this Spanish Voltaire. Lawyers save their clients in a suit as
sailors their vessel in a storm, by taking out all they possess, that they
may come, God willing, void and empty to the shore. Doctors he loved
as Moli^re loved them. In the " Catchpole Possessed " a gentleman
is haled before the judgment-seat of the King of Hell, and accused
of many horrible murders. He is at once shut up Avith the medical
men. Next to a doctor the most dangerous disiease to a wealthy
man is to make his will. The fires of Purgatory boil the priest's pot,
and to pray for the poor and to pocket for yourself is a very stale
kind of stealing. The confines are faint between resignation and
hypocrisy. In " Pluto's Pigsties " he is of opinion that he has seen
the lower regions already in the higher. On being asked how, he
answers. In the covetousness of judges; in the tongues of evil speak-
ers; to this St. James's idea is somewhat similar : in the appetites of
the luxurious ; in the vanity of great men ; but the whole of Hell,
without the loss of a point, is in the pietism of the pawnbrokers of
virtue. Harder words than these he uses, inspirations of a bolder
invective, but such as cannot be interpreted in an age in which
greater vices necessitate greater delicacy of language and reserve.

In Spain unowned tatters of wit and shreds of satire escheat to
Quevedo, as in this country they are usually collected to adorn Dr.
Johnson ; the lesser bubbles floating on the sea of letters are absorbed
by the greater; the unclaimed property accrues to the Crown. To
Cond^, who had exceeding many flocks and herds, has been given

io8 TluGentlema7is Magazine.

the one little ewe lamb of Madame de Cornuel, " No man is a hero
to his valet de chambre," and it is very certain that no few of the
witticisms attributed to Quevedo might be divided among many of
his poorer brethren. It is not, for instance, easy to find where we
should most expect it, in the life of Marcus Brutus, that model of
austere morality and concise style, these apophthegms: "The vapour
of princely friendship produces death"; "Men enter palaces with
envy, live in them under persecution, and leave them with confu-
sion " ; nor the celebrated sentence, *' Monarchs should remember
that Satan was the first privy councillor"; nor this: "To see of how
little value are the kingdoms of the earth in the sight of the gods, it
is sufficient to look on those to whom they give them," which may be
compared with the conclusion of Arbuthnot's poh'te epitaph on
Francis Chartres. The reflection is also to be found in La Bruycre,
and the common fountain seems to be Seneca's treatise on Provi-
dence : " Non sunt divitia bonum. Itaqiie habeat illas et El litis letio^ ut
hopnines pecuniavi quam in tern pi is consecraverint^ videant et in fornicey

Sir Robert Filmer would scarcely have endorsed the remarks of
the Spanish politician on the subject of monarchs which are to be
found in the Folitica de DioSy y gobierno de Crtsto. There a king
is said to be a public person, whose crown is the necessities of his
kingdom. Reigning is not an entertainment, but a task. He who
conceals himself from the complaints of his subjects, and has door-
keepers for the aggrieved but none for the aggressors, retires from his
duty and is on the same footing as the destroyers of Christ, of w^hom
he will not learn to be a king.

Here is a curious passage, almost literally translated, of the
Politica, " If you allow yourself to be seen by those who are not
allowed to see you, do you not give sight to the blind ? If you free
your court from the evil spirits of covetous ministers, do you not
cast out devils ? If you are a father to the widow and orphan, who
are mute and on whose behalf all are mute, do you not give speech
to the dumb ? If by relieving the poor you banish famine and its
resultant diseases, do you not cure the sick ? And if he cannot be
a good king who gives not to his subjects health, speech, liberty, and
sight, what shall he be who deprives them of all these ? "

One of the most amusing of the many amusing sketches of this
Spanish Scarron is entitled, "A Book of all Things, and of many
others besides," containing ghastly and fearful secrets, tried, certain,
and proved, and never known to fail. The book begins with sundry
riddles and solutions, many of which are familiar to us, though few
would think of finding them in Quevedo. " Question. How to make

Quevcdo. 109

a woman follow you, without ha\ing sj)oken to her, wherever you
will? Ansiver. Steal what she has; she will never leave you in sun
or shadow, but follow you to the world's end. Question. How to
prevent tailors cabbaging your stuff? Answer, Never let them cut out
your clothes, for this is the only remedy. Question, How to make
your horse turn in any direction ? Ansivcr. Send him to a lawyer for
half a day. Question. How to be beloved by all? Answer. Lend
money, and don't ask for it again, treat, suffer, endure, do good turns,
hold your peace, and allow yourself to be cheated." This, the popu-
lar humour of Marcolfo, of Tyll Eulenspiegcl, of Jocrisse, is succeeded
by a treatise on divination, astrolog}% &:c., which looks as if it had
been written yesterday for a satire on The Handbook of Astrology,
by which ever}' question of the future on which the mind is anxious
may be truly answered, by Zadkiel Tao Sze. Herein we learn that
Jupiter in Libra is extremely obnoxious to shopkeepers, or, as we say
now, proprietors of establishments. The full moon signifies that she
can hold no more, and this is an aphorism of Hermes. A blazing
star with a long tail foretells that many are likely to look at it, and all
princes die in that year who cannot live till the next. Evidently
Quevedo troubled himself little about the sweet influences of the
Pleiades or the bands of Orion. A chapter on Omens advises the
reader if on leaving his house hq sees crows flying, to let them fly
and mind where he sets his feet, and informs him that Tuesday is an
unlucky day for those who travel without money, and for those who
are cast into gaol. Sunday is a good day to spunge a dinner, for the
sun is in his own house and you in another man's. Thursd ly is a
good day not to believe flatterers. A chapter en Physiognomy fur-
nishes much that would have delighted Lavater. Another on Chiro-
mancy is death to the g)'psies. This man of little faith declares the
lines in the palm show simply that the hand has been bent, and
predict union neither with dark man nor with fair. *' 'i'he Book of all
Things, &c." is concluded with advice how to learn all the sciences
and arts, liberal and mechanical, in a single day. There is no room
to give his receipts for acquiring languages with small expense of
time and none of money, receipts at least as sure and far more
ingenious than those of many modern professors who bait their lin-
guistic mouse-trap with the toasted cheese of " a perfect knowledge
of French in five weeks."

Almost unknown as a prose writer, Quevedo is, with one
famous exception, in England perhaps entirely unknown as a
poet. Yet his poetical works are numerous and, as has been already
mentioned, of many styles. He is especially hard, even as a Spanish

I lo Tlie Gentlefuans Magazine.

poet, to translate, and his excellent critic, Ochoa, has declared
that some of his conceits it is quite impossible to decipher.
Nevertheless, he assigns him a high position on the Castilian Par-
nassus. His poems are chiefly collected under the title of " The
Nine Muses," according to the subjects of which they treat
Under Clio, for instance, he writes of famous men, deeds, times, and
things, under Melpomene of deaths and funerals, under Erato of love
and beauty, under Urania of religion.

In a sonnet of the first division, Clio, addressed to Rome buried
under its ruins, he contrasts its ancient and modern condition,
observing that most of the solid structures of the city have perished,
while the river Tiber yet remains the same, and the conclusion of
this sonnet forms the single exception above referred to. The little
brook, which Horace describes in his "Journey to Brundusium,"
keeping its former channel in spite of agriculture and earthquakes,
introduces, in Boswell's "Life of Johnson," this conclusion, miserably
distorted. Quevedo wrote —

Huyo lo que era firme, y solamentc
Lo fugitivo permanece y dura.

This passage is taken, as Boswell's guide, pliilosopher, and friend

])ointed out, from James Vitalis, a theologian and poet of Palermo,

who died at Rome in 1560. The whole sonnet is, indeed, copied from

tlie same author, omitting many of his antithetic conceits, as that of

Rome conquering herself at last, that nothing in the world might

remain unconquered by her. The reference to the Albula at the

conclusion of the Latin epigram is written thus —

immota labascunt,
Et quae perpetuo sunt agitata manent.

It is unfortunate^ that the best known poetical quotation from
Quevedo is not Quevedo's own. The English reader, judging from
this sole evidence, might suppose one of the most original of Spanish
writers nothing better than a plagiarist. Joachim du Bellay, who
died in the same year as Vitalis, has the same thought in his Anti-
quitez de Rome^ so excellently translated by our own Spenser : —

Le Tybre seul qui vers la mer s'enfuit
Reste de Rome. O mondaine inconstance !

The idea has been ingeniously utilised by Mr. Tennyson in his
**Song of the Brook.'*

The four idylls in the Muse Erato, which conclude the poems,
dedicated to the lady whom he celebrates under the name of Lysis,
are fair specimens of his amator>' effusions. The first is a loving
Kmvcnt, [ur d simple, in the second the lover is already sick, and

Qiicvedo, II I

soon dead of love, in the third he rises from the dead to compose
his own epitaph, and in the fourth he makes his will. The Marinistic
expressions touching this lady completely cut out those of Cowley
and Donne. So much is even a poet the creature of the period
in which he lives, that Quevedo, while laughing at the cultism
of Gongora, wTOte himself hundreds of lines full of the fantastic
incongruities of Italian imagery, and debased by injudicious associa-
tion of quaint metaphor and metaphysical extravagance. What
is the scholastic speculation of Cowley, who compared a lover's
heart to a hand-grenade, to the ingenious absurdity of Quevedo,
who imagines his own heart floating in the waves of his mistress's hair,
heaven studded with its stars out of her eyes, and yet surplus stuff
remaining sufficient for Lysis to lengthen day ajid dissipate night, and
her disdainful mouth a diamond of sonorous ice? What is Donne's
somewhat far-fetched idea of a woman's name on glass making it
less fragile to the description of the sea-shore as a sandy statute ? Well
might Dr. Johnson say that the metaphysical school aimed less at
nature than at saying what was never said before, and that it failed to
give delight in its endeavour to extort admiration.

Four of Quevedo's most festive and remarkable romances in
Thalia are rare invectives against those marvels of natural history
known as the Phoenix, the Pelican, the Basilisk, and the Unicorn.
In the last especially, the popular belief is made tlic means of much
matrimonial merriment In one of his Rcdondillas, short poems of
four octosyllabic verses, some original conceits occur concerning the
old subject of Orpheus' descent to hell for the redemption of his wife
Kurydice. The poem begins with saying that a worse subject could
not have brought him into a worse place; goes on to inform us that his
song caused much admiration, but his intention of taking his wife back
with him more; that Pluto could not punish his intrusion with greater
cruelty than by granting his request; yet that for the sake of the
singer's music he attached to his grant a condition which facilitated
the prevention of the ill-advised prayer touching the singer's wife.

Quevedo was not more remarkable for caustic] wit or versatile
ingenuity than for his widely extended knowledge of character. He
was at home alike in the prince's presence chamber and the brothel
of the prostitute, in the holy cloister and the gamblers hell.
The Xacarcs in Terpsichore are i)oems written chiefly in the
patois or slang of the XaquCy pimp and bully. They are a ncri'da
picaraca in verse. In the first, Escarraman writes to I.a Mendez
from prison, into which he has been pushed by some " live pins," the
Spanish argot of Quevedo's period for alguacilcs. His chains chink

21.1 The Gentleman s Magazine.

like grasshoppers in a stubble field at evening. He was taken in a
drinking bout after his sixty-ninth draught. He mentions some of
La Mendez's friends whom he meets in gaol, and owing to a little
dispute with these, is ordered a public beating by the governor, whom
he calls a bellows of Satan. The ass on which he rides during his
punishment is big as a dromedary- — the reader will remember Cer-
vantes' comparison of the friar's mules to the same beast — so that all
may behold him; as slow as a tortoise, not to hurry the slashes of his
executioner. The letter concludes with a request to La Mendez to
lend him a little money. That lady's reply is enshrined in another
poem. She begins somewhat sententiously : " All woe is drowned in
wine, all cares are calked with bread. I have nothing to give you,
except indeed some good advice, such is my misfortune." She gives
advice suited less to this paper than to the occasion, and remarks
incidentally that all women will prefer a rich Pagan to a poor
Christian, however pious. Here La Mendez forms as evil an estimate
of her sex as the English philosopher who expressed it as his deliberate
opinion that a maid would as soon marry Jonathan Wild as St. Austin,
if the thief-taker had twopence-halfpenny more than the saint

The pleasure of reading these roguish romances is much diluted
by the difficulty of their words. It is like painfully elaborating a
joke in Aristophanes without the assistance of Liddell and Scott.
No gentleman like Mr. Hotten ever published a slang dictionary in
the time of Quevedo of a language as rich perhaps in this article as
any in what is kno>Mi as the civilised world. But the Xacaras could
never bear a literal rendering. Maldegollada and Zamborodon speak
with the tongues of Lysistrata and Gargantua, rather than with those
of Madame de Maintenon and Louis XIV.

Sufficient has been shown of Quevedo, it is to be hoped, to make
it understood that he, like the great High Priest of all the Nine, as
Campbell is pleased to call Dryden, was not a confessor to the finer
secrets of the human heart He was anything but one of the " gentle
bosoms." Had the subject of Eloise fallen into his hands, he had
left us a mighty coarse draft of her passion. Neither was this poet
remarkable for the great regard which he paid to les convenances^ which
pester us from the cradle to the grave. He did not, like the Phari-
see, thank God that he was not as this publican. A wicked Heathen
and a sincere Christian met with the same treatment at his hands.
He had little sympathy with what is known as the moral greatness of
his species. He is scarcely a suitable companion for the young ; his
works contain few neutral tints, and his philosophy is wont to walk
abroad without a veil. james mew.

11

A

BYZANTINE INSTITUTIONS IN

TURKE V.

W TALKING one day with Finlay among the ruins which siir-
V V round the Acropolis of Athens, we reached the stage of the
Theatre of Dionysius, the mother of all theatres, a building as sacred
as the house of Shakspeare. For there ^^schylus, the father of tra-
gedy, brought forth his works, and there, among the audience, Sophocles
and Euripides might have been seen, whose plays, as well as the later
comedies of Aristophanes, were performed in that theatre. My friend
and guide possessed unmatched acquaintance with these interesting re-
mains. But his special studies led him to note the marks of Roman and
Byzantine domination. He pointed to the twenty-sixth and lowest row
of seats, on a level with the semicircular pavement of that space which
in an English theatre would be called the " pit." It is composed of
sixty-six massive chairs sculptured in marble — white as that of the
Parthenon — thirty-three on either side of the central seat, which pro-
jects slightly from the others and is more capacious. On the backs
of these chief seats in the Theatre of Dionysius there are inscribed, in
Greek characters, the style and title of those qualified to use them,
and to these inscriptions, which without exception denote ecclesi-
astics, Finlay referred as the work of a time when Athens had long
ceased to be Athenian- The democracy in which this illustrious
theatre was erected did not build that central and commanding chair,
which bears the name and is evidently the work of Hadrian.

Finlay was enthusiastic on the subject of Byzantine history. Ha
had theories with regard to it which he stated fearlessly and supported
with unrivalled knowledge — theories reaching above and far beyond
Byzantine annals. He gave me a copy of a paper written twent)'-
seven years ago, which about that time appeared in the transac-
tions of an obscure society, containing a skilful epitome of his larger
work. He spent some time in correcting with his own hand this
copy which is now before me, and from which I propose to show his
view of the characteristic features of Byzantine history (traces of
which yet linger among the populations of Turkey), for the most part
in language of his own, which cannot be known even to many of
those who have been readers of his published writings.

VOL. CCXLII. NO. 1765. I

114 The Gentleman! s Magazine.

We are told by Gibbon,* that **as in his daily prayers the Mussul-
man of Fez or Delhi still turns his face towards the temple of Mecca,
the historian's eye shall be always fixed on the city of Constantinople.*'
At the present moment, the eyes of all the world are turned in that
direction, and therefore no time would seem more suitable for regard-
ing the most concise and succinct expression of the views which Finlay
held at variance with those taught by the great historian of " the
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The first paragraph in the
paper before me contains his opinion that " historical truth demands
hat an attempt should be made to vindicate for the Byzantine
annals their proper place in the records of European civilisation.'
Gibbon, as is well knouTi, traced " the Decline and Fall " through a
period of thirteen centuries, from Trajan to Constantine, from Con-
stantine to Heraclius, and then for more than eight hundred years to
the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, under Mohammed II., in
1453. Finlay maintained that this is a misconstruction of history ;
that the true period of the decline and fall of the Empire of the
Romans is concurrent with the third i)eriod of Byzantine histor}',
w^hich extends from the accession of Isaac I., in 1057, to the destruc-
tion of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders in 1204. That
period commenced with a revolution by the great nobles of Asia, who
wrenched the administration out of the hands of a trained body of
officials, whose systematic proceedings had tempered the imperial
despotism. Henceforward the government was a despotism checked
by an aristocracy, and it ran the usual course of all arbitrar>' power.
As soon as the Emperors felt that they were sufficiently strong, by
securing the support of a few great nobles, to neglect the feelings of
the people, the wealth of the empire was forced into the imperial
treasury, the population began to decline, the fabric of the adminis-
tration was destroyed, and at last a band of 20,000 adventurers put
an end to the Byzantine Empire. Finlay held that the empire, which
was established at Constantinople af^er that city was reconquered
from the Latins, was a Greek empire, diflfering completely in all its
characteristics from its Roman and Byzantine predecessors.

But that in which we are nearly interested is the lesson which this
most laborious student of Byzantine institutions believed Englishmen
who govern India might learn from those institutions. We will
transfer, at least in all its outlines, the brief sketch from which this
great master drew his large picture, to these pages, because Finlay
considered it instructive as affording the most remarkable example
of a government securing to itself a durable existence by the force

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire^ ch. xlviii, vol 9, p. $•

Byzantine Institutio7is in Turkey. 1 1 5

of its own administrative arrangements without forming any national
ties or claiming any sympathy of race with its subjects ; because he
thought it might serve as a lesson to the rulers of India, and inspire
them with the hope that if their administrative machine be as wisely
constructed and their administration of justice as suited to the
exigencies of the times as at Byzantium, their power may be per-
petuated for as many centuries. Finlay held that inquiry into the
characteristic features of Byzantine history was not divested Of prac-
tical importance, because Byzantine institutions saved a falling empire
and preser\-ed order and security of property among a large portion
of mankind differing in race, language, and manners, while the rest of
the world was a prey to despotic violence or social anarchy. The
principles of Romano-Byzantine administration, however, first consti-
tuted centralisation the essential element of civil government, and a
blind devotion to these principles has caused that accumulation of
duties beyond the power of performance which is one of the evils
most prominent in modern European states. The tendency of the
Romano- Byzantine theories of civilisation being to elevate thf
supposed interests of the Government above the jurisdiction of the
ordinary courts of law, their effect is to range the people and the
Government in two separate camps— a division which at the present
time offers the most powerful impediment to the improvement of
society by limiting the bounds of justice. On every question con-
nected with the jjolitical and moral effects of centralisation on society
in a high state of civilisation, Byzantine history unfolds the lessons
of experience during five centuries.

Such is Finlay's statement of the importance of the period which
commenced with the accession of Leo III. to the throne of Constan-
tinople in the year 7 1 6. Gibbon is vague in his description of the
liyzantine Empire. He mentions the time of Heraclius, who died in
641, as that of its commencement. The victories of Timour sus-
pended, according to Gibbon, for more than fifty years, the final
niin of the Byzantine Empire, which, in his chronology, was the work
of Mohammed II. Finlay is precise. He has told us that the Byian-
tine Empire is a modem appellation created by historians to distin-
guish the Eastern Roman Empire after the extinction of the- last
traces of the military monarchy of Rome. Being in reality only a
continuation of the Roman Empire, and not a new state, the com-
mencement of the Byzantine Empire may be fixed either at the period
when the germs of the political changes characterised by the name
first make their appearance, or it may be applied only when these
changes produce a visible effect in the government. Finlay took up

12

1 1 6 The Gentleman s Magazine.

the latter position in asserting that Leo III. (the Isaurian) has the
best claim to be ranked as the first of the Byzantine emperors.
Under Justinian II., the last of the preceding (the Heraclian)
dynasty, who suffered in his own person that mutilation of the nose
which is still practised by the barbarous people of Turkey, the authority
of Government had fallen so low, the ravages of the Sclavonians, the
Bulgarians, and Saracens had rendered the condition of the people so
intolerable, that the extinction of the empire of the East was regarded
as an event inevitable and not very distant. It was then that Leo
was proclaimed emperor in Amorium, while that place was closely
invested by the Saracens. He reached the Bosphorus in time to
defend his capital against the whole force of the Mohammedan
Empire at the moment the caliphs had attained the summit of their
power. He was the founder of a new dynasty, the saviour of Con-
stantinople, the reformer of the Church and State, the first to arrest
the torrent of Mohammedan conquest. He attempted a mightier
task, and would fain have purified the Greek Church from the remi-
niscences of Hellenism. Though he failed in this attack on tlie
popular feelings of his subjects, he improved the moral condition of
Christian society, and infused new vigour into the whole population
of his empire, whether friendly or hostile to his own personal views.
Nothing, indeed, can prove more decidedly the right of his empire to
assume a new name than the contrast presented by the condition of
its inhabitants to that of the subjects of the preceding dynasty.
Under the successors of Heraclius, the Roman Empire offers us the
picture of a decUning society, of thinly peopled provinces exposed,
almost without defence, to the assaults of hostile invaders and to
the intrusion of foreign colonists; whilst, under the sway of the
iconoclasts, the Byzantine Empire began immediately to present an
improving asjject The facts stand recorded in history, yet the
religious views of Leo III. have so blackened his reputation as to
constitute him one of the strongest examples of the force of calumny.
In truth, he must occupy a high position in the records of Eastern
civilisation.

Finlay held that the enormous taxation upon capital in the
Roman Empire led to a rapid falling-off in the numbers of the free
population, and that decline of power followed as a matter of course.
The barbarians who conquered the provinces of the West entered a
country so depopulated that their insignificant numbers were sufficient
to establish their influence. The Sclavonians intruded themselves
into the eastern provinces, yet, though the effects of the silent influx
of foreigners into the most secluded districts of the Eastern Empire

Byzantme Institutions ift Turkey. 1 1 7

to

were almost as strange as those which resulted from the conquest of
Italy by the Goths and Lombards, the fact has, nevertheless, been
slurred over by historians, and is not yet generally acknowledged as
one of the patent truths of history. The colonisation of the eastern
provinces was, however, one of the principal causes of awakening
that reaction which gave life to the Byzantine Empire, and repeopled
the provinces by an increase of the surviving natives. The extensive
country formerly peopled by the Illyrians was so deserted in the time
of Heraclius, that he invited the Servians and other cognate Sclavonian
tribes from the Carpathian mountains to settle in the districts they
still occupy between the Danube and the Adriatic. Shortly before
the accession of Leo IIL, the richest parts of Macedonia and
Bithynia were lying waste ; thousands of Sclavonic colonists were
settled on the banks of the Strymon and the Artanus ; Greece was
almost filled with Sclavonians. The final policy of the Roman Empire
had been such that the whole surplus profits of society were annually
swept into the coffers of the State, and the inhabitants allowed
to retain little more than the minimum required for perpetuating
the race of tax-payers. The rich plains of the Morea were converted
into pasture-lands by Sclavonian nomades. Society was at' this un-
fortunate epoch as repulsive in its external signs as it was degraded
in its essential elements. Even the mechanical arts and the ordinary
luxuries of comfort had declined as the great mass of the population
grew gradually poorer. Harassed by the Saracens, who glowed with
religious fanaticism as they carried the newly delivered Koran from
victory to victory; the borders of his empire in part obHterated by the
incursions of nomades upon an almost desolate countr}'^, — Leo IIL
had, in the political and social condition of the Christian population
throughout the East, peculiar facilities for remodelling the govern-
ment and creating what we call the Byzantine Empire.

Foremost in these circumstances. Fin lay placed the tenacity with
which they held to the establishment of Roman law. A dread of
losing the benefits of legal order formed, during the seventh and
eighth centuries of our era, one of those powerful impulses of society
which affect the course of history without striking the minds of contem-
porary historians. This feeling first placed the mass of the population
of the Byzantine provinces in steady opposition to the progress of
the Mohammedan power. As long as Mohammedanism was con-
trasted only with the fiscal administration of the Roman Empire, and
with the persecuting spirit of the Orthodox Church, the Saracens
found Christian allies in every direction, and their arms were every-
where victorious. But when the disasters of the Roman Government

ii8 Ths Gentleman s Magazine,

had destroyed its powers of fiscal oppression, a new point of com-
parison was presented. The superiority of Justinian's laws over
Mohammed's Koran, and of the civil and ecclesiastical tribunals of
the empire over the courts of the moolahs, became immediately
apparent to all those who lived in an advanced stage of civilisation.
1*he results of these feelings are recorded in the annals of the Byzan-
tine Empire.

Finlay's argument is, that the long duration of the Byzantine
Empire and the prosperity of Constantinople, were due to the
supremacy of Koman law, and that this was maintained by people
who were defenceless against a stricdy i)rofessional army, who were
divided by animosities of race, as well as by bitter controversies in
religion; and the lesson which he thought the rulers of India might
learn from the annals of the Byzantine Empire is, that a just, wise,
and beneficent system of law will, by its advantages, constrain alien
populations not merely to accept but to prize a government which is
thus expressed in the administration of justice, provided always that
the fiscal arrangements of that government are not oppressive. He
declared that so long as Roman law was cultivated in the East, so
long were the Mussulmans baffled in every attack upon the Byzantine
Empire. The promulgation of the Basilica was followed by the
appearance of Byzantine armies in Syria and Mesopotamia. Both
events had their origin in the same social causes. The inhabitants ot
the Emperor's dominions boasted that they lived under the systematic
rule of the Roman law and not under the arbitrary sway of despotic
power. The Roman Empire declined because its fiscal policy
annihilated the agricultural classes, v/ho formed the true basis of the
military force on which it reposed ; the Byzantine Emi)ire prolonged
its existence for five centuries by cherishingthe vitality of the trading
population under the aegis of the Roman law, and by reposing on the
treasury rather than upon the army.

We have to justify this argument by a survey of facts. When
Leo commenced his reforms he had a well-disciplined army devoted
to his person, a powerful mercantile class in every city of the East
attached to his government, and the wealthiest and most populous
city in the world as his capital, all equally interested in the support
of his administration. But when he attempted to reform the ecclesi-
astical system by the extirpation of image-worship, he came into
collision with a large body of people who were not in the service oi
his government, and who saw no prospect of advantage in his reforms.
They opposed him, they made his memory and that of his yet more
iconoclastic son execrated, and their odium has been sufficiently

Byzantine Institutions in Turkey, 1 1 9

strong to tincture the pages of the sagacious Gibbon. But Leo and
his successors reigned securely, because, while the law was valued,
the army was devoted to the government. No state axiom was more
anxiously observed by the governments of Rome and Constantinople
than this, that the condition and ideas of a citizen and of a soldier
were absolutely incompatible ; and consequently the greatest care
was taken to prevent the citizen from acquiring the right of assuming
the position of a soldier. No one of the praetorian guard could
possess a house in Rome or even in Italy. The law endeavoured to
place an impassable barrier between the possessor of the soil, who
was the tax-payer, and the soldier, who, as the agent of the imperial
jjower, supported the tax-gatherer. Gibbon appears to have over-
looked the existence of this peculiar feature in the imperial policy,
and Finlay was confident that the militar>' experience of the learned
historian, as an officer in our own militia, assisted in misleading him.
Here, then, we find the principal cause of that unwarlike disposition,
which is a standing reproach against the wealthy classes in the
Roman and Byzantine Empires. The meek spirit of Byzantine
society, which has been generally attributed exclusively to the influ-
ence of the doctrines of Christianity, originated, in part, in these
military arrangements. The Armenians were for several centuries the
people who made the greatest figure in the Byzantine armies, from
which the Greeks were almost entirely excluded. When a pedigree
was sought for the Emperor Basil (who was really the son of a
Sclavonian horse-driver, an immigrant into Macedonia), it was fashion-
able to trace his origin to princes of Armenia, a fact which affords us
some means of appreciating the position which the Hellenic race was
compelled to occupy during the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries,
in consequence of the exclusion of landed proprietors from the
military service. But while the Byzantine emperors of the Isaurian
line derived strength in carrying out ecclesiastical reforms by com-
manding an army which was thus unconnected with the Greek popu-
lation, there can be no doubt that the diminished weight of the
public burdens was the primary cause of the durability of the fabric
as reformed by Leo. Finlay has said that it seems to be a law of
civilised society that governments gradually sink from the omnipotence
to which they lay claim in early times, to the humble duty of being
merely, the brokers of human intelligence, labour, and wealth, and
that the finances form the symbol of the quantity which the central
authority can appropriate. That the weight of taxation became
lighter after the time of Leo HI. is proved by the irrefragable evi-
dence of the rising prosperity of the people. The number of the

I20 The Gentleman s Magazine,

free population, and of those of the ancient races of the population,
began again to increase. The Sclavonians, who had gradually occu-
pied the open country of Greece, were expelled from the greater part
of their settlements, the Saracens were driven from all the provinces
on this side of Mount Taurus, and the eagles of the Byzantine
armies reappeared victorious in the plains of Syria.

Finlay has deplored the fact that we are compelled to receive our
accounts of " the most durable civilised government which has ever
existed, solely from the dull chronicles of prejudiced monks or the
pedantic annals of courtly historians." Gibbon speaks with the utmost
scorn of the subjects of the Byzantine Empire, who, he says, assume
and dishonour the name both of Greeks and Romans, and present
a dead uniformity of abject vices, which are neither softened by the
weakness of humanity, nor animated by the vigour of memorable
crimes. Concerning Constantine V., son of Leo III., he repeats
the story that ** a plate of noses was accepted as a grateful offering/*
and gives half credence, half denial to wild imputations, by theo-
logical enemies, of offences among which that quoted is one of the
least criminal. But is it reasonable, we may ask, to impute on one
page habitual debauchery, abomination, lust, and cruelty to a prince,
and to record upon the succeeding page his activity and courage at
the head of his legions, his triumphs by sea and land on the Eu-
phrates and on the Danube in civil and barbarian war, his undisturbed
reign of thirty-four years, and ' the reverence with which for forty
years after his death the iconoclasts prayerfully revered his virtues?
In judgment upon these circumstances, Finlay is much more philoso-
phical. He thought Gibbon had overlooked the fact that no political
system can be prolonged from generation to generation unless it
repose on institutions which form the habits of the peoi)lc ; the very
power which supports it must derive its perpetuity from systematic
regulations. The greater, consecjuently, the vices of a government
of long duration may be, the greater also becomes the importance
of investigating the institutions which have been powerful enough to
sustain it. There were vices in the Byzantine rulers — vices which
culminated in the reign of Michael III. (the Drunkard). But with
that miserable prince ended the dynasty to which he belonged, and
his executioner, or murderer, revived, as Gibbon admits, the order
and majesty of the Empire. Basil I., who did this, accomplished
the work because he inherited the institutions which were not over-
thrown by the orgies of Michael ; and the publication of the
Basilica, in which he and his successors on the Byzantine throne
promulgated a new edition of the laws of Justinian, marks the period

Byzantine Institutions in Turkey, 1 2 1

in which the Byzantine Empire attained its highest degree of external
power and internal prosperity. The volumes of the Basilica, said
Finlay, tell us the true cause of the imperial splendour and the
popular prosperity ; they show us the exertions made by the most
despotic emperors to secure the lives and property of their subjects.
There is one fact concerning which there can be no doubt, and it
alone suffices to place the Byzantine Government higher in our esti-
mation than any other which existed from the time of Augustus to
the fifteenth century. Personal liberty and security of property were
guaranteed more effectually and for a longer period under the suc-
cessors of T,eo the Iconoclast, than under any other government of
which history has preserved a record. The empires of the caliphs
and of Charlemagne, though historians delight to praise them,
cannot pretend to any comparison on these points ; and as to their
power, both sank into ruin while the Byzantine Empire continued to
flourish in full vigour. No one who is wise will question Finlay's
supremacy in this field of historical learning. But may we not permit
ourselves to trace in the fate of some of the Christian races of
Turkey, during the last four centuries, the consequences of some
imperfections in Byzantine institutions ?

ARTHUR ARNOLD.

J

122 The GcHilemans Magazine.

TABLE TALK.

AMONG matters of interest in the Third Volume of the " Life of
the Prince Consort" must be counted the formal denial it
contains of an often- repeated assertion, that the erecticJn of public
buildings in South Kensington was a job perpetrated in the interest
of royalty. That Prince Albert had purchased no land contiguous to
the South Kensington Museum or the Horticultural Gardens I had
long known from Mr. Martin. It was quite hopeless, however, to
repeat a statement of this kind, so general was the conviction to the
contrary. A certain measure of unpopularity has always attaclied
itself to the memory of Prince Albert in consequence of the convic-
tion that he was parsimonious in his ordinary transactions, and that
the money he saved by a system of penury, the very reverse of all
we are accustomed to associate with royalty, went to swell the huge
reserves of the Crown. "Statesmen of mark are known to have
shared this conviction, which is said to have exercised, not once, but
repeatedly, a very decided political effect." It now meets with a flat,
direct, and emphatic contradiction. So far from saving money, says
Mr. Martin, the Prince was only able by strict economy to meet the
year's current expenses. He died " kenning absolutely no fortune, indeed
barely enough to meet his personal liabilities." So flies away for ever,
it is to be hoped, to the limbo of vanities a report which has done in
its time no small amount of mischief. Still, while it is pleasant to
think that the systematic prudence and economy of the Prince
Consort were imposed upon him by duty, I cannot but regret that he
was under the necessity of doing some of the things charged against
him. It is well, doubtless, for the highest in the land to set examples
ol prudence ; still the distinction between economy and stinginess
should at least be observed in Imperial transactions. An impression
exists in artistic circles that the remuneration of artistic labour
afforded by royalty was at times a very dubious advantage, and that
Court patronage to a painter took occasionally the shape of extortion
rather than that of favour.

Table Talk. 12

o

THE lengths to which " Servant Girlism " is going in this country
are appalling, and the latest example of it caps all. A gentleman
and his family spent four months on the Continent this year, leaving
their house in charge of two female domestics. When they came
home a miracle occurred. They found nothing had gone particularly
wrong. A few weeks afterwards, however, the Paterfamilias met an
acquaintance in the street, who received him with a sympathising air.

" I was sorry, my dear Sir, to find that you had had a domestic
calamity in your family.'

" I ! Not a bit of it. We are all right."

*' But there has been a death in your house ? "

" Certainly not. Why do you say so ? "

" Well, only a month ago I happened to be passing down your
terrace, and saw with my own eyes a funeral cortege standing at
your door. Of course I made no inquiries at the time, but I was
surprised to see nothing of the matter in the paper." •

Paterfamilias went hom€ grievously puzzled, but at last got to the
root of the story. His servants had let his house for three months on
their own responsibility, and shared the rent between them. This
would probably have never been discovered, only their tenant's wife
had the misfortune to decease during his brief occupation of the
premises.

FREEMASONRY in England is disturbed to its very depths by
the action of the Grand Orient of France, the most important
among Gallic lodges. Hitherto the Franc-ma^on has been required
to assert his belief in three things : the existence of a God, the
immortality of the soul, and the solidarite of man. Now this form of
trinitarianism is no longer de rigueur, and a man, to be a member of
the Grand Orient, needs not make any theological declaration what-
ever. It is sufficient if he accepts the third article in the creed, and
assumes a part in that mutual responsibility on which the French legists
have bestowed the name of solidarite. As English Freemasonry main-
tains itself on a religious basis requiring, at least, the formal acknow-
ledgment of a God, it is, in Lord Carnarvon's view, difficult to con-
tinue the kind of communion with French Masonry that has hitherto
existed. A committee, consisting wholly of noblemen, and including
Lords Carnarvon, Leigh, Skelmersdale, Donoughmore, and Tenterden,
has been appointed upon a motion made by Lord Carnarvon, on
behalf of the Prince of Wales, the Grand Master of England, to con-
sider the matter. It is difficult to see what the committee can do,
except let the question dro|). Freemasonry in England is Conser\ative,

124 The Gentlcniafis Magazine.

on the Continent it is Democratic. |Iere it is, at least, a more or less
social and intellectual occupation for men of leisure ; there it is, or
has been, a political agent. It is but natural that the feeling among
the radicals of France, which makes them elect to be buried with civil
rites, should mduce them to abrogate any form of theological test.
At the same time, it must be remembered, that if our orthodox Free-
masons break off all intercourse with their French brethren, a question
as to the expediency of keeping up, what will then become a mere
matter of ceremonial, will at once arise. The real merit of Free-
masonry has been that it established a brotherhood over which Courts
and tyrannies had little power, and that individuals might be amicable
while the nations to which they belonged were at feud. If Masonry
would be a vital force, let it accept for its mission the task of putting
down war. If ever such a result is to be obtained, it must come
from the outspoken assertion of peace-lovers in all countries ; and for
an association' of this kind Freemasonry has a framework already
provided.

ONE of the worst. nuisances experienced by the English traveller
in Southern regions is the quarantine to which he is subjected.
Quarantine is all but unknown in England. If there is any truth in the
statements of Commander Halpin, R.N., that the frequency of colli-
sions and other accidents in the Channel is due to the fact that the
crews of vessels are habitually shipped in such a state of intoxication
that some days are requisite to put them on their sea legs, it would
surely be a good plan to have a species of quarantine for outward bound
vessels, and see that no ship is allowed to quit harbour until its crew
is fit for work. If the effects of Jack's hilarious habits cannot other-
wise be remedied, this plan might surely be adopted, since though
there would be some loss of wages to owners, it would shortly be
regained by diminished insurances. After all, sailors form no incon-
siderable portion of our national strength, and we can scarcely show
worse extravagance than allowing them to go to sea in a state in
which every species of disaster seems absolutely challenged.

AMONG the many reasons, most of them valid ones, against
making Thirlmere, one of the most charming of the English
Lakes, a Manchester reservoir, is that such a proceeding will probably
destroy one of the few specimens of haunted houses we have still left
in England. It is Miss Martineau who tells us of that lonely
residence under Armboth Fell, where the lights are seen in the empty
banqueting-chamberi and the spectral dog welcomes the invisible

Table Talk. 125

guests. If the lake is raised, as intended, forty|[feet, those lights will
be put out, and the dog will be drowned ! May Cottonopolis be
sent nearer home for its water supply, and not interfere with the public
pleasure in things on which it has itself never set any value : the
solemnity of solitude, the unruffled aspect of Nature, the glories of the
mountain, the peacefulness of the mere !

There was a certain sonnet written once, which has a very direct
reference to this utilitarian invasion :

Is there no nook of English ground secure from rash assault,

Plead for thy peace, thou beautiful romance
Of Nature ; and if human hearts be dead
Speak, passing winds ; ye torrents with your strong
And constiu^t voice protest against this wrong.

If Wordsworth had lived to hear of the present outrage, he would
have exclaimed (almost) v^ith Lear, " Ye Aqueducts, burst."

ALONG cherished ambition of the Scot has now been gratified,
and a statue of King Robert the Bruce has been erected on
the Castle esplanade at Stirling. From this spot the monarch, who is
represented as clad in a coat of chain-armour over which is the royal
robe, and who is sheathing his sword after achieving the independence
of Scotland, can gaze at will over the scene of his crowning triumph.
The statue is cut in freestone, is nine feet in height, and stands on a
pedestal ten feet high. I have not seen it, and am accordingly
unable to judge of its artistic merits. If these are of no more con-
spicuous order than those of similar works in England and Scotland,
those who by their subscriptions have testified their delight at the
conquest of the South by the North have missed a chance of paying
off old scores such as is not often afforded. Had they, instead of
mounting a new statue on Stirling Castle, sent it to London and
induced us to put it in some conspicuous position, say on the
Thames Embankment, the balance of wrong, supposing any to exist,
so far as Scotland is concerned, would at once be removed to the
other side, and the national capacity to appreciate a joke of the
highest order would at once be vindicated.

THERE is an M in Merionethshire and there is one in Muscovy.
Resemblance between the two places does not, as in the
parallel case of Macedon and Monmouth, stop here. The inhabit-
ants of both places have so strong an objection to coital punish-
ment that when a man is condemned to be hanged they refuse to
assist in carrying out the sentence. In Russia the effect of this

126 The Gentleman s Magazine.

reluctance is to compel the substitution of perpetual imprisonment
for the capital sentence pronounced by the law. Wales is too near
England to afford a criminal a similar chance. Workmen from
Chester, accordingly, build the scaffold the Welshmen refuse to erect,
and the great administrant of justice, the hangman, discharges his
functions with characteristic indifference and aplomb. Such signs as
these of growing antipathy to the punishment of death leave no room
to doubt that it will soon be abolished.

I FIND that civilisation is advancing among us in three directions.
First, people drink less and less wine after dinner, and in conse-
quence, as I suppose, one's hosts can afford to give one better liquor
during the repast. For my part, I have for years drunk nothing but
claret, partly, as the Scripture says, "for my stomach's sake," but
principally because the avowal (never made till I am seated at the
table) compels the butler to help me from the claret jug that is to
come on at dessert. I am not fobbed off with inferior wine at th<:
only period when I care to drink wine at all. Secondly, the ladies
are kinder to us in the matter of cigars ; the delightful weed is now
indigenous at many houses, after dinner, where I have been wont to
fume — no, twt to fume — to pine and long for it in vain. When two
dinner invitations come together, it is not the rank of the inviters
that decides a wise man which to take, but the crucial question, " at
which of these houses shall I get tobacco after dinner?" I am not a
bigot, ladies ; a mere cigarette satisfies mc. But if you knew what I
suffer when I get not/tin*^ I How would you like to be shut up in a
room for hours deprived of what is necessary to your existence— a
looking-glass, for example.

The third direction in which civilisation has made a stride is in
the matter of " calls." This duty, irksome beyond measure to tl^e
males, is being relegated entirely to the softer sex, who have but one
objection to fulfilling it They say, not without reason, that this
release from their obligations will still more increase the disinclina-
tion of men to get married. When it was de rigueur for all who had
been asked to dinner anywhere, however far it might be from their
own place of residence, and at whatever inconvenience to themselves,
to leave a card next day upon their hostess, men looked out eagerly
for wives — to be their substitutes in this detested proscription. Now
that they are getting to be excused from this service, a great induce-
ment to matrimony will be withdrawn. A poet whom our grand-
fathers, or, at all events, our grandmothers, knew by heart, has thus
described a morning call. I am afraid it will be new to nine out cf

Table Talk, 127

ten of my readers— even to those cf them who tilk glibly about
Cowper's POems: —

Who find a changing clime a happy source

Of wise reflection and well turned discourse ;

And next inquire, but softly and by stealth,

Like conservators of the public health,

Of epidemic throats if such there are,

And coughs, and rheums, and phthisis and catarrh.

That theme exhausted, a wide chasm ensues,

Filled up at last with interesting news ;

Who danced with whom, and who are like to wed,

And who is hanged and who is brought to 1)C(1,

But fear to call a more important cause,

As if 'twere treason against English laws.

The visit paid, with ecstacy we come

As from a seven years* transportation home.

And then resume our unembarrassed brow,

Recovering what we lost we know not how.

The faculties that seemed reduced to nought.

Expression and the privilege of thought.

SINCE Fauntleroy's time we have had no such accomplished
scoundrel in a Court of Law in England as Mr. Benson, the
famous witness against the Detectives. His career is almost an un-
exampled one — even as it appears to the public. A lover of the
picturesque, an editor of a French newspaper, a correspondent,
though only as the representative of a committee of invitation, with
an Empress : that is strange enough. But what is not so generally
known is that it was his money which started the last magazine
devoted to Free Thought. He would have been not only a publisher
(which some cynics might say has not been always wholly unconnected
with knaver)') but the inaugurator of a new Theology — with probably
a new set of Commandments (to replace the broken ones). He
applied, I am informed on the best authority (namely one of them-
selves), to tr^'o leading novelists, promising them any sum they pleased
to write a novel for this periodical, so that

But for the merest accident on earth
'ITiey might have been High Priests to Mumbo Jiimlx),

and have >\Titten serials in the Felons' Journal. Nor was this all.
So very nearly did this Icarus approach the Empyrean before his fall
that he was actually engaged to the daughter of a high and titled civic
functionary. It was only " that little rift within the lute " which often
mars love's harmony— a hitch about the marriage settlements — which
at the eleventh hour put Cupid's flambeau out ; broke off the match.
The newspapers omit to report a certain audacity of his — almost
an epigram — to which he gave utterance in Court. On the second

128 The Gentleman s Magazine,

day of his examination, he alluded to one of the advocates as " my
learned friend, the counsel for the defence." The advocate started
up in indignation, "Am I to be thus addressed by a convict? "

" Pardon me,*' said Benson sweetly : " let us leave out *the learned.'
I will call him * the counsel for the defence.' "

HOW much barbarism, superstition, and darkness still exist in
the world is proven by the fact that ^yt. people have been
recently burnt in Mexico as witches! St. James, a village in Con-
cordeo, was the scene of this murder. Two individuals, a man and
a woman, were first condemned. As soon as the fire reached them,
they gave notice of having something to reveal. The flames were
then temporarily extinguished and the poor creatures purchased a
brief intermission by denouncing three other individuals as their
associates. With as much speed as was convenient those they impli-
cated were captured, the pile was re-lighted, and ^st, victims instead
of three were sacrificed to a form of superstition which, like some
other forms, is "an unconscionable time in dying."

NO movement at present before the public deserves warmer sup-
port than that for the establishment of Free Libraries, which
originated at a meeting at the London Institution. Should the
London School Board accept, as seems possible, the responsibility of
establishing a library in every parish in London, the most important
measure yet taken for counteracting the attraction of the beerhouse
and the gin palace will have been obtained. By the imposition of a
halfpenny rate a free library can be obtained for any parish. If,
however, it is possible to avoid the imposition of a burden which falls
heaviest upon the poorest classes, it is desirable to do so. Of course,
some entertainment more exhilarating than is afforded by a reading-
room will have to be provided if ever the demon of drunkenness is to
be resolutely combatted. We take a step forward, however, when we
provide the proletarian with any place whatever in which he may sit and
keep himself warm. I do not, of course, limit to the lowest class the
benefits to be derived from the establishment of these institutions.
The gain that results from having a library of reference at hand is
not one that a writer is likely to undcr-estimate. What experience
has told me is wanting in order to render libraries really useful to the
classes it is sought to reach is the establishment of a committee of
selection, which will obtain the books the workman wants, and not
those which moralists think fit to thrust upon him. If there is one
thing to which the labourer objects, it is the idea of being intellectually
"coddled." svlvanus urban.

I

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

February 1878.

ROY'S WIFE.

BY G. J. WHYTE-MELViLLK.

Chapter VI.

so LIKE A MAN !

STORM and calm, rain and sunshine, bitter and sweet, action an(
reaction, are not these the conditions of life ? If the wind i
ftir to-day, look for it in your teeth to-morrow; what is earned b;
the right hand, you are bound to spend with the left \ and neve
expect to be four-by-honours in two deals running !

Who so happy as an accepted lover? He treads on air, h(
mounts to the skies, and he soars on the wings of a dove, believinj
firmly that he has abjured the wisdom of the serpent for evermore
Yet, after the first access of transport, every succeeding momen
brings him down nearer and nearer the ground, till at last he walki
about again on two legs, like a husband, or a goose, or any othe:
biped, having neither energy nor inclination to fly.

I need not say that John Roy bade adieu to Beachmouth, betool
himself to Charing Cross Station, and proceeded thence to the
Comer Hotel, Comer Street, Strand, without loss of time. Th<
distance was short He could almost have wished it longer, that h(
might gain more time to realise the step he had taken.

Like most English gentlemen, he was a bold fellow enough on i
horse, in a row, under any circumstances of risk to life or limb, but h(
was also sensitive and shy, particularly with inferiors, shrinking fron
their approaches, as a timid woman shrinks from observation anc
personal address.

It was not reassuring to find the hotel door blocked up by ai

VOL. OCXUL NO. 1766. K

1 30 The Gentleman s Magazine.

arrival, or to be told without hesitation by a supercilious waiter in
yesterday's white neckcloth that they were full to the garrets, and
hadn't a bed unoccupied, while he volunteered with something of
reproof the further information that this was a private hotel, and if the
gentleman expected to find accommodation he should have written
to Mrs. Phipps at least a week ago.

" But I don't want a room," said John Roy, out of patience ; " I
came here to call on Miss — I mean, is Mrs. Phipps at home ? "

** Mrs. Phipps is engaged."

" Go and tell her that a gentleman wishes to see her particularly,
and will not detain her five minutes."

John Roy was peremptory, not to say stern ; but the waiter stood
to his guns.

** Any name, sir?" as if a man without a portmanteau must also
be without a name.

The visitor wished he had brought a card- case.

" Mr. Roy," said he ; " and be so good as to go at once. I don't
choose to be kept waiting half-an-hour on the door- step."

But Nelly, who was already in the passage, flew to the threshold,
and welcomed him with such warmth and cordiality as completely
reassured the waiter.

" I knnu you would come ! " she whispered. " I have been expect-
ing you all the morning. This way. Mind the step. Don't run
against the coal-box. We're so full, we have been driven down-stairs.
We generally live in the front dining-room. Now, I'll bring you in,
and show you to Auntie."

The charm was working again, and at high pressure. So lovely, so
loving, so bright, so beautiful ; above all, so glad to see him. Who
would not have followed such a guide down the darkest passages, the
most inconvenient stairs that ever smelt of mould, soap, sawdust,
stale coffee, and early dinner ?

Mrs. Phipps was an excellent woman, no doubt — clear-headed,
bustling, full of energy, a capital accountant, sincere, sensible, with a
heart of gold — but she was not exactly the sort of person John Roy
would have selected for his wife's aunt.

He had a keen sense of the ludicrous, and as she came forward,
rubbing one hand over the other, to stop in front of him, with a pro-
found curtsey, he took in her exterior at a glance. The dark dress,
looking dingier in the obscurity of a room on the basement, lighted
from a grating in the pavement outside; the portliness of figure,
increasing as it travelled upward to the chin ; the large brooch, the
bright gold chain, the jet ornaments twinkliqg in a solemn head*gear,

Roy's Wife. 131

black, pompous, and funereal as the artificial tresses it surmounted,
and the plain oblong face, with just so much resemblance to NeUy as
might create a vague and morbid fear lest her bright young beauty
should ever turn to this !

He made the best of it, and put out both hands. '' You are to
be my aunt too," said he. " Miss Burton has told you everything, of
course. I am always going to call her Nelly for the future, and you
must learn to look upon me as a relation of your own."

He was not prepared for the result. Mrs. Phipps burst out crying,
and put her arms round his neck.

After this little ebullition she became practical enough. " I'm
sure it's a great honour," said she, '^ and a great happiness to us all.
It's what I never expected, and yet Nelly do deserve the best that
ever wore shoe-leather, and I always said so. She was a good
daughter, Mr. Roy, was Nelly, and a good niece. I'm sure I've
reason to know it ; and she'll make a good wife to the man who will
be kind to her. I can see in your face as you're one of that sort.
I'm a plain-spoken woman, Mr. Roy ; I never had the manners of
my niece, there, nor yet the education. I've my bread to get, as I
may say, by hard and honest work ; but you won't think the worse of
us, I hope ; and you won't take it as a liberty if I say, God bless you
both ! and I should like to shake you by the hand, Mr. Roy, once more."

So this ceremony was repeated, and Roy acknowledged to him-
self that the good old woman who had educated his betrothed wife
was a thorough lady at heart, although she spoke second-class English
and kept an hotel.

" You'll take a glass of wine, Mr. Roy," continued his hostess,
relapsing into her common-place mood. ** I wish I could ask you to
stop dinner, but Nelly and me has had our dinner, and you couldn't
hardly see to eat it neither in so dark a place as this. I wish I
wasn't so put about for room. But what am I to do ? You can't
turn people away from the doors, if you keep an hotel."

'* Mr. Roy never takes wine in the daytime. Auntie," said Nelly,
assuming entire charge of his habits, as became a woman engaged for
more than twenty- four hours. " We can give him a cup of tea in
five minutes, and I'll make it myself ; I know what he likes better
than you do."

But Mr. Roy preferred a walk with Nelly to refreshment of any
kind, and the pair were soon strolling arm-in-arm along that romantic
thoroughfare the Strand, discussing trousseaux^ wedding, honeymoon,
their eventual future. What do I know? What do people talk
about when they are going to be married and lead a new life?

K2

132 The Gentleman* s Magazine.

So the weeks went on. John Roy found himself waking morning
after morning with a strange, anxious feeling that he was yet a day
nearer his fate, sometimes impatient to get it over, sometimes think-
ing he could wait as long as he pleased, but never wavering in his
loyalty to Nelly, nor allowing for one second that he regretted his
choice.

It was the dead time of year. ** Not a soul in London," said the
souls who met the other souls in the street Yet is the Great City
seldom so empty, even of rich and idle, but that ten or t^velve can be
got together for a dinner-party at short notice. There are people
who profess they like these little gatherings better than the crowd
and hurry of the season, declaring that they never enjoy the society
of their friends so thoroughly as when " there is nobody in town.*'

In St James's Street and Pall Mall might be found a few lingerers,
dull and torpid as the winter flies on a >rindow-pane ; but the Park
seemed unusually deserted. Perhaps for that reason it was the
chosen resort of Mr. Roy and Miss Burton, who would turn in at
Albert Gate, having arrived there, as became a regularly engaged
couple, in a hansom cab, to walk in the Ride, or sit down and make
plans for the future, while she looked in his face with adoring eyes,
and he — well — he smoked, and let her look.

** I like this," whispered Nelly, pressing closer to his side as they
returned one day from an hour or two of the above engrossing occu-
pation. '* You and me have got it all to ourselves ! "

" It " meant that stretch of rugged bricks and rubbish, with a
surface of mud just thick enough to splash, which the Government
then in office had provided for its tax-payers on horseback, and
seemed in so far a solitude when Nelly spoke that its only other occu-
pants were a fat man on a cob, and a doubtful-looking lady riding a
lame horse.

"It's very nice," answered John Roy, rather preoccupied, for
just then a figure turned into the Ride on a hunting-looking chestnut,
at a pace that promised soon to bring him alongside our pedestrians.
The easy seat and general outline were not to be mistaken. Roy
wished at the moment he had some other lady on his arm.

The chestnut, though going fast, must have been well in hand, it
was pulled up so quickly at the rails, while a familiar voice ex-
claimed, '^ Hulloh, Roy ! In town at this time of year ! Come and
dine to-day. I'm off to-morrow morning for Newmarket" Then, as
if catching sight of Nelly for the first time, the speaker bowed to his
stimip-iron, and added, " I beg your pardon. I was so glad to see
my fnend ! "

Roys Wife. 133

It stung Roy to feel that there should be an absolute necessity
for introducing her on the spot as ''Miss Burton — a lady who is
going to do me the honour of becoming my wife." It stung him still
more to notice an instantaneous change of manner, that only a sensi-
tive nature would have detected, while, with a second bow, not quite
so low, yet somehow more respectful, the other observed, " Then it's
no use hoping for you at dinner. Allow me to congratulate you
both ! " and cantered off.

" What a pretty fellow I " said Nelly, in a tone of undisguised
admiration.

" Most women agree with you," answered Roy, wondering he
was not more nettled. ** They used to call him the lady-killer in his
regiment."

Her grey eyes opened wide.

** Did he really kill a lady ? How horrible ! He ought never to
be saddled again ! "

John Roy laughed. " You mean the horse, dear," said he. " I
thought it was the man."

"Oh! I never looked at the gentleman," answered Nelly. " Who
is he ? What's his name ? "

" Lord Fitzo wen— commonly called Fitz ! "

" A lord, is he ? Well, he don't look half so like a lord as you I
What is he going to Newmarket for?"

John Roy did not answer. He was thinking it would be rather
up-hill work to teach his wife all the ins-and-outs, the little tech-
nicalities, the very language of that artificial world into which he was
bringing her. They would live in the country, he determined, and
come but little to London for the present. A man might be very
happy in the country with some hunting, shooting, farming, and such
a beautiful creature to keep his house. One couldn't have every-
thing. It was a great piece of good fortune that he didn't marry
Lady Jane !

And Nelly, clinging to his arm, wondered how she could ever have
lived without him. His presence was paradise, his absence a blank.
All places were alike if she only had him by her side.

So they were married in due course of time — exactly one month
from the day that he proposed to her on Beachmouth Pier. The
wedding was quiet enough. No bishop, no bridesmaids, and a cake
of small dimensions from the confectioner's round the comer. The
happy couple walked quietly out of the hotel to a neighbouring
church. Nelly was given away by her nearest male relation, a retired
diysalter residing at Clapham, who felt and looked in a false position

1 34 The Gentlematis Magazine.

throughout. Mrs. Phipps wept plentifully in the rector's pevir (absent
with his family in Switzerland), and the ceremony was performed by
an ecclesiastic, somewhat irreverently mentioned as '' a clergyman on
a job." One very old shoe was thrown by the upper housemaid
when the happy couple left the hotel in a cab, and the waiter re-
mained drunk all day. These were the only festivities. The servants
agreed that, though Miss Burton had done well for herself, the bride-
groom looked old enough to be her father, and the wedding was a
tame affair !

Nevertheless, it was over, and they were married as irrevocably
and completely as if a primate had officiated, and the whole House
of Lords had signed the register.

Nelly was supremely happy; so, in a calmer degree, was her
husband. Both had obtained that to which most people look for-
ward as the crowning joy of life, yet it seemed like a dream to read
in next day's Times the simple and unpretending notice — " Yesterday,
at St. Withold's, by the Rev. Joseph Makeshift — ^John Roy, Esq., of
Royston Grange and 907 Piccadilly, to Elinor, sole surviving
daughter of Jacob Burton, Esq., late of High Holbom, London."

"John Roy?" said one or two friends, gleaning the morning
papers with cigars in their mouths — " I have often wondered what
had become of him. Used to be rather a good fellow. Only sur-
viving child, too ; looks as if he had picked up an heiress. Great
absurdity marrying after forty, and infernal mistake to get caught
before ! "

But Nelly's history only began in reality on the day when she
felt she was the happiest woman in the world because she stood at
the altar as Roy's wife.

Chapter VU.
warden towers.

" And you know her, Lord Fitzowen ? What an odd person you
are ! I believe you know everybody in the world."

"I thought you said she was out of the world. Miss Bruce.
Therefore you were surprised I should have made her acquaintance."

" Thaf s not the question. Where can you have met her ? "

'^ Nothing more simple ; walking in the Park with her husband."

" Before they were married ? "

" Of course. People don't walk together in the Park after they're
married, unless they've had a row."

Ray's Wife. 135

" And he introduced you ? "

" Why shouldn't he? Won't you introduce me to your husband,
Miss Bruce, when the time comes — and the man ? "

She smiled, rather wistfully. " Perhaps you know him already,"
said she. " And if you don't, I am not sure you are a desirable
acquaintance. You might lead him into mischief."

" Somebody has been maligning me, and to you of all people, in
whose good opinion I want so much to stand high. An enemy has
done this."

*' Not Mrs. Roy, at any rate. She couldn't remember having
seen you. I said you were here, and asked her. There, Lord Fitz !
There's a come-down ! "

" Not a bit. Say a see-saw, if you please ; for it's a go-up at the
other end. If she had forgotten me, you hadn't ! "

" How can I forget you when you're staying in the house ? Be-
sides, don't flatter yourself that I ever try ! "

" Then I'll wait for a more favourable opportunity, and we'll talk
about something else. What did you think of your new neighbour?

" What did you ? "

" I thought her — charming ! "

" How like a man I As if that conveyed anything ! Now, I will
do you justice. Lord Fitz. I believe you pretend to be stupider than
you are, so I wonder you didn't find out something."

" What was there to find out ? I could see with my own eyes
she hadn't a wooden leg."

" Indeed ! Well, you'll say I am ill-natured, and that one woman
always tries to disparage another ; did it not strike you she is hardly
quite a lady? I don't mean to say she drops her /i V, but something
very like it. She has never lived amongst the people you and I are
accustomed to meet, and I think Mr. Roy feels it He looked very
black at her more than once."

" Wbat a shame ! They haven't been married six weeks. If I
had a wife, now — never mind — I'm not going to commit myself. Miss
Bruce. I might say too much."

" If you had a wife, of course you would be just as trying as
other husbands, but that's no business of mine. I was going to tell
you — when we called, papa and I, as we were bound to do at once,
being such near neighbours, we found them at home, and I know
she was got-up to receive visitors. In fact, she told me so. She
called it ' seeing company.' She was well dressed, I must say, not
too much, and as handsome as a picture. You seldom see such eyes
and hair. But for all that, there's a something. I'm convinced she

136 The Gentleman s Magazine.

is not what I call thoroughbred^ and yet papa wouldn't allow it. He
was completely fascinated, and you know how particular he is."

" Naturally. If I were your papa, I should be very particular
indeed."

" Nonsense ! Don't interrupt. I watched Mr. Roy, and I'm sure
he wasnH at his ease. He looked in a fidget every time she opened
her mouth. I was sorry for him, and we didn't stay long, though she
pressed me to take luncheon, and to take tea, and hoped I wouldn't
take cold in the open carriage, and all the rest of it, as kindly as
possible."

" And have you taken cold — I beg your pardon— ra//^i4/ cold ?
for if so, you had better not stand here any longer. I shouldn't like
your death to lie at my door."

" You haven't got a door, only a latch-key. But for once you
talk sense. So draw my skates a little tighter, and we'll practise the
Dutchman's Roll round the island and back again. Are you ready ?
Go!"

During the performance of this exhibition, which is but a succes-
sion of outside edges, neither very speedy nor very graceful, I may
take the opportunity of explaining how these young people came to
be disporting themselves on some five acres of ice, which milder
weather would dissolve into a pretty little lake, forming a principal
ornament in the grounds of Warden Towers.

Sir Hector and Miss Bruce, a widower and an only daughter,
had come to reside here, as their neighbours hoped, for a permanence,
having taken a long lease of the place, which, notwithstanding its
somewhat feudal name, had been hitherto the home of a retired
tradesman, whose asthma compelled him to fight for breath in a
warmer climate elsewhere. The house, though built with a turret at
each end, was handsome and comfortable, the park roomy enough for
a gallop, but not so extensive as to admit of feeding deer, and the
gardens were exceedingly well laid out. As Sir Hector observed,
" It was a nice gentlemanlike place in which to drivel away the rest
of one's life. If Hester liked it, he would never ask to sleep out of
the chintz room in the east tower again."

Hester liked whatever suited papa — that is to say, she turned him
round her white fingers as an only daughter does turn the father who
has learned to believe her a prodigy of infancy, a paragon of girlhood,
and in all respects a pearl among womankind. Sir Hector, though his
Christian and surnames sounded so warlike, was a mild old gentle-
man of rather convivial habits and an easy temper, even when tortured
by gout. He accepted its pains and penalties with a good humour

Roys Wife. 137

that roused the adipiration of his friends; and the moment he resumed
the use of his hands, or could put his lame feet to the ground, returned
to those indulgences that sustained and strengthened his enemy with
a zest only sharper for remembrance of past discipline and prospect
of future pain.

To be sure, as he used to declare, *' It was a pleasure to be ill
when one could have Hester for a nurse ; " and it is but justice to say
that no temptation could lure this young lady from her post if papa
was either threatened or laid up. Many a time she stripped off riding-
habit or ball-dress and sent the carriage back from the very door at
the first of those symptoms that her experience told her were fore-
runners of an attack. Many an hour did she pass in darkened rooms,
measuring draughts, smoothing pillows, reading to him, talking to
him, soothing the sufferer with her presence and the touch of her hand,
when other girls were sunning themselves in the looks of their admirers
at archery-meeting and picnic, or, more delightful still, enjoying a
stirring gallop under soft November skies, over lush November pas-
tures, after the hounds.

For in such amusements and pastimes did Miss Bruce take more
than a masculine delight. Lithe, straight, and agile, she was a pro-
ficient in all those bodily exercises at which ladies are now able to
compete on equal terms with the stronger sex. A practised whip, she
drove her ponies to an inch ; a capital horsewoman, she rode to hounds
(with a good pilot) in the first flight She danced hke a fairy ; could
run a quarter of a mile or walk half-a-dozen without the slightest
inconvenience, and even professed, though of this she afforded no
actual proof, that she was able to jump a gate or a stile. At any rate,
for all her softness of manner and grace of bearing, she seemed tough
as whalebone, and nimble as a wild deer.

In these days of high-pressure education, she could not but be full
of accomplishments ; playing scientific music at sight, singing a second,
speaking three or four languages idiomatically, ungrammatically, and
with a fair accent She knew how to work embroidery, knit shoDting-
hose, and send people into dinner according to their rank without
fear of a mistake. On the other hand, she was but a moderate his-
torian, sacred or profane, believed our version of the Bible to be a direct
translation from the Hebrew, remembered the Wars of the Roses only
because of their pretty name, and suffered hopeless confusion about
the Ligue and the Fronde. She could not read Shakespeare, she
honestly confessed, nor understand Tennyson, had tried to wade
through '' Corinne " and found it stupid^ believed she would have liked
Sir Walter but for the Scotch dialect, and thought in her heart " Vanity

138 The Gentleman^ s Magazine.

Fair" and the "Loves of the Angels" the two finest works in the
language. Of household affairs she had some vague glimmerings, the
result of experience in ordering dinner, and even believed, because
she never tried, that she could do her own marketing. Every Christ-
mas she spent a cheque from papa in soup and blankets, which she
gave away with a great deal of method and very little judgment. To
sum up all, she was a staunch Protestant, a regular church-goer, and
skated to admiration.

Her cavalier, also, performed handsomely over ice or asphalte, on
skates or rollers. Both were members of Prince's Club ; nor does it
necessarily follow, as nameless slanderers would have us believe, that
they were therefore utterly lost to all considerations of honourable
feeling and even outward decency. It i? difficult to understand why
a pastime that brings young people together in a glare of light, under
the eyes of countless spectators, should have been held up to obloquy
as a recognised means of the vilest intrigue ; or why a healthy exer-
cise, exacting close attention under considerable effort, should be
supposed to cloak overtures and advances that might be made far
less conspicuously in the crash of a concert or the confusion of a
ball-room.

It seems to me that the black sheep of both sexes must be at a
disadvantage when the slightest inclination to either side from a just
and equal balance cannot but result in physical downfall. The ad-
mirer deposited on his seat rather than his knees may scarcely hope
to excite sympathy in his idol, and the idol herself must be well
aware that she can never mount her pedestal again if she comes
down from it with a sprawl ! That Miss Bruce was as wicked a
young lady as she was a good skater, I emphatically deny. For her
companion's virtues I will not take upon me to answer with the same
certainty.

Lord Fitzowen, as Mr. Roy said, " commonly called Fitz," had
been about the world for more years than people thought, or, indeed,
than he wished them to think.

He was one of those men, happily not very numerous in his order,
who, after the first blush of youth, seem to have no object in the world
but to amuse themselves. For this levity of disposition and indif-
ference to the real purposes of life he w^Cs, perhaps, indebted to the
joyous temperament that accompanies perfect bodily health. A
famous writer of our own day has expressed the starding opinion
tfiat, if people never found their livers out of order, no great works
would be accomplished. This is, perhaps, another way of saying that
discontent is the origin of progress.

Roys Wife. 139

As Fitz, from the time he pounded strawberry messes at Eton till
he mixed hussar-broth (a compound of which the substratum used to
be red-herrings fried in gin) for his brother subalterns at Hounslow,
never knew he had a liver, and hated, besides, every kind of mental
exertion, we may presume that nature did not intend him for one of
those " weary brothers " who either imprint or appreciate " footprints
on the sands of time." What he did — rather what he did not do, if
we may be allowed such a contradiction in terms — seemed done re-
markably well. He was the best idler in society, and this is saying a
good deal in London life, where the art is cultivated with a diligence
that cannot but insure success.

Having a title, tnough an Irish one, a sufficient income, an agree-
able person, imperturbable good-humour and spirits, as he said to
himself^ "forty above proof," it is no wonder that Lord Fitzowen was
welcome everywhere, and an especial favourite amongst women.

Nevertheless, with an intuitive perception of the fitness of things,
denied to the duller sex, they never expected him to marry. " He's
delightful, I know, dear," Miss Bnice observed on one occasion in
the confidence of five-o'clock tea, "but as for anything serious, I
should as soon expect a proposal from the beadle at St. George's.
It's entirely out of Fitz's line ! " So he made love to them all round
without burning his fingers, and persuaded himself that, with many
faults, he was yet a man of strong feelings and sincere affections.

Somehow Fitz always seemed to belong to the prettiest woman
present Although there were other guests at Warden Towers, it was
characteristic that he alone should be gazing at a winter sunset with
his host's handsome daughter, after completing the Dutchman's Roll
to the unbounded satisfaction of both.

" It is time to go in," said Hester, rosy and breathless, looking
intently at the red streaks fading into a frosty film behind the island.
" How I love this cold, clear weather ! I wish it would last all the
year through."

" You ought to have been an Arctic explorer," laughed Fitz.

Miss Bruce made no answer, but her eye deepened and the smile
faded from her face.

140 The Gentleman's Magazine.

Chapter VIIL
royston grange.

The cold, clear weather soon began to change. The sun went
down red and frosty, but Fitz, looking out of his bed-room window at
midnight, observed a halo round the moon, which he described as
" her wig," and by breakfast- time a thaw was proclaimed. Spouts
trickled, eaves dripped, birds chirped in the laurels, the distant doTins
melted into grey, and a soft wind blew gently through the fir planta-
tions on the south of Warden Towers.

In such a country house as that over which Miss Bruce presided,
the change to " hunting weather " was greeted with a hearty welcome,
but at a few miles' distance it produced no little anxiety and discom-
fiture. The Roys were about to give a dinner-party, the first since
they came to live at Royston Grange. They had consulted the al-
manac, made, as Nelly said, a " proper arrangement with the moon,"
and now, if her light should be obscured by clouds, if the roads were
axle-deep in soft white mud, if the floods were out, if the rain came
down, if everything conspired to baffle their guests and spoil their
party, husband and wife agreed that " it would be really too pro-
voking."

They were together in the breakfast-room of Nelly's new home.
She locked the tea-caddy, and fitted its key on a steel ring, among
many others, with a certain housewifely care that seemed her second
nature ; he paced up and down between window and fireplace with
an impatience that bordered on disgust

" If the frost had only lasted over this confounded dinner-party,"
said he, " it might have rained torrents to-morrow and welcome I I
want to get some hunting next week. Now I wish we hadn't asked
the Grantons. She's delicate — very. They'll send an excuse and not
come, or they'll come and not go away. If she catches a bad cold,
she'll very likely die in the house ! "

" Oh, Mr. Roy ! " exclaimed Nelly (she could not yet bring herself
to call her paragon by so simple a name as John). "She can have
the pink room, poor dear ! it is the warmest in the house. And I'm
sure I'll nurse her night and day."

** Nonsense, Nelly ! " was the marital rejoinder. " I wish I could
teach you not to take everything one says aupUd dela Uttre, "

" That's French," she answered good-humouredly, " but even in
French it saves trouble to say what you mean."

" What I mean is this : if the Grantons throw us over, you must

Roys Wife. 141

send all your people in differently. Are you quite sure you won't
make a mess of the whole thing ? "

She pulled a list from her apron-pocket, written in her own clear,
firm hand, and looked wistfully over its contents.

" I dread that part most of all," she whispered, with a loving look
at him from her deep grey eyes. " The dinner I can superintend well
enough, and arranging the furniture, and lighting the company-rooms.
It's what I'm used to. But I am afraid of the county gentry ; and if
once I begin wrong, and march them off out of their proper places, 1
know I shall get as red as a turkey-cock, and think everybody is
looking at me. You see, I never had to do with great folks, dear, till
I knew you."

He bit his lip. How could he be angry with this kind and hand-
some woman who loved him so well ? Yet it was provoking to be
obliged to drill her for these little exigencies of every-day life, it 7vas
tiresome to be always in hot water lest she should say or do some-
thing contrary to that unwritten code which it is so impossible to
classify or define. Lady Jane would have given him no anxiety on
this score. And yet he could not bring himself to wish he had married
Lady Jane !

" Remember, dear," he continued kindly enough, " I take Miss
Granton, because she is a viscount's daughter, and Fitzowen takes you.''

** Not Sir Hector Bruce ? " said Nelly. " He's a much older man. I
was always taught to reverence grey hairs. 1 wish you had more of them."

" Certainly «^/," he insisted. " Sir Hector is a baronet, and of
early creation ; but Fitzowen is an Irish peer "

** WTiat's an Irish peer? " asked Mrs. Roy. " I shall never take it
all in. I thought one lord was as good as another lord, and I still
think a baronet of sixty ought to be of more account than a young
whipper-snapper not six-and-twenty. But you know best, of course."

" I suppose I do," he answered drily, and deferred for the present
his intention of piloting his wife through the intricacies of Debrett.

But while he smoked a cigar in the stable and consulted with his
groom on such inexhaustible topics as the grey's fedocks and the chest-
nut's cough, he felt that Nelly's ignorance of conventionalities would
be a continual source of irritation to his shy and sensitive nature ; that
notwithstanding her beauty, her sweet temper, her entire devotion to
himself, a woman might have suited him better who was more con-
versant with his own artificial state of society, that he might even
have been wiser not to have married at all. It is but justice to add
that he had the grace to be ashamed of such reflections, and dismissed
them with a jerk, just as he threw away the stump of his cigar.

142 Tlu Gentleman! s Magazine.

Half-an-hour later, while bent on her household avocations, he
saw her pause as she passed through the conservatory to tie up a
pretty little nosegay prepared for his own button-hole when he should
go out Something of the old thrill he felt on the pier at Beachmouth
stirred his heart once more. Her attitudes were so graceful, the
curves of her figure so true to the line of beauty, her eyes so deep and
soft, her features so exquisitely cut, her locks so dark and glossy, —
he could not but admit that his wife, in appearance at least, was the
most bewitching woman he had seen.

" As far as looks go," thought John Roy, " she will hold her own
with the best, and I can trust her to be nicely dressed. WTiile
dinner lasts, it will do well enough, but I know what women are.
They'll find her out in the drawing-room, and they'll let her see they've
found her out. Nelly will lose her head, and say or do something that
will make me feel hot all over. I \vish we hadn't asked them ! I
wish the cook would get drunk, or the kitchen-chimney catch fire, or
something frightful would happen to get one out of the whole damned
thing ! "

But the cook and the kitchen-chimney remained staunch to their
respective duties. Delicate Mrs. Granton did not send an excuse ;
on the contrary, she was one of the first arrivals, in a remarkably low
dress. Sir Hector, Miss Bruce, and Lord Fitzowcn, turned up in due
course. By eight o'clock the whole party were assembled in the
drawing-room. Nelly received them in turn, with exactly the right amoimt
of cordiality, neither too cold nor too gushing, paired them off, and sent
them to dinner, with a sinking heart indeed, but a perfect imitation of
high-bred composure, followed them on Lord Fitzowen's arm with
gracious dignity, and Mr. Roy began to breathe freely again.

** After all," he thought, " D'Orsay was right. A good heart is
good manners ready made. Nelly couldn't have done it better if she
had been bom a duke's daughter ! "

Soup and fish came and went with the usual soup-and-fish con-
versation. Mrs. Granton asked her host how the new stoves answered
in his hot-houses, and whether he should take Mrs. Roy to the Hunt
ball ? The rest told each odier that " it was really a thaw, that the
frost had been enjoyable enough for skaters, that the change was
welcome to those who hunt, and — and — Champagne, if you please,"
after which the talk became more general and more discursive, not
without a few agreeable personalities and remarks occasionally much
to the point. The whole affair seemed to go off smoothly, and though
the company were chiefly composed of country neighbours, the enter-
tainment promised to be a success.

Roys Wife. 143

People were well paired, and this was the more fortunate, as our
table of precedence, regulating English society, leaves nothing to
chance. Mrs. Gran ton, a pleasant little woman, with a tendency to
mild flirtation, liked both her host and her neighbour on the other
side, a young Guardsman, with good spirits, good appetite, and good
looks. Two squires, fast friends of thirty years' standing, whose talk
was of short-horns, sat together. The venerable clergyman of the
parish placed himself next Miss Bruce, a young lady for whom he pro-
fessed the deepest regard, to which she warmly responded — consulting
him on his many charities, and speaking of him in all societies as *' a
dear old thing ! '' An unmarried damsel of a certain age, not yet on
the retired list, was mated with a veteran admiral, who made up for
his weather-worn face and grizzled hair by that frank and kindly
gallantry which women find so irresistible, and which, combined with
hardy habits and a reputation for personal daring, renders officers of
the Royal Navy such universal favourites with the sex. Sir Hector,
who sat on the same side of the table as his daughter, sheltered there-
fore from the warning glances with which she was accustomed to check
such imprudences, launched out freely in the matter of savours and
sauces, did not refuse champagne, and even asked for a glass of old
ale after cheese, though, as Hester observed, " Papa knew it was
poison to him. Absolutely poison ! " Finally, Lord Fitzowen, who
took in his hostess, found himself completely fascinated and en-
thralled. Her beauty, her good humour, above all, her simple manners,
charmed him exceedingly. They were so wholly different from the
artificial graces he was accustomed to in general society.

Fitz, though a gentleman, had, I fear, promised himself more mirth
than interest in studying the character of John Roy*s new wife. He
expected her to furnish amusement during the evening, food for
laughter with Hester on the morrow, and was surprised to find how
completely he had been mistaken.

Quiet and unobtrusive, she seemed yet to take her own place as
mistress of the house with a serene and conscious dignity. While
paying courteous attention to her guests, no movement of the servants
escaped her vigilance. Those deep grey eyes seemed to observe the
reciuirements of all, and the training of her early life, the habit of
close attention to trifles, of looking into everything herself, now stood
her in good stead.

Nelly was at high pressure, nevertheless. She had no fear, indeed,
of the cook's failures, nor of shortcomings on the part of her well-
paid and well-ordered establishment^ but she sadly mistrusted her-
selC

144 ^^^ Gentleman s Magazine,

She had already learned to stand in awe of her husband's fastidious
taste ; she dreaded at every moment to offend it by something she
might say or do, and she glanced at him from time to time with an
obvious timidity that was not lost on her sharp-sighted neighbour.
** Docs he bully her ? " thought Fitz. " She seems afraid of him.
She's not quite at her ease. Good heavens ! If I had such a wife
as that, I should worship the very ground beneath her feet ! "

Like many of his class, our friend was an enthusiast, and at least
^r//V7Y// himself capable of romance and self-sacrifice. Some of the
greatest follies on behalf of women have been perpetrated by men of
the world, at whom that world invariably expresses a well-bred sur-
prise, wondering they should " not have known better," ignoring the
recklessness that stands for generosity, and forgetting how its own
treadmill becomes at last so wearisome that any change is accepted for
an improvement.

It is a sad reflection, but, as the practised angler well knows that to
capti re fishes of all kinds there is nothing like a change of bait, so
for tl e human gudgeon novelty has a keen and dangerous attraction.
A bit of sweet-brier in the cottager's hedge never seems so fragrant as
af^er a walk through the duke's conservatories. His grace himself,
when he can get away from his French cook, loves to dine on a
simple mutton-chop, and I have always been satisfied that queens and
princesses wore the willow for King Cophetua when he placed his
crown at the feet of a beggar-maid.

Lord Fitzowen had necessarily been thrown into the society of
ladies of high rank — had been refused by the great heiress of one
season, smiled on by the great beauty of the next, been a little in love,
like ever)'body else, with the handsomest of duchesses, and had
neither lost fiesh, nor spirits, nor appetite from the strength of his at-
tachments. But here was a new experience altogether. Apart from
her good looks, he had never met any other woman the least like Mrs.
R y, and he studied her with the feeling of admiration and curiosity
that a man experiences who, after a night's sleep on a railway, wakes
in the streets of a foreign capital that he has never seen before.

1 he interest, I must Admit, was all on one side. Nelly seemed
much too pre-occupied to think of anything but her female guests —
how she was to get them into the drawing-room — what to do with
them when there; whether tea and coffee should be served separately
or together, once or twice each; and if she ought or ought not to press
everybody to stay a little longer after the welcome moment when
their carriages were proclaimed to be waiting at the door ?

Fitz could see that his attentions left no impression, and this

Roys Wife. 145

indifTerence only made him the more desirous of standing well in her
good opinion.

" I have been presented to you before to-day, Mrs. Roy," said
he, stimulated to exertion by a glass of Chartreuse after ice. " You
have forgotten ;;/r, but I have not forgotten you''

" Indeed ! " answered Nelly. ** It's very stupid of me ; I hope
you'll excuse it. I was never good at remembering faces."

" You were walking with Roy in the Park. It must have been
just before you were married. I was riding, and he introduced me.
Do you remember nim> ? "

** I remember your horse; such a beautiful chestnut ! I was always
fond of animals. Have you brought it with you to Warden Towers? '

A little piqued, and feeling rather at a disadvantage, Fitz pulled
himself together before answering.

" He is in a stable at the village. I rather agree with you, Mrs.
Roy; I like beasts on four feet better than on two. May I bring
him over some day to renew his acquaintance ? "

" Thank you/* said Nelly absently. He suspected she had not
paid attention to a word. Her faculties were now concentrated on
the responsibility of ** making the move " to marshal her ladies into
the drawing-room. After all, she signalled the wrong one, and, ob-
serving a cloud on her husband's brows as she passed out, followed
the rustling squadron in their retreat with heightened colour and
rather a heavy heart.

Lord Fitzowen, though he filled a bumper of Mr. Roy's excellent
claret, leaned back in his chair less talkative than usual. His even-
ing's entertainment had not turned out as he expected, and he found
himself thinking a good deal more of his friend's wife than of his
friend's wine.

Chapter IX.

STRANGERS VLT.

When they had talked enough about poor's-rates, short-horns, the
scarcity of foxes, and the unpopularity of their Lord- Lieutenant, John
Roy sent his brown sherry round for the last time, and suggested
coffee in the drawing-room. Entering behind his guests, he stole an
eager glance at Nelly, to see how she was getting on.

Yes — it was just as he feared. He had told her particularly to
cultivate Mrs. Granton, and there was Mrs. Granton on a sofa with
vou ocxLH. ho. 1766. L

146 The Gentleman! s Magazine.

Miss Bruce, at the far end of the room. The two other ladies of
consideration were in close conference over the fire, and his wife sat
at a distant table, showing photographs to the mature spinster, who
looked more than halt asleep.

Roy's anxious, jealous temperament was up in arms on the
instant. " Damn it ! Nelly," he whispered, over her shoulder, " don't
let them send you to Coventry in your own house ! ** His glance was
unkind, and even angry ; she had never before heard him swear; with
a chill, sick feeling at her heart, she realised, for the first time, how
wide a difference there is between marriage and love.

** How can he look at me like that?" thought Nelly, "and at
Mrs. Granton as if he could fall down and worship her ? If this is
good society, I've had enough of it ! I wish I had never seen Beach-
mouth. I wish I had never left Auntie and the hotel. I wish — I
wish I was dead and buried, and done with once for all, and he'd got
another wife, a real lady born, who would suit him better, but could
never love him half as well ! "

If anybody had said a kind word to her she must have burst out
crying, but the servants were moving about with tea and coffee, there
was an adjournment to the card-tables, and by the time eight of the
party had settled to whist, and two to btziqucy she recovered her
equanimity, feeling only unreasonably tired and depressed.

Nelly disliked cards. Lord Fitzowen had "cut out" at the
nearest whist table. I will not take upon me to say that he was dis-
appointed when he found his hostess the only other unoccupied
person in the room.

A pianoforte stood near the door into the conservatory, which was
well lighted, and looked very pretty with its exotics, rock-work, and
fountain in the midst. He asked her to play, and Nelly was too shy
to refuse, but her courage failed when she sat down; so they opened
music-books, and talked about them instead.

John Roy, sorting a handful of trumps, turned round to see that
his guests were amused. " If you like to smoke, Fitzowen," said he,
"nobody minds it in the conservatory — only shut the glass door.
Take him, Nelly, and show him how.'

Lord Fitzowen, thus invited, professed great eagerness to see the
conservatory, and was careful to close the door of communication
with the drawing-room, though nothing would induce him to light a
cigar in the presence of his hostess.

So they walked up and down inhaling the heavy perfume of hot-
house flowers, reading their Latin names, and hanging over the gold
fish in their basin under the fountain. Finally, they seated themselves

Roy's Wife, 147

at the extreme end, and Mrs. Roy, who felt she ought to say some-
thing, observed, " It was very quiet and pleasant, after the heat in the
other rooms. She often brought her \Vork here, and sat listening to
the fountain, till she fancied she was miles and miles away."

Fitzowen glanced sharply in her face. No, she was not speaking
for effect, and seemed simply to state a fact that led to nothing more.
She looked as if she was thinking, deeply too, but of what — of whom ?
She baffled him, she puzzled him. This was the most interesting
woman he ever met in his life !

He had penetration enough to see that she was shy and ill at
ease. Diffident people have usually a keen sense of the ludicrous.
If he could make her laugh, she would feel more at home with him,
and he might hope to obtain her goodwill and friendship — perhaps,
in time, her confidence and regard.

" I quite agree with you, Mrs. Roy," said he. "I have the same
sensations myself; all this wealth of green vegetables seems to raise
me into another phase of existence. I feel like a caterpillar, for
instance, in a cabbage-leaf, or a sweep on May-day."

" I don't know about the caterpillar," she answered, with rather
a sad smile. " But I dare say the sweeps are very happy on May-
day. I often think that you great people, who do nothing but amuse
yourselves, are not half so contented as those who work for their
bread"

" Every man to his trade, Mrr.. Roy. I couldn't earn a shilling
a day at any employment you can name. I was brought up to amuse
myself"

" And I to work. Yes, you may laugh ; but I was taught from
a child to gain an honest livelihood. I'm not ashamed of it. 1
wouldn't change places with one of those ladies in the next room.
Only, I sometimes wish Mr. Roy had been a poor man. He would
have felt how hard I tried to make him comfortable."

" He does not feel it now," thought Lord Fitzowen — " and this
is another of the many wives who consider themselves unappreciated
and misunderstood ; " but he was too discreet to put his sentiments
into words, and only answered by a look of sympathy and expectation.

She remained silent for a minute, then broke off a sprig of gera-
nium, and continued, more to herself than her companion, —

" I wonder if people get on better for being exactly alike in
character, or in all respects different. I often puzzle over it for hours
when I'm sitting here listening to the drip of the fountain, and
watching .the gold fish. I dare say they're sometimes unhappy too,
poor . things J" . , .

L 2

148 Tlie Gentle^nan s Magazine.

** Fish are always discontented," he answered gravely. " But
with regard to the previous questioa I am convinced that husbands
and wives ought to be as different as — as — chalk from cheese. The
man is the chalk, of course, and the woman the cheese."

" I'm glad to hear you say that," replied Mrs. Roy. " Only,
perhaps you are not the best judge, being a bachelor."

" How do you know I'm a bachelor ? "

She blushed in some trepidation, lest she should have stumbled
into another solecism.

" I beg your pardon," she faltered. *' I — I was not aware. I
had not heard of your being married. I hope I have said nothing
wrong."

He laughed merrily. " Don't be alarmed, Mrs. Roy. I am still
a beast untamed, a gentleman at large, a virgin page, whatever you
choose to call it. When my time does come, I hope the lady will be
most unlike myself ! "

** I dare say she will be very nice," observed Nelly simply. *'' But
whatever you do. Lord Fitzowen, don't marry a woman below your
rank in life ; partly for your own sake, but a great deal more for hers ! "

His tone was much graver, and he looked in the face of his
hostess with an expression of sincere respect and regard, while he
answered, —

" Pardon me, Mrs. Roy. There I cannot agree with you. A
man is seldom fortunate enough to marry his ideal, but, at least, he
should try. Shall I tell you mine ? A woman of character, a woman
of energy — not afraid to take her part in the business of life, nor
ashamed to acknowledge it ; despising only what is base, and hating
only what is wrong. The less she knows of that artificial game we
call society, with its unworthy interests and petty artifices, the better.
Frank, natural, and simple. I should like her all the more for an
utter ignorance of the great world, and a complete indifference to its
way?. Now I've told you my notion of a wife, Mrs. Roy. Of
course she must be handsome, and have black hair, like yours — but
that has nothing to do with it."

Her heart beat faster. He had described a character the very
counterpart of her own, and he was an acknowledged judge of human
nature, a thorough man of the world, occupying even a higher posi-
tion than her own husband. Perhaps she had deceived herself, after
all, and magnified mole-hills into mountains, from sheer anxiety lest
she should fall short of the standard required by that paragon. She
looked in Fitzowen's frank, handsome face, and felt ^at here was a
friend in whom she could confide, a counsellor on whom sbQ cquld

Roy's Wife. 149

rely. Versed in worldly ways, but untainted by worldly duplicity ;
wise, good-natured, and experienced, he would point out the path tc
follow, the difficulties to be avoided ; in a word, would teach her
to retain her hold on the affections of Mr. Roy.

She pulled to pieces the bit of geranium in her hand, as if ab-
sorbed in that occupation, but stole an anxious look at him from
under her long eyelashes the while.

** You — you are an old friend of my husband's, are you not ? "
she asked in a low, uncertain voice.

He had a scale of friendship, regulated on a tariff of his own.
" I would lend him a fiver," he thought, " if he ^'anted it ; perhaps
a pony. Certainly not a monkey." But though there is a wide
margin between twenty-five pounds and five hundred, he felt justified
in answering, ** Yes, a very old friend," bravely enough.

** Lord Fitzowen," she continued, " if I tell you something in
confidence, will you promise not to repeat it to a soul ? '

** Honour among thieves, Mrs. Roy. Vou and I are not thieves,
and you may trust me as you would your solicitor."

"I would rather trust you as my husband's , friend, and I will.
You know, or perhaps you do not know, that till we married I never
lived among the sort of people I meet now every day. I was re-
spectably brought up, and well educated, Lord Fitzowen, but my
father was a tradesman, and my mother a governess. I am not
ashamed of them — far from it — only, in such a station it was not to be
expected, of course, that I could acquire the manners and habits of
the class I have to mix ^vith now. I try to learn day by day, but it
is such uphill work, and I have nobody to teach me ! "

" They had much better learn of you, I beg pardon for inter-
rupting."

" If I ask Mr. Roy, he is vexed, and I cannot bear to see him
cross. He seems to expect one to know things by instinct I am
dreadfully put about by little difficulties that you would think the
merest trifles. But they are no trifles to me I It*s like not kno\\'ing
how to spell a word when you write a letter, and having no dic-
tionary."

" Shall I be your dictionary ? "

" Will you ? It's what I wanted to ask, only I didn't quite know
how. It would be a great relief, for sometimes, I do assure you, I
feel at my wits' end. Now I will consult you^ if you don't mind."

" Mind ! I would do anything in the world for you — aud for
him."

^ Thank you. Lord Fitzowen. Don't think me ungrateful because

1 50 The GentlematCs Magazine.

I say little about it. I feel your kindness deeply all the same. Now
we'll go back to the drawing-room. The whist-players will be won-
dering what can have kept us so long."

" One moment, Mrs. Roy. Have you any reason to believe there's
a ghost somewhere loose about the garden ? "

" A ghost ! Good gracious ! Why ? "

" Simply, that for the last ten minutes I have seen a pale, unearthly
face pressed against the glass, glaring at us from outside. Square,
flat, hard-featured, and not a pretty face by any means."

Nelly's spirits were rising. "Square, flat, hard-featured," she
repeated with a laugh, " and not a pretty face by any means. Oh !
then I shouldn't wonder if it was Mrs. Mopus ! "

Chapter X.

MRS. MOPUS. •

" Who is Mrs. Mopus ? " but tliere came no answer to his question,
for already the rubbers had been lost and won ; the carriages were
announced. A table was set out with brandy, seltzer, ice, lemons,
and cold water, the modem substitute for stirrup-cups of former days ;
and Lord Fitzowen's hostess was too much engrossed with the cere-
monies of leave-taking to spare him any further attention. Never-
theless, when it came to his turn to wish her good-night, she gave
him her hand with such marked cordiality, as to excite the observation
even of Mr. Roy.

" How do you like our friend Fitz, Nelly ? " asked her husband,
ya\\Tiing his way upstairs. " You had every opportunity to-night of
forming an opinion."

" I think him very nice," answered Nelly, with a bright smile.

" Most women do," he replied drily, and shut his door.

Almost at the same moment, in the obscurity of a closed landau,
Miss Bruce asked Lord Fitzowen the same question about Mrs. Roy.
Fitz did not respond quite so frankly.

" Wants knowing, I should say,", was his verdict. " Very quiet,
very reserved. A character like my own, I think. Bom to blush
unseen ; and bloom brightest in the shade."

You ought to blush unseen in that comer," laughed Hester,
for being such a humbug ! If you're both so shy and reserved. Lord
Fitz, perhaps you will tell me what you found to^talk about for a good
hour in the conservatory ? "

Roy's Wife. 151

But Lord Fitz made no answer. He was still ruminating on the
last question he asked his hostess, " Who is Mrs. Mopus ? "

Mrs. Mopus was neither more nor less than the housekeeper at
Royston Grange, and in that capacity regarded John Roy's new wife
with no small amount of jealousy and ill-will. So long as her master
remained a bachelor, visiting his home, at long intervals, to bring with
him a houseful of bachelors Hke himself, with their valets, she found
the selection exceedingly to her taste. In his absence, she was an
independent sovereign ; when he came back, a lady patroness, pre-
siding over an agreeable little circle of gentlemen's gentlemen, with
whom her word was law, particularly at supper-lime.

She had great opportunities for peculation, of which she availed
herself moderately, but with scrupulous regularity; could engage or
discharge housemaids, laundry-maids, and kitchen-maids at will, won
a series of triumphs over the successive cooks who came and went
like the slides of a magic lantern ; and after a protracted contest with
the Scotch gardener, found herself unquestioned mistress of Royston
Grange.

She was a widow, with one good-for-nothing son, alive or dead in
Australia, of whom she possessed no other memento than an ill-
looking photograph. Energetic, resolute, and persevering, had she
been ten years younger, she would surely have tried to marry Mr.
Roy ; but the looking-glass told her such a scheme was hopeless, and
she gave it up almost as soon as it crossed her mind.

When she learned he was going to take a wife, she respectfully
tendered her resignation, knowing well it would not be accepted:
John Roy (so like a man !), hating all trouble of a domestic nature,
begged her, of course, to remain, and for a time she speculated on the
chance of his bride being a young, inexperienced woman, whom with
her cunning and audacity she might turn round her finger like the rest
of the household. It was a serious blow to discover that the new
Mrs. Roy seemed as practised an adept in the science of housekeep-
ing as herself, knowing the due consumption of butcher's meat to a
pound, of coals and sugar to a lump, that she would no more submit
to stealthy pilfering than to open robbery, and was resolved, in accord-
ance with one of the first instincts of womanhood, to be mistress in
her own house.

Mrs. Mopus did not yield without a stniggle, but in the very first
trial of strength found herself so ignobly defeated, less by Nelly's quiet
dignity of manner than by her intimate knowledge of the subject in
question (a supply of sand-paper and soap for the housemaid's
closet), that she determined in future to avoid coming to (;onclusions

152 The Gentlentatis Magazine.

with her new mistress, preferring rather to watch and wait till
opportunity offered, and then do her the worst turn that lay in her
power.

She had no little knowledge of the world and its ways. John Roy,
who took her from a recommendation, and not a character, was quite
satisfied with her own account of how the intervening time— some
seven or eight years — had been spent since she left her last situation.
She professed to have been in business as a fancy stationer, and to
have failed — of course through the rascality of an agent; but the
valet of one of Mr. Roy's shooting friends could have told him a
different story. She had been keeping a small public-house of no
good repute near Croydon, which this worthy frequented when attend-
ing certain suburban steeplechases, where he was in the habit of
wagering freely with his late master's money. He prided himself,
however, on being no less a man of honour than a man of the world,
and gave her to understand, doubtless for some practical equivalent,
that he had no intention of showing her up. Still, she felt that her
position was insecure, her tenure uncertain — more so than ever since
the arrival of Mrs. Roy ; and she cherished for her new mistress that
good-will which animates the bosom of one woman for another who
has thwarted, supplanted, and found her out.

After their supper in "the room," as it was called- -an elaborate
meal, of which ever}' upper servant felt bound in honour to promote
the hilarity and comfort — Mrs. Mopus had contracted a habit of
walking out of doors for half-an-hour or so in all weathers and under
all circumstances, protesting that she could not get to sleep widiout
this taste of fresh air after the labours of the day. Her real reasons
were, perhaps, not entirely sanitary. It might be convenient thus to
withdraw for a stated portion of time daily from the observation of
the household, and no questions asked ! \Mien first she established
the practice, she was narrowly watched, no doubt, by her fellow-
servants; but in the course of a few months, when nothing came of
these nightly wanderings, they ceased to regard them, and Mrs.
Mopus found herself free to steal about the gardens and shrubberies
wherever she pleased, unnoticed in the dark.

It was thus she held private interviews with the butcher to accom-
modate certain serious diflferences concerning the heavy overcharges
on which he tried to put her off with a shabby ten per cent., and it
was thus, too, that she clandestinely met a neighbouring farmer, sixty
years of age and given to inebriety, who made honourable proposals
of marriage, broken off prenuiturely by his being sold- up on quarter-
day.

Roy's Wife. 153

When there was company at Royston Grange, it was her habit in
these nightly prowlings to peer through its panes into the con-
servatory. It amused her to watch the young men who adjourned
there for coffee and tobacco, moving about among the flowers, like
tropical birds, in their gorgeous smoking costumes. She was edified,
too, by the freedom of their conversation, picking up occasional
scraps of scandal concerning great people in London, or country
neighbours nearer home, of which she would otherwise have remained
ignorant. Collating their version of such affairs with that of their
valets, she formed her own conclusions, and revolved them in her
mind for future use. It was one of her maxims that the knowledge
of a fellow-creature's secret (for evil) was as good as a bank-note.
The time was sure to come when either he would pay to keep it
quiet, or somebody else to find it out.

But her observations had hitherto been confined to the male sex.
It seemed a great piece of luck to detect, on this night of the dinner-
party, a lady sitting alone with a gentleman in the conscr\'atory ; a
greater, to discover that lady was Mrs. Roy. Their conversation,
indeed, might have been published in the first column of the Times \
but there is no dialogue so innocent that it will not bear misconstruc-
tion, and the listening housekeeper overheard enough to lay the
foundation of such a plot as she hoped would undermine the life's
happiness of her mistress, estrange her from her husband, and drive
her at last ignominiously from her home. If she had any scruples
of pity, they were blown into air by Nelly's last remark while she
entered the drawing room : " Not a pretty face by any means. . Oh I
then I shouldn't \yonder if it was Mrs. Mopus !"

" And Mrs. Mopus will be even with you yet, before she's done ! "
muttered the housekeeper, as she crept back through the laurels,
shaking with suppressed passion. " What are youy my fine lady, I
should like to know, for all your stylish looks and your black hair?
Why, you're no better born than myself, and no belter brought up !
If you'd been a real lady, a lady of quality, you'd have kept your
own place in the drawing-room, like a lady, and not come poking
your nose into the linen-closets and the store-room with me. Lady,
indeed ! If that young gentleman, and he is a gentleman, and a
lord into the bargain, knew what I do, he wouldn't be so keen to
follow you up and down, like a dog at your heels. And Mr. Roy, too ;
I'd like to hear what he would say to such goings-on. He shall know
them, too, that he shall, before he's twenty-four hours older. I've
been a faithful servant to him and his for many a long year, and I'm
not going to see him put upon now. Not a pretty face, and you

J 54 ^f^ Gentleman's Magazine.

i)«nouldn't wonder if it was Mrs. Mopus ! Yes, it is Mrs. Mopus, and
that you shall find out, ray fine madam, to your cost !"

She was so angry that she went straight to her bedroom, and sat
by the light of a single tallow candle, cogitating her plans, far into
the night.

Mrs. Roy, meanwhile, unconscious of coming evil, congratulated
herself on the success of her dinner-party, and her own observance
of those formalities she had so dreaded for more than a week.

" I never made a single mistake, did I ?" she asked next morning
at breakfast, peeping triumphantly round the tea-urn at her husband.

" Not many," he answered. " You made the move after dinner
to the rector's wife instead of Mrs. Granton, and you didn't half take
notice of that tiresome old Lady Meadowbank."

Nelly's face fell " I'm so sorry, dear," said she. " It's nice of
you to want lo be kind to her, poor woman, for she's a widow."

** Oh ! it's not for that," he answered sharply. " You never
seem to understand things, Nelly. She owns the best covert in the
countr}'."

Mrs. Roy looked rather sad, and held her tongue.

A few such conjugal amenities, a few lectures on the proprieties
from Mr. Roy, followed by silent tears, the bitterer that she was
heartily ashamed of them, and Nelly began to lose confidence in
herself, to dread the very tingle of the door-bell that announced
visitors, and to make more conventional mistakes than ever in sheer
nervousness and anxiety lest she should do wrong.

If, as has been said, the great secret of oratory is to entertain a
thorough contempt for one's audience, so the art of shining in society
cannot be successfully cultivated under feelings of diffidence and
mistrust of one's own position or one's own powers. Mrs. Roy would
jglance anxiously at her husband before she spoke, say the wrong thing
when she Jtd speak, or stop short in the middle of a sentence, as if
conscious of her blunders, and waiting his instructions to go on —
then he would shoot angry glances at her, which made matters worse ;
and once, after a certain luncheon to which some neighbours arrived
unexpectedly, he reproached her for her awkwardness, her timidity,
above all her silence, and told her — positively told her — "he couldn't
bear to see her sitting at the top of his table, mum like a fool ! "

The last feather fairly broke the back of her self-respect. She
began to long for sympathy, for help, instruction, and advice. If
Lord Fitzowen would only come, she thought, he might tell her what
to do ; he was so kind, so considerate, so ready to share with her his
experience and knowledge of the world. That very afternoon Lord

Roys Wife. 155

Fitzowen did come. She saw him ride past the windows while she
was sitting disconsolately at tea, and ran to the glass before he was
announced, to smooth her hair, and make sure her eyes did not look
as if she had been crying.

John Roy, marking trees for thinning, met his visitor in the park.
" I*d come back \\ith you," said he, wiping his bill-hook on the
hedger's gloves he wore, "only Fve got so wet among all this under-
wood. But go up to the house ; you'll find Nelly at home. She'll
be glad to see you ; she's rather in the dumps : it will do her good."
And he returned to that most engrossing of all occupations, chopping
in one's own plantations, while Lord Fitzowen cantered over the
grass to pay his visit of ceremony to Mrs. Roy.

Chapter XI.

A WALKING DICl'IONARV.

She received him with a bright smile, that faded to a look of
womanly concern when he gave her his left hand.

" Why, you've got your arm in a sling," said she. " WTiat is it ?
Nothing serious, I hope. You've had a tumble from your horse."

John Roy would have told her she used the wrong expression.
A good rider falls with his horse, a bad one tumbles off, Fitzowen
answered carelessly, " It serves me right for hunting before the frost
was quite gone. I've put my shoulder out. It's nothing to signify,
and luckily I didn't hurt your friend the chestnut."

" If you had not hurt yourself it would be more to the purpose.
Did you ride him here?"

" How could I, Mrs. Roy? He was out hunting yesterday. No.
I came over on one of Miss Bruce's ponies."

She jumped to conclusions like a very woman. Of course ! she
ought to have seen it long ago. How stupid she had been ! Mr.
Roy was quite right when he said she was not fit to find her way
about in general society. Miss Bruce and this young nobleman were
lovers, and in all probability engaged. She might confide in Lord
Fitzowen now without the slightest reserve or afterthought It was
fortunate — providential ; and yet she could not help reflecting that
Hester seemed unlike the sort of person he had described as his
ideal of a wife.

" I see," she observed after a pause. " Of course you would."

" What do you see ?" he asked ; " and of course I would what V

156. The Gentleman's Magazine.

" Of course you will have some tea. Shall I make it for you ?
Not so well as Miss Bruce, but the best I can/'

" I didn't come here to talk about Miss Bruce," said he, subsiding
into a low chair while she handed him his tea. *' I am more interested
at this moment in Mrs. Roy. Has she had many visitors? Has
she given any more dinner-parties ? And what has become of the
ghost?"

"The ghost?"

"Yes. Don't you remember the ghost I saw looking into the
conservatory?"

" Do you believe in ghosts?"

" Implicitly."

" And in spirit-rapping?"

" I think so, though they never come to rap at my door. I believe
in everything, Mrs. Roy. That is to say, I believe in one thing as
much as another."

She looked grave.

" I don't like to hear you speak so, and you don't mean it, I know.
Lord Fitzowen, do you remember what I told you the other night
about the ways of society ? I cannot understand them. Have people
no likings, no affections, no feelings, above all, no standard of right
and wrong? or do they simply make a point of ntver sapng what
they mean ? You have lived in the great world ; you belong to it
yourself. Perhaps you will explain."

" I will if I can," he answered. " You know I promised to be
your dictionary."

" It was kind of you, if you nieant it. I have thought so very
often. I do indeed require a dictionary more than most people."

** Then, being yours, I shall at once turn over a new leaf."

" Most men in your position ought to do that," she answered,
still thinking of Miss Bruce. " But will you be serious for a moment,
if I ask you a question?"

"To please j^^ I will. For no other consideration on earth."

" Then tell me why it is that only poor people and servants are
ever in earnest about anything. Mr. Roy is as bad as the others.
You are all alike, and it seems to me you don't speak English. If it
pours with rain, you call it * moistish ' ; if the sun shines, you admit
*it's not half a bad day.' When young Mr. Slowman's horse ran
away, and I said it was a great mercy he wasn't killed, Mrs. Granton
added, * and a great pity, too,' and all the company laughed. The
Browns have lost every shilling they possessed, but Mr. Roy
only thinks ' it's rather a bore for Brown !' Even when that horrid

Roy's Wife. 157

woman left her husband the other day, and it got into all the news-
papers, nobody seemed to consider the wickedness, but everybody
exclaimed, 'How could she be such a fool!' Are you really
without heart and principles, or do you think it good manners to
appear so?"

" There is affectation in every class,' Mrs. Roy," answered Fitz,
plunging boldly into the question, as knowing he must soon be out
of his depth ; " and all affectation is vulgarity more or less. In our
horror of one extreme, we fall into the other ; and for fear wc
should seem dramatic, we cease to be real. So we are vulgar, too,
in our way. And yet, what would you have ? It would never
do for us to go about proclaiming our likes and dislikes — our hopes,
feelings, and opinions. We should be ridiculous \ worse than that —
tiresome. So we agree to play with counters instead of money, and
it comes to the same thing when you are used to the game. ^Vhy,
if I was to tell you what I am really thinking at this moment, how do
I know you wouldn't ring the bell and have me turned out of the
house?"

She drew herself up, and looked quite capable of acting precisely
as he described ; but before her pride could take offence, he rattled
on into smooth water again.

" I don't care — I'll risk it with you^ and run my chance. I was
thinking what a flat my friend Roy is to be working like a slave up
to his middle in dripping underwood when he might be sitting warm
and dry by this comfortable fire in the best of company, over an ex-
cellent cup of tea. You haven't rung the bell yet, so I would go on,
only I have nothing more to say."

" You have said quite enough," she answered, laughing, " when
you presume to call Mr. Roy * a flat.* But he never takes tea now,
as he used ; and gentlemen seem to find a charm that is perfecdy
unaccountable in chopping their own trees."

" I am so glad I never had any trees. Not that it matters, for I
suppose I should have cut them all down. But you are making me
forget everything it is my duty to remember. Now, what do you
think brought me here this afternoon ? "

Nobody so good-looking as Nelly could be less of a coquette. Still,
it was not in a woman's nature to suppress the obvious rejoinder —

** I suppose it was in order to pay me a visit."

** Not a bit. You hke people to be rude and sincere, so now I will
tell you the truth. I made it an excuse to pay you a visit, that I freely
admit, but I came charged with a message fi'om Miss Bruce. The
hounds meet to-morrow three miles from this house. She is not

158 The Gentleman s Magazine,

going to ride, and would call for you in the carriage if you choose to
come. It's a favourite place, and I think I can promise you will be
amused."

Nelly's grey eyes sparkled. " I should like it of all things," she
answered. " Do you know, I have never seen a hunt in my life ?
Only I'm afraid it's cruel," she added as an afterthought.

" You must not say * seeing a hunt.' Your dictionary tells you to
call it * going out hunting ; ' and as for being cruel, it's — it's — in fact,
it's quite the reverse. Then I may tell Miss Bruce you will drive
with her? "

" I must ask Mr. Roy. I will, most certainly, if he has no objec-
tion."

" What objection could he have ? I suppose he's not afraid to
trust you with Miss Bruce."

" If you are not, I don't see why he should be," said Nelly, siill
harping on her own erroneous conclusion.

He looked mystified, but proceeded to the practical details of their
expedition.

" Then she will be at your door at half-past ten. Don't ask her
to get out, because she will be wrapped up for all day ; and if you
take my advice, you will put on your warmest clothes too. It's
sure to be cold crossing the downs. You must go by the old Roman
road. I dare say you don't know the shortest way out of your own
woods. Where's the Ordnance Map? I can show you in five seconds."

Now, the Ordnance Map, not\vithstanding that it was referred to
three or four times every day, hung for greater convenience in the
most remote corner of the librar)' ; so Mrs. Roy and lier visitor
adjourned there forthmth ; the latter, as his hostess piloted him
across the darkening hall, professing grave apprehensions lest they
should meet the ghost !

It was already dusk. John Roy, in his wet clothes, made the best
of his way home, following a narrow i:)ath, through some thick-growing
evergreens that led direct to the house. Here he came into collision
with an advancing form, shadowy and indistinct enough, but far too
substantial in its proportions for a disembodied spirit of any kind.

On one side a scream was suppressed, on the other an oath was
not \ but Mrs. Mopus, perhaps because she expected him, recognised
her master before the familiar voice broke out with —

" Who the devil are you ? And what are you doing liere ? "

" It is only me^ sir," she answered softly; " I thought you would be
coming home this way, and I slipped out to meet you, Mr. Roy, that's
the truth. It's right that somebody should be c«i:eful of your health.

\

k

Ray's Wife. 159

you that never thinks of yourself. I said you'd be as wet as a sop,
and so you are ; but you wouldn't go and change, not if it was ever
so, unless I begged and prayed of you, as I always used. I've done
my duty by you, Mr. Roy, for a many years, and I'll do it still;
whether others does or doesn't, it won't alter me."

" I believe you have a regard for me, Mopus," he answered kindly.
" But you are always over-anxious, and make a fuss about nothing."

" Old servants will, sir," she replied. " We know when we've got
a good master, Mr. Roy. I've laid down dry things to air at your
dressing-room fire, sir. That valet of yours is no more use than a
post. No doubt Mrs. Roy would have seen to it herself, but she's
engaged in the drawing-room with a visitor."

" Is he not gone yet ? " escaped from John Roy's lips, with an
involuntary expression of surprise.

" I don't know, I'm sure," answered the housekeeper. ** It's no
business of mine, sir, to watch the gentlemen as comes to visit your
lady. I keep to my place, I hope, Mr. Roy, though, of course, my
thoughts are my own."

" Thoughts ! What do you mean by your thoughts ? "

" Well, sir, you mustn't pay much attention to what I say ; I'm a
little upset this afternoon with one thing and another, and I can't
foiget you've been a kind master to me for many a long day. Get
into the house, sir, as quick as you can, and change from head to
foot"

Now, the shortest way into the house was by the drawing-room
windows, of which the shutters had not yet been closed for the
night ; and past these windows Mrs. Mopus thought well to follow
in her master's wake, though her own dominions lay in another
wing. . Suddenly she came alongside, and addressed him in a
troubled whisper. ** I ask your pardon, sir," said she — " I've deceived
you, sir, regarding the gentleman who came to visit Mrs. Roy. He
must be gone long ago. See, there's nobody left in the drawing-room,
and the fire is nearly out."

"All right, Mopus," he answered, shutting the house-door; but
he muttered to himself as he tramped upstairs, **That woman must
be going out of her senses. What can it signify to me whether there's
anybody in the drawing-room or not ? "

Nevertheless, during the process of undressing, her words and
manner recurred to him more than once, always with increasing
uneasiness and a vague feeling of suspicion.

Did she mean anything ? If she meant anything, why couldn't
she speak out ? Was there anything to mean ? Anything w rong going

i6o The Gentlmians Magazine.

on in the household that he ought to know? She seemed to imply as
much. No doubt it would come out in good time — to-morrow or next
day. He need not worry himself. Nelly would see to it and put
everything right. Then he started in his slippers, and rushed to the
window. The clatter of hoofs could be heard from the stable yard,
and Fitzowen's good-humoured voice conversing with the helper who
led his pony out.

For one moment the room seemed to turn round, the next, he
muttered, " It*s impossible ! " and resumed his dressing calmly and
methodically as before. But the " it " was not so easily shaken off,
and, after attending him through the successive stages of his toilet,
accompanied him downstairs to assist at a tete-h-tete dinner with his
wife.

Nelly was brilliant, and seemed in better spirits than usual. She
looked forward ^vith pleasure to her expedition on the morrow, and
felt gratified by lx)rd Fitzowen's kindness in coming to suggest it to-
day. John Roy, on the other hand, ate little and spoke less ; but,
contrary to his usual habits, which were strictly temperate, drank
two or three glasses of wine in quick succession.

It is one of the drawbacks to matrimony, that two people are
seldom precisely in the same humour at the same time. Should the
husband be helped twice to mutton, the wife is pretty sure to send
her plate away untouched. If he is inclined to talk, she probably
has a headache, and the lady is prone to broach subjects involving
personal discussion when the gentleman wants to go to sleep. While
the servants were in the room, Nelly did her best, but it is hard to
keep the shuttlecock of conversation going with only one battledore,
and, as she originated topic after topic, they fell successively to the
ground. At last, when dessert was placed on the table, and the
door shut for the last time, she made a great effort, and asked her
husband, point-blank, " What was the matter ? "

" Why ? "

It was a discouraging reply, and she continued timidly —

" You seem out of spirits, dear, and you scarcely ate a morsel.
Either you didn't like your dinner, or else you're not well."

" The dinner was no worse than usual,'' he answered ungraciously;
"and I don't see why you should say I'm not well, because I can't
jabber about nothing, with three servants in the room. A man needn't
ask his wife to excuse him, I suppose, whenever he feels tired ? "

" Or cross," she replied hastily, for his tone cut her to the quick.

" Or bored," was the unkind rejoinder. " I think that's nearer
the mark ! "

Roys Wife. i6i

Her eyes filled with tcais, and after five minutes of painful silence
she left the room.

But in less than half an hour her sweet and generous temper re-
asserted itself. When tea came she gave him his cup with as bright
a smile as usual, drew his arm-chair to the fire, and handed him the
newspaper as if no cloud had ever come between them ; she even bent
her beautiful head over him to whisper softly that she " had spoken
in haste, and begged his pardon, because she was in the wrong."

John Roy's heart smote him, and for a moment he esteemed her
as "excellent a wench" as ever Othello thought Desdemona: but
again there came between them the vague and unacknowledged
shadow cast by the inexplicable bearing of his housekeeper, and he
could not refrain from asking himself over and over again, though not
without a certain bitter self-contempt, "What couid Mrs. Mopus
mean?"

{To be continued.)

VOL. CCaLII. kg. 1766. M

1 62 The GentlematCs Magazine.

LEARNING AND HEALTH}.

IN this day the cultivation of the mental faculties is made to hold
the first place in education. There be some who still maintain
the superiority of physical over mental culture, and there be many
who insist on the necessity of a high degree of physical culture of a
certain extreme and artificial kind. But, as a rule, the favour once
too exclusively tendered to a purely physical training is on the decline.
The admiration which once was bestowed on men of great strength
has almost ceased in civilised circles. Physical strength may, if it
show itself in some singular and abnormal manner, create for a time
an excitement and noise, but the excitement ends in the silence that
follows clamour. Men who perform great feats of strength are no
longer heroes to be courted and immortalised. Hercules himself
would be a nine days' wonder in these days. The evidence now is
fairly clear, moreover, that men who even combine heroism with
physical power are not the demigods they were. In war, the man,
in these days, who displays the deepest skill and cunning in the
management of troops is the great general. It is not necessary that
he should lead a column or expose himself to danger for a moment.
His power lies in his knowledge, and his knowledge is his power.

To attain knowledge is one of the most desired objects, and so
much of admiration of man for man as yet remains (it is not really
very much) is expended on those who show the greatest mental gifts
or possessions. The admiration, estimated at its true value, feeds
vanity rather than veneration. Men who wish to be honestly admired
see no mode of having what they long for except by the acquisition
of knowledge and the toilsome display of it. They are frequently
disappointed ; more frequently, I fancy, disappointed than satisfied,
when they even attain to all they aspire to as scholars. They feel
themselves, perhaps justly know themselves, to be great scholars ;
and yet, how little are they recognised above the common people who
arc well-to-do and are no scholars at all ! But what other course is
open to laudable ambition ?

There is in this way induced, therefore, a strain after knowledsre

' Lecture delivered at the London Institution on Monday, January 14, 1878.

Learning and Health. 1 63

as a means of getting that remaining part, that skeleton of distinc-
tion which so soon will be put up as a curiosity of the past.

The acquisition of much knowledge has, however, another mean-
ing and object beyond mere ambition. In this so-called practical
day it is imagined that knowledge must be extended without limita-
tion amongst the young in order that it may be limited without
extension amongst those who have passed their youth and have
become engaged in the practical affairs of life. School days and
student days must be given up to the attainment of mastery over
subjects included in the whole domain of the human understanding.
The days of active life, in which men are made or marred, must be
devoted to the perfect mastery, or supposed perfect mastery, of one
particular subject. Branches of great divisions, and in time branches
of divisions of great divisions, and in time again branches of little
divisions derived from the secondary divisions, must be made the
subjects of special study by special men.

It is very singular to observe in common conversation the expres-
sion of these two lines of mental activity. A fond parent, speaking
in terms of admiration of his son at school, unfolds with pride the
school report. His boy has been working with a zeal that cannot be
too much applauded. In that monthly report sheet the lad has the
highest number of marks in Greek and the same in Latin. He fails
only one mark from the highest in Latin exercise, he is equally near
to the top in French, and in German he is but one lower down. In
what is called English he is third, in Grecian history second, in
Roman history first, in English fourth. In geography he is first, in
chemistry fifth, in natural philosophy second, in mathematics third,
in algebra third, in arithmetic first, in mental arithmetic second, and
in writing fifth. Poor boy I what a month of close work has been
spent on that long list. Four hours of school in the morning, three
in the afternoon. Lessons after school, assisted by an intelligent and
active tutor devoted to the progress of his pupil, and very deter-
mined, though so exceedingly kind, for three hours and sometimes
four hours more.

The father is delighted with the progress of the son. Suppose,
however, you take the father on these very subjects, and see his posi-
tion in respect to them. In nine cases out of ten you find that for
him such learnings are vanities. He tells you he has no time for the
gaining of any information on other subjects save the one which is
the matter of his life. You may hear him say of men placed as he
is, that they must keep to the single calling. Division of labour is
jthe soul of success. In these times, to master one subject is to do

M 2

164 The Gentleman s Magazine.

all that is required. An accomplished man ! Wliere is there such a
man, and of what use is he if he do exist, which is improbable ? An
accomplished woman ! Yes, an accomplished woman is now and
then met with, but she, too, is rare, and not of much use either; but
women have more time, and may be excused if they let their minds
run after many things in learning.

This picture may perhaps be thought to have a mercantile or
business character of too exclusive a kind I do not think so. In
science the same kind of argument is not wanting in respect to
the young and to middle-aged men. The student of science must,
in the period of his studentship, go through the whole range of
scientific learning. He must struggle for his degrees and get them.
Once through the ordeal necessary for so much successful winning,
he must settle down into minuteness ; he must find some little point
in the great world he has tried to traverse, fix on that, and seek to
live on it in competency and reputation. He must touch no one else
in his course, and let no one touch him. His magic circle, his ground
of specialistic thought, is to be considered sacred. The same fashion,
for I cannot call it a principle — nay, I cannot, without abusing the
word, call it a method — is maintained in the professions \ in two ot
them, the medical and the legal, in the most marked degree. A
modem medical student, through the ordinary term of his studies,
from the day he enters school until the day he gets his diploma,
may work like a galley-slave at the whole world of natural science,
and then, having seized his envied prize, may settle in life to the
exclusive study and practice of disease of some section of the animal
body. To be successful, he cannot draw the line too sharply round
his particular pasture. Into that no man must enter unless he have
a pasture somewhat similar, and such an one is not over welcome.
In deference to other men of other pastures, our man of men
must not go out of his own. If he knows another department ever
so well, he must not profess to know it — it is out of his line.

In legal pursuits the same kind of exclusiveness obtains, and I
think in some instances in a more marked degree than in medicine.

It is fortunate for the Church that, with all her backslidings and
troubles, she has not yet tumbled down to so low a position as her
sisters have. It is of happy omen for the clergy that they must keep
up their learning as general scholars. It is more than happy that in
their case division of labour is not recognised as profitable ; for if
they were to begin to specialise, if one clergyman were to take one
sin for special study, and keep to it all his life, and another a different
sin \ if one took up the cure of swearing, for instance, and another

Learning and Health. 165

of theft, and another of lying, the confusion of the modern learned
world would be complete indeed

This introduction to present modes of learning and appUcation of
learning would well befit an essay on the subject of learning, as a
practical development of civilisation not altogether in accord, as it is
now carried on, with the welfare of our race. I trust soon some
scholar, whose heart is on education as mine is on health, will be bold
enough to declare the unity of knowledge, the connection of it with
wisdom, and the utter vacuity that must soon be witnessed if the
current fashion be allowed to follow its fragmentar\', self-repulsive,
and self-destructive course.

To me it falls to oppose the system of modern education as de-
structive of vital activity, and thereby of strength of mental growth.
It is my business to declare that at this time health and education are
not going hand in hand ; that the whole head is sick, and the whole
heart is faint.

I cannot sit day by day to see failure of young brain, and of brain
approaching its maturity, and of brain that is matured, and tamely
accept the phenomenon as necessary and therefore to be endured. To
see the errors that prevail and not to speak of them were to be silent
on errors which would lead a nation into trained feebleness, which shall
lead to new generations springing out of that feebleness, and to the pro-
pagation of a community that should no more be illuminated by those
greatnesses of the past who, in less learned but freer times, gave forth
the noblest of noble poetry, the most wonderful of wonderful art, and
a science, philosophy, and literature that have been hardly mortal.
Such a poetry as Shakespeare has poured forth; such an art as
Gainsborough, and Reynolds, and Turner, and Herschel, and Sid-
dons, and Kemble, and Kean have presented ; such a science as
Newton, and Priestley, and Davy, and Young, and Faraday have
immortalised ; such a philosophy as Bacon and Locke have contri-
buted; and such a literature as Johnson, and Scott, and Dickens have,
in the freedom of their intellectual growths, bequeathed for ever. To
me, observing as a physician, the appearance and development of these
men, under the circumstances in which they appeared, is natural, the
mere course of natiue untrammeled, regular, and divinely permitted;
not forced but permitted, Nature being left to herself To me, observing
as a physician, the appearance of such men in similar greatness of
form is at this time an all but impossible phenomenon. The men
truly may appear, for Nature is always reproducing them, and the
divine permission for their development is equally good now as of yore;
but the development is checked by human interference, and thereby

1 66 7lu Gentleniafis Magazine.

hangs the reason of the impossible. Nature produces acorns for
future oaks, and is as free as of yore that oaks should tnake forests ;
but if the young oaks be forced in their growth, and when they are
approaching to maturity be barbarously compressed, head and trunk,
into narrow unyielding tubes, there will be no forests, nor so much as
spare representatives of the forest, amidst the brushwood of common-
place meadow or bare ploughed field of mental life.

If it be true that education does not go hand in hand with
health, it is vain to expect that education shall bring forth the first
fruits of knowledge, and, what is more important, of wisdom. My
argument is, that the present modes of education for the younger
population, and for the older, are not compatible with healthy life ;
and that education, therefore, is not producing the mental product
that is required for the steady and powerful progress of the nation.

There are many faults in the processes of education of the young
which tell upon health in a direct mode. There are faults in the con-
struction of schoolrooms still : there are faults in respect to discipHne
in schools : there are faults in respect to punishments in school life.
I do not at this moment dwell on these, and for the simple reason
that they are departing errors. No one who has watched the im-
provements which have been made in schools during the past twenty
years can fail to see how markedly they have advanced ; what care is
taken to secure good ventilation ; how clean and warm the modem
schoolroom has become, compared with the schoolroom of the past
day.

No one, again, can doubt that the discipline of the modem school
IS much more correct than it used to be, and that the manners and
customs of scholars in school, and out of school, are superior in
every particular. Scholars are cleanlier than they were, less bmtal
than they were, and less subjected to those painful school accidents
which, in our forefathers' time, were wont to leave their marks for
life.

Lastly, it must be obvious to all that the law of kindness in
schools is fast replacing the modes of mling by the rod, and other
forms of punishment, which once stood out as solemn and legalised
barbarities : modes which hardened many hearts in their first days,
and broke more than they hardened ; modes which have left their
impress even yet in the men and women whom they trained into
transmissible forms of character and mind.

i I may, then, leave these departing shadows on the schoolday
suf lof w^that I may touch more definitely on the shadows that are
sin ; if oneening and daily falling.

Learning and Health, 167

EDUCATION IN CHILDHOOD,

The first serious andj increasing evil bearing on education and
its relation to health lies in too early subjection of pupils to study.
Children are often taught lessons from books before they are properly
taught to walk, and long before they are taught properly to play.
Play is held out to them, not as a natural thing, as something which
the parent should feel it a duty to encourage, but as a reward for so
much work done, and as a rest from work done; as though, forsooth,
play were not itself a form of work, and often work of a most
fatiguing nature. Play, therefore, is not used as it ought to be used —
as a mode of work which the child likes, but rather as a set-off against
a mode of work which the child does not like, and which in nine cases
out of ten he does not like because it is altogether imfitted for
his powers; because Nature is protesting, as loudly as she can and as
plainly as she can, that the child has not arrived at a period of growth
when the kind of mental food that is forced on it is fitted for its
organisation.

For children under seven years of age the whole of the teaching
that should be naturally conveyed should be through play, if the
body is to be trained up healthily as the bearer of the mind. And it
is wonderful what an amount of learning can by this method be
attained. Letters of languages can be taught; conversation in
different languages can be carried on ; animal life can be classified ;
the surface of the earth can be made clear ; history can be told as
story; and a number of other and most useful truths can be instilled
without ever forcing the child to touch a book or read a formal lesson.

Under such a system the child grows into knowledge, makes his
own inventor)' of the world that surrounds him and the things that
are upon it, and, growing up free to learn, learns well, and eats, and
sleeps, and plays well.

In a child trained after this method, not only is health set forth,
but happiness likewise, — a most important item in this period of life.
Priestley, who was as good an observer of men as he was of inanimate
nature, was accustomed to say of himself, with much gratitude, that
he was born of a happy disposition ; that he was happy by heredity.
So, in all his great trials — in his failures as a speaker because of his
defective stammering habit ; in his difficulties as a theologian ; in his
persecution as a presumed politician, flying for his life, having his
house burned to the ground and all the treasures he valued most
flung out of window to a senseless, drunken, groaning mob ; in all
these trials, and others to come, — the cruel cutting of his colleagues of
the Royal Society, and the final parting for ever, in his old age, from
his beloved England that he had served so well ; in all these trials^ I
say, which so few could have borne, he sustained the full share of his

* * *^ *

* * **^ *** ** *k

« «

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1 68 The Gentleman s Magazine,

hereditary gifts, his mental happiness and health, — or I should rather
say, his health, and therefore his happiness.

But this blessed health, which so distinctly propagates itself, is
never at any period of life so tried as in the first years. Then it is
confirmed or destroyed, made or unmade.

In this period, in which so many die from various causes, Nature
herself, at first sight, seems to set up continued irritations. It is only
that she seems, for if she were allowed she would do all her spiriting
gently, even to the cutting of teeth and the modification of digestion
to modification of food.

It is in this period that education is too often made for the first
time to stand at variance with health. It is in this period that the
enforced lesson too often harasses, wearies, and at last darkens the
mind. It is in this period that the primary fault is committed of
making play a set-off against work, and a promise of a good game an
inducement for the persistence in hard labour.

What is constantly attempted to be taught in this period of life ii
the saddest detail. I have known a regular imposition of work p(^r
day equal to the full complement of natural work for many a man or
woman. There are schools in which children of eight, nine, and ten
years of age, and, it may be, younger children still, are made to 9ludy
from nine o'clock until noon, and again, after a hasty meal and an
hour for play, from two to five in the afternoon, and later on are
obliged to go to lessons once more preparatory for the following day.

The bad fact is, that the work is actually done, and as the brain
is very active because it is diverted from its natural course, the child
it belongs to is rendered so unusually precocious, that it may become
a veritable wonder. Worse than all, this precocity and wonderful
cleverness too often encourages both parents and teachers to press
the little ability to some further stretch of ability, so that the small
wonder becomes an actual exhibition, a receptacle of knowledge that
can turn up a date like the chronological table of the " Encyclopaedia
Britannica,'' give the whole histor)^ of Cleopatra, to say nothing of the
Needle, carry you through a Greek verb without a stop, and probably
recite a dozen selections from the best poets.

This is the outside of the marvellous picture. Let us look at the
inside of it, as a skilled eye can easily look and read too. These
precocious coached-up children are never well. Their mental
excitement keeps up a flush, which, like the excitement caused by
strong drink in older children, looks like health, but has no relation
to it. If you look at the tongues of these children, you see them
to be furred or covered with many red points like a strawberry, or to
be too red and very dr)\ If you inquire into the state of the

Learning and Health. 169

appetite, you find that the appetite is capricious ; that all kinds of
stnuige foods are asked for, and that the stomach never seems to be
in order. If you watch the face for long, you note that the frequent
flush gives way to an unearthly paleness. If you watch the eyes, you
observe that they gleam with light at one time and are dull, de-
pressed, and sad at another, while they never are laughing eyes.
Their brightness is the brightness of thought on the strain, an
evanescent and dangerous phenomenon. If you feel the muscles,
they are thin and flabby, though in some instances they may be fairly
covered with fat. If you inquire as to the sleep these children get,
you hear that it is disturbed, restless, and sometimes broken. In a
healthy child the sleep comes on irresistibly at an early hour, and
when the eyes are shut and the body composed, the sleep is carried
out till waking time without a movement of position of the body.
You ask the healthy child about his sleep, and he says that he is
simply conscious of having closed his eyes and opened them again.
But these unhealthy over- taught children have no such elysium.
They sleep, perchance to dream ; to dream during half the night, and
to be assailed with all the pressures and labours of dreams ; passing
through strange abodes and narrow crevices which it seems impos-
sible to squeeze into ; and waking in a start, with the body cold, in
what is commonly called a nightmare, and sometimes in somnambulism
or sleep-walking. The bad sleep naturally leads to a certain over-
wakeful languor the next day, but, strangely enough, it interferes with
the natural advent of sleep the next night, so that sleeplessness at
night becomes a habit. The child must be read to sleep, or told
stories until it is ofl", and thus it falls into slumber fed with the food
of dreams, worries, cares, and wonders.

In this period of early education, first state of what may be
fairly called the intemperance of education, the recreations that are
adopted for the little scholar are often as pernicious as any other part
of the system in which he or she is trained. During the day-pastimes,
a want of freshness and freedom prevails, almost of necessity, in large
towns ; and this want is often made worse than it need to be by in-
attention or deficiency of knowledge.

In a town like London there are three classes of children, all of
whom present different aspects of health.

The children of the poorer people, the children that play in the open
streets and round the squares, are constantly found to present the
best specimens of health in the whole child community. If these
children are well fed at home, and have moderately comfortable beds,
and are not put to work for hours too long, they are singularly
healthy in many instances, even though they be the denizens of courts.

• • ••• •• ••

1 70 The Gentleman's Magazine.

mews, and alleys. It is true that numbers of them inherit sad con-
stitutional diseases ; it is true that numbers of them exhibit deformities
of the skeleton, owing to the circumstance that during their infancy they
were not properly fed with food that will yield bone-forming struc-
ture ; still, amongst them are the ruddiest and healthiest of the town
communities. They owe their health to the free and out-door life.

There is next a class of children belonging to the well-to-do.
These are taken out for walks in the public parks and gardens, or
are driven out, and if they be permitted really to enjoy the outing,
and are not harassed with long lessons at home or at school, they
are bright and healthy, though it is rare for them to present all the
natural ruddiness and strength of the spring-time of life.

There is a third class of children who, least fortunate, lie between
the rich and the poor, and who belong to the middle trading classes.
The parents of these children are anxious, for the most correct of
motives, that their young people shall not run wild in the streets to
mix with children who are of a diflerent class and under different
influences. At the same time, they are unable to send their chil-
dren out to the parks or suburbs as their wealthier neighbours are.
The consequence is that these children are kept close at home or at
school. They have to live in small rooms badly ventilated or irre-
gularly ventilated, and albeit they are well clothed and well fed and
comfortably bedded, they grow up all but universally unhealthy.

These children are they who specially suffer from too close work
at books and educational labour generally. They are usually very pale,
muscularly feeble, and depressed in mind. They grow up irresolute,
and yield a large — by far the largest — number of those who fill up the
death-roll of that disease of fatal diseases, pulmonary consumption."]

For fourteen years of my life I was physician to one of the
hospitals in this metropolis to which so many of those who are
afilicted with consumption find their way. Twice, and occasionally
three times a week, the duty of inquiry into the origin of this disease
came to my share of professional work. The field of observation was
extensive, and no fact was yielded in it so definitely as this fact,
that the larger proportion of the consumptive population have been
brought up under the conditions I have named above : in close
schoolrooms, during school hours far too prolonged, and then in close
rooms at home, where other work, in confined space, filled the re-
maining lifetime.

It is to be confessed that many practical diflliculties lie in the way
of parents of children of the classes I have just named. Hut there
are no insurmountable diflliculties to improvement. An intelligent
public demand for an improvement would very soon lead to an ex-

•- ••

■ •

'V\ }■:'.'

Learning and Health. 171

tension of what are called garden schools for the young, in which
teaching by amusing lessons, or games of learning, in a pure air and
in ample space, would secure all the advantages which are now so
much desired. In our large and splendid Board Schools, which are
becoming distinct and beautiful social features of the age, something
towards this system is approached, if not attained.

EDUCATION IN BOYHOOD,

In the education which is bestowed on the young in the next
stage of life, — I mean, on those who are passing from the eleventh to
the sixteenth or seventeenth years of life, — the errors committed in
respect to health are often as pronounced as in the earlier stage.

This period of life is in many respects extremely critical. The
rapid growth of the organs of the body, the still imperfect and im-
perfected condition of the most vital organs : the quick changing,
and yet steadily developing form of mind, which, like the hand-
writing, is now being constructed : the imitative tendency of the
mind : and, not to name other peculiarities, the intensity of feelings
in the way of likes and hates : — all these conditions, physical and
mental, make this stage of a human career singularly liable to dis-
orders of a functional or even of an organic kind. For one organ of
the body, or for one propensity of the mind, to outgrow, or out-
develop another or others, is the easiest of all proceedings in this
stage of life, unless care be taken to preserve a correct balance.

The lines of error carried out in this period run in three
directions at least, all tending to impair the healthy and natural
growth. The first of these errors is over-work^ which often is useless
over-work. The second is deficient skill or care in detecting the
natural character of ability ; in other words, the turn of mind, and it
may be said capability, of the learner. The third is the system of
forcing the mind into needless competitions, by which passions which
are not intellectual but animal feed the intellectual soul with desire,
and, by creating an over- development of the nervous-physical seats of
passion, make or breed a soul of passions which may never be put
out in after life, until itself puts out the life abruptly by the weariness
it inflicts.

I have sketched from a trustworthy record the work of learning
imposed on a pale and nervous boy at a school the discipline of
which is by some felt to be rather light than heavy. Any four of
the subjects therein named were really sufficient to occupy all the
natural powers for work of that young mind. Five of the subjects,
Latin or Greek, English, Arithmetic, History, and French or German
language, with writing superadded as an exercise, would be the

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172 The Gentleman s Magazine.

extreme of lesson work a prudent care would suggest. For these
exercises of the mind eight hours of work would be necessary, and
if this period of labour were enforced, with t\v'o hours for meals and
ablutions, and four hours for play, it would require all the remaining
ten hours, out of the twenty-four, for sleep, in order to supply that
perfect renovation of body, that extra nutrition which growth of the
developing organs of the body so rigorously demands. But it seems
never to be conceived, in respect to the human animal, that growth
is labour. To put a horse into harness at too early a time of its
life, and to make it work hard as it is growing, is considered the
most ignorant of processes ; while to work a growing child harder
probably now than at advanced periods of life, is often considered
the most correct and vigilant of processes.

This educational training has, according to my experience, only
one result, — a reduced standard of health and life. Boys and girls
subjected to it are rendered pale, thin, irritable, feverish, restless at
night, and feeble. A thoroughly good diet, and brisk play, and kind
and sympathetic encouragement, may diminish the evil, and I am
bound to say often do diminish it ; but these aids, at their best,
do no more than diminish. The root of the danger remains, and for
delicate children the aids are a poor shield against the diseases of lungs,
of heart, of nervous system, that are ever threatening and giving cause
for alarm. How easily such over-worked children take cold during
vicissitudes of season, how severely they suffer when they are at-
tacked with the epidemic diseases — the common experience of every
practising physician proves. For these diseases are themselves of ner-
vous origin, and find the readiest place in exhausted nervous natures.

So the briUiant boy or girl of the school, whose intelligence has
pre-illuminated the world, too frequently dies, and the dull boy or
girl, the hulk of the school, escapes back to health from variations of
it. And alas ! say the admiring mourners of the dead, alas I it is
true, " whom the gods love die young." Alas ! it is false, I say.
Whom the gods love die old ; go through their appointed course,
fulfil their appointed duties, and sink into their rest, knowing no more
of death than of birth, and leaving no death-stricken mourners at
their tombs.

The breach between health and education in the period of
studentship now under consideration is further evidenced by the
method that exists, — and as a necessity exists in a bad system, — of
making no practical distinction between one learner and another in
relation to physical capacity and power. It is one of the faults in
the system of punishments for those unfortunates who have broken
the laws of the land that the same labour is inflicted constantly on

»• ■• • • •

Learning and Health. 173

persons of entirely diflferent physical power, so that either half a
punishment, or a double punishment, may be imposed for the same
offence. This is most unfair even to criminals. It is not a bit more
unfair than the system in school classes of teaching every one the
same. To take the boy who has an inherited tendency to consump-
tion, or to heart disease, or to insanity, and to place him under the
same mental regime as another boy who has none of these proclivi-
ties, but is of healthiest parentage, is 'almost a crime in ignorance.
And when it is the fact that the healthiest boy in a school is, in all
probability, himself overworked, it is not difficult to detect that in
respect to work imposed on pupils passing from the eleventh to the
seventeenth or eighteenth year, it is impossible for health and educa-
tion to progress side by side, and develop lustily together.

I said there was a second course of error in education at the
peridd of life now under consideration. That consists in failing to
allow for difference of mental capacity and turn of mind in different
learners. - There are many minds of neutral tendency ; minds that
can take in a certain limited amount of knowledge on almost any
and every subject, but which can never master much in anything.
These minds, if they be not unduly pressed and rubbed out, or
flattened down, become in time respectable in learning, and some-
times imbued with the plainest common sense. These minds bear
at school much work with comparatively small injury, for they are
admittedly dull, and great things are not expected of them, and great
things are not attempted by them. These minds do the necessary
work of mediocrity, in this world, an important work enough, — the
work of the crust of the intellectual sphere.

There are two other very different orders of minds. There is
the mind analytical, that looks into details in business, into elements
in science, into figures and facts in civil and natural histor}'. In the
school such a mind is good at arithmetic ; good at mathematics ;
good at facts and dates ; good at niceties of language. In these
directions its lessons are pleasures, or, at the worst, are scarcely
labours. There is again the mind constructive or synthetic; the mind
that builds ; that uses facts and figures, only, in the end, for its own
purposes of work ; which easily learns principles of construction ;
which grasps poetry and the hidden meaning of the poet ; which is
wonderful often for memory, but remembers the whole, rarely the
parts of a theme ; and which cannot by any pressure inflicted on it,
or self-inflicted, take fast hold of minute distinctions.

The true intellect of the world, from the first dawn of it until
now, has been made up of these two distinct forms. They seem
antagonistic ; they are so ; but out of their antagonism has come the

1 74 The Gentlematts Magazine.

light of knowledge and wisdom. They are the representative poles of
knowledge and of wisdom. The first is knowing, the second wise —
two distinct qualities, though commonly confounded as one.

In the small school of the youth, as in the great school of the
world, these representative orders of mind are ever present. The
mistake is, that they are so commonly confounded, and that no
change is made in the mode of study to fit the taste of the one or
the other.

The consequence is that lessons are given to the analytical
student which he cannot possibly grasp, and to the synthetical
student which he cannot possibly master. Under these conditions
both chafe and worry and weary, and still do not get on. Then
they fall into bad health, grow fretful and feverish, are punished or
slighted, and othenvise made sad and, it may be, revengeful. And so,
if they be unduly forced, they grow up unhealthy in body and in
mind. They grow up feeling as beings who have in some manner
missed their way in life. The occupation into which they have
drifted, and in which they have become fixed, is not congenial to
them ; at last they fall into listlessness, and, seeking in amusements
and pleasures for the treasure they have lost, arc trodden into the
crust of the intellectual sphere, — the great mediocrity.

I said there was a third course of error in educational training
in this period of life, and I noted that as the prize system, the
forcing of young minds to extremes of competition in learning. This
system is bad fundamentally. I have been assured by excellent
teachers that it is bad as a system of teaching, and that nothing
but the demand for it on the parts of ambitious parents and friends
could make thcni permit it as a part of their work. They say it
obliges them, as prize days draw near, to devote excessive time to
the most earnest of the competitors, 'i'hcy say that the attention of
the whole school is directed towards the competitors, who have their
special admirers, and so the masses, who, from fear or from want of
ability, do not compete, are doubly neglected, are neglected by their
teachers to some extent, and are forgetful of their own prospects in
the interest they take as to the success of their idols. In this way,
those that are weakest are least, and those that are strongest arc
most, assisted— another illustration of the proverb, *' To him that
hath shall be given ; but from him that hath not shall be taken away
even that which he hath."

I cannot undertake to confirm this judgment myself, though it
sounds like common sense, but I can affirm that in matter of health,
in interference with that blessing, the prize system stands at the bar
guilty of the guilty. You have but to go to a prize distribution to sec

Learning and Health. 175

in the worn and pale and languid faces of the successful the effects
of this system. And when you have seen them, you have not seen
a tithe of the evil. You have not seen the anxious young-old boys
or girls at the time of the competition ; you have not seen them
immediately after it ; you have not seen them between the period of
competition and the announcement of the awards. You have not
seen the injury inflicted by the news of success to some, and of failure
to others who have contested and lost. If you could, as through a
transparent body, have seen all the changes incident to these events;
if you could only have seen one set of phenomena alone, the violent
over-action and the succeeding depressed action of the beating heart,
you would have seen enough to tell you how mad a system you have
been following to its results, and how much the dull and neglected
scholars are to be envied by the side of the bright and, for the
moment, the applauded and flattered and triumphant.

These bad physical results the physician alone sees as a rule, and
he not readily, since the evil does not of necessity appear at the
moment, nor does he nor do others see the remaining evils from the
physical side. It requires a look into the mental condition produced
by the competition, to the effect of that condition on the passions,
and to the influence of the passions on the nutrition and maintenance
of the body, to know or surmise the secondar>' mischiefs to health
which these fierce mental struggles in girlhood and boyhood inflict
on the woman and the man.

While this lecture has been in preparation I have received from
Dr. Holbrook, the editor of the Herald of Health of New York, one
of his miniature tracts on Health, \xi which he records the experiences
of men who have lived long, laborious, and successful lives, and the
reasons they assign for having enjoyed such prolonged health and
mental activity. The tract before me contains letters from two men
of great eminence, namely, William Cullen Bryant and William
Howitt. A part of William Hewitt's letter so admirably expresses
the lesson I am now endeavouring to teach that I quote it in full.
It refers to his early life, and its perfect freedom of learning : — " My
boyhood and youth were, for the most part, spent in the country ;
and all country objects, sports, and labours, horse-racing and hunt-
ing excepted, have had a never-failing charm for me. As a boy, I
ranged the country far and wide in curious quest and study of all the
wild creatures of the woods and fields, in great delight in birds and
their nests, climbing the loftiest trees, rocks, and buildings in pursuit
of them. In fact, the life described in the * Boy's Country Book '
was my own life. No hours were too early for me, and in the bright
sunny fields in the early mornings, amid dews and odour of flowers,

176 The Gentleman's Magazine.

I breathed that pure air which gave a life-long tone to my lungs that
I still reap the benefit of. All these daily habits of climbing, running,
and working, developed my frame to perfection, and gave a vigour
to nerve and muscle that have stood well the wear and tear of exist-
ence. My brain was not dwarfed by excessive study in early boy-
hood, as is too much the case with children of to-day. Nature says,
as plainly as she can speak, that the infancy of all creatures is sacred
to play, to physical action, and the joyousness of mind that give life
to every organ of the system. Lambs, kittens, kids, foals, even
young pigs and donkeys, all teach the great lesson of Nature, that
to have a body healthy and strong, the prompt and efficient vehicle
of the mind, we must not infringe on her ordinations by our study
and cramping sedentariness in life's tender years. We must not
throw away or misappropriate her forces destined to the corporeal
architecture of man, by tasks that belong properly to an after time.
There is no mistake so fatal to the proper development of man and
woman as to pile on the immature brain, and on the yet unfinished
fabric of the human body, a weight of premature, and, therefore, un-
natural, study. In most of those cases where Nature has intended to
produce a first-class intellect, she has guarded her embryo genius by
a stubborn slowness of development. Moderate study and plenty of
play and exercise in early youth are the true requisites for a noble
growth of intellectual powers in man, and for its continuance to
old age."

EDUCATION IN ADOLESCENCE,

In the education that is bestowed on the young in the period of
their adolescence, namely, from the seventeenth or eighteenth to
the twenty-second or twenty-third years, there is, I regret to say, no
redeeming quality in regard to health as an attendant consideration.

Young men and young women who are now presenting themselves
for the higher-class examinations at our universities and public
boards are literally crushed by the insanity of the effort. It has
happened to me >vithin the past year to have under observation four
of these victims to the inquisition of learning.

In one of these examples, where success, so called, crowned the
effort, in addition to many minor injuries inflicted on the body, an
absence of memory has succeeded the cram, so that names of
common places are for the time quite forgotten ; while the subject.s
that were got up so accurately have become a mere confused dream,
in which all that relates to useful learning is inextricably buried.

In another of these competitors, the period of competition wa

Learning and Health. 177

attended with an entire absence of sleep, and thereby with that ex-
haustion which leads almost to dehrious wandering of mind. Here
failure led to an extreme depression, to a forgetfulness of the reason
of failure, and to a listlessness on all subjects it will take months to
cure.

In the third example to which I refer, sleeplessness, labour, and
excitement brought on an hereditary tendency to intermitting action
of the heart, to unsteadiness of power, and thereby to uncertainty of
effort, which almost of necessity led to failure of attempt. Even
cram in an instance of this nature, backed by all the assiduity that
will and patience and industry could support, was obliged to fail,
because the physical force was not at hand to keep the working body
in accord with the mental power. Ignorant of what they were after,
the examiners who were putting on the screw were not examining
the mental qualities of this youth at all, but were really tr)ing how
long his heart would hold out under their manipulation.

In the fourth instance, it was my duty to decide whether a youth,
brought up just to the condition for going into the inquisition, should,
worn and wearied with the labour, bloodless and sleepless, run the
risk, — ^being quite ready for it, — or should, at the last moment, take
six months' entire rest, and then be got up to the same pitch of life-
lessness and misery again.

Is there any occasion to wonder at these phenomena ? One of
the members of my profession has a son who originally was a lad of
good parts, and who, after undergoing the inquisition, had to wander
about for months in travel, helpless in mental and physical state —
" more like an idiot," said his father to me, than anything else. Is
there any occasion to wonder at these phenomena, I repeat ? None.
In some of these inquisitions each examiner can pluck from his own
pai>er, and there are several examiners. Ask one of those examiners
to answer the paper of another examiner, and see what he would do.
The unhappy student has to answer them all.

The system is doing sufficient evil to men ; but what is to hapi>en
to the world if women, anxious to emulate, arc to have their way, and,
like moths, follow their sterner mates into the midnight candle of
learning? Up to this time the stability of the race in physical and
mental qualities has greatly rested on the women. Let the fathers do
what they might — in this age dissipate and duel and fight ; in that age
smoke, drink, and luxuriate; in another age nm after the vain shadows
of competitive exercises, mental or physical ; still the women remained
unvitiated, so that one-half the authorship of the race was kept intact
as reasonable and responsible beings. In other words, there were

VOL. CCXLII. .NO. 1766. N

178 The Gentleman s Magazine.

mothers as well a^ fathers. But if in these days women, cat<;hing
the infection of the present system^ succeed in their clamour for
admission into the inquisition, and mothers thereupon go out, as
they certainly will, just in proportion as they go in, the case will be
bad indeed for the succeeding generations.

Some wise man has given us, if we would read his lesson correctly,
the moral of this kind of effort in the wonderful story of Babel

It is quite true. You cannot build a temple that reaches to
heaven, though all the world tr)'. It is not, that is to say, by forcing
the minds of men to learn, that man can penetrate the secrets of
nature and know them. If one learned man could seize and hold
and apply the knowledge of two learned men, there might be a pro-
gression of knowledge in geometrical ratio, and soon, in tnith,

Men would l)e angels, angels wouKl l>e gcxls.

To this Nature says No ; and when the attempt is made, she corrects
it by the interruption she sets up, through the corporeal mechanism,
to the mental strife and contagion.

To let this struggle against Nature progress up to conftision of
tongues, in which one learned man shall not understand another, is
a far easier thing than many suppose : for Nature is uns^verving in her
course, and the struggle now is far advanced towards its natural
consummation. •

For a time yet it may be necessary to subject men who are to
take part in responsible professional labours, in the practice of which ,
life or property is concerned, to certain efficient tests as proofs of
knowledge and skill. Such examinational tests may easily be con-
ducted without being made in any sense competitive, and without in
any sense doing an injury to health and life.

At best, such tests are arbitrary, and define no more than the
capacity of a man at the period of his entry into manhood. At that
period there is presented but one phase of mental life among many
varying phases ; and to let the brand of superiority stamped at that
age, however distinguished the superiority then may be, stand forth
as the all-sufficient distinguishing mark for a lifetime, would indeed
be, and indeed is, unjust foolishness.

It is a very bad system that suggests such a mode of obtaining a
claim to permanent superiority, and the effects of the present system
are shown as most mischievous in this very particular

The man who succeeds in gaining these great competitive honours
is usually content to rest on them, and rarely wins other distinctions
in after life. It is doubtful whether the training is not fatal to die
after distinction, and whether 'the great geniuses of the world

Learning and Health. 179

would ever have appeared at all, if, in their early days, they had been
oppressed by the labour, strain, and anxiety of the competition on
the one hand, or had been bound by the hard-and-fast linfes of
dogmatic learning on the other. I believe myself that great after
distinction is impossible with early competitive superiority gained by
the struggles I have indicated, and that the evils now so widespread
amongst our better-class communities will find their full correction
in the circumstance that the geniuses of the nation and the leaders
of the nation will henceforth be derived, unless there be a refor-
mation of system, from those simple pupils of the board schools who,
entering into the conflicts of life able to read, write, and calculate,
are left free of brain for tlie acquirement of learning of any and every
kind in the full powers of developed manhood.

Be this as it may, I am sure that the present plan, which strands
men and women on the world of active life, old in knowledge before
their time, and ready to rest from acquirement on mere devotion of
an automatic kind to some one particular pursuit, is directly injurious
to health both of body and mind.

Continued action of the mind and varied action of the mind are
essentials to length of life and health of life, and those brain-workers
who have shown the greatest skill in varied pursuits, even when their
works have been laborious, have lived longest and happiest and best.

The truth is, that when men do not die of some direct accident
of disease, they die, in nine cases out often, from nervous failure. And
this is the peculiarity of nervous failure — that it maybe fatal from one
point of the ner\ous organism, the rest being sound. A man ma
therefore wear himself out by one mental exercise too exclusively
followed, while he may live through many exercises extended over
far greater intervals of time and involving more real labour if they be
distributed over many seats of mental faculty.

Just as a sheet of ice will bear many weights if they be equally
distributed upon it, but will give way and break up at one point from
a lesser weight, so the braiti will bear an equally distributed strain of
work for many years, while pressure not more severe on one point
will destroy it in a limited period, and with it the body it animates.

CONCLUSION.

Let health and education go hand in hand, and the progress of
the world, physically and mentally, is sound and sure.

Let the brain, in the first stage of life, make its own inventory :
distress it not with learning, or sadness, or romance of passion. Let
it take Nature as a second mother for its teacher.

In the second age, instil gently and learn the order of mind that is

i8o The Gentleman s Magazine,

being rendered a receiving agency : allay rather than encourage
ambition : do not push on the strong, but help the feeble.

In adolescence, let the studies, taking their natural bent, be more
decisive and defined as towards some particular end or object, but
never distressing, anxious, or distractingly ambitious. Let this be an
age for probation into the garden of knowledge, and of modest claim
to admission there ; not for a charge by assault and for an entry with
clarion and standard and claim of so much conquered possession.

And for the rest, let the course be a continued learning, so that
with the one and chief pursuit of life other pursuits may mingle
happily, and life be not

a dissonant thing
Amid the universal harmony.

My task is done. I find no fault with any particular cbss, neither
of teachers nor pastors nor masters. I speak only against a prevailing
error, for which no one is specially at fault, but for which all are
somewhat at fault, however good the object had in view may be.

What we now witness in the way of mental competition is but the
old system of physical competitive prowess in a new form ; and when
the evils of it are seen, and when the worse than uselessness of it is
detected, it will pass away as all such errors do when the universal
mind which sustains them sees and appreciates the wrong that is
being done. I believe sincerely that the errors I have ventured to
describe, and which at this present, separate health from education,
will in due time be recognised and removed.

In a leading article last year in one of our powerful and widely-
read newspapers on a lecture of mine delivered in this i)lace, there
was an expression of regret that I, as a man of science, should deal
so earnestly with subjects so trivial as these. Suppose the subjects to
be trivial, and then in answer I might fairly say there are mites in
science as well as in charity, and the ultimate results of each are
often alike important and beneficial. But I deny the triviality. I
ask, if these subjects, whith refer to the very life-blood of the nation,
be trivial, what are the solemn subjects, and who are dealing with
them?

I read in another and scientific paper, that to state facts of a
similar order to those I have now related, to a public as distinct from
a strictly professional audience, is a sure means by which to hurt
tender susceptibilities, and of a certainty to give to some a cause of
offence. To that criticism I reply, as I conclude, in the words of the
good St. Jerome : ** If an offence come out of truth, better is it the
offence come than the truth be concealed."

BENJAMIN W. RICHARDSON.

i8i

PAPAL ELECTIONS AND

ELECTORS.

THE conditions under which a Papal Election will be held in future
will differ much from those under which any former occupant
of the Chair of St. Peter has been chosen. Before now, Popes have
been realmless sovereigns, have held their seat as it were on sufferance,
surrounded by the territories of unfriendly or actively hostile poten-
tates, have had their dominion threatened by the spirit of a restless
age ; but the combination of circumstances surrounding the closing
years of Pius IX. have had scarcely a parallel in history. His ponti-
ficate, so remarkable in many things, is not the least so in the unpre-
cedented length of time it has lasted. His occupation of the papal
throne has exceeded thirty years ; and, alone amongst Pontiffs, he
has seen more than " the years of Peter." The average duration of a
]X)ntificate has been estimated at about thirteen years ; and Pope Pius
has had the singular fortune of so far exceeding the time usually
allotted by fate to his predecessors that not a single cardinal survives
of a creation senior to his own.

There is a prevalent but ill-founded belief that no person is eligible
to the Papacy w^ho is not a member of the Cardinalate. But, legally,
the number of eligible candidates is not thus restricted. As a matter
of fact, both Popes and anti-Popes have been not only not cardinals,
but sometimes even laymen. One Pope, Adrian V., lived and died
without taking orders. The fable of Pope Joan could hardly have
obtained the wide credence that was long given to it, had it not been
generally held that the qualifications necessary to a candidate for the
papal throne were not such as to exclude all but those who belonged
to a body so limited in number as the Sacred College. Though that
fable has long been exposed, the length of time during which it passed
for true, and the unhesitating faith with which it was almost universally
accepted, form an interesting historical episode in more ways than
one- It showed, for example, what — even in the " ages of faith " —
was the estimate readily formed of the character of the successors of
St Peter. Its exposure and demolition by two non-Catholics, Blondel

1 82 The Gentleman s Magazine.

and Bayle, are an early and remarkable instance of that historical
criticism which, in the hands of the Destructive school, has removed
to the domain of legend so many matters long thought to be worthy
of belief.

Whoever invented the stor>', showed considerable imagination and
power of invention. It runs as follows : About the middle of the
ninth century, a young woman of Mainz, having fallen in love with a
monk, resolved to run away from her home, and gain admission to
the monastery to which her sweetheart belonged. She was received
into the establishment as one of the fraternity, and continued for a
long time to enjoy the society of the man whom she had followed
undiscovered and unsuspected. At length they eloped together, and
travelled over various countries of Europe, visiting— amongst other
places — Athens, where the disguised young woman studied and made
great progress in profane law. From Athens she went to Rome, in
which city she became a student of and i)roficient in sacred learning.
Her engaging manners and address, as well as her reputation as a
scholar utriusqtie doctrina^ brought her into notice, and she began the
duties of a professor. Her lectures, like those of Hypatia, were de-
livered to audiences comprising the most learned and best bom of
her contemporaries. She gained, in fact, so great a name for learning
and sanctity, that at the death of Leo IV., in 855, she was unani-
mously elected his successor. Whilst on the throne, she filled the
place of her monkish lover by admitting to her society a cardinal who
held an office in the palace. At length, after a reign of nearly two
years and a half, she was seized Avith the pains of labour during a
procession, and gave birth to a child in the street, dying on the spot.
Another story relates that, on the discovery of her sex, she was stoned
to death. However or whenever the legend arose, it was long believed.
** Till the Reformation," says Gibbon, " the tale was repeated and be-
lieved without offence ; and Joan's female statue long occupied a place
among the Popes in the cathedral of Siena."

But although it is a fact that not cardinals only are eligible
to the papal throne, it is equally true that no one below that rank
has been chosen Pope for exactly five hundred years ; Urban VI.,
elected in 1378, being the last who was not a cardinal. Still, so
little is the possession of the red hat considered an essential qualifi-
cation, that even as late as 1758 votes were cast, and were received
without objection, for an ex-general of the Capuchins who had never
borne the cardinalitian dignity. It may be fairly assumed that a
practice which has received the sanction of so long and so undeviating
a custom will only be diverged from under very exceptional circum-.

Papal Elections and Electors. 1 83

stances, more so probably even than those in which the Holy Se6 is
at present placed.

For more than eight hundred years the elective franchise h^

been in the hands of the cardinals and of none others. Previous to

the eleventh century, the cardinals took part with the rest of the

Roman clergy in the election of a Pope. Nicholas II. issued a decree

in 1059, limiting the right of election exclusively to cardinals, and

leaving to the rest of the clergy and to the people of Rome the right

of approving, and to the Emperor that of confirming it. The body of

cardinals, or Sacred College, has, since the latter part of the sixteenth

century, been fixed at seventy members. The title is not strictly an

ecclesiastical one, but merely signifies a dignity or honour of the Roman

court. In its origin, it was undoubtedly connected with, and derived

from, the service of the Church; but it is at present, and for many

years has been, almost an equivalent of a high title of nobility granted

by a secular sovereign. His Holiness, being an ecclesiastical monarch,

with an ecclesiastical court, it is binding on all members of the latter,

so long as they are attached to it, to wear an ecclesiastical dress.

The lay Monstgnori, who are functionaries of the papal household,

may not lay aside the priestly uniform nor lawfully marry as long as

they hold office, but on resigning it may do both. Cardinals are not

ordained or consecrated, but are created by the Pope as sovereign.

Celibacy is indispensable, and it is asserted that there is no tangible

objection to the Pope's naming as cardinal any layman who is either

a bachelor or a widower.

The term cardinal is derived from a Latin word meaning a hinge,
as though the bearers of the title were the " hinges," or supports, of the
Church. Another derivation, but one now generally set aside, is from
another Latin word, incardinatio^ which signifies the adoption into
any Church of a priest of a foreign communion. In the early ages of
the Church the title signified the incumbents of the parishes of the
city of Rome. It was sometimes applied to the chief cleric of
parishes in other cities, in old documents certain French cures being
so styled. It should be noted that when a cardinal priest was con-
secrated bishop he vacated his cardinalate, being supposed to be
elevated to a higher dignity. In the Councils bishops long continued"
to take precedence of cardinals. The King of France, Louis XIII.;
at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was the first to grant
to cardinals the precedence over ecclesiastical peers, bishops, and
abbots. The seventy members of the Sacred College are divided as
follows : — Six cardinal bishops, fifty cardinal priests, and fourteen
cardinal deacons. This division is in many cases only nominal;

184 The Gentlemaiis Magazine.

Bishops frequently hold the rank of cardinal priest, and priest that
of cardinal deacon ; whilst, on the other hand, there are cardinal
priests who have only taken deacon's orders.

The six cardinal bishops are the suffragans of the Pope in his
quality of Metropolitan of the Roman ** province." The sees are
those of Ostia, Santa Rufina et Porto, Sabina, Palestrina, Albano,
and Frascati. The cardinal priests and deacons bear the title of
some church in Rome. Several are bishops of particular dioceses
in their own countries at the same time, still they bear the title of the
church of which they were made cardinal. The cardinal of Sta.
Prudentiana, for example, need have little more to do with the
church dedicated to that saint than the Duke of Wellington has to
do with the town of that name in Somersetshire. During the time
of the temporal power of the Holy See many cardinals resided at
Rome, employed in either tlie spiritual or temporal administration.
Those who were without sufficient private means or valuable benefice
were supposed to receive from the papal exchequer an allowance of
;;^8oo a year, on which, however, they had to pay a heavy income-
tax of ten per cent. The privilege of wearing the red hat is said to
have been granted by Innocent IV., in the thirteenth century, as lui
emblem of their readiness to shed their blood for the Catholic faith.
For a century and a half before, they had been allowed to wear red
shoes and red garments. In the year 1630 they were given the title
of Eminence, having been previously designated Most IllustriouSi and
this title they shared with the Grand Master of Malta and the eccle-
siastical electors of the Holy Roman (German) Empire.

Cardinals may, with the consent of the Pope, lay aside their rank
and return to secular life ; and many have done so. Even those in
holy orders have been permitted to divest themselves of both rank
and orders, and to marry. Ferdinand Medicis * was authorised to
quit his rank of cardinal, to become Grand-Duke of Tuscany, and
Cardinals Maurice of Savoy and Rainaldo of Este to succeed to high
secular place and to marr>'. Casimir, brother of I^dislas, King of
Poland, on the death of that monarch, was permitted, though a
cardinal and a member of the Society of Jesus, to return to secular
life and to marry his deceased brother's widow. More than once
permission has been granted to a cardinal to resign his state and
marry, for the purpose of preventing the extinction of the family of
which he was a member. Cardinal Ferdinand Gonzaga received
such permission, and married a woman of inferior rank. Becoming

' For these remarkable cases, see Mr. Cartwright*s book, On Papal Conclava^
pp. \10iti9q.

Papal Elections and Electors. 1 8 5

tired of bis low-born wife^ he obtained the Pope's authority to repu-
diate her and marry a daughter of Duke Cosmo Medicis. To Car-
dinal Vincenzo Gonzaga, a brother of Cardinal Ferdinand, it was
grajiCed to give up the Church that he might marry a lady, a relation
of his, of whom he was enamoured.

Cardinals who are laymen are prohibited from voting at papal
elections unless furnished with a specific dispensation from a Pope.
But this dispensation has been so rarely granted that they are almost
invariably compelled to take orders before being admitted to a Con-
clave. Still, there is an instance on record of a lay cardinal, and one
who afterwards married, having taken part in an election. Also, at the
death of the Pope in 1893, Cardinal Albani had not been ordained,
and had frequently expressed an intention of abandoning the purple
in order to marry so as not to let his family become extinct But the
opportunity of voting having occurred, he made up his mind to take
deacon's orders, so that he might take his part in the Conclave. The
right of voting is held to be indelible in all who bear the title of
Cardinal ; and has ever been alleged as a reason for withholding per-
mission to return to secular life. Indeed, the Supreme Pontiff himself
cannot take away this privilege, this being the sole limitation placed
upon his authority. Even excommunication does not carry with it
deprivation of the franchise inherent in the cardinalitian dignity.
This remarkable provision originated in mistrust of the way in which
a Pope might use his plenary authority. By degrading cardinals who
were opposed to him, he might disfranchise all but those prepared to
vote for a successor who might be his nominee.

It is said that, though cardinals have undergone various punishments,
and have even been executed, there is no instance of their having been
permanently deprived of the right of voting. Several cardinals were
fotmd guilty of having conspired against the life of Leo X., and one
of them was put to death in prison. Two others were sentenced to be
degraded and stripped of their right of either voting or being elected ;
but the sentence was cancelled before the occurrence of an election.
One of these two cardinals was again convicted of conspiracy under
Leo's successor, and imprisoned, but he was let out to vote at the ensuing
election, and this, too, although the Pope almost at the hour of his
death issued a Bull ordering that he was on no condition to be released.
In the last century Cardinal Cascia was found guilty of fraud and
scandalous peculation, and was sentenced to a heavy fine, ten years'
close confinement, deprivation of his see, and absolute degradation
from the Cardinalate. The Pope, however, on reflection rescinded the
sentence, and restored to the delinquent the right of voting for his

1 86 The Gentleman! s Magazine.

successor, with the sole proviso that the majority of two- thirds of the
votes cast — the number necessary to election — should not be made
up by his individual vote. In the end the Cardinal was released from
prison simply to vote in Conclave, and was taken back there when he
had done so.

It is not every cardinal who is in full possession of the rights and
privileges generally belonging to the order. A person upon whom
the dignity is conferred is not immediately entitled to all the advan-
tages of the Cardinalate. Though invested with all the symbols
of his new rank, he may not claim to utter an opinion or share in the
active duties of the Sacred College until his mouth has been "unsealed"
by the Pope. The custom of late has been to make the nomination
in Consistory and the unsealing of the mouth parts of the same
ceremony ; but the law on the subject has not been altered, and is held
to be still valid if put in force. The modern practice has the ad-
vantage of removing the doubts that have occasionally arisen as to the
propriety of cardinals " with mouths unopened " recording their votes
at a papal election. There is a further distinction between cardinals
who have been " promulgated," that is, whose names have been
announced in full Consistory, and those in feifOy or merely decided
upon mentally, whose names have been noted only " in the breast "
of the Pontiff in secret. Persons so nominated may live and die in
ignorance of the dignity to which they have been mentally appointed.
It is not uncommon for the Pope who so nominates to write do\vn on
a paper, carefully sealed up and secured, the names of those destined
to receive the dignity, leaving their full creation to the honour of his
successor, should a vacancy of the Holy See occur before their pro-
mulgation by himself. The origin of this curious mode of advancing
to an honour is to be found in the necessity which occasionally arose
of concealing from all but the members of the Sacred College the
names of those to be added to its ranks. But of late it has been the
practice not to reveal them even to that august body, but simply
to announce in Consistory the number of persons upon whom His
Holiness proposes to confer the dignity. Such announcement is taken
as equivalent to a substantive addition to the College of Cardinals ;
and it is accepted that so many vacancies as there are nominations
inpetto have been filled up. Members of religious orders, if nominated
cardinals, continue to wear the habit of the order to which they belong,
and do not use silk, and are^ thus distinguished by dress from their
fellows. The last Pope, Gregory XVI., who was a Camaldolese
monk, wore, as a cardinal, a garb of white.

The persons eligible to the Chair of St. Peter, and those who are

Papal Elections and Electors. 187

quaiitied to elect to it, having been enumerated, it is proper to relate
what takes place when the Holy See becomes vacant, and to describe
the plan upon which the election to iill the vacancy is conducted.
It is alleged that nothing but death can put an end to the reign of a
Pope. Legally, neither abdication nor the delegation of his functions
to a regency is permitted : he must die in " harness." Time has
wrought many changes in the organisation of the Papal Government,
and it has approached more and more nearly to that of lay adminis-
trations in secular states. During the Hfctime of the Pope, the
personage next to himself in importance is the Secretary of State.
But at the decease of a Pontiff the latter functionary is superseded
by a more imposing personage — the Cardinal Camerlengo. This
official ranks high in the table of precedence of the Roman Court
Formerly he filled the offices of Minister of Finance and Chief
Secular Judicial Authority. So much has he fallen from his high
estate, that until very recently the place of Cardinal de Angelis,
formerly Camerlengo, was allowed to remain unfilled for some time,
His Holiness summoning a Consistory to nominate a successor to him
only on September 21st, 1877. The Holy See once vacant, the im-
portance of the Camerlengo really begins. He proceeds to the
chamber in which the Pope has died, and, striking the door with a gilt
mallet, calls him by name. Of course to this summons no answer is
returned. He then enters the room, taps the coq)se on the forehead
mth another mallet of silver, and proclaims that the Pope is indeed
dead. The death is then announced to the inhabitants of Rome by
the tolling of the great bell in the Capitol ; the bell carried off from
Viterbo by the forces of Mediaeval Rome, when they subdued the
former city, at the end of the twelfth century. During the interreg-
num between the death of one Pope and the election of another,
there almost ceases to be a Papal Government. This continued to
be so do\vn to a late period of the time that the temporal dominion
existed. The sittings of the law courts were suspended ; and the
work of every branch of the administration was confined to mere
routine. Formerly the jails were thrown open and the prisoners
released, but this custom has been somewhat modified. Still, at the
death of the last Pope, in 1846, prisoners guilty of only slight offences
were set at liberty.

Most of the high officials held office only during the lifetime of
the Pontiff. His decease therefore rendered many important posts
vacant ; and by an ancient custom, and in remembrance of ancient
times, the civic authorities resumed the government of the city. But
their rule was tempered by the power of the noble houses and by the.

1 88 The Gentleman s Magaziue,

lawless habits of the mercenaries and armed retainers whom they
kept up. The consequence was, that for a long period Rome, during
a vacancy of the Holy See, was in a state of dreadful turmoil. Each
noble assumed the right of garrisoning his palace, and forbidding
any police, save his own, to come into his neighbourhood. Some
great families were strong enough, not only to maintain their right to
act thus, but also to get it recognised. As late as the year 1700,
during an interregnum, a regular campaign was carried on between
the retainers of a Roman prince and the city police ; the cause being
the entry of the latter within the precincts in which the nobleman
claimed to exercise authority. This was not at all an isolated case
of lawless violence, and the history of Conclaves contains many stories
of bloodshed and disorder owing to the relaxation of authority at
such times. So common were serious riots, that a duty attaching to
the office of Camerlengo, that of securing the pontificial effects and
taking charge of the keys, owes its origin to the necessity that arose
of putting an end to the established custom, of a riotous mob forcing
the palace and rifling it of its contents.

Amongst a people like the Italians, who are fond of investing in
public lotteries, it is not surprising that the opportunity of gambling
during the sitting of a Conclave, by betting upon the successful can-
didate for the Papacy, should be fully taken advantage of. To such
an extent was this carried, that Pius IV. issued a Bull to prohibit the
laying of wagers on a pending election. In spite of this, the betting
went merrily on, and the principal goldsmiths and bankers seem to
have kept regular offices for the accommodation of "investors.'*
The odds were regularly quoted from day to day; " favourites" went
up in the market and receded; and some terrible riots sometimes
occurred between the backers of rival candidates.

The cardinals assembled to elect a Pope form a "Conclave.**
The proceedings of this body have been regulated at various times
by different Popes. A new Pope may not be elected till the tenth
day after his predecessor's decease. It is hoped that time will thus
be given for cardinals at a distance to arrive at the place of election,
for the performance of the obsequies of the deceased, and the pre-
paration of the building in which the Conclave is to assemble. From
this it will be seen that the interregnum must last at the least ten
days. The elections have frequently been ver>' protracted ; and the
Western Church has more than once been for years without a head.
The longest interregnum on record is that which ensued on the death
of Clement IV., in 1268. From the assemblage of cardinals which
met at Viterbo to fill up the vacancy, the present system of Conclaves
is sometimes said to be derived. For two years and nine months

Papal Elections and Electors. 1 89

the assembled cardinals failed to make a proper election. The
magistrates of Viterbo, by the advice, it is said, of St. Bonaventure,
locked them up in the pontificial palace in which the Pope had died
with a view of keeping them there until they had made their choice.
One cardinal, it is related, seeing his companions daily praying that
the Holy Ghost might come to their assistance, profanely suggested
that the roof of the hall should be removed, or the Spirit would never
be able to reach them. The hint was too good to be lost It was
reported to the citizens, who, headed by one of their magistrates,
took off the roof, hoping by exposing the electors to the inclemen-
cies of the weather to expedite their decision.

Many injunctions have been issued with the object of shortening
the time consumed in elections. The imprisoning of the cardinals
in Conclave was made obligatory. They were to inhabit a single
hall in common. One window only might remain open. If no one
were chosen within three days, but one dish should be served at
dinner and at supper ; after five days, the bill of fare was to consist
of only bread, wine, and water. No cardinal was allowed to profit
by any benefice falling vacant during the continuance of the Con-
clave. These regulations were subsequently softened; and at present
it is understood that the cardinals are permitted all the comforts and
luxuries they may desire.

Until the death of Pius VII., in 1823, it had long been the rule to
hold Conclaves in the Vatican ; but from that date the elections have
always taken place in the Palace of the Quirinal. That building is
now occupied by the royal family of Italy, and it is hardly possible that
another Pontiff will be elected within its walls. When the Conclave
was held in the Vatican, the floor of the spacious hall was covered
with little wooden huts of two rooms, one of which was assigned to
each cardinal. These huts were marked with the letters of the
alphabet, and the cardinals drew lots for choice of them ; each put
his arms on the one that fell to his share. The cells of all cardinals
who owed their creation to the deceased Pope were hung with violet,
in token of mourning; those of the others were hung with green.
The cell of the cardinal on whom the choice fell was given up to
plunder to the attendants on the members of the Sacred College
assembled in Conclave. The cardinals were strictly confined to the
first floor of the palace, and all the windows and apertures in it were
walled up, except a small portion to admit light But since the
holding of Conclaves in the Quirinal these customs have fallen into
disuse, a large and convenient corridor, with numerous rooms off it,
being used by the electors.

igo TIic Gentleinafi s Magazine

The number of servants and functionaries attending upon their
Eminences is large. Of these the most important are the conclavists,
or private secretaries, of whom two are allowed to each cardinal.
On all the obligation of secrecy is imposed. Many privileges attach
to the position of conclavist, amongst others a share in a handsome
sum of money at the close of the election. As may be supposed,
their influence is often very great. An amusing stor}' is told of one
who nearly obtained his patron's election by a kind of practical joke.
He went to each cardinal individually, saying that, as his master,
Cardinal Cueva, would never be j^lected, it would be merely paying
him a compliment if the person addressed would record his vote for
him. He actually succeeded in getting promised thirty-two votes
out of a total of thirty-four; and the trick was only discovered by the
accident of two of the electors comparing notes as to the way in
which they proposed to give their votes.

When the obligatory nine days have expired, the cardinals attend
mass and hear a sennon, and then walk in procession to the place ot
meeting. The public is admitted to the building until three hours
after sunset on the first day. A bell is then rung three times, and
the master of the ceremonies, by the command " Extra omnes^''
obliges all unauthorised persons to withdraw. The apertures are
then walled up and the principal doors bolted. Each cardinal then
goes through the form of proving his identity. The voting, since the
Quirinal has been used, takes place in the chapel. pA-ery elector is
provided with a table and writing materials, and there arc other
tables apart for such as do not wish to make use of their own especial
ones. The voting is by ballot on closed papers, unless the members
of the Sacred College are suddenly inspired with a single wish, and
unanimously " acclaim " the same person, or arrange a compromise
between opposing parties, and delegate the power of choice to a
limited committee. The voter's name is written on the voting paper
for reference and verification if necessary, and the paper is sealed
with a seal which must be used at all ballots througliout the duration
of the Conclave. A majority of two-thirds of the voters present is
essential to a complete election. Three cardinals are chosen as
scnitators to examine and count the papers. If no candidate is
elected at the first meeting, the voting takes place in the morning and
the afternoon of each day until a decision has been arrived at. At
the afternoon voting no votes can be cast except for some one
whose name had appeared on some of the papers handed in in the
morning. So uncertain is the falling of the choice considered, that
. the popular proverb concerning Conclaves runs, Chi entra Papa, esce

IS I

Papal Elections and Electors. 191

Cardinale — He who goes in as most likely to be Pope is sure to come
out still a Cardinal!

The Governments of France, Austria, and Spain have a recognised
right of veto on the election of any particular cardinal. The Spanish
Crown availed itself of this right of veto as late as 1831. The pro-
hibition must be made known before the required number of votes
have been cast for the person aimed at ; as, if he can once count tlie
requisite two-thirds majorit)- of voices in the Conclave, he is Pope be-
yond the power of veto. The oflice of objecting to certain indi\iduals
is usually entrusted by the CfOvemments who desire to exercise their
privilege to some confidential cardinal, or to the Dean of the Sacred
College. The interference of foreign powers has frequently had much
influence on elections. A friend replied to Cardinal Sforza, who
asked his opinion as to the result of voting in Conclave, " If the French
prevail, Cardinal Famcse will be Pope ; if the Spaniards, Rospigliosi;
if the Romans, Barberini ; if the Holy Ghost, Odescalchi ; but if the
devil, it must be either your Eminence or myself." Sforza laughingly
said, " Then it will be Rospigliosi," on whom, in fact, the choice fell.
At other times, candidates have had rather different supporters ; in
1724, the following rhymes explained who were the backers of each :

II ciel vuol Orini,
II pojwlo Corsini,
\jt donne Ottolxjni,
U diavolo Alberoni.

As soon as the requisite majority has been gained by any one, and
he has declared his readiness to accept the nomination, the Conclave
is declared to be at 'an end. The doors of the building are thrown
open, the walled-iip windows cleared, and the new Pontiff receives
from all the cardinals present the first act of adoration. The Cardinal
Dean proclaims the New Pope to the assembled people in the form,
" Habetiius Papam, We have a Pope." He is then carried on men's
shoulders, first to the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, and then to St.
Peter's, to receive the second and third adorations, and bestow upon
the people the Benediction. He is now fully and completely Pope.
The coronation with the Tiara takes place on the first Sunday afler
the Conclave in St. Peter's. He first receives the homage of the
clergy, and is then carried in procession up the church, when a
curious ceremony takes place. It is thus described by Eustace, in his
Classical Tour : — ** As the new Pontiff advances towards the high
altar, the Master of the Ceremonies, kneeling before him, sets fire to a
small quantity of tow placed on the top of a gilt staff, and as it blazes
and vanishes in smoke, thus addresses the Pope, ^ Sancte Pater f sic

192 The Gentleman's Magazine.

transit gloria mundiT This ceremony is repeated thrice." Up to
this time, he would seem to be regarded merely as the newly elected
Bishop of Rome, and Metropolitan of the Province, as his head is
adorned only with the mitre. " His vestments, when he officiates in
church," says Eustace, " as well as his mitre, do not differ from those
of other prelates." But the procession moves on to the balcony over-
looking the/zas^a of St. Peter, and there, in presence of the assembled
people, the mitre is removed, and he is crowned with the Triple Crown.
How far the ceremonial in use so long will be followed hereafter, it is
impossible to say ; but the grandeur of the office, and the associations
connected with it, must go far to render any ceremonies imposing and
august ; and the world will watch with interest the unquestionably ap-
proaching Conclave.

CVPRIAN A. G. BRIDGE.

193

NEW WAYS OF MEASURING THE

SUN'S DISTANCE.

IT is strange that the problem of determining the sun's distance,
which for many ages was regarded as altogether insoluble, and
which even during recent years had seemed fairly solvable in but one
or two ways, should be found, on closer investigation, to admit of
many methods of solution. If astronomers should only be as fortunate
hereafter in dealing with the problem of determining the distances
of the stars, as they have been with the question of the sun's distance,
we may hope for knowledge respecting the structure of the universe
such as even the Herschels despaired of our ever gaining. Yet
this problem of determining star-distances does not seem more
intractable, now, than the problem of measuring the sun's distance
appeared only two centuries ago. If we rightly view the many
methods devised for dealing with the easier task, we must admit that
the more difficult — which, by the way, is in reality infinitely the
more interesting — cannot be regarded as so utterly hopeless as,
with pur present metiiods and appliances, it appears to be. True,
we know only the distances of two or three stars, approximately,
and have means of forming a vague opinion about the distances of
only a dozen others, or thereabouts ; while at distances now immeasur-
able lie six thousand stars visible to the eye, and twenty millions
within range of the telescope. Yet, in Galileo's time, men might
have argued similarly against all hope of measuring the proportions
of the solar system. " We have only," they might have urged, " the
distance of the moon, our immediate neighbour, — beyond her, at dis-
tances so great that hers, so far as we can judge, is by comparison
almost as nothing, lie the Sun, and Mercury, and Venus, and Mars ;
farther away yet lie Jupiter and Saturn, and possibly other planets,
not visible to the naked eye, but within range of that wonderful
instrument, the telescope, which our Galileo and others are using so
successfully. What hope can there be, when the exact measurement
of the moon's distance has so fully taxed our powers of celestial
measurement, that we can ever obtain exact information respecting
the distances of the sim and planets ? By what method is a problem
so stupendous to be attacked ?" Yet, within a few years of that time,
VOL. ccxLii. NO. 1766. o

194 '^^ Gentlematis Magazine.

Kepler had formed already a rough estimate of the distance of the
sun ; in 1639, young Horrocks pointed to a method which has since
been successfully applied. Before the end of the seventeenth century
Cassini and Flamstead had approached the solution of the proUem
mcNre nearly, while Halley had definitely formulated the method which
bears his name. Long before the end of the eighteenth century it
was certainly known that the sun's distance lies between 85 millions
of miles and 98 millions (Kepler, Cassini, and Flamstead had
been unable to indicate any superior limit). And lastly, in our
own time, half a score of methods, each subdivisible into several
forms, have been applied to the solution of this fundamental problem
of observational astronomy.

I propose now to sketch some new and very promising methods,
which have been applied already with a degree of success arguing
well for the prospects of future applications of the methods under
more favourable conditions.

In the first place, let us very briefly consider the methods which
had been before employed, in order that the proper position of the
new methods may be more clearly recognised.

The plan obviously suggested at the outset for the solution of
the problem was simply to deal with it as a problem of surveying.
It was in such a manner that the moon's distance had been found,

tand the only difficulty in appl3ring the method to the sun or to any
planet consisted in the delicacy of the observations required. The
earth being the only surveying-ground available to astronomers in
dealing with this problem (in dealing with the problem of the
stars' distances they have a very much wider field of operations), it
was necessary that a base-line should be measured on this globe of
ours, large enough, compared with our small selves, but utterly in-
significant compared with the dimensions of the solar system. The
diiameter of the earth being less -than 8,000 miles, the longest line
which the observers could take for base scarcely exceeded 6,000
miles; since observations of the same celestial object at opposite ends
of a diameter necessarily imply that the object is in the horizon of
hoih the observing stations (for precisely the same reason that two
cordis stretched from the ends of any diameter of a ball to a distant
point touch the ball at those ends). But the sun's distance being
some 92 millions of miles, a base of 6,000 miles amounts to less than
the 15,000th part of the distance to be measured Conceive a
surveyor endeavouring to determine the distance of a steeple or rock
15,000 feet, or nearly three miles, from him, with a bd^e-line cne

fid in length, and you can conceive the task of astronomer? ^0

New Ways of Measuring the Sun^s Distance. 195

should attempt to apply the direct surveying method to determine the
sun's distance, — at least, you have one of their difficulties strikingly
illustrated, though a number of others remain which the illustration
does not indicate. For, after all, a base one foot in length, though
iar too short, is a convenient one in many respects : the observer
can pass from one end to the other without trouble — he looks at
the distant object under almost exactly the same conditions from
each end, and so forth. A base 6,000 miles long for determining
the sun's distance is too short in precisely the same degree, but it is
assuredly not so convenient a base for the observer. A giant 36,000
feet high would find it as convenient as a surveyor six feet high
would find a one-foot base-line ; but astronomers, as a rule, are less
than 36,000 feet in height Accordingly the same observer can-
not work at both ends of the base-line, and they have to send
out expeditions to occupy each station. All the circumstances of
temperature, atmosphere, personal observing qualities, &c, are unlike
at the two ends of the base-line. The task of measuring the sun's
distance directly is, in fact, at present beyond the power of observa-
tional astronomy, wonderfully though its methods have developed in
accuracy.

We all know how, by observations of Venus in transit, the difficulty
has been so far reduced that trustworthy results have been obtained.
Such observations belong to the surveying method, only Venus's
distance is made the object of measurement instead of the sun's.
The sun serves simply as a sort of dial-plate, Venus's position while
in transit across this celestial dial-plate being more easily measured
than when she is at large upon the sky. The devices by which
Halley and Delisle severally caused time to be the relation observed,
instead of position, do not affect the general principle of the transit
method. It remains dependent on the determination of position.
Precisely as by the change of i\\t position of the hands of a clock on
the" face we measure time^ so by the transit method, as Halley and
Delisle respectively suggested its use, we determine Venus's position
on the sun's face, by observing the difference of the time she takes in
crossing, or the difference of the time at which she begins to cross, or
passes off, his face.

Besides the advantage of having a dial-face like the sun's on

which thus to determine positions, the transit method deals with

Venus when at her nearest, or about 25 million miles from us,

instead of the sun at his greater distance of from 90^ to 93^ millions

of miles. Yet we do not get the entire advantage of this relative

proximity of Venus. For the dial-face — the sun, that is—- changes its

02

tQO The Gentleman's Magazine.

position too— in less degree than Venus changes hers, but still so much
as largely to reduce her seeming displacement. The sun being farther
away as 92 to 25, is less displaced as 25 to 92. Venus's displacement
is thus diminished by Jfnds of its full amount, leaving only f^nds.
Practically, then, the advantage of observing Venus, so far as distance
is concerned, is the same as though, instead of being at a distance of
only 25 million miles, her distance were greater as 92 to 67, giving
as her effective distance when in transit some 34,300,000 miles.

All the methods of observing Venus in transit are affected in
this respect. Astronomers were not content during the recent transit
to use Halley's and Delisle's two time methods (which may be con-
veniently called the duration method and the epoch method), but
endeavoured to determine the position of Venus on the sun's face
directly, both by observation and by photography. The heliometer
was the instrument specially used for the former purpose; and as, in
one of the new methods to be presently described, this is the most
effective of all available instruments, a few words as to its construc-
tion will not be out of place.

The heliometer, then, is a telescope whose object-glass (that is,
the large glass at the end towards the object observed) is divided
into two halves along a diameter. When these two halves are
exactly together — that is, in the position they had before the glass
was divided — of course they show any object to which they may be
directed precisely as they would have done before the glass was cut.
But if, without separating the straight edges of the two semicircular
glasses, one be made to slide along the other, the images formed by
the two no longer coincide.' Thus, if we are looking at the sun, we
see two overlapping discs, and by continuing to turn the screw or
other mechanism which carries our half-circular glass past the other,
the disc-images of the sun may be brought entirely clear of each
other. Then we have two suns in the same field of view, seemingly
in contact, or nearly so. Now, if we have some means of determining
how far the movable half-glass has been carried past the other to
bring the two discs into apparently exact contact, we have, in point
of fact, a measure of the sun's apparent diameter. We can improve
this estimate by carrying back the movable glass till the images

* The reader unfamiliar with the principles of the telescope may require to
be told that in the ordinary telescope each part of the object-glass forms a com-
plete image of the object examined. If, when using an opera-glass (one barrel), a
portion of the large glass be covered, a portion of what had before been visible is
concealed. But this is not the case with a telescope of the ordinary construction.
All that happens when a portion of the object-glass is covered is that the object
•eeo appears in some d^ree less fully illuminated.

New Ways of Measuring the Sun's Distance. 197

coincide again, then farther back till they separate the other way,
and finally are brought into contact on that side. The entire range,
from contact on one side to contact on the other side, gives twice
the entire angular span of the sun's diameter ; and the half of this
is more likely to be the true measure of the diameter, than the range
from coincident images to contact either way, simply because instru-
mental errors are likely to be more evenly distributed over the double
motion than over the movement on either side of the central position.
The heliometer derived its name — which signifies sun- measurer —
from this particular application of the instrument

It is easily seen how the heliometer was made available in deter-
mining the position of Venus at any instant during transit. The
observer could note what displacement of the two half-glasses was
necessary to bring the black disc of Venus on one image of the sun
to the edge of the other image, first touching on the inside and then
on the outside — then reversing the motion, he could carry her disc to
the opposite edge of the other image of the sun, first touchmg on the
inside and then on the outside. Lord Lindsay's private expedition —
one of the most munificent and also one of the most laborious con-
tributions to astronomy ever made — was the only English expedition
which employed the heliometer, none of our public observatories
possessing such an instrument, and official astronomers being un-
willing to ask Government to provide instruments so costly. The
Germans, however, and the Russians employed the heliometer very
effectively.

Next in order of proximity, for the employment of the direct
surveying method, is the planet Mars when he comes into opposition
(or on the same line as the earth and sun) in the order

Sun Earth Mars,

at a fevourable part of his considerably eccentric orbit. His distance
then may be as small as 34^ millions of miles; and we have in his
case to make no reduction for the displacement of the background
on which his place is to be determined. That background is the
star sphere, his place being measured from that of stars near which
his apparent path on the heavens carries him ; and the stars are so
remote that the displacement due to a distance of six or seven
thousand miles between two observers on the earth is to all intents
and purposes nothing. The entire span of the earth's orbit round
the sun, though amounting to 184 millions of miles, is a mere point
as seen from all save ten or twelve stars ; how utterly evanescent,
then, the span of the earth's globe — less than the 23,000th part of
ber orbital range ! Thus the entire displacement of Mars due to

1 98 The Gentleman's Magazine.

the distance separating his terrestrial observers comes into eflect
So that, in comparing the observation of Mars in a favourable opposi-
tion with that of Venus in transit, we may fairly say that, so far as sur-
veying considerations are concerned, the two planets are equally well
suited for the astronomer's purpose, Venus's less distance of 25
millions of miles being effectively increased to 34^ millions by the
displacement of the solar background on which we see her when in
transit; while Mars's distance of about 34^ millions of miles remains
effectively the same when we measure his displacement from neigh-
bouring fixed stars.

But in many respects Mars is superior to Venus for the purpose of
determining the sun's distance. Venus can only be observed at her
nearest when in transit, and transit lasts but a few hours. Mars can
be observed night after night for a fortnight or so, during which his
distance still remains near enough to the least or opposition distance.
Again, Venus being observed on the sun, all the disturbing influences
due to the sun's heat are at work in rendering the observation difficult.
The air between us and the sun at such a time is disturbed by undu-
lations due in no small degree to the sun's action. It is true that we
have not, in the case of Mars, any means of substituting time mea^
sures or time determinations for measures of position, as we have
in Venus's case, in Halley's and Delisle's methods. But, to say the
truth, the advantage of substituting these time observations has not
proved so great as was expected. Venus's unfortunate deformity of
figure when seen on the sun's face renders the determination of the
exact moments of her entry on the sun's face and departure from it
by no means so trustworthy as astronomers could wish. On the
whole. Mars would probably have the advantage, even without that
point in his favour which has now to be indicated.

Two methods of observing Mars for determining the sun's
distance are available, both of which, as they can be employed in
applying one of the new methods, may conveniently be described at
this point.

An observer far to the north of the earth's equator sees Mars at
midnight, when the {)lanet is in opposition, displaced somewhat to the
south of his true position — that is, of the position he would have as
supposed to be seen from the centre of the earth. On the other
hand, an observer far to the south of the equator sees Mars dis-
placed somewhat to the north of his true position. The difference
may be compared to different views of a distant steeple (projected,
let us suppose, against a much more remote hill), from the uppermost
and lowermost windows of a house corresponding to the northerly

New Ways of Measuring the Sufis Distance. 199

and southerly stations on the earth, and from a window on the middle
story corresponding to a view of Mars from the earth's centre. By
ascertaining the displacement of the two views of Mars obtained
from a station far to the north and another station far to the south,
the astronomer can infer the distance of the planet, and thence the
dimensions of the solar system. The displacement is determinable
by noticing Mars's position with respect to stars which chance to be
close to him. For this purpose the heliometer is specially suitable,
because, having first a view of Mars and some companion stars as
they; actually are placed, the observer can, by suitably displacing
thei movable half-glass, bring the star into apparent contact with the
planet, first on one side of its disc, and then on the other side, — ]the
mean of the two resulting measures giving, of course, the distance
between the star and the centre of the disc.

This method requires that there shall be two observers, one at a
northern station, as Greenwich, or Paris, or Washington ; the other
at a southern station, as Cape Town, Cordoba, or Melbourne. The
base-line is practically a north and south line.;, for though the two
stations may not lie in the same, or nearly the same, longitude, the
displacement determined is in reality that due to their difference of
latitude only, a correction being made for their difiference of longi-
tude.

The other method depends, not on displacement of two observers
north and south, or difference of latitude, but on displacement east
and west. Moreover, it does not require that there shall be two
observers at stations far apart, but uses the observations made at one
an4 the same station at different times. The earth, by turning on
her axis, carries the observer from the west to the east of an imaginaiy
line joining the earth's centre and the centre of Mars. When op the
west of that line, or in the early evening, he sees Mars displaced
towards the east of the planet's true position. After nine or ten
hours the observer is carried as far to the east of that line, and sees
Mars displaced towards the west of his true position. Of course
Mais has moved in the interval. He is, in fact, in the midst of his
retrograde career. But the astronomer knows perfectly well how to
take that motion into account. Thus, by observing the two displace-
ments, or the. total displacement of Mars from east to west, on
account of the earth's rotation, one and the same observer can, in tlje.
course of a single favourable night, determine. the sun's distance*
Apd in passing it may be remarked that this is the only general
method of which so much can be said. By some of the others an
astronomer can, indeed, estimate the sun's distance without leaving his

200 Tlie Gentleman's Magazine.

observatory, — at least, theoretically he can do so. But many years of
observation would be required before he would have materials for
achieving this result. On the other hand, one good pair of observa-
tions of Mars, in the evening and in the morning, from a station near
the equator, would give a very fair measure of the sun's distance.
The reason why the station should be near the equator will be mani-
fest, if we consider that at the poles there would be no displacement
due to rotation ; at the equator the observer would be carried round a
circle some twenty -five thousand miles in circumference; and the nearer
his place to the equator the larger the circle in which he would be
carried, and, caferis paribus, the greater the evening and morning
displacement of the planet.

Both these methods have been successfully applied to the problem
of determining the sun's distance, and both have recently been
applied afresh under circumstances affording exceptionally good
prospects of success, though as yet the results are not known.

It is, however, when we leave the direct surveying method to
which both the observations of Venus in transit and Mars in oppo-
sition belong (in all their varieties), that the most remarkable and,
one may say, unexpected methods of determining the sun's distance
present themselves. Were not my subject a ^nde one, I would
willingly descant at length on the marvellous ingenuity with which
astronomers have availed themselves of every point of vantage
whence they might measure the solar system. But, as matters actually
stand, I must be content to sketch these other methods very roughly,
only indicating their characteristic features.

One of them is in some sense related to the method by actual
survey, only it takes advantage, not of the earth's dimensions, but of the
dimensions of her orbit round the common centre of gravity of herself
and the moon. This orbit has a diameter of about six thousand
miles ; and as the earth travels round it, speeding swiftly onwards
all the time in her path round the sun, the effect is the same as
though the sun, in his apparent circuit round the earth, were con-
stantly circling once in a lunar month around a small subordinate
orbit of precisely the same size and shape as that small orbit in
which the earth circuits round the moon's centre of gravity. He
appears then sometimes displaced about 3,000 miles on one side,
sometimes about 3,000 miles on the other side of the place which he
would have if our earth were not thus perturbed by the moon. But
astronomers can note each day where he is, and thus learn by how
much he seems displaced from his mean position. Knowing that his
greatest displacement corresponds to so many miles exactly, and

New Ways of Measuring the Sun's Distance. 20 1

noting what it seems to be, they learn, in fact, how large a span of
so many miles (about 3,000) looks at the sun's distance. Thus they
learn the sun's distance precisely as a rifleman learns the distance of
a line of soldiers when he has ascertained their apparent size, — for
only at a certain distance can an object of known size have a certain
apparent size.

The moon comes in, in another way, to determine the sun's dis-
tance for us. We know how far away she is from the earth, and how
much, therefore, she approaches the sun when new, and recedes
from him when full. Calling this distance, roughly, a 390th part of
the sun's, her distance from him when new, her mean distance, and
her distance from him when full, are as the numbers 389, 390, 391.
Now, these numbers do not quite form a continued proportion,
though they do so very nearly (for 389 is to 390 as 390 to 39i^riir).
If they were in exact proportion, the sun's disturbing influence on
the moon when she is at her nearest would be exactly equal to his
disturbing influence on the moon when at her farthest from him ; or
generally the moon would be exactly as much disturbed (on the
average) in that half of her path which lies nearer to the sun as in
that half which lies farther from him. As matters are, there is a
slight difference. Astronomers can measure this distance; and mea-
suring it, they can ascertain what the actual numbers are for which I
have roughly given the numbers 389, 390, and 391; in other words,
they can ascertain in what degree the sun's distance exceeds the
moon's. This is equivalent to determining the sun's distance, since
the moon's is already known.

Another way of measuring the sun's distance has been " favoured "
by Jupiter and his family of satellites. Few would have thought,
when Romer first explained the delay which occurs in the eclipses of
these moons while Jupiter is farther firom us than his mean distance,
that that explanation would lead up to a determination of the sun's
distance. But so it happened. Romer showed that the delay is not
in the recurrence of the eclipses, but in the arrival of the news of
these events. From the observed time required by light to traverse
the extra distance when Jupiter is nearly at his farthest from us, the
time in which light crosses the distance separating us from the sun
is deduced, whence, if that distance had been rightly determined, the
velocity of light can be inferred. If this velocity is directly mea-
sured in any way, and found not to be what had been deduced from
the adopted measure of the sun's distance, the inference is that the
sun's distance had been incorrectly determined. Or, to put the
matter in another way, we know exactly how many minutes and

202 The Gentleman s Magazine.

seconds light takes in travelling to us from the sun ; if, therefore, we
caUi find out how fast light travels, we know how far away the sun is.
But who could hope to measure a velocity approaching 200,000
miles in a second? At a first view the task seems hopeless.
Wheatstone, however, showed how it might be accomplished, mea-
suring by his method the yet greater velocity of freely conducted
electricity. Foucault and Fizeau severally measured the velocity of
light ; and more recently Comu has made more exact measurements.
KLnowing, then, how many miles light Pavels in a second, and in how
many seconds it comes to us from the sun, we know the sun's distance.*

The first of the methods which I here describe as new methods
must next be considered. It is a method which Leverrier regarded as
the method of the fiiture. In fact, so highly did he esteem it, that,
on its accoimt, he may almost be said to have refiised personally to
sanction in any way the French expeditions for observing the transit
of Venus in 1874.

The members of the sun's family perturb each other's motions in
a degree corresponding with their relative mass, compared with each
other and with the sun. Now, it can be shown (the proof would be
unsuitable to these pages, ^ but I have given it in my treatise on the
sun) that no change in our estimate of the sun's distance affects our
estimate of his mean density as compared with the earth's. His sub-
stance has a mean density equal to one-fourth of the earth's, whether
he be 90 millions or 95 millions of miles from us, or indeed whether
he were ten millions or a million million miles from us (supposing

^ It may be briefly sketched, perhaps, in a note. The force necessary to
draw the earth inwards in such sort as to make her follow her actual course is
proportional to (i) the square of her velocity directly, and (ii) her distance from
the sun inversely. If we Increase our estimate of the earth's distance from the sun,
we, in the same degree, increase our estimate of her orbital velocity. The square
of ^his velocity then increases as the square of the estimated distance ; and there-
fore, the estimated force sunwards is increased as the square of the distance on
account of (i), and diminished as the distance on account of (ii), and is, therefore,
on the whole, increased as the distance. That is, we now regard the sun's ac-
tion as greater at this greater distance, and in the same degree that the distance
is greater ; whereas, if it had been what we before supposed it, it would be less at
the. greater distance as the square of the distance (attraction varying inversely as the
square of the distance). Being greater as the distance, instead of less as the
square of the distance, it follows that our estimate of the sun's absolute force \^
now greater as the cube of the distance. Similarly, if we had diminished our
estimate of the sun's distance, we should have diminished our estimate of his
absolute power (or mass) as the cube of the distance. But our estimate of the
sun's volume is also proportional to the cube of his estimated distance. Hence
our estimate of his mass varies as onr estimate of his volume ; or, our estimate ol
hb mean density i$ constant.

New Ways of Measuring the Sun's Distance. 203

for a moment our measures did not indicate his real distance more
closely). We should still deduce from calculation the same unvarying
estimate of his mean density. It follows that the nearer any estimate
of his distance places him, and therefore the smaller it makes his
estimated volume, the smaller also it makes his estimated mass, and
in precisely the same degree. The same is true of the planets also.
We determine Jupiter's mass, for example (at least, this is the simplest
way), by noting how he swerves his moons at their respective (esti-
mated) distances. If we diminish our estimate of their distances,
we diminish at the same time our [estimate of Jupiter's attractive
power, and in such degree (it may be shown — see note) as precisely
to correspond with our changed estimate of his size, leaving pur
estimate of his mean density unaltered. And the same is true for
all methods of determining Jupiter's mass. Suppose, then, that,
adopting a certain estimate of the scale of the solar system, we find
that the resulting estimate of the masses of the planets and of the
sun, as compared with the earths mass^ from their observed attractive
influences on bodies circling around them or passing near them,
accords with their estimated perturbing action as compared with the
earth's, — then we should infer that our estimate of the sun's distance
or of the scale of the solar system was correct But suppose it
appeared, on the contrary, that the earth took [a larger or a smaller
part in perturbing the planetary system than, according to our
estimate of her relative mass, she should do, — then we should infer
that the masses of the other members of the system had been over-
rated or underrated ; or, in other words, that the scale of the solar
system had been overrated or underrated respectively. Thus we should
be able to introduce a correction into our estimate of the sun's dis-
tance. Such is the principle of the method by which Leverrier showed
that in the astronomy of the future the scale of the solar system may
be very exactly determined. It is hardly necessary to say, perhaps, that
the problem is a most delicate one. The earth plays, in truth, but a
small part in perturbing the planetary system, and her influence can
only be distinguished satisfactorily (at present, at any rate) in the case
of the nearer members of the solar family. Yet the method is one
which, unlike others, will have an accumulative accuracy, the dis-
crepancies which are to test the result growing larger as time proceeds.
The method has already been to some extent successful. It was, in
fact, by observing that the motions of Mercury are not such as can be
satisfjactorily explained by the perturbations of the earth and Venus
according to the estimate of relative masses deducible from the lately
discarded value of the sun's distance, that Leverrier first set astro-

204 The Gentleman's Magazine.

nomers on the track of the error afTecting that value. He was certainly
justified in entertaining a strong hope that hereafter this method will
be exceedingly effective.

We come next to a method which promises to be more quickly
if not more effectively available.

Venus and Mars approach the orbit of our earth more closely
than any other planets, Venus being our nearest neighbour on the
one side, and Mars on the other. Looking beyond Venus, we find
only Mercury (and the mythical Vulcan), and Mercury can give no
useful information respecting the sun's distance. He could scarcely
do so even if we could measure his position among the stars when
he is at his nearest, as we can that of Mars; but as he can only then
be fairly seen when he transits the sun's face, and as the sun is nearly
as much displaced as Mercury by change in the observer's station,
the difference between the two displacements is utterly insufficient
for accurate measurement But, when we look beyond the orbit of
Mars, we find certain bodies which are well worth considering in
connection with the problem of determining the sun's distance. I
refer to the asteroids, the ring of small planets travelling between
the paths of Mars and Jupiter, but nearer (on the whole*) to the path
of Mars than to that of Jupiter.

The asteroids present several important advantages over even
Mars and Venus.

Of course, none of the asteroids approach so near to the earth
as Mars at his nearest. His least distance from the sun being about
127 million miles, and the earth's mean distance about 92 millions,
with a range of about a million and half on either side, owing to the
eccentricity of her orbit, it follows that he may be as near as some
35 million miles (rather less in reality) from the earth when the sun,
earth, and Mars are nearly in a straight line and in that order. The
least distance of any asteroid from the sun amounts to about 167 mil-
lion miles, so that their least distance from the earth cannot at any
time be less than about 73,500,000 miles, even if the earth's greatest
distance from the sun corresponded with the least distance of one of
these closely approaching asteroids. This, by the way, is not very far

* Only very recently an asteroid, Hilda (153rd in order of detection), has
been discovered which travels very much nearer to the path of Jupiter than to that
of Mars, — a solitary instance in that respect. Its distance (the earth's distance
being represented by unity) is 3*95, Jupiter's being 5*20, and Mars's 1*52; its
period falls short of 8 years by only two months, the average period of the
asteroidal family being only about 4^ years. Five others, Cybele, Freia, Sylvia,
Camilla, and Hermione, travel rather nearer to Jupiter than to Mars ; but the
remaining 166 travel nearer to Mars, and most of them much nearer.

New JVays of Measuring the Sutis Distance.

beinir the case with the a^temid AnaHne. which comes \

^05

from being the case with the asteroid Ariadne, which comes within
about 169 million miles of the sun at her nearest, her place of nearest
approach being almost exactly in the same direction from the sun
as the earth's place of greatest recession, reached about the end of
June. So that, whenever it so chances that Ariadne comes into oppo-
sition, or that the sun, earth, and Ariadne are thus placed —
Sun Earth Ariadne,

Ariadne will be but about 75,500,000 miles from the earth. Probably
no asteroid will ever be discovered which approaches the earth much
more nearly than this ; and this approach, be it noticed, is not one
which can occur in the case of Ariadne except at very long intervals.
But though we may consider 80 millions of miles as a fair average
distance at which a few of the most closely approaching asteroids
may be observed, and though this distance seems very great by com.
parison with Mars's occasional opposition distance of 35 million
miles, yet there are two conditions in which asteroids have the
advantage over Mars. First, they are many, and several among
them can be observed under favourable circumstances; and in the
multitude of observations there is safety. In the second place, which
is the great and characteristic good quality of this method of deter-
mining the sun's distance, they do not present a disc, like the planet
Mars, but a small starlike point. When we consider the qualities of
the heliometric method of measuring the apparent distance between
celestial objects, the advantage of points of light over discs will be
obvious. If we are measuring the apparent distance between Mars and
a star, we must, by shifting the movable object-glass, bring the star's
image into apparent contact with the disc-image of Mars, first on one
side and then on the other, taking the mean for the distance between
the centres. Whereas, when we determine the distance between a
star and an asteroid, we have to bring two star-like points (one a
star, the other the asteroid) into apparent coincidence. We can do
this in two ways, making the result so much the more accurate. For
consider what we have in the field of view when the two halves of the
object-glass coincide. There is the asteroid, and close by there is the
star whose distance we seek to determine in order to ascertain the
position of the asteroid on the celestial sphere. When the movable
half is shifted, the two images of star and asteroid separate ; and by
an adjustment they can be made to separate along the line con-
necting them. Suppose, then, we first make the movable image of
the asteroid travel away from the fixed image (meaning by movable
and fixed images, respectively, those given by the movable and fixed
halves of the object-glass), towards the fixed image of the star,«-

2o6 The Gentleman! s Magazine.

the two points, like images, being brought into coincidence, — ^we have
the measure of the distance between star and asteroid. Now, reverse
the movement, carrying back the movable images of the asteroid
and star till they coincide again with their fixed images* This move-
ment gives us a second measure of the distance, which, however,
may be regarded as only a reversed repetition of the preceding. But
now, carrying on the reverse motion, the moving images of star and
asteroid separate from their respective fixed images, the moving
image of the star drawing near to the fixed image of the asteroid and
eventually coinciding with it Here we have a third measure of the
distance, which is independent of the two former. Reversing the
motion, and carrying the moving images to coincidence with the
fixed images, we have a fourth measure, which is simply the third
reversed. These four measures will give a far more satisfactory
determination of the true apparent distance between the star and the
asteroid than can, under any circumstances, be obtained in the case
of Mars and a star. Of course a much more exact determination is
required to give satisfactory measures of the asteroid's real distance
from the earth in miles, for a much smaller error would vitiate the esti-
mate of the asteroid's distance than would vitiate to the same degree
the estimate of Mars's distance, the apparent displacements of the
asteroid as seen either from northern and southern stations, or from
stations east and west of the meridian, being very much less than in
the case of Mars, ovsing to his greater proximity. But, on the whole,
there are reasons for believing that the advantage derived from the
nearness of Mars is almost entirely counterbalanced by the advantage
derived from the nearness of the asteroid's image. And the number
of asteroids, with the consequent power of repeating such measure-
ments many times for each occasion on which Mars has been thus
observed, seem to make the asteroids — so long regarded as very un-
important members of the solar system — the bodies from which, after
all, we shall gain our best estimate of the sun's distance; that is,
of the scale of the solar system.

Since the above pages were wTitten, the results deduced from the
observations made by the British expeditions for observing the transit
of December 9, 1874, have been announced by the Astronomer
Royal. It should be premised that they are not the results deducible
from the entire series of British observations, for many of them can
only be used efiectively in combination with observations made by
other nations. For instance, the British observations of the duration

New Ways of Measuring the Sun's Distance. 207

of the transit as seen from Southern stations are only asefhl whai
compared with observations of the duration of the transit as seenfirom
Northern stations, and no British observations of this kind were taken
at Northern stations, or could be taken at any of the British Northern
stations except one, where chief reliance was placed on photogmphic
methods. The only British results as yet " worked up '' are those
which are of themselves sufficient, theoretically, to indicate the sun's
distance, viz., those which indicated the epochs of the commencement
of transit as seen from Northern and Southern stations, and those
which indicated the epochs of the end of transit as seen from such
stations. The Northern and Southern epochs of commencement
compared together suffice of thefnsdves to indicate the sun's distance;
so also do the epochs of the end of transit suffice of themselves for
that purpose. Such observations belong to the Delislean method,
which was the subject of so much controversy during two or three
years before the transit took place. Originally it had been supposed
that only observations by that method were available, and .the
British plans were formed upon that assumption. When it was shown
that this assumption was altogether erroneous, there was scarcely time
to modify the British plans so that of themselves they might provide
for the other or Halleyan method. But the Southern stations which
were suitable for that method were strengthened; and as other
nations, especially America and Russia, occupied large numbers of
Northern stations, the Halleyan method was, in point of fact,
effectually provided for, — a fortunate circumstance, as will presently
be seen.

The British operations, then, thus far dealt with, were based on
Delisle's method; and as they were carried out with great zeal apd
completeness, we may consider that the result affords an excellent
test of the qualities of this method, and may supply a satisfactory
answer to the questions which were under discussion in 1872-74.
Sir George Airy, indeed, considers that the zeal and completeness
with which the British operations were carried out suffice to set the
result obtained from them above all others. But this opinion is based
rather on personal than on strictly scientific grounds; and it appears
to me that the questions to be primarily decided are whether the
results are in satisfactory agreement (i) inter se and (ii) with the
general tenour of former researches. In other words, while the
Astronomer Royal considers that the method and the manner of
its application must be considered so satisfactory that the results
are to be accepted unquestioningly, it appears to me that the results
must be carefully questioned (as it were) to see whether the method,

208 The Gentleman's Magazine.

and the observations by it, are satisfactory. In the first place, the
result obtained from Northern and Southern observations of the
commencement ought to agree closely with the result obtained from
Northern and Southern observations of the end of transit Unfortu-
nately, they differ rather widely. The sun's distance by the former
observations comes out about one million miles greater than the
distance determined by the latter observations. This should be, one
would suppose, decisive. But it is not all. The mean of the entire
series of observations by Delisle's method comes out nearly one
million miles greater than the mean deduced by Professor Newcomb
from many entire series of observations by six different methods, all
of which may fairly be regarded as equal in value to Delisle's, while three
are regarded by most astronomers as unquestionably superior to it.
Newcomb considers the probable limits of error in his evaluation
from so many combined series of observations to be about 100,000
miles. Sir G. Airy will allow no wider limits of error for the result of the
one series his observers have obtained than 200,000 miles. Thus the
greatest value admitted by Newcomb falls short of the least value
admitted by Sir G. Airy by nearly 700,000 miles. The obvious signi-
ficance of this result should be, one would suppose, that Delisle's
method is not quite so effective as Sir G. Airy supposed; and the wide
discordance between the several results, of which the result thus
deduced is the mean, should prove this, one would imagine, beyond
all possibility of question. The Astronomer Royal thinks differently,
however. In his opinion, the wide difference between his result and
the mean of all the most valued results by other astronomers, indicates
the superiority of Delisle's method, not its inadequacy to the purpose
for which it has been employed. Time will very shortly decide which
of these views is correct; but, for my own part, I do not hesitate to
express my own conviction that the sun's distance lies very near the
limits indicated by Newcomb, and, therefore, is several hundred
thousand miles less than tlie minimum distance allowed by the
recently announced results.

RICHARD A. PROCTOR.

209

PRIMITIVE MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

LUCRETIUS, in his retrospect of prehistoric times, imagines
primeval man as unpossessed of any moral law, and is at pains
to explain how, as men were once ignorant of the property of either
fire to warm or of skins to cover them, so once there was a time when
no moral restraints affected the relations between man and man.'
Across the Atlantic we find the same strain of thought in the myths,
common in many different stages of progress, of those culture heroes
who had come long ago to teach men the arts and virtues of life, and
had left their names to be worshipped by a grateful posterity. The
Peruvian legend, that moral law was unknown until the Sun sent two of
his children to raise humanity from their animal condition, coincides
with the modern hypothesis that the morality o/ the cave-men resem-
bled very much that of the cave-bear; so that it becomes a subject worthy
of inquiry, whether any human communities ever have lived, or arc
actually living, with no more idea of moral right and wrong than is
necessary for the social harmony of a wolf-pack or a wasps' nest,
whether, in short, what to the Roman was a matter of speculation, or
to the American of legend, can fairly become for us one of science.

The Shoshones of North America, some of whom are said to have
built absolutely no dwellings, but to have lived in caves and among
the rocks, or burrowed like reptiles in the ground, or the Cochinis, who
resorted at night for shelter to caverns and holes in the ground, may be
taken as the best representatives of the ancient cave-dwellers, and the
nearest known approach to communities living in the state pre-supposed
by the legends of most latitudes. ' Califomians generally are said to have
had * no morals, nor any religion worth calling such ; ' yet even the
Shoshones knew, like so many other American tribes, how to ratify
either a treaty or a bargain by the ceremony of smoking, and used
shell-money as an instrument of barter. But some moral notions
must enter into the rudest kind of barter, and barter was known to
the ancient cave-dwellers of P^rigord, just as it is to the lowest con-

* Nee commune bonum poterant spectarc nee ulHs

Moribus inter se scierant ncc legibus uli. V. 956. So Virgil. /En. viii. 317.
' Bancroft, Native Races of the Paci^c States of North America^ i. 426, 560.
VOL. CCXLII. NO. 1766. p

210 The Gentleman! s Magazine.

temporary savage tribes. Rock crystal and Atlantic shells, found
among the remains of men, tigers, and bears, in the caves of P^rigord,
could, it is argued, only have got thither by barter, so that the earliest
human beings we have record of must have possessed at least so
much morality as is necessary for commerce. '

As regards existing savages, evidence as to their moral ideas can
only be sought in incidental allusion to their customs, penalties, beliefs,
or myths, never in chapters expressly devoted to the delineation of
their moral character. Not only do such delineations by diflferent
writers conflict hopelessly with one another, but inconsistencies
abound in the accounts of the same ^^Titer, as, for instance, where
Cranz describes Greenlanders as mild and peaceable, and a few pages
further on as " naturally of a murderous disposition." The value of
Cranz's evidence is marred by the fact that he \mtes expressly to re-
but the Deistic idea of a natural morality existing by the light of
reason and independent of Revelation ; and the evidence of other
writers, whenever a long residence among savages entitles them to
speak with any authority at all, is spoilt by their several temptations
to bias. Whether the temptation be to enliven a book of travel, to
inculcate the need and enhance the merit of missionary labours, or to
illustrate the uniformity of moral perceptions and the universality of
certain moral laws, — in any case we are exposed to the error of mis-
taking for habitual what is really peculiar, and of misunderstanding the
indications of facts which are as often anomalous as they are illustrative.

The ^'ay, also, in which the love of theory may give rise to un-
justifiable credulity or even to absolute misstatement may be exemplified
from the common story of the Bushman who spoke with absolute un-
concern of having murdered his brother, or of the other Bushman who
gave as an instance of his idea of a good action, stealing some one else*s
wife ; and of a bad one, losing in the same way his own. According to
the original authority, the Bushmen who were questioned, to test
their intelligence, on a few moral points, and especially on what
they considered good actions and what bad, belonged to a kraal of
extremely poor, half-starved Bushmen, seemingly " the outcast of the
Bushmen race ; " the interpreter, through whom Burchell made his
inquiries, said he could not make them understand what he said, and
to the specific question about good zxidihdi6.Q.ci\onsi/iey made no reply,
the missionary adding, as comment, that " their not understanding it
must have been either pretended stupidity, or a wilful misrepresenta-
tion by the interpreter." This same interpreter is suspected by Bur-
cheU, in the very same page, of such misrepresentation, or of actual

' Peschel, Races of Man, 39, 209.

Primitive Moral Philosophy. 21 1

invention in respect of the story of the murder, a story which, if true,
adds the missionary, would have justified him in saying, Here are men
who know not right from wrong. Yet both these stories have been
quoted to exemplify the state of moral destitution of the lower races.*

The fear of incurring the ill-will of his fellow-beings, or of those
invisible spirits, disposed more or less hostilely towards him and every-
where surrounding him, must have sufficed, even for prehistoric man;
to have marked out certain acts as less advisable than others, and so
far as wrong. The instinct to repel or revenge personal injuries, and
the instinct to appease the unknown forces of nature, neither of which,
be it assumed, acted less energetically in the past than the present,
must have always contributed to rank certain sets of actions as better
to be avoided. Personal or tribal well-being has probably always
supplied a sufficiently defined moral standard, sufficiently defended by
real or fanciful sanctions. So suggests theory ; and m point of fact, a
savage tribe is as difficult to find as it is to imagine, without a sense
of a difference in the quality of actions, arising from a difference in
their likely consequences to themselves.

The fear of revenge from a man's survivors or from his ghost
would at any time tend to make homicide a prominent act of guilt.
The vendetta, sometimes carried out as much against a homicidal
tiger or tree as against a man, would scarcely ever be not dreaded by
a hmnan murderer; and the associations are obvious and few between
homicide as merely an act to be avenged and a crime to be avoided.
Even in instances where bloodshed seems to have left but an external
stain, affecting the hands, not the heart of the murderer, and calling
simply for purification by washing, the presence of a feeling of differ-
ence may be detected between the killing of a man and the killing of
a bear. But the dread of vengeance firom a murdered man's ghost,
which is said to have acted as a check on murder among the Sioux
Indians, or the dread of such vengeance from the tutelary gods of
the deceased, which is said to have acted as a check on cannibalism'
in Samoa, points to the existence of prudential restraints which are
likely not to have been limited in their operation to a tribe in America,
nor to an island in the Pacific.

But besides spiritual terrors, secular punishment has a well-defined
place among savages, to check the extreme indulgence of hatred or
passion. It is doubtful whether any savage tribe is so indifferent to
the criminality of murder as to be destitute of customary penal laws

* Burchell, Travels in Southern Africa^ i. 456-62. Compare Waitz, Anthro-
pologU dir Nctturuolker, i. 376. Also Wuttke, Geschichte da Heidenthums^ 164.
Ein Brudermord wurde von ihnen als etwas ganz Harmloses enahlt^

?2

212 The Gentleman's Magazine.

to prevent or punish it These customs vary from the payment of a
sli^t compensation, payable either to the dead man's family, or to
the tribal chief, down to actual capital punishment. Among the
Northern Califomians, a few strings of shell-money compounded for
the murder of a man, and half a man's price was paid for a woman ;
banishment from the tribe being sometimes the penalty, death never.*
Among the Kutchin tribes, human life was valued at 40 beaver skins.*
Even the Veddahs insist upon compensation to survivors. The Tun-
gose Lapps, with whom homicide was a brave rather than a shameful
act, punished nevertheless a murderer with blows, and compelled him
to support the dead man's relations.' In some cases, a slight pen-
ance was the only law against homicide.' A Yuma Indian, for in-
stance, who killed a tribesman, had perforce to fast for a month on
vegetables and water, bathing frequently during the day ; whilst a
Pima who killed an Apache had to fast for 16 days, living in the
woods, careful meanwhile to keep his eyes from the sight of a blazing
fire and his tongue from conversation.*

The custom, moreover, of extending to a whole family the guilt
of an individual is an additional protection to human life among
savages. In the same way as, till lately, English law revenged itself
on the suicide who had escaped its jurisdiction, by punishing the
criminal's relations, savage custom satisfies indignation by taking any
member of a family as a substitute for a fugitive criminal. The
Thlinkeet Indians, if they could not kill the actual murderer, killed
one of his tribe or family instead.* " An Indian," says Kane, " in
taking revenge for the death of a relative, does not, in all cases, seek
the actual offender; as, should tlie party be one of his own tribe, any
relative will do, however distant."* Catlin tells the story, how,
when a great Sioux warrior, the Little Bear, had been shot by the
Dog, the avengers of the former caught and slew the Dog's brother,
w)iom everyone esteemed highly, because they failed to overtake the
Dog.^ If a Califomian criminal escaped to a sacred refuge, he was
regarded as a coward, in that he diverted to a relation a punishment
ne deserved himself.* In Samoa, not only the murderer, but all his
belongings would fly to another village as a city of refuge, for in
Samoan law a plaintiff might seek redress from " the brother, son,
or other relative of the guilty party."* In the Fiji Islands, a warrior

' Bancroft, Native Races, i. 348. • Bancroft, i. 130.

■ Klemm, Ctdturgeschichte, iii. 69. * Bancroft, i. 520, 553.

* Dall, Alaska andiis Resources, J^i6, * Kane, Wanderings of an Artist, 115.

* Catlin, North American Indians, iu 193. ' Bancroft, iii. 167,

* Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia^ 285.

Primitive Moral Philosophy. 213

once left his musket in such a position that it went off and killed
two persons. The owner of the musket was condemned to death,
but, as he fled away, his father was taken ; and the strangulation of
the latter perfectly satisfied the ends of justice.^

The Samoans, as far back as it was possible to trace, had had
customary laws for the prevention of thef\, adultery, assault, and
murder, and the penalties for such crimes appeared rather to have
grown milder than severer with time. Not only this, but they had
penal customs for such wrong acts as rude conduct to strangers,
pulling down of fences, spoiling fruit trees, or calling a chief by
opprobrious epithets. It is open to doubt whether other savage tribes
had not equally good safeguards for preventing at least those greater
social offences, whose immorality furnishes the first principle of even
civilised ethics.

In Fiji the criminality of actions is said to have varied with the
social rank of the offender, murder by a chief being accounted less
heinous than a petty larceny by a man of low rank. Theft, adultery,
witchcraft, violation of a tabu^ arson, treason, and disrespect to a
chief were among the few crimes regarded as serious. With regard to
miurder, we are told (and the passage is a favourite one for illus-
trating the extreme variability of moral sentiment), that to a Fijian,
shedding of blood was '' no crime, but a glory," and that to be an
acknowledged murderer was '' the object of his restless ambition."
In a similar strain we read that, in New Zealand, intentional murder
was either very meritorious or of no consequence; the latter, if the
victim were a slave, the former, if he belonged to another tribe. The
malicious destruction of a man of the same tribe was, however, rare,
the lex ialionis alone applying to or checking it.' It is probable that
this reservation in favour of native New Zealand should be made for
all cases where murder is spoken of as a trivial matter. Whenever
murder is spoken of as no crime, reference seems generally made to
murder outside the tribe, so that from the circumstances of savage
life it resolves itself into an act of ordinary hostility; or if the refer-
ence is to murder within the tribe, it is to murder sanctioned by
necessity, custom, or superstition. The Carrier Indians, who did not
think murders worth confessing among other crimes of their lives,
yet regarded the murder of a fellaw-iribestnan as something quite sense-
iessy and the man who committed such a deed had to absent himself
till he could pay the relatives, since at home he was only safe if a
chief lent him the refuge of his tent or of one of his garments.' ''A

> Williams, FijL • Old New Zealand. By a Pakeha Maori, 105.

I Hannon's Jbumaii 299, 3cx>.

^214 TAs Gentleman* s Magasine.

jnurder,'' says Sproat, if not perpetraUd on one of his own trihe^ or on
A particular friend, is no more to an Indian than the killing of a
dog." The sutteeism and parenticide, which missionaries describe
as murders, are, from the savage point of view, rather acts of mercy,
being' intimately connected with their ideas of future existence, to
which it is neither fair nor scientific to apply the phraseology and
associations of Christian morality.

Different tribes have evolved different institutions for the pre-
vention of wrongs, which supplement to a large extent the absence of
^ed legal remedies,

' In Greenland, there was the ringing combat, in which anyone
aggrieved, dancing to the beat of a drum and accompanied by his
partisans, recited at a public meetmg a satirical poem, telling ludicrous
stories of his adversary, and having to listen afterwards to similar
abuse of himself, till, after a long succession of charges and retorts,
the assembled spectators gave the victory to one of the combatants.
These combats, says Cranz, served to remind debtors of the duty t)f
repayment, to brand falsehood and detraction with infamy, to punish
fraud and injustice, and above all to overwhelm adultery with con-
tempt. The fear of incurring public disgrace at these combats was,
with the fear of retaliation for injury, the only motive to virtue which
the writer allows to the natives of Greenland.

In Samoa, thieves could be scared from plantations by cocoa-nut
leaflets so plaited as to convey an imprecation ; and a man who saw
an artificial sea-pike suspended from a tree would fear that, if he
accomplished his theft, the next time he went fishing a real sea-pike
would dart up and wound him mortally. Images of a similar nature,
conveying imprecations (^disease, death, lightning, or a plague of rats,
seem also to have been effective restraints upoA thievish propensities.*
And it is likely that a similar meaning attached in Africa to certain
branches of trees which, stuck into the ground in a particular manner,
with bits of broken pottery, were enough to prevent the most deter-
mined robber from crossing a threshold.' Similar iahu marks were
seen on some rocks at Tahiti, placed there to prevent people fishing
or getting shells from the queen's preserves ; ' and it is possible that
the origin of all tabu customs may have lain in the supposed efficacy
of symbolical imprecation.

In New Zealand, the institution of muru^ or the legalized enforce-
ment of damages by plunder, extended the idea of sinfulness even to

' Turner, Polynesia^ 294-5.

• Pinkeiton, xri. 595, ftom Froyart*s Loango.

' FitzRoy, Voyiagis if Advintmrt and Btagie^ ii. 574.

Primitive Moral Ptdlosaphy. 2 15

involuntary wrongs or accidental sufferings. Involuntary homicide is
said to have involved more serious consequences than murder of
malice prepense. And. if a man's child fell into the fire, or his canoe
was upset and himself nearly drowned, he was not only cudgelled
and robbed, but he would have deemed it a personal slight not to
have been so treated.* To escape from drowning was indeed a
common sin in savage life, for was it not to escape the just wrath of
the Water Spirit, and perhaps to turn it upon some one else ? In
Kamschatka, so heinous was the sin of cheating the Water Spirit of
his prey, by escape from drowning, that no one would receive such a
sinner into his house, speak to him, nor give him food : he became,
in short, socially dead. Evidently related with this idea is the custom
reported by Livingstone of an African tribe who expelled anyone
bitten by a zebra or an alligator, or even so much as splashed by the
tail of the latter, from their community.^

Again, however much Catlin's assertion, that self-denial, torture,
and immolation were constant modes among North American Indians
for appealing to the Great Spirit for countenance and forgiveness,
may overstate the truth, it is remarkable that not only penance by
fasting and self-torture, but the practice of confession should occur
in the lower culture as a mode of moral purification. It was common
not only [in Mexico and Peru, but among widely l^remote savage
tribes, being closely connected with the belief in the power of sin to
cause, and of priestcraft to cure, dangerous sickness. The Carrier
Indians of North America thought that the only chance of recovery
from sickness lay in a disclosure before a priest of every secret
crime committed in life, and that instant death would result from the
concealment of a single fact.' The Samoan islanders, believing that
all disease was due to the wrath of some deity, would inquire of the
village priest the cause of sickness, and he would sometimes in such
cases command the family to assemble and confess. At this cere-
mony each member of the family would confess his crimes, and any
judgments he might have invoked in anger on the family or the
invahd himself At this confessional long concealed crimes were
often disclosed.* In Yucatan confession, introduced by Cukulcan, the
mythical author of their culture, was much resorted to, " as death and
disease were thought to be direct punishments for sins committed."
The natives of Cerquin, in Honduras, confessed, not only in sickness,
but in immediate danger of any kind, or to procure divine blessings

1 Old New Zealand^ 96-100.

» Livingstone's Missionary Travels in South Africa^ 255.

* Harmon's yourmU^ 300. * Tomer's Polynesia^ 224.

2 1 6 The Gentleman's Magazine.

on any important occasion. So far did they carry it, that, if a
travelling party met a jaguar or puma, each would commend himself
to the gods, and confess loudly his sins, imploring pardon, and if
the beast still advanced, they would cry out, " We have committed
as many more sins, do not kill us." ^

But over and above the wrong acts from which restraints lie in the
revenge of individuals or in punishment by the community, there is
a large class of acts, defended rather by spiritual than secular sanc-
tions, deriving their sinfulness from pure misconceptions of things,
and constituting for savages by far the larger part of their field for
right and wrong. The consciousness of having trodden in the footstep
of a bear would be as painful to a Kamschadal as the consciousness
of having stolen, the possible consequences of the former being
infinitely more dreadful. Such acts as the experience of primitive
times has thus generalised into acts provocative of unpleasant ex-
pressions of dissatisfaction from the spiritual world, and so far as
sinful, become in the folk-lore of later date acts merely unlucky or
ominous. The feeling to this day prevalent in parts of England and
Germany, that if you transplant parsley you may cause its guardian
spirit to punish you or your relations with death, fairly illustrates how
the wrongful acts of bygone times may even in civilised countries
continue to be guarded by the very same sanction that gave them
potency in the days of savagery.

Of such regulations in restraint of the natural liberty of savage
tribes, let it suffice to give some instances of sinful acts which derive
all their associations of wrong from rude notions concerning the
nature of storms, of ancestors, of names, and of animals. It will be
seen that in some cases such superstitions act as real checks to real
wickedness.

As English sailors will refrain from whistling at sea lest they
should provoke a stonn, so the Kamschadals account many actions
sinful on account of their storm-breeding qualities. For this reason,
they will never cut snow from off their shoes with a knife out of
doors, nor go barefooted outside their huts in winter, nor shari)en
an axe or a knife on a journey. The Fuejian natives, brought away
by Captain FitzRoy, felt sure that anything >vrong said or done
caused bad weather, especially the sin of shooting young ducks.
They declared their belief in an omniscient Big Black Man, who had
his living among the woods and mountains, and influenced the
weather according to men's conduct ; in illustration of which, they
told a story of a murderer, who ascribed to the anger of this being a

' Bancroft, iii. 486.

Primitive Moral Philosophy. 217

storm of wind and snow which followed his crime. ^ In Vancouver's
Island there is a mountain, the sin of mentioning which in passing
may cause a storm to overturn the offender's canoe.'

Prominent among the moral checks of savage life is the fear of
the anger of the dead. Among savages the supposed wishes of their
departed friends, or deified forefathers, opemte as real commands,
girt with all the sanction of superstitious terror, and clothing the
most fenciful customs with all the obligatory feelings of morality. A
New Zealand chief, for instance, would expect his dead ancestors to
visit him with disease or other calamity if he let food touch any part
of his body, or if he entered a dwelling where food hung from the
ceiling.' How deeply the feeling that disease and death were due to
the displeasure of the dead, who might return to earth, and reside
in some part of a living person's body, may be illustrated by the
Samoan custom of taking valuable presents as a last expression of
regard to the dying, obviously by way of bribing them to forego their
incorporeal privilege of post-mortem revenge.* On the Gold Coast
also friends made presents to the dead of gold, brandy, or cloth, to be
buried with them ; just as in ancient Mexico all classes of the popula-
tion would beg of their dead king to accept their offerings of food,
robes, or slaves, which they vied in giving him, or as the Mayas would
place precious gifts or ornaments near or upon the corpse of a
deceased lord of a province.

Proper behaviour with regard to names is one of the most impor-
tant points of savage decorum. The confusion, amounting almost to
identification, between a person and his name is one of the most
signal proofs of the power of language over thought. As Catlin's or
Kane's Indian pictures were thought to detract from the originals
something of their existence, giving the painter such power over
them that whilst living their bodies would s)rmpathise with every
injury done to their pictures and when dead would not rest in their
graves, so the feeling among savages is strong that the knowledge of
a person's name gives to another a fatal control over his destiny. An
Indian once asked Kane, " whether his wish to know his name pro-
ceeded from a desire to steal it;"* whilst, with the Abipones, it was
positively sinful for anyone to pronounce his own name. Hence it is
that the highest compliment a savage can pay a person is to ex-
change names with him, a custom which Cook found prevalent at

' FitzRoy, Voyages ^ ii. 1 80.

• Sproat, Scenes atid Studies of Savage Life, 265.

■ Shortland, Southern Districts of New Zealand, 30.

* Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia^ 32$, 236. » Kane, 205.

2 18 The Gentleman* s Magazine.

Tahiti and in the Society Islands, and which was also commoQ in
North America.^ Warriors sometimes take the name of a slain enemy,
from the same motive apparently which, in some instances, was an
inducement to eat their flesh, namely, to appropriate their courage.
The Lapps change a child's baptismal name, if it falls ill, rebaptising
it at every illness, as if they thought to deceive the spirit that vexed it
by the simple stratagem of an alias ',^ and the Califomian Shoshones,
changing their names after such feats as scalping an enemy, stealing
his horses, or killing a grizzly bear, had, perhaps, some similar idea
of avoiding retaliation. Among the Chinook Indians near relations
often changed their names, because they feared the spirits of the dead
might be drawn back to earth if they often heard familiar names used.

With these ideas about names, it is easy to understand how
especial reverence would become attached to the names of kings or
dead persons, whose power to punish a light use of their appellations
might well be deemed exceptional. Thus, on accessions to royalty
in the Society Islands, all words resembling the king's name were
changed, and any person bold enough to continue the use of the
superseded terms was put to death with all his relations.' From a
similar state of thought the Abipones invented new words for all things
whose previous names recalled a dead person's memory, whilst to
mention his name was " a nefarious proceeding."* The degrees of guilt
attached to the mention of a dead person, arising from a belief in the
power of spoken names to call back their owners, vary in sinfulness
from its being a positive crime, punishable by fine, to a mere rude-
ness, to be checked in the young. Among the Northern Califomians
it was one of the most strenuous laws that whoever mentioned a
dead person's name should be liable to a heavy fine, payable to the
relatives.* The tribe of Ainos held it a great rudeness to speak of
the dead by their names ;® whilst there appears to have been hardly
a single native tribe that did not regard it as wrong.

Several causes may have led to animal worship. The tendency to
call men by qualities or peculiarities in them fancifully recalling those
of some animal, and the tendency to apotheosize distinguished an-
cestors, thus named after the tiger or the bear, may have led to a
confusion of thought between the animal and the man, till the divine
attributes, once attached to the individual, became transferred to the

* Bancroft, i. 245, 285, 438. ' Klemm, CuUurgeschidiU, iii. 78.

■ Cook*s Voyages, iii. 158. * Dobritzhoffer, Abipones, ii. 203, 274.

* Bancroft, ii. 357.

* DaU, Alaska, 524. For instances of the feeling in North America, see
Bancroft, i. 205, 288, 544, 745 ; iii. 521, 522.

Primitive Moral Philosophy. 2t 9

^cies of animal that survived him in constant existence. Or the
same fancy, which sees inspiration in an idiot from his very lack of
common reason, may have attributed peculiar wisdom and looked with
peculiar awe on the animal world, by very reason of it speechlessness.
Then, again, the idea that the bodies of animals may be the depositories
of departed human souls may have led to the worship of certain animals:
some Califomiansfor this reason refraining from the flesh of large game,
because it is animated by the souls of past generations, so that the term
** eater of venison " is one of reproach among them. Or the prohibitions
of shamans may have produced the result in some cases : the Thlinkeet
Indians being found, for this reason, abstinent from whale's flesh or
blubber, whilst both are commonly eaten by surrounding tribes. But,
whatever the original causes, tribes are found all over the world beset
with a feeling of sinfulness with regard to the injuring, eating, or in
any way offending different species of animals ; of which, as no extreme
instance, may be mentioned the Fijian custom of presenting a stiing
of new nuts, gathered expressly, to a land crab, " to prevent the deity
leaving with an impression that he was neglected and visiting his re-
miss worshippers with drought, dearth, or death."

Beyond, however, customs or ideas in prevention of acts prejudicial
to their real or supposed welfare, savage communities appear to have
little idea of any quality in actions rendering them good or bad in-
dependently of consequences. Their prayers, their beliefs, and their
mythology alike go to prove this. That they will pray for such
temporal blessings as health, food, rain, or victory, but not for such
moral gains as the conquest of passion or a truthful disposition, to
some extent justifies the inference that moral advancement forms no
part of their code of things desirable. Their good and evil spirit or
spirits are simply differentiated as the causes respectively of things
agreeable or disagreeable, as taking sides for or against struggling
humanity, so that tribes which pray and sacrifice to the source of evil,
to the neglect of that of good, cannot be said not to conform to reason.
Their mythology, again, owes its very monotony mainly to the lack of
moral interest to relieve and sustain it. As Mr. Grote, arguing from the
mythology to the moral feeling of legendary Greece, observes, that
such a sentiment as a feeling of moral obligation between man and
man was "neither operative in the real world nor present to the
imaginations of the poets," so it may be said not less emphatically of
extant savage mythology. The Polynesian idea of a god, it has been
well said, is mere power without any reference to goodness. The
divine denizens of Avaiki (the Hades of the Hervey Islands), as they
marry, quarrel, build, and live just like mortals, so they murder, drink.

220 The Gentleman's Magazine.

thieve, and lie quite in accordance with terrestrial precedents.* The
unethical nature, however, of savage prayer or mythology is obviously
not incompatible with the practical recognition of moral distinctions ;
in the same Hervey Islands the greatest possible sin was to kill a fellow-
countrymen by stealth, instead of in battle.*

Ideas, again, relating to a futiu-e state and the dependence of
future welfare on the mode of life spent on earth, though they would
seem to afford some insight into the moral sentiments of those holding
them, in default of definition of the good or bad conduct so rewarded
or punished, do not really prove much. To take some instances,
which have the least appearance of Christian admixture and offer
several shades of variety. The Good Spirit of the Mandans dwelt
in a piugatory of cold and frost, where he punished those who had
offended him before he would admit them to that warmer and happier
place, where the Bad Spirit dwelt and sought to seduce the happy
occupants.* Wicked Choctaws were stoned off the slippery pine log
which lay across the stream to Paradise ; wicked Apaches served to
animate terrestrial rattlesnakes. For the Charocs of California were
two roads, one strewn with flowers and leading the good to the
bright western land, the other bristling with thorns and briers, and
leading the wicked to a place full of serpents.* The souls of Chi-
pewyans drifted in a stone canoe to an enchanted isle in a large
lake ; if the good actions of their life predominated, they were wafted
safely ashore, but if the bad, the canoe sank beneath their weight
and left the wretches to float for ever, in sight of their lost and
nearly won felicity. Wicked Okanagans, again, a Columbian tribe
(and by the wicked are here specified murderers and thieves), went
to a place where an evil spirit, in human form, iivith equine ears and
tail, belaboured them with a stick. '^ Such of the Fijian dead as
succeeded in reaching Mbulu were happy or not, according as they
had lived so as to please the gods ; and subject to special punish-
ment were persons who had not their ears bored, women who were
not tattooed, and men who had not slain an enemy.^

But, with the exception of the Okanagans (whose Evil Spirit
looks suspiciously European), there is nothing to show that the good
or bad, rewarded or punished, as above described, were really any-
thing more than those who on earth had fought and hunted with
courage or cowardice. Writers citing such beliefs do not always

> Giirs Myths and Songs of the South PactHc, 154. * The same, 38.
' Catlin, North American Indians^ i. I57* * Bancroft, iii. 524.

* Bancroft, iii. 519; and other instances in the same, chapter xii.

* Williams, fiji\ 247.

Primitive Moral Philosophy. 221

make allowance for the difTerence between the savage and the civil-
ised moral standard. The code to be observed, says Schoolcraft,
in order for the soul to pass safely the stream which leads to the
land of bliss, '' appears to be, as drawn from their funeral addresses,
fidelity and success as a hunter in providing for his family, and bravery
as a warrior in defending the rights and honour of his tribe. There
is no moral code regulating the duties and reciprocal intercourse
between man and man.'' ^ And if the good American Indians above
mentioned were distinguished by any other moral attribute than mere
bravery, we have to account for the fact that, while Mexican civilisa-
tion consigned all who died natural deaths, good and bad alike, to the
dull repose of Mictlan, reserving for the higher pleasures of futurity
those who met their deaths in war or water, or from lightning, disease, or
childbirth, tribes whose culture stood to that of Mexico as equidistant
as that of Polynesia from that of Europe, should have attained to
the moral belief of the effects of earthly conduct reaching beyond
the grave.

The foregoing brief review of some of the real evidence on the
subject would seem to indicate the conclusion that, in matter of morals,
savages are neither so low as they have been painted by most writers,
nor so blameless as they have been pourtrayed by some. Their faults,
such as their vindictiveness, their ingratitude, or their mendacity,
might be predicated as easily of communities the most advanced in
the world ; nor, in the face of the great neglect of precision of
language in all narratives of travel, can any evidence of the utter
ignorance of right and wrong among any tribe lay claim to the
smallest scientific value. Of the African Yorubas one writer asserts
that they are not only covetous and cruel, but " wholly deficient in
what the civilised man calls conscience." Of the same people
another says, that they have several words in their language to express
honour, and "more proverbs against ingratitude than perhaps any
other people.** ^

Perhaps no description of savage character is fairer than Mariner's
of the Tonjan Islanders. " Their notions," he says, " in respect to
honour and justice are tolerably well-defined, steady, and universal ;
but in point of practice, both the chiefs and the people, taking them
generally, are irregular and fickle, being in some respects extremely
honourable and just, and in others the contrary, as a variety of causes
may operate." * But the justice of such remarks is lost in their vague-
ness, and their impartial generality would render them of world-wide
rather than local application.

> Schoolcraft, Indian Trihes, v. 403, 404* * BowcD, Central Africa^ 385.
' Mariner, Tonjan Islands, ii. 154.

24^2 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

If, therefore, in consideration of the unsatis&ctory nature of the
direct evidence, we resort to the indirect for the materials of our
judgment, we shall perhaps not err widely from the truth if we
say that average savage morality coincides very much with that of
any contemporary remote village of the civilised world, where the
fear of retaliation and disgrace is the chief preventive of great
wickedness, and the natural play of the social affections the main
safeguard of good order. Wherever travellers have explored, or
missionaries taught, they have been able to detect customary laws
regulating the relations of ci\dl life, the orderly transference of pro-
perty by exchange or inheritance, no less than the fixed succession to
tides and dignities. They have found not only punishments for the
prevention, but judicisd ordeals for the detection, of crimes ; nor is it
possible to believe that such penal laws can exist without ideas of
wrongness attaching to the deeds they prohibit. But, besides the
secular absolution involved in legal penalties, they have found not
unfrequently a kind of spiritual purification by means of confession,
penances, and fasting ; and the practice of such confession alone
proves that feelings of remorse are not foreign to savage races,
difficult as it must alwa3rs be to discriminate between actual remorse
for wickedness and the mere dread of contingent punishment. The
greater social crimes, murder, theft, and adultery, are sufficiently
prevented by the fear of revenge or of tribal punishment ; and state-
ments concerning indifference to the immorality of such actions
either do not rest on good evidence, or apply to extra-tribal, that is,
to hostile relations. It seems, therefore, that fundamentally the two
extremities of civilisation are ethically united; each having for its
standard of morality the idea of its own welfare, and deriving a sense
of moral obligation from a more or less vague dread of consequences.
The fundamental identity of human emotions, of the operations of
the feelings of love, fear, hope, and shame, appear to have produced,
in different stages of culture, very similar moral feelings ; nor is it
conceivable that such feelings, howsoever much weaker, were ever
radically different in the most remote antiquity.

J. A. FARRER.

223

SIR PETER TEAZLE.

WHEN, on May 24, 1802, Mr. Thomas King, the comedian,
in the seventy-third year of his age, appeared for the last
time as Sir Peter Teazle, and took leave of the stage, his brother
players presented him with a handsome silver cup inscribed with
their names and with the appropriate lines from Shakespeare's
" Henry the Fifth": " If he be not fellow with the best king, thou
shalt find him the best king of good fellows." Mrs. Jordan, the
Lady Teazle of the night, had led the veteran from the stage to a
seat in the green-room. Mr. Dowton, who had played Sir Oliver,
then, in the name of the Drury Lane company and the profession,
presented the cup to Mr. King, inviting him to a cheerful draught
from it, and begging him to accept it as a token of affectionate regard,
and in memory of his merits as an actor and of his kindly conduct to
all during the many years he had gratified the public before the
curtain and endeared himself to the players behind it. The old man
endeavoured to express his thanks in appropriate language — he was
much affected by the kindness of his firiends and comrades.

The farewell nights of the players are usually trying and touching
occasions. For no less than fifty-four years Mr. King had filled an
important position upon the London stage. It was hard for him to
terminate of his own accord a career that had brought him great
fame — that had conferred so much pleasure upon so many. He was
the patriarch of his profession. Generations had passed through the
playhouse leaving him still an admired occupant of its boards. The
playgoers who had been children when he first appeared were now
old men ; while those, alas 1 who were old when, a stripling of
eighteen, he commenced his engagement at Drury Lane, had long
since vanished into the grave. But King had been loth to depart.
It was not only that his circumstances were not of very flourishing sort
— thanks in great part to his own extravagance, his foolish compliance
with the gambling fashions of his time — but his art was dear to him.
He loved nothing better than the exercise of his gifts and acquire-
ments before an appreciative audience. The time had really come for
him, however, to make his final exit from the scene. He had lately

224 ^"^ Gentlematis Magazine.

been a good deal distressed by failure of memory ; he could scarcely
learn new parts. " He needed," we are told, " a very painful tensity
of care to keep even his old studies in tolerable condition." Ten
years before he left the stage, in 1792, the satirical poem, "The
Children of Thespis," had reminded him cruelly and coarsely enough
of his age and his decline. He is told that he had " incompetent
grown," that he is " but the mere ghost " of what he was : —

For envious of worth, see ! to sever the thread,

Foul Atropos plays round his reverend head.

And 'tis plain both his mind and his faculties moulder

When the task of each day proves the man — a day older.

And further —

His characters fade as his spirits decay,

And his Brass is at best — an attempt to be gay.

• Yet it was of his Brass, a character in the " Confederacy " of Sir John
Vanbrugh, that Churchill had written, in 1761, in the " Rosciad ": —

'Mongst Drury's sons he comes and shines in Brass.

However, Boaden, who was present in the pit, relates that King,
appearing for the last time as Sir Peter Teazle, played " extremely
well, and in the language was quite perfect" He had, it seems, a
habit of repeating, inaudibly, every speech addressed him by the
other characters, "so that he never remitted his attention to the
business for a moment ; his lips were always employed, and he was
probably master of the language of every scene he was engaged iri."
It is admitted, however, that his face, which was at all times very
strongly marked, and was " flexible to many changes of expression,"
bore " rather too evident signs of the ravages of time." Cumberland
supplied the actor with a poetic address containing the lines : —

Patrons, farewell :

Though you still kindly my defects would spare,
Constant indulgence who would wish to bear ?
Who that retains the scenes of brighter days
Can sue for pardon while he pants for praise ?
On well-earacd fame the mind with pride reflects,
But pity sinks the man whom it protects.

• • • • •

The fate that none can fly from I invite,
And do my own dramatic death this night.

• •••••

That chance has come to me that comes to all —
My drama*s done. I let the curtain fall.

The verses are not the happiest example of Cumberland's muse. But
Cumberland was himself at this time a septuagenarian.

Sir Peter Teazle. 225

Cliarlcs Kcmble, who had played Charles Surface, now, " with
the graceful attention of Orlando to the old Adam of ' As You Like
It,' " attended Sir Peter Teazle while he spoke his parting address,
in order to prompt him if, in his agitation, Mr. King might be at a
loss for Cumberland's words. Boaden, somewhat morbidly curious
" to see how the great comedian struggled with his feelings," watched
him closely. " His eye showed but little, but his lip trembled and
his voice faltered" — naturally enough. The audience were much
affected as they listened intently to the voice they were never to hear
again upon the stage. The address concluded, Mr. King withdrew,
" amid the tears and plaudits of a most splendid and crowded house."
He survived some two years only, and lies interred in the churchyard
of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, the burial-place of the actors Estcourt,
Kynaston, Wilks, Macklin,and others, and of the dramatists Wycherley
and Susannah Centlivre. Portraits of King, by John Wilson, the
landscape painter, and as Touchstone, by Zoflfany, are possessed by
the Garrick Club. Hazlitt >vTites: " His acting left a taste on the
j)alate, sharp and sweet, like a quince. AVith an old, hard, rough,
withered face, like a j:our apple, puckered up into a thousand
wrinkles ; with shrewd hints and tart replies ; with nods and becks
and wreathed smiles ; he was the real, amorous, wheedling, or
hasty, choleric, peremptory old gentleman in Sir Peter Teazle and
Sir Anthony Absolute ; and the true, that is, the pretended clown in
Touchstone, with wit sprouting from his head like a pair of ass's
cars, and folly perched en his cap like the horned owl." King left a
widow. He had married, about 1766, a Miss Baker, a dancer
engaged at Drury Lane. Her means were but scanty in her old age.
She became the tenant of a garret in Tottenham Court Road, and was
supported chiefly by the contributions of her friends. We are told,
however, that she bore her reverse of fortune with exemplary patience
and submission.

In regard to the parentage and youth of King accounts vary.
One biographer relates that he was born in August 1730 iji the parish
of St. George, Hanover S(iuare, descended by the father's side from
a respectable family in Hampshire and by the mother's side "from
the Blisses of (xloucestershire." Another writer insists that he was
born in Westminster, the son of a decent tradesman. He was educated
either at Westminster School or at a minor establishment that prepared
pupils for Westminster S( hool. He was articled to an attorney, but he
quitted the law for the stcge. With Shuter, the comedian, he joined
a troop of strolling players, and, at the age of seventeen, made his
first appearance in a barn at Tunbridge. For a twelvemonth King

VOL. CCXLII. Nf. 1766. Q

226 The Gentleman's Magazine.

led an itinerant life, studying and performing tragedy, comedy, farce,
pastoral, and pantomime, i^ith great industry and small profit '^ I
remember," he was wont to relate in after life, " that when I had been
but a short time on the stage I performed one night King Richard, sang
two comic songs, played in an interlude, danced a hornpipe, spoke a
prologue, and was afterwards harlequin in a sharing company, and
after all this fatigue my share came to three pence and three pieces
of candle ! '' A biographer adds that he had, further, journeyed from
Beaconsfield to London and back again in order that he might obtain
certain " properties " essential, as he considered, to his appearance as
King Richard.

An introduction to Yates, tlie comedian — then about to open a
booth for theatrical exhibitions at Windsor — secured young King an
engagement. This was the commencement of his good fortune as
an actor. His merits were favourably reported to Garrick, who re-
paired to Windsor, heard the young man rehearse, and forthwith
engaged him for two seasons. He made his first appearance at
Drury Lane on the 19th October 1748, performing AUworth in "A
New Way to pay Old Debts." The character was well suited to his
youthful appearance, and he obtained considerable applause. He
appeared subsequently as George Barnwell, as Ferdinand in the
*' Tempest," as Claudio in " Much Ado about Nothing," as Young
Fashion in " The Relapse," as Dolabella in " All for Love," and as
the Fine Gentleman in the farce of " Lethe " ; but he was also re-
quired to undertake such minor characters as the Herald in " King
Lear," Salanio in the "Merchant of Venice," and Rosse in
"Macbeth." Altogether he seems to have been somewhat dis-
satisfied with his occupation in the theatre ; he desired more comic
parts than it was convenient to Mr. Garrick to entrust him with. His
engagement terminated, he repaired to Dublin, where he remained
nine years enjoying the most cordial favour of his audiences. He
made his first appearance at Mr. Sheridan's theatre in Capel Street,
as Ranger in the comedy of the " Suspicious Husband." " Though
a very young man," writes the historian of the Irish stage, " Mr.
Thomas King was allowed to possess an extraordinary share of merit,
and deemed a valuable acquisition. He was highly approved of by
the town, and remained several years in Ireland, improving every day
in his profession and the esteem of the public. His many virtues in
private, joined to his abilities on the stage, deservedly gained him
the esteem and friendship of those who were so fortunate as to be
intimate with him."

King now seems to have eschewed tragedy[altogether. Originally

Sir Peter Teazle. 227

cast for the lovers and even the " walking gentlemen " of the drama,
he was gradually assigned more and more of what the actors call the
" character parts," and particularly distinguished himself as the saucy
serving-men and the quaintly choleric elderly gentlemen of old-
fashioned English comedy. He was very versatile ; his experiences
as a stroller were of rare service to him. Among his more famous
impersonations during his stay in Ireland may be counted his Mercutio
and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, his Osric and Autolycus, his Scrub, Abel
Drugger, Marplot, Tattle, Duretete in the " Inconstant," and Love-
gold in the " Miser." He obtained great applause also by appearing
as a speaking harlequin. He is described as possessing a most easy
and genteel figure, with a pleasing countenance, greatly expressive
features, " spirited and significant eyes," distinct voice, and ingenious
and appropriate action. His face and manner were said to be re-
markable for " a pert vivacity, with a sly knowledge of the world,"
peculiarly his own. When the part he played so required, he could
deliver his speeches \vith extraordinary rapidity, yet with such distinct
articulation that not a syllable was lost. He was considered to be
particularly happy as the speaker of a prologue or epilogue. " There
was a happy distinction in his ease, manner, familiarity, and acting
these dramatic addresses that rendered these entertainments of the
first class, and of this the audiences were so sensible that they would
never suflfer the farce of * Bon Ton ' to be presented without the
prologue."

From 1759 dates his long engagement at Drury Lane Theatre,
which may be said to have terminated only with his professional
career. For a season, however, he was absent, and his services were
transferred to Covent Garden. He had become nominally stage
manager under Sheridan, but the position was one of considerable
discomfort. In an address to the public, published in 1788, he
explains his conduct in withdrawing from an ofl^ce which simply con-
stituted him the scapegoat of the lessee. Sheridan either could not
or would not manage the theatre himself; nor would he formally
delegate authority to another. King had enjoyed but the shadow of
power while generally credited with complete responsibility. He
complained with reason of the undefined nature of his duties,
which involved him in endless discussions and difficulties with
authors, actors, and the public. " Should anyone ask me what was
my post at Drury Lane, and if I was not manager, who was ? I should
be forced to answer, like my friend Atall in the comedy, to the first,
/ dor^t ktunv \ and to the last, / can^t tclL I can only once more posi-
tively assert that I was not manager ; for I had not the power by any

Q2

228 The Gentleman's Magazine.

agreement, nor had I indeed the wish, to approve or reject any new
dramatic work ; the liberty of engaging, encouraging, or discharging
any one performer ; nor sufficient authority to command the cleaning
a coat or adding, by way of decoration, a yard of copper lace — both
of which, it must be allowed, were often much wanted." The appoint-
ment King vacated was presently filled by Kemble. In the following
season King returned to the theatre, as an actor only, without share
or pretence of a share in the management Kemble had now to
endure the sufferings King h^ experienced as the stage manager of
the incorrigible Sheridan. After some seasons, Kemble followed
King's example, and retired in his turn from the cares of so thankless
an office.

King's repertory was most extensive, but many of the characters
he impersonated pertain to plays that have long since been forgotten.
Comedies are rarely so long-lived as tragedies ; a pathetic fable may
endure for all time, but the comic story is often of very effervescent
quality, is dependent upon such varying, fleeting matters as fashion,
tastes, and manners. Among King's Shakespearian parts, in addition
to those already mentioned, may be counted Petruchio, Stephano,
Touchstone, Parolles, Speed, Malvolio, Osric, Cloten, the clown in
the " Winter's Tale," Pistol, Roderigo, Falstaff, and the First Grave-
digger. On certain benefit nights he appeared now as Shylock, now
as Richard the Third, now as lago; upon a particular occasion he
undertook the three characters of Shift, Smirk, and Mother Cole in
the " Miser." He was the original representative of Sir Peter Teazle,
of Puff, of Doctor Cantwell in " The Hypocrite," and Lord Ogleby
in the " Clandestine Marriage." On the death of his old fellow-stroller,
Shuter, who played Sir Anthony Absolute during the first season of
" The Rivals," the part was promptly taken possession of by King.

Upon his admirable performance of Lord Ogleby King's fame
as an actor has been said more especially to rest. The comedy of
" The Clandestine Marriage," written by Garrick and Colman, was
first performed on the 20th February, 1766. The great success of
the work led to a controversy as to which of the authors was respon-
sible for the larger share of it. If there had been failure, each would
probably have striven to show that he had been the smaller con-
tributor. In truth, they seem to have divided the work pretty equally
between them. The character of Lord Ogleby had been designed
for Garrick, who had played, with success, a very similar part, called
Lord Chalkstone, in the farce of " Lethe." But Garrick was now
much disinclined to attempt new characters, and, in spite of Colman's
entreaty that he would play I/)rd Ogleby, and so secure the success

Sir Peter Teazle. 229

of their comedy, he handed the part to King. As Tate Wilkinson
relates, King again and again declined the character, although
Garrick carefully read it over to him, and laid stress upon its points
and general effectiveness. Finally, King took the part home with
him to study, and began repeating passages of it in a tremulous voice,
imitative of the tones of a certain Andrew Brice, an eccentric old
printer of Exeter. " He tried repeatedly, and found that he had hit
upon the very man as a natural and true picture to represent Lord
Ogleby." He privately rehearsed a scene in this manner with Garrick,
who exclaimed, " My dear King, if you can but sustain that fictitious
manner and voice throughout it will be one of the greatest perform-
ances that ever adorned a British theatre." Wilkinson proceeds:
" Mr. Garrick's prophecy was verified, as Mr. King's manner of pro-
ducing that character before the public was then and is to this day
one of the most capital and highly-finished pieces of acting to which
any audience ever was treated, and will never be forgotten while a trait
of Mr. King can be remembered." From another account it may be
gathered that Garrick's approval of King's Lord Ogleby was not
altogether cordial ; there seems, indeed, to have lurked something of
professional jealousy in the observation he made, long after his retire-
ment from the stage, to his friend Cradock : " I know that you all
take it as granted that no one can equal King in Lord Ogleby, and
he certainly has great merit in the part; but it is not my Lord
Ogleby, and it is the only character in which I should now wish to
appear."

Some few days after he had bidden farewell to the stage, Garrick
sent to King, as a memento of him, a theatrical sword, with a friendly
note : *' Accept a small token of our long and constant attachment
to each other. I flatter myself that the sword, as it is a theatrical
one, will not cut love between us ; and that it will not be less valuable
to you from having dangled by my side some part of the last winter.
May health, success, and reputation still continue to attend you.
Fartivel/j remember me!" King replies, lamenting the loss of a
worthy patron and most affectionate friend, and the severe stroke
inflicted, by Mr. Garrick's retirement, upon every performer in the
theatre, and every admirer of the drama ; he adds, " Please to accept
my warmest thanks for the token sent me, which I look on with
pleasing pain — happy, however, in the reflection that my endeavours
have not passed unnoticed by you to whom they were devoted,
though conscious they have been very unequal to the favours re-
peatedly bestowed on, dear Sir, your constant admirer, ardent well-
wisher, and much obliged humble servant, Thomas King." A post-

230 The Gentleman* s Magazine.

script follows : '' Accumalated blessings attend you and your family.''
Garrick endorses the letter : " Tom King's answer to my note, with
my foil."

It must be admitted, however, that the long and constant
attachment subsisting between manager and actor was now and then
interrupted by the exchange of rather acrimonious communications.
Garrick was fond of exhibiting his skill as a writer of sharp letters,
and engaged in angry correspondence with every member of his com-
pany in turn. He was morbidly sensitive of anything said or done
to his disparagement, was easily offended, could not overlook offence,
was prone, indeed, to take it at every opportunity. Moreover, he was
surrounded by sycophants, mischief-makers, tale-bearers, and tattlers.
It seems that, in 1769, somebody, probably Mr. Hopkins, the
prompter, had whispered to him that Mr. King had spoken lightly of
his farce of " The Invasion." A note is forthwith despatched to Mr.
King : " Mr. Garrick's compliments to Mr. King : though he is
seldom surprised at what may happen in a theatre, yet he should be
obliged to Mr. King if he would let him know, by a note, what he
was pleased to say about him and the farce of * The Invasion ' to
Mr. Hopkins. Mr. Garrick assures Mr. King that he will not send
his answer to the prompter, but to himself." Mr. King replies with
spirit : " I declare on my honour I do not recollect that your
name was mentioned, nor do I remember that there was anything

particular said about the farce I shall only say, that it was

out of my power, either on this or any other occasion, whenever your
name could be mentioned, to treat it otherwise than with a warmth of
respect little short of enthusiasm ; and I defy the world, replete as
it is with rascals, to produce one base enough to contradict me." A
postscript adds : " You were some time ago anxious lest your letters
should fall into improper hands. I take the liberty to enclose the last
for your perusal, and beg you will indulge me by burning it. Such a
note found after my decease would go near to convince some friends,
whose good opinion I covet, that I had most basely forfeited the
favour of a man whose friendly attachment to me was for some
time my greatest, nay almost my only, boast." The note, however,
was not destroyed ; it may be found preserved or entombed in the
ponderous volumes containing the Garrick correspondence.

About three years later it is Mr. King's turn to complain of Mr.
Garrick. " Why am I not to be paid as well as any other actor? "
demanded King. *' No actor is better received, yourself excepted.
... I, without a murmur, begin at the opening of the theatre, if
required, and never repine at playing, if called on, six nights in the

Sir Peter Teazle. 231

week, till every doorkeeper is served, and the theatre shut up ; while
those who are better, much better, allow me to say shamefully better
paid, never enter the lists till the theatre has been opened some time,
are periodically sick or impertinent about the month of April, and in
the very heat of the season are never expected to play two nights
running. Some evasion is also found out by them when called on to
play on a night immediately subsequent to your performing, their
Majesties coming to the theatre, or, in short, anything that attracts the
public so as to strengthen one night and weaken another." Garrick in
reply demands, " Have you not, Mr. King, been conscious of some
breaches of friendship to me, and are you not producing these allega-
tions as excuses for your own behaviour ? Have you not, instead of an
open manly declaration of your thoughts to your friend, whispered about
in hints and ambiguities your uneasiness ? all which by circulation have
pardy crept into the newspapers ; and though you. have disclaimed
being privy to their circulation, yet you have certainly been the first
cause of it ; while to me even so lately as a fortnight ago, you came
to my house at Hampton, showed no signs of displeasure, but rode
with me to town, with all the cheerfulness of ease and in the warmest
spirit of confidence. Was your friend to be the last to hear of your
complaints or to suspect tliem ? My complaints against you, not only
as my friend but as a gentleman, are these : that you should keep a
secret from me you have told to many ; that you were the cause of
having our names mentioned in the daily papers." The fact seems
to have been that King, dissatisfied with his position at Druiy Lane,
was disposed to listen to the advantageous offers he had received
from the rival theatre. In addition to the question of salary, he feels
aggrieved as to the manner of advertising him in the playbills; to make
room for the lines devoted to another performer, he finds his name
and the name of the character he represented " thrust so close under
the title of the play that it required some attention to find them."
As to his salary, he writes : " Were money my sole object, I should
be glad, as Lord Foppington says, to take it in any way, ' stap my
vitals ' ; but my wish was and is to be paid as much as any comedian
on the stage, yourself excepted. If I cannot bring this about in my
present agreement, I never can expect to do it ; for should you return,
and I want to make a fresh one, and enlarge my demand, the reply
would naturally be, * Why, Mr. Garrick, who was a competent judge
of, and, as you have allowed, rather partial to, your abilities, would
have given it to you if he had thought you had deserved it' I do
not believe the persons with whom I should then be in treaty would
give me more for my plea of being then so many years older."

232 The Gentleman's Magazine.

The salary question settled in King^s favour, some difficulty seems
to have arisen touching the revival at Drury Lane of Shakespeare's
Jubilee, a pageant in which the company, representing Shakes-
pearian characters, walked in procession round the stage. This
exhibition was not very favourably viewed by the actors, and some
held aloof from it altogether. King maintained that the rule should
be " all or none " — he was willing to appear with the others — other-
wise it became a (question of professional dignity, and he declined
accepting any share in the matter. " I cannot think of appearing in
any procession where any member of the company thinks it a dis-
grace to make one." King, it may be noted, had taken part in the
original Jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1769, appearing in a
fashionable suit of blue and silver as a macaroni or buck, and indulg-
ing in much comic and satiric abuse of Shakespeare, with a string of
smart hits against the festival, the town, and Mr. Garrick, the high
steward of the festival. This portion of the performance, apparently,
was misunderstood by the audience, and considered by many as an
impertinent interruption on the part of Mr. King. But the episode
had been duly pre-arranged by Mr. Garrick, and King had but
spoken what had been set down for him to speak.

It was the fashion to say that Sir Peter Teazle had quitted the
stage with King; and no doubt the actor had completely identified
himself with the character. But there have been excellent Sir Peters
since King. And, indeed, as a rule, whenever an actor is said to take
away with him a famous part, there will usually be found someone to
bring it back again to the stage — supposing it to be worth bringing
back. That King afforded complete satisfaction to the playgoers of
his time cannot be questioned, and the critics were unanimous in
applauding the manner in which the comedy was represented by all
concerned. Garrick was delighted ; he had attended the rehearsals,
and had expressed the greatest anxiety for the success of the |)lay.
He has left on record certain remarks as to the length of time the
characters stood still upon the stage after the fall of the screen. He
notes that they should be astonished, a little petrified — "yet it may
be carried to too great a length." It has been said, however, that
Sheridan himself was never quite satisfied. Upon King's retirement
the part of Sir Peter was entrusted to Wroughton, and subsequently to
Mathews, with whose delineation Sheridan found considerable fault.
He requested permission to read the part over to the actor, who found
himself much embarrassed by this attention of his manager. Sheri-
dan's reading of the character differed so much from every other con-
ception of it that Mathews found it impossible to adopt any of his

Sir Peter Teazle. 233

aiiggestions, and followed, therefore, the manner of the original Sir
Peter. " The pointing to the scene with the thumb, the leer, and the
movements of the elbows, were precisely the same as practised by
King/' Sheridan, who had taken the part from Wroughton to give
it to Mathews, now took it from Mathews and gave it back to
Wroughton, and was still dissatisfied.

King's passion for gambling, acquired, it would appear, in the
later part of his life, involved him in pecuniary difficulty. He had
been elected a member of Miles's clubhouse, and seems to have been
plundered by his fashionable friends. A blackleg of quality, who was
alleged to have been guilty of foul play in possessing himself of a
large share of the actor's fortune, in dread of exposure and igno-
minious expulsion, removed his name from the books of all the clubs
with which he had been connected. "This man," relates Mr.
Taylor, ** who was of good family, after his conduct towards King,
was discarded by society, and used to wander alone through the
streets, an object of contempt to all who had before known and
respected him."

King, in his days of prosperity, had kept his carriage, tenanted a
house in Great Queen Street and a villa at Hampton, in the neigh-
bourhood of Garrick's country seat. He had enjoyed the honour
of entertaining at Hampton Mrs. Siddons and her brother, John
Kemble, during the Christmas holidays. ** He was then easy in his
circumstances, having a large salary, and, usually, a productive annual
benefit" His society was generally courted ; he was pronounced a
very entertaining companion, abounding in wit and humour and
whimsical anecdote. He was, in 1771, part proprietor and sole
manager of the Bristol Theatre, and at a later date he ouvTied three-
fourths of Sadler's Wells, which, we are told, he so extended and
improved that it became a place of fashionable resort. His losses at
play, however, compelled him to sever his connection with these pro-
perties. He was possessed of some literary skill, and is credited with
the authorship of two farces, " Love at First Sight," produced at
Drury Lane in 1763, and " Wit's Last Stake," an adaptation from the
French of Regnard, performed several nights in succession in 1 769.
His friend, Mr. Taylor, writes of him: " If he had devoted himself as
much to the muse as he did to the gaming-table, he might have added
lustre to his character, have profited by his literary effusions, have
ended his life in affluence, and his faithful and affectionate wife would
have inherited the comfort of an elegant independence in some d^ee
to console her for the loss of her husband.' 'As his fortune declined,
he seems to have quitted Hampton for Islington. At the period of

234 ^>^ Gentleman's Magazine.

his death he was the tenant of lodgings in Store Street, Bedford
Square.

In his '' Dramatic Miscellanies/' Tom Davies, desiring to pay to
*' a worthy man and excellent actor" the just tribute due to his cha-
racter, writes of Tom King : '* As an honest servant to the proprietors,
engaged in a variety of parts, no man ever exerted his abilities to the
greater satisfaction of the public, or consulted the interest of his
employers with more cordiality and assiduity. As a manager, en-
trusted to superintend, bring forward, and revive dramatic pieces, his
judgment was solid and his attention unwearied. When he thought
proper to quit his post of theatrical director, those of his own pro-
fession regretted the loss of a friend and companion whose humanity
and candour they had experienced, and on whose impartiality and
justice they knew they could firmly depend. Booth's character of
the great actor Smith may be applied with justice to Mr. King : * By
his impartial management of the stage, and the affability of his temper,
he merited the respect and esteem of all within the theatre, the
applause of those without, and the goodwill and love of all mankind.'"

DUITON COOK.

235

EPIGRAMS.

Dost thou think I care for a satyre or an epigram ?

No whit I believe, but some others may. — Much Ado about Nothing,

INNUMERABLE wits have tried to define wit, but it remains
undefined. The epigram — itself a piece of wit — is in much the
same case. It has been said to be " a short poem treating only of
one thing, and ending with some lively, ingenious, and natural
thought." Many of the Greek epigrams consist of a line of prose, so
that it need not be a poem. Some one has said there is nothing
under the sun that may not become the subject of an epigram.
There have been epigrams on twins, and twins are not one thing, so
an epigram need not be a poem, and it need not be on one thing.
The melancholy tone pervading the majority of Greek epigrams has
struck the attention of most scholars, and is noticed by the Rev.
Robert Bland in the preface to his " Collection,'' so that it need not
be lively. That it should be ingenious conveys no definite idea
at all; and if anybody can tell what is meant by a "natural thought,"
we shall feel grateful to him. Every single word, then, in the above
definition is shown to be unessential to the epigram, and it is simply
impossible to define a thing by enumerating its unessentials. It is
evidently much easier for a witty man to utter wit than to define it.
Nobody, Plato included, has ever succeeded in defining the word
*• man," though Raleigh, in his " History of the World," may be said
to have fired his huge folio as a shot at that particular thing as at a
target. It went as much too wide as Plato's fell too short. Witty
men are continually making epigrams all their life through without
knowing it. His bull was epigrammatical when the Irishman
described a scholar as being a schoolboy retired. Once you know
what a thing is, waste no time in definition of it.

Omne epigramma sit instar apis: sit aculeus illi:
Sint sua mella ; sit et corporis exigui.

In three things epigrams are like a bee,
In sting, in honey, and a body wee.'

> Mr. Riley, in **Bohn's Dictionary of Classical Quotations," ascribes this
epigram to Martial, but it appears not to be his.

236 TIu Gentleman's Magazine.

Be the authorship whose it may, it conveys a fair notion of the style
of epigram that Martial attempted and is successful in. The French,
who claim to be the first epigrammatists in Europe, adopt this scant-
ling, and in their hands it is so frequently charged with malice and a
witty bitterness, that one is tempted to say that in passing the Alps
Martial's bee enlarged its sting, dropped its honey, and became a
wasp. •* Le tendre Racine " is their favourite epithet for their chief
dramatist, and it has been remarked that his few epigrams exhibit an
acerbity that surpasses the general run of even the French school of
epigram. Take this by him :

On the Germanicus of Pradon.

Que je plains le destin du grand Germanicus !

Quel fut le prix de ses rares vertus !

Persecute par le cruel Tibcre,

Empoisonn^ par le trattre Pison,
II ne lui restait plus pour demiere misere

Que d'etre chante par Pradon.'

Encyclo. Poitiqiie^ p. 49.

There are two ill-rhymed lines in Racine's " hexastich " — which,
in such a master of French, is rather astonishing, seeing that the
French rule runs, " On ne pardonne une faute meme k T^pi-
gramme," whilst the cutting satire of the close makes one indeed ask
of the ** tendre Racine," " If this be tenderness, what on earth would
our severity be ? "

Rapin, in his remarks on " Eloquence'* (ii. p. 166, 1684), extols
the natural turn of thought exhibited in the Greek epigram, and con-
trasts it favourably with the false taste shown by the latins, whilst he
notes that Martial, who is certainly the most celebrated of all epi-
grammatists in the world, began to write at the period when the
decadence of pure I^tinity had set in. His aim was to surprise by
the piquancy of a witty word, trusting entirely for success to the
sharp point with which he brought his brief poem to a close. Rapin's
countrymen have followed Martial, to the exclusion of the Greek
manner altogether; and probably every Frenchman, except the most
highly cultivated, such as a Sainte-Beuve or a Baudelaire, would
account it a thing quite indisputable that no nation could compare

• Pity the fate of poor Germanicus !
To have his so rare virtues handled thus :
The bad Tiberius persecutes the man,
While Pison's poison truncates his short span :
])ut to be sung by Pradon seems to me
The crowning act of a life's misery.

Epigrams. 237

with his in the composition of this particular species of poetry.
Rapin, however, does not seem to have considered that there were
very many successful French epigrams. He says :

C'est une espece de vers ou Ton reussit peu, car c'est un coup de bonheur
que d'y r^ussir : une epigramme vaut peu de chose quand elle n*est pas admirable.
£t il est si rare d*en faire d'admirables que <^€st asses (Ten avoir faii une en sa vie.

Another Frenchman said " it was as difficult a performance as an
epic poem."

Many will pronounce these estimates to be excessive, for very
few see that there is any great difficulty in ^Tiling an epigram that
shall appear both perfect and witty; and how can one expect such
persons to appreciate the difficulty of writing one, seeing that when it
is written to their hand they can scarcely perceive it to be at once
witty and perfect ? I remember a gentleman once wrote to another,
on the spur of certain circumstances, six pithy lines exactly fitted to
the occasion. Not a line but was full of play; every word told, and
the last line brought all together in a perfectly witty close. All the
effect it had upon the mind of the receiver was to bring back from
him some thirty lines, rhyming, it is true, but so lumbering and point-
less that all you could smile at was the manifest unconsciousness of
the writer that he was not returning to his friend lines of precisely
equivalent value to those received. Sydney Smith said that to get a
joke into the head of a Scotchman would require a surgical opera-
tion, but there are some of his own countrymen that must apparently
be put to soak in brine for three weeks, as you com beef, before the
most pungent Attic salt can make the least impression on their
compact tissues.

To show the different appreciation of the value of epigrams by
different minds and at different epochs, Lord Chesterfield has recorded
his contempt for the whole body of epigrammatists. This is all the
more curious as his lordship's turn of mind was exceedingly French,
and very well fitted indeed to excel in writing epigrams in the French
vein. We have an anecdote related of Malherbe, which shows that
he entertained as great a dislike to the simplicity of the Greek
epigram as Lord Chesterfield thought he did to all epigrams what-
soever. When dining at a nobleman's house, he was helped to soupe
maigrey and whispered to a friend sitting next to him, who was a
great admirer of the chastity of the Greek taste, " Voilk le potage k
la grecque s'il en fut jamais." This, amongst French critics, passed
into a proverb descriptive of any composition that seemed to them
vapid or deficient in point. Dr. Johnson, perhaps out of a studied
opposition to Lord Chesterfield, loved epigrams, and at one time

238 The Gentleman's Magazine. "*

intended to have written a paper on the subject, and to have made a

selection of epigrams. In fact, the good old Doctor did actually fill

up the intervals of pain in his last illness in translating Greek

epigrams into Latin. That he could be witty enough on occasion is

abundantly shown by many an improvised stanza, of which the

following is a good example:

If the man who turnips cries,
Cry not when his father dies,
'Tis a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father.

Here is a play on the double sense of the verb " to cry," which rises
up in judgment against the utterer of the knock-down axiom — " A man,
sir, who would make a pun would pick a pocket." Yet would it
have been interesting to know what that typical Englishman of the
eighteenth century thought meritorious in the way of epigram, as
it would have brought out some traits of character which even the
elaborate Boswell has overlooked; but, as he left it unattempted,
we need speculate no further, though we know that in his sesqui-
pedalian and portentous way he pronounced Dr. Doddridge's epigram
on the words Dum vivimusy vivamus^ to be the finest in the English
language :

** Live while you live," the epicure will say,
** And seize the pleasures of the passing day."
** Live while you live,** the hoary preacher cries,
** And give to God each moment as it flies.'*
Lord, in my mind let both united be :
I live in pleasure while I live to Thee.

This is really excellent, and has the full flavour of the eighteenth
century upon it We can fancy the applause which would attend its
recital, whilst the church bells were still crooning for the second
service on a Sunday afternoon, at the lips, say, of Hannah More, in
the house of Zachary Macaulay. It is short, neat, pretty, nitty,
mildly devout, and strongly moral. Things such as this have the
merit of sim-pictures, and stand to the critically observant as per-
manent portraitures of the local mind of an epoch. Doddridge, by
the perfect utterance of a class-sentiment, has succeeded in con-
veying in six lines the cosy lambent metaphysics and devoutly
respectable quietism under shelter of which the sturdy British citizen
of that day walked for the most part bolstered by faith, and unper-
turbed, the terrible journey firom B. to B. — from birth to burial — that
so probes and crucifies the men of larger heart who have to traverse it.
Samuel Johnson, the colossus of bourgeoisie^ instinctively fixed atten-
tion upon it as the finest thing in our tongue, which was the tongue of

Epigrams. 239

Milton and Junius, of Shakespeare and Chatham. Is it not marvellous
how characteristic small things make themselves ! A hat blown off
at a juncture may change the course of an empire, and so of the
universe; and no philosopher can predicate what the Fates may do
on the contingent tying of somebody's shoestring.

A Frenchman, no small critic too, thought fit to limit the length
of an epigram to a distich: this is indeed an ingenious piece of
preceptial madness, seeing that Martial, who stands to the French as
model, has many of more than 30 lines, and one of 42 — that upon the
" Villa Faustini." The Dutch poets, scorning to be taught by their
enemies, have extended the epigram to a couple of pages, and
this for stolid Lutherans, in huge trunk-hose, umbrella-hats, and
copiously given to De Kuyper, or his equivalent, may be the precise
length required to convey recognition of a happy idea into the
cerebrum of your stout Hollander. You cannot expect that people
who live in

A country that draws fifty foot of water,

{Samuel Butler^s Remains^ ii. 294),

should be able to appreciate dry wit at all, or get it with brevity into
their heads. Voltaire's rendering of the Greek epigram, "On a
Statue of Venus," would puzzle them even to understand: —

Oui, je me montrais toute nue
Au dieu Mars, au bel Adonis,
A Vulcain meme, et j*en rougis ;
Mais Praxit^le, oil m'a-t-U vue ? '

Voltaire appears to have penned this and a few others out of pique,
because the French language was reproached with a deficiency in
respect of brevity. — ("Diet. Philosoph." mot ^^ Epigramme'^)

That " On Leander " has been done into Latin by Martial, and,
after him, into almost every language under the sun. Voltaire's
version is as follows : —

L^andre, conduit par Pamour,
En nageant disalt aux orages,
** Laissez-moi gagncr les rivages ;
Ne me noyez qu*i mon retour."*

Epigram must have been one of Voltaire's earliest efforts, for he

' I showed my form to godlike Mars,
'tis true,

And naked quite to sweet Adonis' view,
f. To Vulcan, blushing; but, Praxiteles,

To you I never gave a view with these.

' Leander swimming, led by love.

Prayed thus to the storm-gods above,

'*Let me but touch yon beach once
more,

\ Then drown me coming from its ihorct"

240 TIu Gentleman's Magazine.

is said to have \vritten that on " The Bell-ringers " at the age of
ten : —

Persecuteurs du genre humain,
Qui sonnez .sans misericorde.
Que n'avez-vous au cou la corde
Que vous tenez dans votre main ? *

One of the finest epigrams that can be found in literature, ancient

or modem, is attributed by Dodd (in "The Epigrammatists," p. 349)

to Voltaire ; it runs thus : —

Qui que tu sois, voila ton maitre,
Qui Test, le fut, ou le doit ^trc.

George Granville (Lord Lansdowne) translated it very indifferently
thus: —

Whoe'er thou art, thy lord and master sec ;
Thou wast my slave, thou art, or thou shalt be.

This is very clumsy beside the French ; it was intended as an inscrip-
tion for a statue of Cupid, and not to represent words spoken in
person by the God of Love. It would run better thus: —

Be who thou wilt, thy master sec ;
That is, or was, or is to be.

The epigram has been attributed to Marshal Saxe, but whoever ^vrotc
it, it is purely Greek in conception and in execution, and it seems
in the simplicity of its monosyllabic structure, and its triliteral words,
to be renderable into every language under the sun, even the
Chinese. I hardly believe it to be Voltaire's. It is quite in the
character of that scrap of Alexis, preserved by Athenjeus, and trans-
lated by Cumberland, where he describes Love as unrivalled in power
— " The first great deity " — and asks. Where is he born of mortals

But shall at some time bend the knee to Love ?

" Le trop ^nergique Piron" wrote a great many pithy, ferine, and

mordacious epigrams, and when his caustic raillery had excluded

him from the chair in the Academy his bitterness knew no bounds ;

he could never forgive the slight, so he recorded his wrath in these

words : —

Ci-git Piron, qui ne fut rien,

Pas meme Academicien.''

* Ye crew accursed, bell-ringing band,
Would that around your throat abhorred
A rope could yield that misericord
That is denied us by your hand.

' Here Piron lies, a nothing say.
Nothing, not even an R.A.

But our Royal Academy of Painters is too narrow an institution to represent the

Epigrams. 241

It is rather curious to see how epigrams have been borrowed
from one language into another. Ben Jonson, for instance, wrote
an epigram, or rather an epitaph, on Salathiel Parry, the play-actins;
chorister-boy of the Chapel Royal : —

Years he numbered scarce thirteen,

When Fates turned cruel,
Yet three filled Zodiacs had been

The stage's jewel,
And did act (what now we mourn)

Old men so duly,
As, sooth, the Parcw thought him one,

He played so truly.

This evidently gave an idea to an anonymous French epigrammatist
("Nouveau Recueil des Epig." ii. loi) on the death of Molifere: —

Ci-gtt sans nulle pompe vaine
Le singe de la vie humaine.
Qui n*aura jamais son ^al ;
De la mort comme de la vie
Voulant etre le singe en une comedie,
Pour trop bien reussir il lui reussit mal :
Car la mort en ^tant ravie
Trouva si belle la copie
QuVlle en fit un original.

But perhaps for one that the French have borrowed from us we have
taken a thousand from them. The famous quatrain of Swift's, which
most readers suppose to be original, is from the French of Scdvole de
Sainte-Marthe ; it is the following, and it certainly reads like a
thorough-going piece of English, — and we may perceive in this the
advantage of having a poet to translate a poet : —

Sir, I admit your general rule.
That every poet is a fool;
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.

De Sainte-Marthe [1536-1650] ("Encyclo. Podt." p. 76) writes—

Je confesse bien, comme vous,
Que tous les pontes sont fous ;
Mais, puisque poete vous n'etes,
Tous les fous ne sont pas poctes.

French Academy at all adequately ; and the Royal Society is too wide and too
octogenarian in habit to serve the purpose either ; still, if preferred, as being the
more like of the two, you might render it —

Here Piron lies, a nothing ! Yes !
Not even yet an F.R.S.
VOL. CCXLII. NO. 1766. R

242 The Gentleman's Magazine.

Prior has given the same thing in a weaker version: —

Yes, every poet is a fool,
By demonstration Ned can show it;
Happy could Ned's inverted rule
Prove every fool to be a poet.

Swift comes out of this trial of wit the best versifier of the whole,
for the Frenchman rhymes n^iUs with poUes^ — the rhyme is iden-
tical, and therefore not truly a rhyme at all ; but his third line
advances so much better towards the final point than Swift's does,
that in fairness he must be confessed to excel both in priorit}' and
superiority.

It is not always that our borrowers make us lose the interest.
Take for instance the following from Coquard ("Encyclo. Po^t."

P- 237) :—

Mis^RE D£ Job.

Contre Job autrefois le demon revolt^
Lui ravit ses enfants, ses biens et sa sante;
Mais pour mieux Peprouver et dechirer son dme,
Savez-vous ce qu'il fit ? II lui laissa sa femme.

This seems to be as hard upon marriage as you can well make it ;

almost as bitter as Marshal Saxe on the Seven Sacraments of the

Romish Church ("Booth's Epig." p. 195); he maintains there are

only six : —

For surely of the seven 'tis clear
Marriage and penance are but one.

But Coleridge has contrived to better the epigram in every way,
though, unfortunately, he has not indicated the source whence
he derived the original idea. I am not quite sure, however, that
Coquard does not get the idea from Owen. There is something so
chaotic in all books on epigrams, whether French, English, Latin, or
other, that you can trace nothing, and follow up nothing ; otherwise,
to make a collection of all the good epigrams in literature, and to
classify them through all their ramifications, setting all the imitations
in juxtaposition with the originals, would form a most interesting,
curious, and, I think, useful work. To watch an original piece of
wit, bom into the world by some true genius, and to see it pass
through its various metempsychoses, being re-bom, as it were, to a
new life with each fresh translation into a new tongue, would be
almost as curious as to watch a soul through all its successive
incorporations in the Brahminical transmigrations. I take it, too, that
it would prove no mean auxiliary to philology itself, for it would, as
by a species of comparative mental anatomy hitherto unattempted,
teach us how each nation incorporates and clothes in its own

Epigrams. 243

fashion a new idea presented to it There is, to a certain extent, no
doubt a national mental idiosyncrasy, just as there is a national type,
structural and physiognomical, of the body. " One touch of nature
makes the whole world kin ;" by this we might see that one touch of
dissimilarity keeps all nations separate. It is not the river or the
chain of hills, nor lakes, nor seas, that dissociate the races of roan-
kind; the particles of their thought gyrate differently — attraction and
repulsion are busy here unconsciously — and if a straw can show the
tide's drift, classified epigrams, for all that " they are a feeble folk,"
nay, because they are so, might indicate the national polarisation.
However, let us now revert to Coleridge's rendering of Coquard into

English : —

Job's Luck.
Sly Beelzebub took all occasions
To try Job's constancy and patience ;
He took his honours, took his health.
He took his children, took his wealth,
His camels, horses, asses, cows, —
And the sly devil did not take his spouse.
But Heaven, that brings out good from eWI,
And loves to disappoint the devil,
Had predetermined to restore
Twofold all Job had before.
His children, camels, horses, cows :
Shortsighted devil ! not to take his spouse.

Here the wit of the first stanza is redoubled in the second, and
by a species of Italian subtlety reveals the metaphysician underlying
the wit. The thing is perfect except the rhyme of the first couplet,
and Coleridge is in style almost always faultless. As perfect success
in phrasing is the characteristic of a great poet, so Coleridge has been
most felicitously called " the poet's poet " — though Mackintosh said
it first of Spenser — he is supreme in style, and in this not even
De Quincey equals him.

Bland thinks that Madame de Stael is justified in saying that
English literature is yet a stranger to what she terms " le langage
serrd,'' that is to say, terse, definite, and graceful expression. This
she affirms to be quite unkno^vn to our prose. The treatment of the
question would demand an entire paper. Rousseau has remarked
that "what good taste has once approved, is for ever good." A
great writer is bom with a style of his Own; as he outgrows his
minority, he comes naturally to it as to a grand inheritance ; he
must not therefore fashion it to suit the taste prevailing in his own
day, though this fallacy is constantly insisted on. He forfeits the future
if he temporises with the present. On this theme Bland himself

R2

244 T^f^ Gentlemafis Magazine.

glides into a sentence very excellent when he remarks that '' the
author who aspires to after ages should take leave of the age in which
he lives." One of the felicities of Jean- Jacques is " que les langues
du Midi ^taient filles de la joie, et les langues du Nord du besoin."
Out of all this it comes that the French can produce almost a
myriad of striking epigrams after the pattern of Martial, but very few
of the Greek type. Each side has its ardent advocates. H. Nelson
Coleridge, in the " Quarterly Review" of January, 1865, is rapturous
for the Greek and bitter on the stinging epigram ; whilst Malherbe, as
above, or Racan, of whom the same story is sometimes told, and the
whole French nation at their back, are achames for the opposite. Rapin
reports that a noble Venetian, Andreas Mangerius by name, a person
of great taste, had formed so rooted an antipathy to point as annually
to sacrifice a copy of Martial to the manes of Catullus. It appears to
me, however, that it would show higher discretion to abstain alto-
gether from partisanship, to rejoice pleasantly in the bon mot that a witty
Frenchman hits off so happily, embellishing it as he does with the
fittest measure and completest rhyme, and yet to remain fully alive to
the select and pensive style of which the great masters of antiquity
have left us such abundant and such choice examples. For after
all disputation and judgment — followed with execution, if you will, by
the camifex — it rests a fact that Martial and a brain-lit cloud of
Frenchmen are witty and of great price, whilst the Greeks cling to
grace as naturally as willows to an English river side.

Having tried to show that a bon mot is little else than an epigram
in the process of making, though it may never find a maker, it is
well, before passing from the French to other epigrams, to relate now
for the first time in print a witty and very characteristic saying
of Cardinal Wiseman's, when the Church of Rome made its famous
reprisal on the English Parliament upon the passing of the "Ec-
clesiastical Titles Bill. " His Eminence was coming to London
by railway from Hastings, having only one friend in the carriage with
him nearly all the way up, — that friend a handsome Spaniard. The
Cardinal, elate with the kclat of his fulminating " Pastoral," was in the
highest possible spirits, and in the most jubilant humour, and surpass-
ing himself even in the bonhomie and conviviality that usually charac-
terised his conversation. As the train came slowly in over the roofs
of London to deliver tickets, our portly prelate suddenly assumed
an air of much consequence, and composing his countenance to a
staid severity, that nothing but the malicious twinkle of his laughing
eye belied, said in a deep and solemn tone : '* Here comes Papal
.Ajiression." Friends and foes would probably alike regret that this

Epigrams. 245

so characteristic and rare specimen of humour in theology should
perish for lack of a prothonotary. It is witty and epigrammatic, but
better than that, it has humour. Wit may win many heads, and yet
make enemies faster than it gains reputation ; but humour wins hearts,
enters as a new and unknown guest, and quits them not, but is a Hfe-
long friend. The Cardinal spoke well.

The Germans, as may be imagined, are not usually excellent in
epigram. In the *• Outlandish Proverbs " selected by Mr. G. H.,
and published in 1640, No. 36 asserts that "a German's wit is in his
fingers.'' Lessing, if he may be judged of fairly from the little book
published in 1825, " Fables and Epigrams, from the German of
Lessing,'' was not able to find a great many, and but few pf those
few have any merit, unless they happen to be translations. A fair
one — and this Dodd calls ** admirable" — is that ** On the Horse of
Frederick William on the Bridge at Berlin " —

On me you gaze surprised, as though

Von doubted if I breathe or no ;
Expectant half to see me stir :

Enough — I only wait the spur.

This is not half so good as what Roubillac said of the sta^tue in West-
minster Abbey: "Hush! it vill speak presently" — (Smith's "Nolle-
kens.'- ) The idea was no doubt suggested by some one or other of the
many Greek epigrams on the Cow of Myron, which Gibbon says is
celebrated by the false wit of 36 Greek epigrams. Here the sneer of
Gibbon coincides with what we may call the fine-gentleman theory of
his day, which came into vogue by the foolish remark of Lord
Chesterfield, to which passing allusion was made above. What
Johannes Secundus, Anacreon, Fawkes, Ausonius, Paschasius,
Wright, Lessing as above, and many more, have thought worthy of
either imitation or translation may very well outweigh the negligent
and haphazard censure of a Gibbon and a Chesterfield.

Whilst somewhat disparaging the general quality of German
epigrams, one by Wernicke (Dodd, p. 511) ought not to be passed
over, for it is worthy of all commendation. It is translated in Hone's
" Table Book," 1831, ii. 479, and nms as follows : —

On Maternal Love.

ICrc yet her child has drawn its earliest breath,
A mother's love begins — it glows till death —
Lives before life — with death dies not — but seems
The very substance of immortal dreams.

If the following version might be permitted to pass for a ^uflli-r

246 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

ciently close rendering of the original, I should greatly prefer it as a
poem : —

The mother loves before the child is bom ;
She loves in night of death, as erst ere dawn ;
A mother's love through all our life beseems
The very substance of immortal dreams.

The thought thrown out by Wernicke is quite in the spirit of the
Greek epigram at its culminating epoch.

To exhibit the very odd shapes the epigram on Myron's Cow
takes, let this of Lessing's show : —

On a Battle Piece.

How fine the illusion ! Bremartus breathed shorter
When he saw it, fell prostrate, and roared out for quarter.

Here is the same appreciation of a work of art set forth in h)rper-
bole. Bowles has been sadly taken to task by Byron and many
others for his feebly poetical "sonnets," which may be said to
resemble the wine of Procter's poesy, only with yet another glass of
water added, Procter's own being, as to strength, nearly as pure as if
drawn direct from the purest font in Castaly. But whatever we may
think of Bowles's sonnets, we must allow that the following epigram
attains with perfect success all that it aims at It is " On a Scene in
France by De Loutherbourg," and is headed —

Royal Academy Exhibition, 1807.

Artist, I own thy genius ; but the touch
May be too restless, and the glare too much :
And sure none ever saw a landscape shine,
Basking in beams of such a sun as thine,
But felt a fervid dew upon his phiz.
And panting cried, O Lord, how hot it is !

Coleridge translated one of Lessing's epigrams, but as it runs to
a dozen lines, it is too long to be inserted here. It was probably
suggested by one in the " Menagiana," as shown by Dodd (p. 435), but
that is of small consequence, as it comes to us through Lessing and
Coleridge in much improved form. Menage was as learned as a
German, and, unlike a Frenchman, spoilt almost everything that he
touched

Scaliger thought that an epigram excelled when consisting of
many smaller epigrams. If that were so. Pope's " Essay on Man "
would constitute the wittiest epigram that ever was penned. But
when he illustrates the doctrine with a punning example, of his own
making, on a gouty patient, Lessing very properly says that this

Epigrams. 247

q>igrain, which is to contain four, scarcely amounts to one, and
concludes his remarks upon it with this choice sentence : —

Its rapid solution is swelled out by each additional line like a swollen out
bladder, which at last explodes, and produces wind alone.

Certainly the elegance of the commentator and the wit of the
epigrammatist are both quite upon a par, and both are strictly
German. We quit them with the softly-whispered prayer, Long may
they continue so — " Heureux celui qui parle bien ou qui sait bien se

taire"— (" Le Noble," p. 388.)

The epitaph and the epigram are very much alike. Plato in his
"Laws" (v. 529, Bohn*s Edition), defining the law for an epitaph,
does so in words that would almost equally suit the epigram:

And make not the upright tombstones greater than what may contain the
praises of the deceased in not more than four heroic verses.

In both epigram and epitaph the Italians are very successful,
whether writing in their own language or in Latin. That was very
bitter of Sannazarius, the celebrated Neapolitan, who wrote Latin as
well as Catullus, on Pope Leo X. — (Dodd, 105) :

Sacra sub extremS, si forte requiritis, hora
Cur Leo non poterat sumere ; vendiderat.

Why Leo died unshrived none need be told,
For he long since the sacred things had sold.

John Evelyn translated his epigram "On Venice." I do not
quote it, because it is not well done, and I cannot on the instant
refer to Sannazarius himself. Evelyn only runs it out to six lines, so
I suppose the Italian put it in four. What is the most remarkable
about it is the price paid for it. The Venetian Senate is reported to
have sent him the sum of jQz'^o for these few verses. Louis du
Bois, who edited the Vaux dt Vire of Basselin in 1821, gives at
page 28 a yet more noticeable instance of the remuneration of a
poet for a well-timed song. He relates that when Coll^ wrote his
" Chanson sur la prise de Fort-Mahon par Richelieu, le 20 juin 1756,"
he received for 36 short lines a pension of 600 francs. As he lived
27 years, he would have had at death 16,300 francs, that is to say,
he ought to have received that sum at death if his pension were more
regularly paid to him than were generally the pensions accorded to
people in the glorious reign of the grand monarque. Contrast this
with the price paid by Simmons to Milton for " Paradise Lost " —
two sums of jE^io during his lifetime, and a further sum of ;^8 to his
daughter after his decease. The money price of poetry is in inverse
ratio perhaps to the merit But as this episode- on4he-niarketable<'

248 The Gentleman's Magazine.

ness of high brainwork may grow too long, let us terminate it with
a gentle benediction, " God bless the publishers and a discerning
public ! "

There is an odd epitaph by Stroza on John Picus of Mirandola
in St. Mark's at Florence :

Johannes jacet hie Mirandola ; csetera norunt
£t Tagus et Ganges, forsan et Antipodes.

Dodd says, " This celebrated epitaph can only be translated into
prose," but I see no law in usage nor in the statute-book forbidding
to turn it thus into verse :

Here lies Mirandola. What would you more, friend, please?
Ask Tagus, Ganges, or perhaps th* Antipodes.

The epitaph by John Peter Bellori on Nicholas Poussin is very

pleasing — (Dodd, p. 161):

Forbear to weep where Poussin's ashes lie ;
Who taught to live himself can never die !
Though silent here, from whence no language breaks,
Yet in his works he lives, and eloquently speaks.

We are told this is translated by C. The rhyme of the closing
couplet is not admirable. The idea, however, which is Bellori's,
some critics would condemn as a conceit. I think Nelson Coleridge
would, unless he found it in a Greek epigram ; but in truth, if such
things are not forced too far, and if they are managed with taste,
they are very beautiful. A reader who wishes enjoyment will do
well to divest himself of all theory, and to lend a willing ear to
every true chord struck on the harp of a poet Few will do this, and
consequently much bad poetry gets a good name amongst us» and
good poets, who never write by theory, die out unknown, and the
echo of reputation only reaches to their name some 50 years after
the sacristan has written it down in the burial entry.

If such things be bad, nearly all Petrarch's sonnets must be
rejected, for they abound in concetti of the sort, and they are
beautiful, though old Montaigne had a fling at them from his high-
perched dovecot-tower in quaint P^rigord. Have not witty French-
men revenged themselves by making a pdti on the very principle
condemned by Monseigneur, which has attained a world-wide cele-
brity, and been called — risum teneatis — " de Pdrigord " ?

Bellori's epigram is one of a myriad set going by Praxiteles'
statue of Niobe, on which a Greek author unknown, as quoted by
Jacobs (iv. 181), wrote the following: —

To stone the Gods had changed her-^but in vain :
The5CI^p^r's art has made her breathe again.

Epigrams. . 249

The wits of England, in the last generation, perpetrated no fewer
than 200 epigrams on Chantrey's woodcocks, a brace of which he shot
and then cut in marble, and thereby, according to these gentlemen,
rendered them immortal. The woodcocks, could they have been asked,
might have thought the death sanguinary, and the immortality hard
as well as doubtful.

Epigrams, to a certain extent, take a tincture from nationalities
and their place of birth. As Fuller oddly asserts that the paper of his
day resembled the nation where it was made, — " the Venetian being
neat, subtle, and courtlike ; the French, light, slight, and slender ;
and the Dutch, thick, corpulent, and gross, sucking up the ink with
the spunginess thereof," this supposition must have been uppermost
in the mind when the following epigram was penned —

On the Epigrams of Nations.

Germans love beer, their throat than wit is wetter,

The Frenchmen fence, and with sharp point must speak,

Th' English are good, and your Italians better,
But best at epigram 's the ancient Greek.

Cumberland, in his "Observer," has shown how much Ben Jonson
stole from the Greek anthology, even to that so celebrated gem, " Drink
to me only with thine eyes." But then Shakespeare stole from every-
body, though he would have us to believe that he found "sermons in
stones and good in everything." It is instructive, amidst the modem
preachment about originality, to find that the greatest thief of all is also
the greatest poet. Honesty reckons for as little in literature as it
does in the world. And the poet stands no less indebted to Mercury
than to Apollo. The community of letters is not so much a republic
as a communistic society where all belongs to everybody. A thought
once uttered belongs to any one who knows how to re-employ it well,
and your critic, eternally crying " Stop thief" to every man so doing,
arrests invention and checks the young thought that would have been
immediately generated by the old one. Emerson says, capitally, that
" a ship is a quotation from all forests." Fancy labelling each plank
after the country it was grown in !

To insist much on originality is to show an abundant lack of it.
The doctrine is like the vine, and strikes root deepest in barren ground.
The subtlest thinker will be the readiest to say, that it is a great bar
to improvement if a new writer is to be warned off every beautiful
thought because somebody else had used something like it before him.
If thoughts of beauty were touched and retouched by every succes-
sive hand that felt the impulse, I believe that the cultivated languages
of the world would be infinitely richer in phrases of splendid, subtle

250 714^ Gentleman s Magazine.

and pathetic utterance than now they are. Bums, for instance, never
wrote anything so fine as the scraps of the old songs to which he
fitted fi'esh words, and Beethoven envied the melodies of the Scotch
songs, as deep, pure music, that could not be reached at pleasure by
even the highest genius backed by the highest science. The reason is
that these notes and these words, as they come to stand out at last,
were not written by anyone; they were toudied here aHttleand there
a little by the magical craft of each genius that ever sang them, while
the soul was hot within him or her, and whilst the wave rhythm of the
harp was pulsing on the air and ear. Neither Burns nor Basselin
could imitate it It has taken all the lucky instants of more than
900 years to make it, with no fool to spoil it by shouting, in the
midst, " Haro ! that's mine ! "

Now, to drop from this, more to the matter in hand and touching
epigrams. It would be excellent if good poets would make it a
business to render epigrams from all foreign languages into their own,
availing themselves of every prior translation, and taking without
compunction every good phrase they find, and embodying it in the
new version. If they can put a word better, put it. The ignorant
may think this easy or not worth the doing, but let them learn that
none who is other than a true poet bom can attain any success at all
in it I yield to none in respect for Cowper's English, but if he
translate from the Anthology, from Owen, the bright Welshman, or
Vinny Boume, the Westminster usher, and you can better a single
word, a phrase, or the mn of a sentence, let no respect for the bard
of Olney hold you back. The divine English tongue puts Shake-
speare himself down, and he who can find one right word does better,
by placing it in position due, than he who falls on his knee before
the authority of a name, even though the name be towering and
monumental as that of the praise-bespattered swan effluent Avon.

This paper on Epigrams has grown under the hand, and the dif-
ficulty has been much greater to make it as short as it is, than it would
have been to make it ten times longer. In giving hints as to what
the Greeks achieved, with specimens of what the French have done,
some renderings firom the Mediaeval Latinists, and a few Italian ex-
amples and German, I am left with no room at all for epigrams of
English growth — and they swarm. We are at the end of our paper, and
have but begun our theme.

Those who wish to manufacture epigrams need only take a col-
lection of bans mots^ and turn them, for an epigram is but a bon mot
packed in a distich ; and an epitaph is, or ought to be, a mortuary
epigram. Let us close with a couple ; the one " On Ronsard " is by

Epigrams. 251

Pythaeus, in Latin. I think die rendering is better than the origina],
which may be found in Hakewill's " Apology/' iii. p. 293 : —

Greatest of poets ! that old time or

Or coming time to France shall ever bring ;

The rites we chant are less than Ronsard's due,

Fit words, great ghost ! 'twould need thyself to sing.

The Latin epitaph " On Petrarch," at Arqua, in Italy, is given in
the note below. Here, also, the translation has, in the close, some
advantage over the original. (Hakewill, iiL p. 292) : —

Stretched beneath this frigid stone
Lie Francis Petrarch's flesh and bone.
Virgin Mother ! guard the goal :
Son of Virgin ! save his soul ;
l.ead him — bard of bards^-on high,
Through Heaven's thronging company, —
Men like Petrarch never die. *

Here the curtain drops, and the epitaph of so great an Italian
master-singer appropriately closes in our little pageant. Very beau-
tiful indeed are the words of Arsfene Houssaie (p. 167) : " Les plus
grandes renomm^es finissent par une ^pitaphe." Man's life begins
with a sharp cry, and rounds it to an epitaphial tear.

CHAKLES A. WARD.

' Frigida Francisci lapis hie tegit ossa Petrarchae,
Suscipi, Virgo parens, animam, Sate virgine, parce,
Fessaquc jam terriscoeli requiescat in arce.

353 The Gentlemaiis Magazine.

TABLE TALK.

A COUPLE of centuries can scarcely be reckoned a long lease of
life for a public monument. Very little more than that time,
however, has been accorded Temple Bar, which, shaken from without
and prematurely decrepid, has now ceased to exist It is fitting that
its disappearance should be chronicled in the Gentleman's Magazine^
since, in spite of the obloquy of late cast upon it by those who saw in
■ifhothing but an obstruction to traffic, it was neither without dignity
nor historical interest. According to trustworthy testimony, including
that of the Gentleman's (November 1767), it was erected in 1670.
It is, accordingly, older than St. Paul's, a fact I commend to the
notice of those who dispute its right to consideration. I will not
puzzle these contemners of poor old Temple Bar by asking them what
age may be supposed to confer distinction. If what has been held
of man, that he lives longest who sees most, is true of stone also,
Temple Bar might advance a claim to absolute antiquity, since the
strongest torrent of life the world has seen has rolled for two centuries
through its arches. Like St. Paul's, too. Temple Bar stands upon
the site of an earlier erection, which owed its destruction to the
effects of the fire of London. Through the earlier building Queen
Elizabeth passed in state to return thanks for the defeat of the
Spanish Armada. The scene on this occasion is described by Stowe
in his " Annales." Sir Christopher Wren's stnicture witnessed the
passage of Queen Anne on a like errand on the occasion of the
victories of the Duke of Marlborough. It is, of course, in connec-
tion with the exhibition of the heads of the conspirators in the Rye
House Plot, the Jacobite Rebellion, and other kindred movements
that Temple Bar is best remembered. In spite of the shock that had
been administered to its foundation by the excavations for the law
Courts, the old Bar was not removed without extreme difficulty. It
might indeed have said with Adam in " As You Like It,"

Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty.

Table Talk. 253

Architecturally it was well proportioned, though wanting, of course, in
elevation. A spot facing the river, on the Thames Embankment, has
been talked of for it, and seems as likely as any other. It is to be
hoped, however, that some new statues will be obtained in place of
the thoroughly contemptible works of Bushnell which formerly dis-
graced the edifice. These were mere mason's work. Some slight
widening of the Strand at the point at which Temple Bar stood is, it
is satisfactory to know, in contemplation. If the entire south side of
the Strand could be carried back, it would have the double advantage
of affording a view of the new Law Courts, which the foot passenger
under existing conditions will never be able to obtain, and of pre-
venting the removal of the two churches in the Strand which now
oppose a most formidable obstruction to traffic. That these churches
will have to go is, I fear, inevitable. Commerce will then have
things its own way, and the Strand, having lost all that is characteristic
in its physiognomy, will be as convenient and as handsome as Totten-
ham Court Road.

A LONDON M.D., who is a vegetarian, has been writing to the
papers to say that he knows many persons who keep them-
selves strong and well upon sixpence a day. "I have myself,"
he says, " lived and maintained my full weight and power to work
on threepence a day, and have no doubt at all that I could live very
well on a penny a day." If he can do this in the winter, when there
are no lettuces, how very small must his expenditure be in the
summer ! The philosopher who kept his horse upon a straw a day,
and would no doubt have made a most " rampagious and spirited "
animal of him if he hadn't' suddenly dropped down dead, fades into
insignificance beside this member of the Faculty. There is, indeed,
a certain American recipe for living on a penny a day — but with a flaw
in it " Buy a large apple," it says, " and in the morning, when you eat
it, drink a quart of water ; then it will swell In the afternoon " (here
is the flaw) " dine with a friend." Either the doctor dines with a
friend (in which case he must eat for three people), or he must be a
mad doctor.

WHILE Pope Pius the Ninth has lingered on from day to day
as though death could find no portion of the dilapidated
frame on which to fix a grasp firm enough to remove him, his great
antagonist has slipped quickly and quietly out of being. No living
monarch has known a career so diversified as Victor Emmanuel, and
none has played more cleverly or with more success such cards

5 54 ^^ Gentleman* s Magazine.

as were dealt him by Fortune. Absolutely marvellous appears the
manner in which he has steered his course through the troubled
waters around him. With Austria, at the outset of his career,
dominant over the major portion of what at the time of his death
constituted his kingdom, with France covetous of his territory,
with the Pope banning him in consistory, and the " Reds " plotting
against him in camera, he has built up a kingdom and died in his
bed. This is not the place in which to dwell upon his career. It
is curious that his death should have followed so closely upon that
of his tried soldier Delia Marmora, and still more curious that it
should have taken place on the same day on which, five years ago, his
friend and ally Louis Napoleon also " shuffled off this mortal coil."
Not the least gratifying adjunct to a royal name is the title the
Italians bestowed upon him of '' II Rb Galantuomo." His motto
through life appears to have been that of Hotspur, with whom, as
seen in Shakespeare, he seems to have had much in common. '' Out
of this nettle danger we pluck this flower safety."

THE doings of the famous " Long Firm " have been quite thrown
into the shade by those recently brought to light of a very
Short one, namely, Messrs. Helmsley and Tunstall, of Harwich,
general dealers. The senior partner is aged i6, the junior 14, and
their transactions, though very various, seem only to have been
carried on for a few months. The chief portion of their stock-in-
trade was kept between the joists and the roof of the next house — a
novel and inexpensive system of warehousing which, however, was
only a slight example of their extraordinary business talents. As
bookkeepers they would have been a cftedit to any establishment,
and into this branch of commerce they threw a touch of romance,
such as, unhappily, is but too rare in mercantile transactions. On the
title page of their ledger, or day-book, was inscribed, by a pleasant
touch of fency, the following title, which indicated their occupation
" United Order of Outlaws;" while every page had such a veracious
account of their proceedings as would have satisfied the strictest
accountant For instance, " What and how I have stolen money,"
was followed by a long list of coins acquired in that particular way of
business; and what is very curious, and seems to indicate either a sense
of humour, or a habit of acquisition which did not shrink from
gratifying itself, even in the smallest matter, from any morbid notions
of sentiment, the first item entered i^^as, " One penny stolen from
mother." Then follows, " What I have stolen out of shops," " What I
have stolen firom persons and places," &c &c, the whole containing

Table Talk. 255

the most practical statements with a ndrvdi and (almost) an innocence
that would have done credit to the records of an amateur Charity
Organisation Society. Nor was the future neglected by the two
partners. In another day-book, or what one may venture to call,
perhaps, a To-morrow book, there were memoranda, " What I have
to steal," ** What I have to take from tills," &c. &c., and also one
very singular item, " ^^^lat I have to write for," under which are the
names of the required articles, including " medicines," ** cosmetics,"
a "volume of poetry," and "a cure for tlu nerves'* In the first
ledger there is also " ^Vhat Tunstall has got by housebreaking," which
would seem to indicate that the junior partner took that branch of
business entirely upon his own shoulders. They dealt in wet goods
as well as dry, for among the stock fomid on their (neighbour's) pre-
mises was a barrel of ale " stolen from an hotel door." Messrs.
Helmsley and Tunstall arc at present in difficulties, their property
being, as it were, in sequestration at the hands of the police ; but I
do hope that so strange an example of youthful assiduity, acquisitive*
ness, and habits of business, joined to a turn for romance (which
will be something new to him), will not escape the biographical
attentions of Mr. Smiles. If these young persons are not " self-made
men," they certainly bade fair to become so, while, as it is, they are
conspicuous examples of Self- Help.

THE flutter that has been caused among Transmontane archaeo«
logists by the reputed discovery of the old Apulian city of
Sipontum, will soon extend to this country, should the news prove
true. It may well indeed console the lovers of ancient art for the
delay in those explorations of the bed of the Tiber which were to
follow the achievement of Italian unity. According to the state-
ments which reach England, a temple of Diana and a colonnade about
sixty-five feet long have been revealed. Sipontum, which is mentioned
by Strabo and Silius Italicus, and frequently by Livy, stood in what
is now called the Gulf of Manfredonia on the Adriatic, immediately
below the promontory of Gargantum. Its abandonment was due to
a depression of the soil, resulting from volcanic action. The build-
ings now discovered are said to be not less than twenty feet below
the level of the surrounding plain, a portion of the existing town of
Manfredonia being built upon the older city. Such remains as can
be removed have been carried to Naples, and diligent explorations
have, it is said, been ordered by the Italian Government. If what is
now stated is correct, a new field is opened out to the English tra-
veller. Mr. Cook will doubtless keep his eyes open.

2$6 The Gmtletnafis Magazine.

I HAVE heard much surprise expressed at the appearance of the
following recent advertisement in a weekly newspaper : — " Large
house and garden in the country; rent free to respectable family who
¥rill entertain the proprietor for about a month yearly." People
seem to think that this is a magnificent offer; but, as a matter of fact,
it is only a very sensible one. How many folks do I know to whom
their " large house in the country '' is an intolerable nuisance as well,
of course, as being very expensive. If they are not sporting folks
they only use it for a few weeks, and rather as a matter of duty than
pleasure. They must show themselves in " the neighbourhood " and
" keep the old house up," but the days (after the first week) are very
long which they spend there. What, then, can be nicer and more
economical than to get " a respectable family " to occupy \X.for them,
keep the rooms warmed, and the beds aired, and to entertain them
when they have the fancy to visit it? My only fear is that the
respectable family will generally be found disinclined to put up with
their " proprietor *' for so much as a month. As a matter of curiosity
I should like to know how many answers the advertiser in question
has received, and especially how he gets on with the tenant selected.

IT is no doubt a fine stroke of humour that the Hindoos are
meditating in sending out their missionaries to Australia ; we
can hardly think that " the miserable and degraded state of their
Christian fellow-subjects " in that region (caused by drink) should
have called forth this enterprise, but for the spur of satire — the desire
" to do as they had been done by " as to proselytising; and yet the
idea is not original. Years ago, in London, a society purporting to
be composed of members of the Lower Orders was started under
the most intellectual auspices " for the improvement of the Upper
Classes." " Visiting the poor " is often very much like the same barren
ceremony among the rich ; their fashionable patronesses leave, not
indeed a card, but a tract, " First Steps in Sin ; or, The Half-pint of
Porter." This visiting, under the guidance of the " Upper Classes
Improvement Society," was thus returned. Mrs. Starch, of Washmg
House Court, was supplied with a tract on the other side of the
question— "Too Late; or, The Small Hours" — to leave on the
Hon. Mrs. Fineairs, of Vanity Square, "with kindest wishes for her
social amendment." The society collapsed for want of funds, and
their idea, not being copyright, has been obviously adopted by the
Hindoos.

SYLVANUS URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

March 1878.

ROY'S WIFE.

BY G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE.

Chapter XII.

BURTON BRAKE.

" XT OT going to ride ! " exclaimed Miss Bruce, who was pre-
1 \l siding over half-a-dozen guests at the breakfast table, as
Lord Fitzowen appeared in his usual morning dress, with one arm
still disabled and in a sling. " I thought your shoulder was better ;
this is a disappointment. Consider, Lord Fitz; your new friend, Mrs.
Roy, won't see you in a red coat"

" Don't hit a fellow when he's down, Miss Bruce," answered his
lordship, walking to a well-covered side-table. " I'm hardly man
enough to ride my brown horse with both hands ; he would have it
all his own way if I tried to steer him with one. No ; if you'll have
me, I'm going to drive with you'^

" I understand ! " replied Hester. " Yes, you shall come with us
if you feel equal to taking care of two ladies. It's very touching, I
must say, when I think of all you are giving up. Burton Brake's the
only good place on that side of our country."

" I would give up anything for the pleasure of driving with you^
Miss Bruce."

"And Mrs. Roy, Lord Fitz. Your memory is very short; you
seem to have forgotten Mrs. Roy."

" John Roy's new wife ! " exclaimed one of the red-coats, stretching
a scarlet arm out for toast. " Is she going with you. Miss Bruce?
They tell me she is as handsome as paint ; but nobody knows where
she came from. Wasn't she an actress, or a shopwoman, or some-
thing ? "

VOU CCXLIT. NO. 1767. S

258 The GentlematCs Magazine.

" Ask Lord Fitzowen," said Hester.

'* Actress ! shopwoman I Nothing of the kind," replied that
nobleman, provoked to feel, for the first time since he left Eton, as
if he was going to blush. " She is as ladylike a person as ever you
saw. Amiable, accomplished, well-mannered, and — and — that's all
I know about her."

It seemed a lame conclusion, provoking general laughter, during
which the carriage was announced, and as a couple of hacks had
been trampling the gravel before the windows for the last ten minutes,
it was voted time to be oE

So early a start did not seem necessary from Royston Grange,
which was some miles nearer the place of meeting. Its master could
therefore enjoy two rather \musual luxuries on a hunting morning, a
leisurely toilet and an unhurried breakfast In his red coat, white
leathers, top boots, and bright spurs, all well cleaned and well put
on, John Roy looked no unfavoiuable specimen of the English
gentleman, and we may be sure Nelly thought so too. She had not
yet seen him often enough in this striking attire, for the admiration,
mixed with wonder, which it produced to have palled on her unac-
customed eyes, though she was less impressed than a certain damsel
totally unused to the society of sportsmen who married a firiend of
my own many years ago.

If this lady ever heard of fox-hunting, she had no idea that any
special dress was required for that amusement Hitherto she had
only seen a scarlet coat on the back of a British soldier or a royal
footman. Language is powerless to convey her feeling of terror and
dismay when in the third week of their honeymoon, on the first
Monday in November, her husband came down to breakfast gorgeous
from head to foot in full hunting costume.

She felt she was bound for life to a madman \ an illusion that the
experience of many succeeding Novembers fiuled entirely to dispel

" I like you so much in your red coat," said Nelly, with her frank
bright smile, as Mr. Roy, moving more stiffly than u^ual, took his
place at the breakfistst table. ''Only, I wish, I do wish hunting was
not so dangerous ! " Every man in his heart would be thought
"prodigal of his person," but he was too honest not to admit, though
he went straight enough when the hounds ran, that with good horses,
well ridden, he reduced the risk of crossing a country to a minimum.

" Wait till you've been out and seen us ride, Nelly," he answered
pleasantly, " youll never think it dangerous again."

Last night's ill-humour had vanished ; coming clouds were as yet
below the horizon. He felt in high spirits, anticipating no littlci

Roy's Wife. 259

enjoyment from the day's sport If he was pleased, she was happy,
and while she pinned a hot-house flower in his button-hole and gave
him a parting kiss, she felt as if the old days had come back once
more. The old days ! How old were they, after all? She could
count the intervening time by weeks, and yet there seemed a break,
a gap, a gulf between then and now.

As his distance from the meet was but three miles, Mr. Roy rode
from the door on the hunter he intended to keep out all day. Nelly
watched man and horse till they disappeared with a swelling heart.
How she admired her husband, how she loved him ! Surely she had
everything she wanted in the world — what was this vague misgiving,
this shadowy foreboding of evil, that haunted her at every turn ?

There was no time for such speculations. Already an open
carriage might be seen bowling along the avenue, and Mrs. Roy,
with innate good-breeding, flew upstairs to put on her things, that
she might not keep Hester waiting at the door.

It was no unpleasant surprise to find Lord Fitzowen, buttoned
up in an ulster coat, occupying the front seat of the barouche. With
her usual frankness, Nelly told him so, and wondered why Miss
Bruce should look more amused, and his lordship more pleased, than
the occasion seemed to warrant.

But she had never been out hunting before, even on wheels, and
all other feelings were soon lost in the novelty and excitement of the
situation.

" It was like taking a child about," said Hester, describing their
drive the same afternoon to Sir Hector at tea. " I mean to be fonder
of Mrs. Roy than anybody in the county. She is a dear thing, papa,
so fresh, so honest, and so charmingly unsophisticated ! When we
overtook the hounds in the Fosse Road, she actually clapped her
hands with delight We couldn't help laughing, and she did look
perfectly beautiful when she blushed. I am sure Lord Fitz thought
so too ! "

Miss Bruce was right : his lordship enjoyed his day's hunting even
more than his companions, though it must be confessed that some
of Mrs. Roy's questions on the noble science puzzled him exceed-
ingly.

Like most ladies, she seemed interested in riding rather than
hunting, in horses rather than hounds. It was no easy matter to
satisfy her shrewd and inquiring mind as to the powers of a good
hunter, and what fences should or should not be attempted in the
hurry of the chase. Did not Mr. Roy's bodily safety depend on the
solution of such problems ?

S2

26o The Gentleman^ s Magazine.

Pointing to some strong ash rails nearly five feet high, with a wide
ditch on the landing side into the road, along which they were
driving — " Could your horse leap that^ Lord Fitzowen," she asked ;
" or would it be impossible? I hope it would ! "

He felt constrained to admit, however forbidding this obstacle
might appear, there were many good hunters that, properly ridden,
could clear it without a mistake.

" Then, if you came to it, you would go over, of course ? " she
continued, looking anxiously in his face.

Hester's mirthful eyes were on him, and he was obliged to tell
the truth.

" I would rather go round by Warden Towers," said he. " I would
rather lose the best run that ever was seen. I would rather never go
out hunting again ! "

" But why, if it's not impossible ? "

"Why? Mrs. Roy. Why? Well, I suppose, because I am afraid."

She looked immensely relieved, and seemed able now to turn her
attention with unalloyed enjoyment to the business of the hour.

This commenced from the moment they arrived at the place of
meeting. Such of the county gentlemen as had not yet been intro-
duced, reined in their horses and made their bows, as gracefully as
bridles and hatstrings would permit. Miss Bruce was a general
favourite, but her companion seemed, to-day, the centre of attraction ;
and many glances of unqualified admiration, from sportsmen of all
ages and sizes, were launched at the open carriage where sat " Roy's
new wife."

She looked about for her husband in vain. He came by a shorter
way than the party in the carriage, and, as he rode slowly, arrived
only when the hounds moved off for the covert. He quickened his
pace then, and stole quietly down to a certain comer, which experience
taught him was the likeliest place for a good start

Burton Brake, a straggling covert of brushwood and black-thorn,
on the side of a hill, lay immediately under a wide tract of downs. It
was a favourite resort of foxes ; and, for some unexplained reason,
they usually went away from it at the low side, to make a distant
point across the Vale. This was a flat, strongly-fenced district, con-
sisting chiefly of grass, without a canal, or a river, or a railroad, or
even an impracticable brook. Its farm-houses were few and far
between ; its enclosures were large, and wire was unknown. In good
scenting weather it afforded almost the certainty of a run, and,
if he had a choice, a man did not bring his worst horse to Burton
Brake!

Roys Wife. 261

*' He's away ! '' exclaimed Miss Bruce, as the quick notes of a horn
came wafted up the hill on the light easterly breeze.

" Who? " asked Nelly, shaking with excitement.

''The fox, my dear, of course. Look ! I can see the leading
hounds. There, to the left of the tall ash. Three 6t four specks of
white in that large green field. The/re all coming though, and the
huntsman, and a black coat, and four, five, six, red ! Now the/re at
the fence. Capital ! One down, I'm afraid ; and he's let his horse
go ! Oh ! I wish I was on Safeguard 1 They're going to have the
best run that ever was seen 1 "

Fortunately for Nelly's peace of mind, the fallen sportsman
wore a dark coat, and, therefore, could not be her husband. She
fancied, indeed, that she made him out amongst the half-dozen riders
who were nearest the hounds.

Somehow, it seemed less dangerous than she had supposed, and
infinitely better fun. Her companions, too, were as eager for the
sport as if they had never been out hunting before. Already they
were consulting as to the best line for a carriage to travel in the
direction of the chase.

" Into the Fosse again, Peter," said Lord Fitzowen to the coach-
man. " Then to the right, and keep on the high ground. If they
turn to the downs, we shall command them all the time."

" No, no. Lord Fitz, " protested Hester. " He went away like a
good fox, and with this wind he'll make his point for Brierley Bottoms.
We had a nice gallop over the same line three weeks ago. There — I
can see them bending to the left. Into Marigold Lane, Peter ! down
to Burton- Hayes, and if we don't come up with them at the Purlieus,
make for Brierley Steeple as fast as you can 1 "

So Peter started his horses at a smart trot that soon became a
canter; using such despatch, indeed, in Marigold Lane, notwith-
standing its ruts and inequalities, as to overtake divers second-horse-
men, a colt-breaker, a boy on a pony, and several more laggards of
the chase.

"Do you think we shall ever see them again?" asked Nelly,
straining her eyes to scan the extreme distance, eight or nine miles
off. " I should like to know what becomes of the fox, only I hope
they won't kill it, poor thing ! "

" I hope they will!" replied Miss Bruce. " Why, my dear Mrs.
Roy, that's the one thing that makes a good run perfect. Look out !
Lord Fitz. If they're coming to the Purlieus, you ought to see some-
thing of them at the next turn."

" By Jove ! There they are ! Miss Bruce, you're a witch. No.

262 The GentlemarHs Magazine.

You're a capital judge of hunting. They're checked, I do believe.
They're all standing still in the lane. Bravo ! They've hit it oflf
again. Look ! Mrs. Roy. Do you see the sheep running ? That's
the line of the fox. The hounds are right ! He's crossed the brook.
Now we shall have some fun ! "

" It's practicable enough, " said Hester. " I jumped it on
Gondolier last season."

" They don't seem to think so ! Hurrah ! Three fellows are
going to have it — four I five ! Well done ! There are two over, and
one, I think, in for all day ! "

Even at so long a distance Nelly's loving eyes had recognised her
husband. He was safely landed on the right side, yet she turned
pale to realise the risk he had run.

** One of those is Mr. Roy, " she observed softly. " How beauti-
fully he rides ! "

** I didn't know he was out, " commented Lord Fitzowen. " I
never saw him at the Meet. You're quite rights Mrs. Roy, he can
ride when he likes. He's going like a bird to-day ! "

He was going well. A skilful horseman, experienced in the
sport, riding a practised hunter that answered every turn of his hand,
every pressure of his limbs, he found no difficulty in keeping close to
the pack. Fence after fence, and field after field, were disposed of
with the ease and confidence attained by a combination of good
nerves, good riding, good condition, and good blood.

He went in and out of the lane not twenty yards from his wife,
but so intent was he on the hounds, and the management of his
horse, that he saw neither the carriage nor its occupants.

Nelly watched him with her heart in her eyes. The others, under
pressure of that mysterious law which compels everybody, out hunting,
to get somewhere else in a tremendous hurry, were giving Peter many
contrary directions, that caused him, however, to put his horses into
a gallop, and make for a turnpike road with the utmost despatch.

Over its harder surface, those who hunted on wheels were able to
hold their own with the riders. They overtook, indeed, more than
one defeated sportsman, disappointed that his horse could not gallop
on for ever, or so far behind, that he had pulled up in disgust ; but,
in either case, plunged in the lowest depths of misery, just as the
first flight were raised to the seventh heaven of enjoyment.

*' There's Brierley Steeple ! " exclaimed Hester, pointing to the
distant spire, with a taper gloved hand. "It's down-hill all the
way to the village, and a capital road. I'll never pilot anybody again,
if we don't come up with them now ! "

Roy's Wife. 263

But though Miss Bruce was right, and her knowledge of fox-
hunting did not mislead her when she named Brierley Bottoms as the
probable conclusion of the chase, it had come to a triumphant termi-
nation long before she could arrive at that rough and broken ravine.
The fox had been eaten, the huntsman praised, the chosen few had
exchanged enthusiastic compliments and congratulations. When the
carriage stopped amongst them,«they were already lighting their dgars,
and preparing to go home.

Chapter XIII.
sweet sympathy.

After a storm comes a calm ; after keen excitement, a reaction,
partly welcome for its repose, partly saddening for its depression.
He who has been so fortunate as to go from end to end of a run with
fox-hounds, to his own satisfaction, feels, strange to say, as if he had
performed a good action. The past, which is perhaps capable of
affording more definite pleasiu-e than either the present or the future,
seems truly delightful, till his blood cools down. Then he comes
back into the world of reality, somewhat chilled and dispirited, as
everybody, after childhood, must be, on first waking up from a dream.

John Roy caught sight of the carriage containing Nelly and her
friends, as he put his horse into a trot on the firm surface of the high
road — pleased to find that, after standing about for a quarter of an
hour, the good animal, notwithstanding its exertions, was neither stiff
nor lame. He was disposed to be praised, and, so to speak, patted on
the back for his prowess, considering with reason that he had acquitted
himself more than creditably in a manly exercise. It was as if cold
water had been poured down his back to observe Lord Fitzowen
gesticulating on the front seat of the barouche. Opposite his wife.
He had not once thought of Fitz all the morning, nor, truth to tell,
of Nelly, for more than fifty minutes. A wife's image is the last that
occurs to a man while hoimds are running hard — the juxtaposition of
these two reminded him of them in the most unwelcome manner.
He felt cross and put out — all the more that he was unable to explain
why — and did not care if one of the offenders, or both, should be
made aware of his ill-humour.

Hester, in a high state of excitement, was the first to accost him.

"What a good gallop, Mr. Roy I How I've been envying you 1

264 Tfu Gentleman s Magazine.

We went very well, considering we were in a carriage, and kept you
in sight all the time ! "

Of course the ruder he meant to be to his wife, the more politeness
he showed Miss Bruce.

" You ought to have been on Safeguard or Gondolier," said he
with a most amiable smile. ''It would have suited you exactly.
Five-and-forty minutes, only one check, lots of jumping, and not
above half-a-dozen fellows with the hounds."
Nelly tried in vain to catch his eye.

" We saw you," she exclaimed eagerly. " I was so frightened
when you came to the river — the brook, I mean — Lord Fitzowen won't
let me call it a river. How brave of you to leap it ! I shut my eyes
for fear you should be drowned, and when I opened them, there you
were, safe over — the dear horse ! I'm not afraid of horses. I should
like to stroke his nose ! "

Pained, disappointed, she looked imploringly in her husband's
face, while he left her unnoticed, to continue his conversation with
Miss Bruce.

** We never touched the Purlieus. He was too hot to go in, and
he left Burton Hayes half-a-mile to the right, so that it was almost
straight, and grass every yard. From Burton Brake to Brierley can't
be less that nine miles on the map — we must have come fully eight
as the crow flies. It has been a real good thing. As far as I can
make out, it's the same line you went three weeks ago, before the
frost No doubt it was the same fox, but he'll never show you a run,
Miss Bruce, any more."

" I'm sorry they've killed it ! " exclaimed Nelly, addressing herself
to Lord Fitzowen, as nobody else seemed inclined to listen. " The
poor fox ! Think how happy he was this morning before we came.
Curled up, fast asleep, among the bushes, like one's own dog on the
hearth-rug. It does seem hard. Why must the pleasure of one
creature be the pain of another ? Why is there so much misery in
the worid ? "

Such questions involved a train of deeper thought than Lord
Fitzowen was in the habit of following out, and he answered vaguely —
" Yes, of coiu-se. It's a great pity, and all that. Still, you know,
Mrs. Roy, when you go to find a fox, you must let the hounds hunt
him, you know, and kill him if they can. It's wonderful how often
they can't ! "

She was trying to catch her husband's eye. What was there
wrong? \Vhy wouldn't he speak to her? She made one last de-
spairing attempt.

Roy's Wife. 265

" Mr. Roy," she said timidly, " couldn't — couldn't the servant
take your horse, and you ride home in the carriage with us ? "

He turned hot all over, feeling also that " he did well to be angry "
now. These solecisms were intolerable ! To offer him a seat in
another lady's carriage was bad enough, but to propose he should ride
in it ! The woman would drive him mad 1

Drawing his horse out of reach, for she was trying to pat its neck,
he disposed of her ill-timed suggestion with the coldest of looks and
in the unkindest of tones.

'* I need not thank you for an invitation," said he, " that is not
yours to give, and as I am rather wet, I prefer riding my horse to the
drive you are good enough to offer me in a carriage that is not your
own ! " Then he took off his hat to Miss Bruce and disappeared.

Nelly was cut to the heart. Her eyes filled with tears. She had
some difficulty in preventing their falling on her hands, and she was
truly grateful to Lord Fitzowen when he diverted Hester's attention
with an announcement that one of the horses was going lame. By
the time the carriage could be stopped, and a pair of legs and feet
carefully examined, to account for an infirmity that did not exist,
Mrs. Roy had recovered her composure, and Fitz had earned an
eternal claim to her gratitude and goodwill.

People are never so susceptible of kindness as when wounded by
their nearest and dearest ; nor is any gleam of sunshine so pale and
watery, but that we welcome it on a wet day.

Nelly seemed sadly out of spirits during the rest of the drive.
Miss Bruce, with a woman's quickness of perception, did not fail to
detect something Avrong. Lord Fitzowen accounted for feminine
uneasiness of mind and body on a theory of his own. It originated,
he believed, in a disorder peculiar to the sex, called " nerves," of which
the seat, causes, and remedy were as yet undiscovered by science,
and with which all the resources of medicine were powerless to
contend.

But when they had dropped Nelly at her o\vn door, declining the
refreshment of tea, which she nearly omitted to offer, his anxiety
prompted him to ask Hester whether she thought Mrs. Roy was as
strong as she looked. " People ought not to tire so easily. Miss
Bruce," he observed gravely. " No lady can be well who is com-
pletely exhausted after a few hours' drive im an open carriage. Why,
she hardly spoke a word all the way back ; and did you observe how
pale she was ? Depend upon it she's got nerves ; nothing else
punishes them like that. It's a most distressing malady, worse than
measles, and they don't get over it for weeks."

266 The Gentleman's Magazine.

" Very likely," answered Hester. *' You seem to know all about
it. I never had them myself, and I hope I never shall. Now you
are to go on with the carriage, Lord Fitz, and tell Papa I shall be
home in half-an-hour. No, I rather like the walk, and I'm not afraid
of crossing our own park by myself at any hour of the day or night.
Besides, I shall be back long before dark."

" Mayn't I come with you ? "

'' Certainly not ; you turn my dear old ladies into ridicule^ and I
won't have it."

" But if I promise to be on my best behaviour ? "

" Your best behaviour is anybody else's worst ! I can't trust you
directly my back is turned. You're capable of making faces at them,
or any other enormity, if you're not watched every moment. No, Lord
Fitz, do as I bid you, and mind you tell Papa I shall not be late."

So Miss Bruce got out of the carriage, to the great delight of such
villagers of Nether-Warden as chanced to be at their doors or in the
street, and passing through a spacious walled garden, disappeared on
the threshold of an old red-brick house, that professed to have been
built in the reign of George IL, and looked as if it had never been
repaired nor altered since.

Lord Fitzowen proceeded homewards in the carriage; but he,
too, preferred to alight and walk the last half-mile of his journey,
finding himself, for the first time in his life, so perplexed in mind as
to feel disposed for solitary reflection.

This young nobleman's course had been hitherto shaped over
smooth water and before a fair breeze. He had scarcely yet had
any nut to crack harder than a letter to a lawyer, or felt any deeper
interest than the lameness of a horse. The world had been a plea-
sant place enough ; several people seemed to be put in it on purpose
to serve, and a few to amuse him. There might be a certain same-
ness and want of excitement about life, but if the roses offered little
fragrance, the thorns were by no means sharp, and altogether it did
very well. What had come to him now, that thus had altered the
whole trim and bearings of his character, opening his eyes, as it were,
to the knowledge of good and evil, scattering his Epicurean philo-
sophy to the winds ? Things to which he had attached a high value
seemed all at once of no importance, and illusions that he used to
consider the wildest and emptiest of dreams, sprang into glowing life
and reality, as at the touch of a magic wand. '* Is it my mind," he
thought, ^^ that is afifected, or — or is it my heart ? Let me light a
cigar, and look at the case fairly as it stands. Have I not every-
thing a man can reasonably require to make him happy? Good

Ro;^s Wife. 267

health, good digestion, good manners, without vanity, a good ap-
pearance, and good horses, if they were only sound ? What more
can a fellow want, in such a position as mine, and amongst the people
with whom I live ? Is this strange sense of longing, half sweet, half
bitter, and wholly inexplicable, only a craving for some new excite-
ment, or is it an effort of the spirit, the soul, the divina particula
aurcB^ the higher part of one's nature, to assert its individuality, and
free itself from the material surroundings with which we encumber it
too much ? It is not enough for the happiness of a thinking being
to eat, drink, and smoke, ride a run, shoot a covert, play a cricket-
match, and talk about it afterwards, from day to day, and year to
year, till some fine morning the clock stops, the doctor can't wind it
up, the umpire gives one * out,' and so * Boti soir^ la compagme/*
Why do I feel at this moment as if the finish would be less unwel-
come, while yet life seems sweeter than usual ? I know why, but I
cannot bear to confess it even to myself. I never thought I should
come to this ! That I, of all people, should be haunted by tags and
ends of verses, should be able to understand what a fellow means
when he says —

A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass,
A softer sapphire melts upon the sea.

I shall be wTiting poetry myself next. Already 1 can make * ass '
rhyme to ' grass,' and * me ' to * sea.'

" A sensible man would slip his cables, would cut and run,
while there was a chance of escape. I am tiot a sensible man ; I
doubt very much if I want to be saved from my own destruction. I
think I'd rather not My visit comes to an end to-morrow, but Sir
Hector is sure to ask me to stay another week. I shall stay another
week, I know, and I shall see Mrs. Roy again— perhaps once, cer-
tainly not more than twice. Never mind, once is better than nothing.
It's no use trying to deceive one's self. I love the very ground that
woman walks on — but in all honour, and respect, and regard. I
shall never let her find it out, though women are very quick to see
things. At any rate, I shall never tell her so. It would be an insult
— an outrage. But I am sure she is not happy. He does not half
appreciate her. There can be no harm in my thinking of her, watch-
ing over her, serving her, and worshipping her in secret, as a true
knight worshipped his mistress in the olden time !"

Arriving at this wise conclusion and the hall-door in the same
moment, our modem Sir Galahad threw away his cigar, and stalked
into the house, perfectly satisfied with his own special pleading, and
the integrit}' of his relations towards Mrs. Roy.

268 The Gentleman's Magazine.

Chapter XIV.

SO FAR AWAY.

Two gaunt women, so like each other that Lord Fitzowen christened
them Gog and Magog, rose simultaneously when Hester entered
the room. It was pleasant to see the smile of affection that
brightened those grim faces while they kissed her forehead, and
oflfered their own brown, leathery cheeks to be saluted in return.

The Miss Brails, or rather the Misses Brail, as they preferred to
be called, were two spinsters, long resident in Nether-Warden, of
whom Miss Bruce had made an easy conquest from the first week
she came to live at the Towers. Unlike most old ladies, they owned
no pets, never having possessed anything of the kind indeed but a
bullfinch that moulted and died ten days after purchase. Their new
neighbour, therefore, seemed to infuse an element of affection, mirth,
and gladness into their lives, of which, having little experience, they
valued the novelty no less than the intrinsic delight Said Gog
to Magog, "We couldn't love that dear girl better if she was a
daughter of our own." Answered Magog, unequal to realise the
supposed relationship, " Not half so well, my dear. Hester seems
like a daughter and a niece and a sister all in one."

Miss Bruce returned their attachment with a warmth and cor-
diality that puzzled even Sir Hector, who knew his child's character
better than anybody.

" I don't wonder at the old ladies," said he to Lord Fitzowen one
day after dinner — " that's not surprising. Everybody likes Hester.
One might as well say one did not Uke this '64 claret; but what she
can see in theni^ that beats me, I own. And I used to think I
understood women as well as most people."

A great many men think the same: always the more persistently
the less they know of the gentler and subtler sex.

Perhaps only Hester could have told him why she loved Gog and
Magog so dearly. It is my opinion, however, that she admitted her
reasons, even to herself, with great reservation, and would have died
a hundred deaths rather than confide them to another.

" No. I've not come to tea," explained the visitor, as one hostess
felt for her keys, and the other bustled into the passage with the
words "Hot buttered toast" on her lips. "It's hours too early.
Besides, I must go back and make his for Papa. I can't stay a
moment I only rushed in, on my way home, to see that you were
both alive. I haven't been here for two whole days."

Roy's Wife. 269

" Take off your hat and warm your feet," said Gog, while Magog
wheeled an arm-chair to the hearthrug. "It does our very hearts
good to see you," continued both spinsters in a breath. " Don't
stay a moment more than you ought, but as long as ever you can."

After they had settled her comfortably before the fire, there
was a pause in the conversation, borne somewhat impatiently by
the young lady, who broke it at last with the single monosyllable —

" Well ? "

Gog and Magog looked in each other's faces, and began simul-
taneously, " Good news, my dear. The best of news. You tell her,
sister. No — I will. Dear, dear ! it seems like a dream."

" Not both at once," protested Hester, trying bravely to smile,
though her face was very pale, and her heart beat fast.

" We've seen a letter," said Gog.

" A jA/^-letter, my dear," interrupted Magog.

" A letter is a letter," observed Miss Bruce, " whether it comes
by land or sea. Is the expedition on its way home, and — and —
Are they all safe ? "

She was a brave girl; but do what she would, her voice trembled,
and her very lips turned white.

" We have scarcely thought about all of them," answered Magog,
blowing her nose because tears were in her eyes. " It's enough for
us that Coll. has been preserved."

" We are selfish creatures," added Gog. " But we have only one
nephew left on earth, and he can't be the same thing to other people
that he is to us."

Miss Bruce seemed to doubt the position, but this was no time to
dispute it, and she could only exclaim, " Then he has got back alive.
Thank God ! "

" Thank God ! " repeated the spinsters reverently, and all three
women kept silence for the space of nearly thirty seconds !

" When — when is he coming to see you ? " faltered Hester, whose
feminine imagination had already overleapt weeks and months,
leagues of blue water, duty on board ship. Admiralty leave, and all
other practical obstacles at a bound.

** Oh, my dear, we mustn't think of such a treat yet," answered
Magog. " He writes from Spitzbergen — you know that's some place
in the Arctic regions, but it's nothing to do with the North Pole.
You understand, my sister found it on the map, and it looks a long
way off even there. But it is always a stage on the homeward
journey ; and as I told her this morning, it does not seem so pre-
sumptuous to hop^ we shall see him back now."

270 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

" In a month or six weeks at farthest," said Gog, whose late
geographical researches gave her opinion considerable weight
" They have put in to refit, as he calls it, for it seems they couldn't
get good butcher's meat nor vegetables, nor anything wholesome to
eat up there. I fancy it's a wild, dismal kind of place; but Coll.
never complains, put him where you will — never did from a boy.
There's his letter, my dear young lady. You can read it for yourself.
Doesn't he write a fine clear, bold hand for a sailor ? I began to
teach him before he could speak plain. What a to-do he made with
his pen ! His mother said she never saw so many blots on one page
in her life before. Ah ! she was glad enough to get that dirty piece
of paper you have in your hand : but I dare say she never thought
who set him his first copy, and in my opinion she ought to have sent
it on to my sister and me without losing a post"

Hester did not answer. She was fer away among floes and ice-
bei^gs and eternal snow, with the writer of those flimsy, close-written
pages, that had reached her from regions which to us who sit at home
at ease are as another world. The very paper seemed redolent of
tar, tobacco, salt wa^er, perilous adventure, and the discipline of a
man-of-war, as she held it near her face, partly to conceal her agita-
tion, partly to decipher the clear, fine characters, faded somewhat in
their transmission through so many climates, over so wide an expanse
of sea. She made it all out, nevertheless, though her own brimming
eyes failed her more than once ere she came to an end of the follow-
ing sketch from a sailor's life in search of the North Pole : —

"H.M.S. Aurora, off Spitzbergcn.

" Dearest Mother, — I wrote you at some length nearly a year
ago. You will be expecting another letter soon, but when you get this,
the Expedition will be well on its way home. I shall hope to see you
and all my kind friends in old England once again before next
spring. We shall come back with flying colours. If we have failed
in our great object (and, between you and me, I don't think the plank
will ever be sawn that shall float our flag under the North Pole), still
we have made many important discoveries, and smoothed the way for
all who wish to follow in our wake, and fetch the extreme point at
which we were turned back. If they can make more northing, let
'em ! I for one will give them three cheers.

" Our skipper has proved himself a trump. I always told you he
would, and I should be afraid to say whether oflicers or men have
done their duty most thoroughly and ungrudgingly. I never heard
a wry word nor a complaint, and that is something to say, mother,

Roy's Wife. 271

when you are boxed up with your mates, and nothing but your mates,
for eleven months at a spell. Jolly cold, too, I can tell you, more than
half your time. Our ship's surgeon is as good a chap as ever broke
a biscuit. I showed him to you at Portsmouth, when you came on
board the Scorpion^ and I remember you thought him very young.
He looks older now, and so do I ; but ours has been a roughish job,
and if he hadn't been wiser than he looked, some of us must have
been disrated that time when the lime-juice gave out. We've had no
sickness since, and, thank God, we hope to land the whole ship's
company, man for man, with a clean bill of health, able and willing
as when they came on board. But it was close shaving with some of
us, now and again \ for it's not easy, you know, in these high latitudes
to make fair weather of it all your time. A pleasure-trip is one thing,
and a voyage of discovery another. I had rather a squeak for it m3rself,
and I thought my mate — as fine a young fellow as ever stepped — must
have left his bones, for he had very little else to leave, many a league
within the Arctic Circle. It's a long story, what we call 9. yam at sea,
but you would like to know, and I will tell you all about it

"After we had taken up a warm berth, and made the ship snug
for the winter amongst the ice, we were told off in exploring parties,
well found in dogs, sledges, and rations, to cruise about here, there,
and everywhere, by compass, you understand, but always creeping,
inch by inch, towards the north. When it came to my turn of duty
I had the command of one of these — six in number, all told — three
fore-top-men, a gunner's mate, the ship's carpenter, and myself. I need
not tell you how many days we were absent, nor how little way we
made in proportion to the labour and the hardship, and at last the
bodily suffering we had to undergo. Our blue-jackets don't sing out
before the/re hurt, nor yet for some little time after, I fancy ; and mine
were as smart a lot of men as you could pick from the whole ship's
company. But flesh and blood can't make it out in such stress of
weather as we had to face, when the stores get low, and at last we
were forced to separate. I sent three of the men back to the ship,
carrying with them the fourth, who was disabled, on the only sledge
left. The other had been burned for firewood, and the dogs — don't
turn sick, mother — killed and eaten, long ago. I pushed on one
more day's march with the carpenter, however, to take the bearings
of a long, low spit of land that wasn't down in any of our charts, and
I thought, God forgive me ! what a fine thing it would be for this im*
known promontory to be called ever after by my own name. Cape Col-
lingwood, we'll say, or, perhaps. Cape Brail ! Well, if this was vanity I
^ook my punishment for it smart and soon. We never made it out

272 The Gentleman! s Magazine.

after all. There were great fissures in the ice to be weathered, and
for every cable's length ahead we were bound to walk, or I shall say
to roll and tumble, like a brace of black fish, for a league. The third
day it came on to blow a whirlwind, — of snow, mind you. We lost
our bearings; we lost our own backward track; we knew that of our
nates must have been covered long ago. There was nothing for it
but to steer by compass, in hope of making the ship before our
strength gave out completely from fatigue and starvation.

"Till I overhauled the ship's log afterwards, I could not have
told you how many days we were out, drifting over the ice, without a
morsel of food. We lost count of them, for as we got weaker in our
bodies we turned queer in our heads. Giddy and snow-blind, one
of us would fall now and again, unable to see where he set his feet,
and it was a job for his mate to put him back on his pins. Had
both been down at once, we should never have got up any more.

" At last the carpenter turned silly altogether. He plodded on
soberly enough, but wandered in his talk, jawing incessantly of the
garden at home, and the bee-hives. What should make a man think
of bee-hives at the North Pole? — and running water— he heard it
behind him, he declared, and must go back to see for himself. Then
I had to pinion his arms and force him to keep with me. It wasn't
much of a struggle, we were as weak as two cats ; still we kept
walking on, like men in a dream.

" It seemed lonely enough, but we didn't ask for company ; at
least, not for the company that dropped in on us when we were
at our lowest and worst. I've heard of a man being followed step
for step by a ghost. I don't know how he liked it, but I think
no ghost could have followed quieter, softer, with a more stealthy
even noiseless foot than the creature that was waiting on us, some-
times forty, sometimes twenty, sometimes not more than ten paces
in our wake. There is no animal so patient, so wary, so sagacious,
and so persevering as the white Arctic bear, when he has made up
his mind for a meal.

" I couldn't hear him, he stepped so smooth and silent, pace for
pace with ourselves ; but somehow, before 1 turned and saw him, I
felt he was there !

" The brute knew well enough we must soon sink from fatigue.
He could finish us off then without risk or trouble, so was quite
content to wait, and eat us up at his leisure.

"I don't think the carj^enter knew anything about this ugly con-
sort He kept rambling on with his bcc-hives and his running water.
When he spoke loud, the bear would fall back a little ; when his

Roy's Wife. 273

voice sank, it came on with longer strides. At last I fancied I could
hear its breathing, and the fall of its flat, sofl paws on the snow.

" My mate stimibled and came down. We were both so weak
that with all my exertions I could not get him up again. Faint and
breathless I rested for a minute by his side. The bear reared itself
on end, as if to see what it could make of us, and, finding both
motionless, came on steadier than before.

'' I had a single-barrelled gun, loaded with slugs. I kept them
for the chance of a seal. It would have been sheer madness to use
such a charge except at close quarters, and I lay quiet like a dead
man behind my mate's body, with my finger on the trigger.

" How I cursed the creature's cunning, and the time it kept me
in suspense, while it stopped and snuffed and walked in circles round
us, as if it had some suspicion of the trick. My mate was very
drowsy, and I knew well that if once he went to sleep it would all be
over. Forty winks in such a cold as that means never unbuttoning
your eye-lids again !

" But the beast was hungry — famished. I could see threads of
slaver waving over its breast and paws. After a minute or two it could
resist no longer, and stole softly on to us, stirring the carpenter with
its nose, as if to make sure he was really dead.

"Then I pulled. The muzzle of my gun was close under its
shoulder, and the charge passed through its heart like a bullet. I
jumped up among the smoke, and used all the strength I had left to
haul my mate out of reach, lest it should strike him in the death-
flurry; but the creature made a decent end enough, going off quiet
and easy, like a Christian.

" * Turn and turn about,' says I ; * you meant to eat us; but I
think we shall more likely eat you ! ' Don't call me a cannibal,
mother ; I was forced to drink some of the blood warm, to put
strength in me, before I could turn to and recover my mate. He
was nearly gone. Five minutes more would have done his business ;
but he came to, and he pulled through, even at this moment I could
hardly tell you how or why.

" We camped out by the carcase, and fed on it till our strength
came back. I don't know how long. We had been seventeen days
out, when we returned to the ship. I was proud of what the skipper
said to me, and the men gave us three cheers as we came up the
side.

" This is a long story, mother, but I've plenty like it in store for
you when we meet. I will say no more now, for I have come to the

VOL. CCXLII. NO. 1767. T

274 ^^ GentUmafis Magazine.

end of my paper, and it won't be many weeks before you will welcome
back, like a bad shilling, your affectionate son, Colli ngwood Brail.
" P.S. Please send this on, for my good aunts to read. If it saves
trouble, they need not mind showing it to anybody they please."

She would have liked to go over it all again, particularly the
postscript, which, some strange intuition taught her, contained an
exceedingly roundabout message for herself; but a woman's first
impulse in such cases is to conceal the truth, and she returned the
precious sheets with the utmost calmness she could assume.

" I was sure you would be pleased to hear," said Magog, pocket-
ing the document " You have always interested yourself in him for
our sake, and, indeed, if you knew Coll. better, I believe you would
like him for his own."

Many things might be less improbable, for which reason, perhaps,
Miss Bruce did not think it worth while to pursue the subject, but
bade the old ladies a hasty farewell, kissing each of them with even
greater cordiality than before.

As Gog observed to her sister, when the door closed on their
charming visitor, " That girl grows handsomer every day. Did you
see what a beautiful colour she had just now, as she went out ? "

"It's unwholesome for people to sit over the fire," answered
practical Magog ; " I only hope she may not take cold on her way
home."

Sir Hector, too, thought his daughter seemed in unusual spirits
when she gave him his tea. The day's doings, the drive out, the
drive back, above all the run from Burton Brake, were detailed with
more than her customary gaiety and playfulness. Lord Fitzowen,
sitting alone with his host after dinner, found his own account com-
pletely forestalled. Even the abruptness with which Mr. Roy
" snubbed his poor wife " seemed to have been duly reported, and if
Fitz grew somewhat prolix over this unpleasant episode, it was more
for his own satisfaction than for the information of his friend.

Before they adjourned to the drawing-room, however, Sir Hector
changed the conversation by warmly pressing his guest to defer the
departure fixed for next day, and remain at least a week longer at
Warden Towers, an invitation Lord Fitzowen accepted gratefully.
" It would be rude to decline," he thought, "when they make such a
point of it, and, afler all, I should be just as great a fool about her
anywhere else as here ! "

Roy's Wife. 275

Chapter XV.

THE LITTLE RIFT.

John Roy, like most men who can command a choice of apart-
ments, had selected the most uncomfortable room in the house for
his own. Here he smoked, sulked, wrote his letters, and brooded
over his wife's "want of manner" in complete privacy, for even
Nelly had been made to understand that, unless by special invitation,
her presence was unwelcome in this retreat It saddened her to
reflect for how many hours in the day her husband preferred to be
alone. She was beginning to wonder whether he had done wisely in
marrying her ; to feel, with much bitter heart-searching and humi-
liation, that she was a clog round his neck ; and, indeed, though he
ought to have been ashamed to confess it, John Roy told himself the
same story over and over again. He compared her with the women
he used to meet in London society during his early life, and was so
bad a judge as to rate her their inferior because her nature was dif-
ferent from theirs. Yet he would have felt indignant to be told he
was the sort of man who could prefer a camellia to a garden-rose.

Though one tried hard to conceal it from herself, and the other
from the world, both were conscious of a breach between them that
widened day by day, rendering the husband irritable, captious, and
aggressive, the wife nervous, silent, and depressed.

He could not but observe her fading colour and weary, heavy eyes,
that seemed afraid to meet his own. When people came to call, she
would brighten up ; which provoked him exceedingly, although this
improvement in her spirits was partly the result of a wish to please
him by taking her share in general conversation, partly the natural
protest of youth and health against despondency. With none of
her visitors did she seem so much at ease as with Lord Fitzowen,
and Mr. Roy had already asked himself why, more than once. '' Hang
him ! he's never out of the house ! " was the form into which he put
his reflections, seeing that ere the run from Burton Brake was a week
old his lordship had already called twice.

So John Roy sat after breakfast in his own den, revolving these
unpleasant thoughts behind the Fidd or Country Gentleman's News-
paper^ making believe to read its innumerable columns with their
miscellaneous contents. " Come in ! " he exclaimed impatiently, as
a hesitating knock announced an interruption. He thought it was
Nelly, and felt so vexed with her that he determined to let her see
that he would rather be alone.

T 2

276 'Hu Gentleman s Magazine.

It was not his wife, but Mrs. Mopus, who shut the door carefully,
set her back to it, and stood there, pale, panting, with one hand
pressed against her side.

He was prepared to be angry, yet he showed no irritation towards
his housekeeper as he laid down the newspaper and asked quietly
" What he could do for her? "

"Can I speak a word with you, sir ? " said Mrs. Mopus, advancing
to the middle of the room and looking about, as if for a soft place
to faint away. " Fm sure I beg your pardon, sir. You'll forgive me,
Mr. Roy. It's not of my own free will I come here to-day."

" Then why are you standing there ? " was the natural rejoinder,
but certain catchings of the breath, which his experience of women
had taught him to mistrust, prevented its utterance, and he was con-
tent to observe, courteously —

" Compose yourself, Mrs. Mopus ; you have generally a good
reason for everything you do."

To beg of a lady that she will " compose herself" seldom produces
the desired effect until after many repetitions and much soothing, by
implication, no less than in set terms. Mrs. Mopus thought well to
gasp, roll her eyes, and wrap both hands in her black silk apron till a
shower of tears came to her relief, and she found voice to explain
between the sobs —

" Oh ! sir, you won't judge hardly of me for my attachment to you
and yours. Indeed, Mr. Roy, when I think of harm that's likely to
overtake you, I'm that upset I can hardly look in your face and warn
of you in time, if indeed it's not too late already ; but they do say
fore-warned is fore-armed, and though you was to turn me out of
doors this moment, without a character or a month's notice, you
should never be left in ignorance by me. No, not if I was to die
for it the next minute. There ! "

" I have assured you very often, Mopus, that I am convinced of
your regard," he answered kindly. ** But if you and I are to under-
stand each other, I must beg you to speak out and tell me what is the
matter."

*' Mr. Roy, do you never think of the times when you was un-
married ? A free, well-spoken, handsome young gentleman as any
lady might be happy to call her own, if she was the highest in the
land ? "

" Well, what of that ? I made my choice and married once for
all — good or bad, it's too late to repent now."

" Good or bad, sir. You never said a truer word. When I think
of them as would have been proud to take your name, and her as has

Roy's Wife. 277

it this day, but doesn't seem to value it not one halfpenny, it makes
me that mad, — that — well — that it sets me on to come into this
room, though I am only a servant, and speak with you, fair and equal,
Mr. Roy, like a friend."

" You are a friend, Mopus. I am ready to hear all you have to
communicate."

" Mr. Roy, you'll excuse me : the lady that you have made my
mistress and your wife didn't ought to be neither the one nor the
other."

" Take care what you say, Mrs. Mopus. Is this only an expres-
sion of opinion, or is it an accusation to which you can bring
proof?"

His voice shook, and he was fain to tiun his head, that she might
not see how his countenance changed. A hundred conflicting feelings
were at work in his heart. Could this woman show him a way to the
freedom he had of late desired too earnestly ? and if so, would he
consent to pay the price ? To give up Nelly did not seem so difficult,
but that she should cease to care for him was another matter alto-
gether. The bare suspicion struck him with a sense of keen and
numbing pain. Release might be bought too dear. What if the
blow were so roughly dealt that in striking away the fetter it should
break the bone ?

Mrs. Mopus eyed him narrowly. She had studied his temper all
those years to little purj^ose if she could not play on it now, like an
instrument of music, to wake whatever chord she pleased.

" Mr. Roy," she said, coming a step nearer, " I wish to give up
my situation."

" Why, Mrs. Mopus ? " he asked, with some discomposure, sur-
prised, no doubt, by the unexpected nature of her attack.

" Because, sir, it is not my place as a servant to speak so free as I
could wish. When you have discharged me, Mr. Roy, I cease to be a
servant, and my words will come easier, as I said before, from the lips
of a humble friend."

** Nonsense ! I am not going to lose you for any such foolish
fancies. You don't want to leave, my good woman, and I don't want
to part with you ; I am tired of assuring you that I feel you have my
interest at heart. If you know anything that affects my welfare, it is
your duty to inform me frankly and without reserve."

" You'll promise not to be angry with me^ sir. I wouldn't offend
you for more than I can say."

" I promise."

" And you'll never disclose who it was as told you, nor mention

278 The Gentleman's Magazine.

my name, nor let anybody know that you and me has been talking
secrets together on such a matter as this ? "
He nodded impatiently.

Mrs. Mopus seemed well accustomed to plotting. She peered
cautiously into the passage to make sure nobody was listening, shut
the door softly, and came close to her master's chair.

" It's about your lady, sir," she whispered. " Have I your good
leave, Mr. Roy, to speak my mind ? *'
" Go on 1 "

" She's not a lady as ought to be at the head of your house, sir.
I pass over her interference with the upper servants and the trades-
people, her pryings about in the kitchen, the scullery, the offices, even
to the soft-water pump in the back yard. I am willing to believe if s
the faults of her bringing-up ; that's neither here nor there. But she
doesn't respect you^ Mr. Roy ; she doesn't think as much of you as
she ought She has a free way with the gentlemen, that isn't becoming
in your lady, and with one in particular — I don't name no names, but
I've seen it from the time he came here first I've kept it down, Mr.
Roy, till I thought I should have suffocated, but now you've asked
me, sir, and it's come out at last plump and plain ! "

Vexation, perhaps, would express the nature of her listener's feel-
ings better than surprise ; yet, with the common impulse of humanity
to be convinced of its own worst suspicions, he came to the point at
once and spoke out peremptorily enough.

"Let us understand each other, Mrs. Mopus. You have said
too much or too little. You have observed freedom of conduct on
the part of my — of Mrs. Roy, in respect to a certain person. I insist
on knowing who this person is."

" Well, sir, if I must speak out, it's that there Lord. He's in the
house now."

John Roy glanced at the clock on his chimney-piece. Half-past
eleven — this was a morning visit with a vengeance ! If the woman
spoke truth in the present instance she was probably right all through.

" You are sure of what you say ? " he asked, rising from his chair
with some vague idea of immediate action.

" Satisfy yourself, Mr. Roy," was the answer. " They're in the
conservatory feeding the gold fish at this moment. I see them through
the back-staircase window as I come down to you."

He was so angry, he could hardly trust himself to speak.

" Enough, Mrs. Mopus," he muttered, " I shall not forget your
services ; " and regardless of her entreaties that he would calm him-
self, would do nothing rash, he hurried out of the room and up the

Roy's Wife. 279

back-staircase albresaid to confront the culprits in the conservatory,
and — ^and — what further steps was he to take when he got there ?

This consideration caused him to pause ere he had threaded two
dark passages on the way to his destination. He could neither kick,
nor shoot, nor turn a gentleman out of the house for paying his wife a
visit after breakfast rather than after luncheon, nor would any social
code hold him justified in making two persons responsible for a serious
offence because they gave his gold-fish their dinners before twelve
o'clock in the day !

He stopped — he hesitated — he went on again, still towards the
conservatory, but much slower than before. It would be rather tame,
he thought, to walk in with outstretched hand, and say, " How d'ye
do, Fitzowen ? AV^on't you stay to luncheon ? " but there seemed
nothing else for it, so irresistible are our bonds of custom, our usages
of society. The verdict of the world is dead against a man who
" puts himself in the wrong," and it is amusing to watch how, even
as two practical fighters shift and traverse to get their backs to the
sun, so in a personal difference, or an angry correspondence, the
belligerents, by dint of argument, reply, and rejoinder, find at last
the position completely inverted, and each occupying his adversary's
ground.

" I had better seem to suspect nothing," said John Roy to him-
self. " I must watch him, and draw my own conclusions unobserved."

His hand was on the conservatory door ; he had no intention of
eavesdropping ; nothing would have induced him so far to lower
himself in his own esteem ; but he paused an instant to compose
his features and pull himself together, as it were, for the ordeal. In
that instant his wife's low sweet voice, deepened and softened by
emotion, struck on his ear.

" I am horribly afraid of offending Mr. Roy," she said ; " but I
can trust you unreservedly, and will always do whatever you think
best ! "

Chapter XVI.

THE MUSIC MUTE.

It was the old story. Neither in conversation nor in literatiwe can
you rightly interpret a sentence without the context. Mrs. Ro/s
compromising words did but conclude a conference of which, as fSw
as she was concerned, loyalty to her husband had been the one
predominant motive.

28o The Gentleman's Magazine.

Sir Hector was confined to his xoom by gout, the other guests had
departed ; it was impossible for Lord Fitzowen to remain at Warden
Towers alone with Miss Bruce, and, sorely against his inclinations, he
felt that in common decency he must return to London by the after-
noon train. All this he explained at great length, while excusing
himself for paying Mrs. Roy so early a visit to wish her good-bye.
Perhaps he cherished some vague hope of an invitation to Royston
Grange. If so, it was speedily dispelled ; for though Nelly assured
him frankly enough that she was sorry he must go away, she
added in the same breath, '* We shall all be better for a little rest I
am a very quiet person. Lord Fitzowen, and we've had so much
dining out lately and so many visitors, it will seem quite a relief to be
alone."

This was a damper, and he felt it. She spoke as if she would be
glad to get rid of him. Fitz rather lost his head, and became so
earnest that she took the alarm.

" I shall be wretched to go, Mrs. Roy. I never was so happy in
my life as for this last fortnight, and I have you to thank for it." His
voice trembled with that suppressed feeling which no woman is too
inexperienced to understand.

" You have already thanked me by coming to say good-bye," she
answered rather stiffly. " Besides, I don't like to be thanked, Lord
Fitzowen, when I have done nothing to deserve it."

She meant him to *' keep his distance," and spoke more gravely
than usual, but the warmest expressions of good -will would not have
been calculated to rivet his fetters so securely. It is in these ups and
downs, these sudden changes, that men become malleable, as the
glowing iron is plunged in cold water that it may be tempered into
steel.

He skipped back to safe ground with praiseworthy agility. " I
like this country so much," he said, " and the hunting, and my host
and hostess. Don't you think Miss Bruce a very nice girl, Mrs.
Roy ? "

" I do indeed," she answered, wondering how she could have
been so stupid as to forget that of course this was the cause of
Lord Fitzowen's unwillingness to depart, and resolved to make him
amends for her previous misconception. " I like her exceedingly.
Not so well dj^you do, I dare say, but very much indeed. She must
be sorry to lose you, though I suppose we shall have you back before
long."

He stared. Did she want him back ? It was but a moment
since she had seemed glad he must go away. He would have given

Roy's Wife. 281

a good deal to read her thoughts, and after all she was only hoping
he wouldn't stay to luncheon, and wondering whether she ought to
ask him or not !

" One hates saying good-bye," he continued, " and yet there is a
melancholy satisfaction in it, too. Let us go and look at the gold
fish, Mrs. Roy. I should not be easy if I went away without taking
leave of my earliest friends."

So they strolled into the conservatory, where his lordship, who was
not usually so diffident, debated in his own mind whether he dared
ask her to give him a sprig of geranium. Had he done so, she
would have complied with a readiness that showed how little im-
portance she attached to the gift ; but his courage failed him, and
he preferred not to run the chance of a refusal, perhaps of another
rebuff.

He was sinking deeper and deeper at every step. Had Fitz been
wise, he would never have risked this last interview, but would have
started for London with his valet and portmanteaus by the twelve
o'dock train.

He looked at the gold fish in silence, almost wishing he was one
of them that he might not be going away, then turned to Mrs. Roy and
said, with something of a sigh —

" You will miss your dictionary a little, won't you, when it is out
of reach on the shelf? "

" I shall indeed," she answered kindly. " I am bad at tlianking
people. Lord Fitzowen, but I am not ungrateful. I shall never forget
how friendly and considerate you have been with me. Though I
don't say much, I feel things, I can tell you."

" Whenever you are in any way at a loss, Mrs. Roy, you have
only got to speak the word. I would come from the other end of the
world to be of the slightest use. You may want advice now and then
about those absurd trifles in which my whole life has been spent."

" I feel dreadfully ignorant sometimes, Ix>rd Fitzowen, I confess.
I don't mind for myself, but it vexes my husband. He seems so
annoyed with things that I should not have thought of the slightest
importance."

He took her hand. " Then we will make a bargain," said he.
" You shall be the conjuror and I'll be the Jack-in-the-box. Touch
a spring and up he comes ! WTien you've done with him, shut down
the lid. Seriously, make any use of me you please when you don't
want to trouble your husband. I dare say he hates being bothered.
Most men do. I like it Suppose you are in a dilemma, a social
difficulty of any kind, consult me as if I was your cousin, or your

282 The GentUtnafC s Magazine.

brother, or your solicitor. I don't manage my own matters well, but
I can give other people better advice than anybody in the world."

There was no resisting the hearty off-hand manner, the frank
genial tone. Nelly thought she had discovered a wise counsellor,
a true friend, and accepted his somewhat vague offer with the grateful
little speech that so offended her husband's ears as he came in.

There was an awkward silence. Mrs. Roy looked and felt in a
false position, though she could not have explained why. The master
of the house seemed by no means master of the situation. Even his
lordship, though more used to the kind of thing, was obviously ill at
ease. He took the initiative, however, by putting out his hand and
informing his host he had ridden over to say " Good-bye."

" Among the flowers," answered John Roy, looking round him
with something of sarcasm, while he exchanged a farewell with his
visitor readily enough. It was no prolonged ceremony, and before
Nelly's flushed cheeks had faded to their usual tint. Lord Fitzowen
vanished, leaving husband and wife alone with the gold-fish.

These could not be more mute than John Roy. He shrugged
his shoulders, put on that expression of contempt she most dreaded,
and would have retired without a word, but that Nelly's heart was
full to overflowing, and the appeal rose spontaneously to her lips —

" What have I done to deserve this ? ^Vhy are you so cross with
me, Mr. Roy?"

" Ask yourself."

" No. I ask you. We have not been married a year — nothing
like it — and already you are tired of me, and you wish I was dead.
You do — you do — and so do I. Anything would be better than this.
You hate me, you avoid me. I never see you from day's end to
da/s end, and when we are alone together — which we nci^er are —
you won't speak to me. I am a clog, an encumbrance, a wet blanket 1
I can't imagine what it is I have done, or not done. Where are mine
accusers ? You ought to tell me. I've a right to know."

"When you can talk sense," he answered, "perhaps we may come
to some understanding. I confess it seems hopeless now."

" You used to think different. You told me at Beachmouth I
was the most sensible woman you every met."

" That was not saying much. I never had a high opinion of your
sex. It does not improve on acquaintance."

" If you think that, it's cruel to tell me. If you don't think it,

you oughtn't to say so. You can be all smiles and good-humour

with other ladies. You don't call them a pack of fools to their

gges. ^ I used to believe you cared for me, or else why did you make

Roy's Wife. 283

me an offer? It would have been a long time before I asked j^^,
and now you seem to like other people so much better tlian me ! "

"Two can play at that game."

" What do you mean ?" she flashed out " Mr. Roy, I require
you to explain yoiurself."

He set his lips tight, and spoke in cold cutting syllables.

" Then I will explain myself. When a lady receives one of her
husband^s friends day after day, and at all hours, as you receive Lord
Fitzowen, it is rather too good a joke that she should reproach that
husband with want of attention to herself."

The tears came to her eyes; he must care for her a little, she
reflected, or it would not matter to him how often Lord Fitz chose to
call, or how long he stayed ; but womanly pride and what is called
" proper feeling " prompted her to affect a deeper indignation than
she felt.

" Mr. Roy," she said, looking him full in the face, "do you assert
what you know, or are you making these accusations against me to
put yoiu^elf in the right ?"

" I make no accusations," he replied, in the same hard tone ; " it's
not worth while. I simply use my own faculties like other people.
Things are not likely to escape my observation that have become the
talk of my servants in the kitchen and the hall."

She turned pale to her lips. " The servants ! " she repeated. " Do
you mean to tell me, Mr. Roy, that you have been discussing with
your servants the conduct of your wife?"

He was getting very angry, he felt so completely in the wrong \
therefore he affected to take high ground.

"I decline to enter into that subject," said he. " Though j^(7tt
may choose to disregard both, there are people who respect my
character and value my happiness. It is all very well, Mrs. Roy, to
carry things with a high hand, to affect injured innocence, virtuous
indignation, and so forth ; but nobody shall make me believe that
lad/s conduct is irreproachable on whom her very domestics cry
shame. Even if I had not eyes and ears of my own, I can trust my
informant, and what I say I mean ! "

Her sweet and gentle temper was roused at last. She moved to
the door.

"Then if that is the position I occupy in your house," she
exclaimed, " the sooner I leave it the better ! "

" I wish you had never come into it ! "

The action was over. Completely disabled by this last shot, poor
Nelly struck her flag, and went down. She made no attempt at
reply. She did not burst into tears, nor go off" in hysterics, nor faint

284 The Gentleman's Magazine.

dead away, which is the best resource of all, as placing the adversary
in such a position that he can neither run nor fight. She only paced
slowly out of the conservatory, across the hall, and up the staircase
to her own room, faltering and stumbling, though it was broad day-
light, like a blind woman, or one who walks in a dream.

John Roy turned to the gold-fish and made them a little speech.
" I have given her a piece of my mind at last," said he, somewhat
ashamed of himself, yet with a certain amount of relief at having
blown off the steam. '* A man should begin as he means to go on, and
she will be none the worse for the lesson. That it may take proper
effect, I shall not see her again till dinner-time. My horse is at the
door. I may as well have luncheon with the Grantons, and ride
round by Warden Towers afterwards, to find out if this young lord is
really gone."

Nelly, kneeling by her bedside, crying bitterly, with her face
smothered in the counterpane, heard his horse's hoofs crunching the
gravel, and the click of the gate as he turned into the park.

She went to her window and watched him, hiding behind the
curtain. She had often seen him ride away in the same direction,
but never so indistinctly as now, through a mist of tears.

Then she bathed her eyes, smoothed her hair, looked at a time-
table, rang the bell, and ordered the carriage to be at the door in
twenty minutes.

" If I had a baby," thought Nelly, " I couldn't go. I should
neither have the heart to leave it, nor to take it away from Mr. Roy.
How lucky for htm. He will be happy at last. He won't miss me
one bit He can live among the people he likes without a wife that
he is ashamed of at every turn. And yet I did try hard to be all he
wished ! Oh ! my darling, my darling ! I do believe my heart is
breaking, but I will never see you again ! "

Mr. Roy did not enjoy his luncheon. The Grantons were
pleasant as usual. Her two pretty sisters, lately imported by the
hostess, did the agreeable with the vivacity shown by young ladies at
that most cheerful of meals. But, somehow, it was all flat and insipid.
When his horse was brought round, he departed in worse spirits than
he arrived, conscious he had made no favourable impression on the
strangers, but utterly careless of their opinion, good or bad.

" Talking him over " ere he was fairly in the saddle, these did not
scruple to express unqualified disappointment. Mr. Roy was older,
greyer, stupider, than they had been led to expect, yet each told her-
self there was something interesting about the man, something strange,
mysterious, peculiar, that she would like to fathom and find out.

Roy's Wife. 285

At Warden Towers, Sir Hector was in his room, and Miss Bruce
in the village, so he did not get off. " Was Lord Fitzowen still with
them ? " he asked carelessly, turning to go away.

" No ; his lordship left after luncheon. His lordship's letters
were to be forwarded to London. He (the butler) did not think his
lordship would be back again during the hunting season.''

Riding home in the fading twilight, John Roy began to wonder if
he had not judged Nelly too hastily in one particular, perhaps too
harshly in all. There is something in the action of a good horse
under a man, especially at a gallop, that, possibly through its effect
on the liver, seems to clear and stimulate his brain. Ere he rode
into his own stable-yard, our friend had resolved to be forgiving and
magnanimous, to read his wife a long lecture on that ignorance of
conventionalities to which he was willing to attribute her late mis-
deeds, and graciously to overlook the past in consideration of the
amendment she was sure to promise for the future. Then he would
proceed comfortably to dinner, and slumber placidly afterwards, having
dismissed the whole subject from his mind.

Wet and muddy, he went to dress at once, rehearsing during his
toilet the discourse he intended to deliver, and descending in half-an-
hour or so to the drawing-room, where he expected to find his wife at
her needlework, bright Avith her usual welcome, and ready to offer
the cup of tea she had kept hot in case it should be wanted. But
here was neither wife nor tea. The fire had burned low, and only
one lamp was lit. His drawing-room had never looked so cheerless.
Nelly must be up-stairs, of course. How tiresome I Perhaps,
though, she had taken his displeasure to heart and was really unwell.
Poor dear ! She certainly seemed fond of him; he would go to her
room, and make it all right without delay ! Once, twice he tapped
at the door. No answer. So he opened it without ceremony, and
walked in. Here, too, the fire was low and the room nearly dark,
but he could make out that it was unoccupied. More, an empty
wardrobe stood open, and though several trinkets remained on the
dressing-table, Nelly's ivory hair-brushes, with her monogram, his own
gift, were gone.

He turned sick at heart, though he told himself there was no
cause for discomposure ; but he ran down-stairs again, nimbly enough,
to ring the drawing-room bell with considerable violence.

The butler had gone to dress, and it was answered by a footman.
" Where is Mrs. Roy ?" he asked, trying to speak in his ordinary
voice.

" Mrs. Roy, sir? Mrs. Roy is gone, sir."

286 The Gmtlematis Magazine.

" Gone ? What do you mean ? Gone where ?"

The man looked surprised. ** Mrs. Roy ordered the carriage at
half-past two, sir. It took her to the station, and I understand she
went to London by the afternoon train."

He fairly gasped. But in whatever attitude he goes down, a man
is bound to fall decently, like Julius Caesar, before his own household ;
so he muttered something incoherent about " bad news," and " he
thought she would have waited for a later train," but his manner was
sorely troubled, his voice came thick and indistinct. The footman
retired calmly, less concerned than might be supposed. I imagine
our domestics are not easily affected by such symptoms of mental
disorder. Judging from analogy, they account for them in the
charitable supposition that " Master is a little the worse for drink."

Put him face to face with an emergency, John Roy had courage
and presence of mind enough. Both were now supplemented by a
strong sense of indignation and ill-usage.

" Gone to London by the afternoon train !" he muttered, walking
up and down his deserted drawing-room in momentary expectation
that dinner would be announced. " Of course ! I see it all ! And
that scoundrel, too. They were found out too soon, and she did not
dare face me again. But he shall, and pretty close too, if we have to
travel a thousand miles for it Steady, now ! I must look at this
business as if I were acting for some one else. The first point is
to avoid anything like a show-up before the servants. I can do
nothing to-morrow till the post comes in, then I shall go to London
by the twelve o'clock train, and find a friend at once. Who is there
I can ask to see me through such a three-cornered business ? — for I
mean to shoot Fitzowen as sure as he stands there."

This was a knotty problem, involving some consideration. He
had not settled it when he went to dinner, and resolved during the
progress of that ceremony, which he sat through with praiseworthy
endurance, to decide nothing till he had visited his club, and seen
which of his old firiends were in town.

But with all his anger, all his resolution, there were moments during
that long cheerless evening when his heart smote him sore. The
image of Nelly would pass before him, as he used to watch her
moving about the very room in which he sat, busy with some little
arrangement for his comfort and convenience, or, dearer still, as he
remembered her at Beachmouth during that brief courtship, when she
had seemed to him a very paragon of womankind, no less for beaut>'
of character and person than for the adoration she lavished on
himself.

Roy's Wife. 287

Of all blessings, a wife is, perhaps, that of which a man becomes
most sensible in its loss. John Roy could not help suspecting that
he had not himself been entirely without blame; that a little patience,
a little consideration, a little forbearance might have preserved to him
the affections of her fond and gentle nature, true and tender as when
they watched the sea-gulls together on the southern coast, and
thought nothing could ever come between them this side the grave.

(To be continued^

288

VICTOR EMMANUEL.

THE singular character who has just passed from the stage of
European politics will occupy a far larger place in history than
he did in the eyes of his contemporaries. No man has had a greater
destiny, and few men have had a larger share in shaping destiny by
individual stamp of character ; but none, on the other hand, was ever
called to play so prominent a part with a smaller share of the external
attributes calculated to excite hero-worship, and few have more pitiably
associated a great career with private errors and follies. His faults
have died with the man ; his great work as king and patriot remains to
his country, and the monument of the uncouth soldier buried not
unworthily among the immortal dead of Rome, is the accomplished
unity of Italy.

For it must be remembered that with the political union of the
Peninsula but half— and that the easier half— of his work was done ;
there still remained the more difficult task of creating a true national
existence in the chaotic jumble of petty states, for the first time since
the Roman Empire combined under a single government ; of recon-
ciling local interests, of allaying provincial jealousies, of repressing on
the one hand the fermenting dregs of revolution, and on the other tlie
reactionary impulses of dynastic and traditional attachment; of infusing
public spirit into a heterogeneous population, and inspiring public
confidence amid the wreck of governments and parties. And in tlie
general disorganisation of that great crisis no subtlety of statecraft
or refinement of intelligence would have afforded so steadfast a fulcrum
to the national movement as the rugged loyalty of the prince who
in these degenerate days still held the word of a king as sacred, and
who elected to go down to posterity by the proud though homely title
of the " Re Galantuomo."

His career is a singular illustration of the adage too often falsified
that ** Honesty is the best policy," and the moral is still more strongly
pointed by a reversed example in the fate of his neighbour and ally,
Louis Napoleon. Hogarth's good and idle apprentices are not more
boldly contrasted or more strikingly dealt with, according to poetical
justice, than the two sovereigns so strangely linked together by their

Victor Emmanuel. 289

destinies, and associated even in death by a singular coincidence of
date. The Second Empire, founded in faithlessness and inflated by
corruption, has collapsed like a glittering bubble on a stagnant pool,
while the kingdom of Italy, reared in its reflected light, is the only solid
result its hollow glories have left behind. Louis Napoleon died in
exile, leaving to his son only the dangerous inheritance of a shadowy
claim, while Victor Emmanuel's death has shown, in the universal
mourning of his people, how firmly consolidated is the monarchy
which may be said to have been created by his unswerving good faith
and personal honour. And for this, Italy gives her first king a place
among the hallowed dead of the Pantheon, with a gratefiil conscious-
ness that her enfranchisement was not attained without exacting many
sacrifices from the sovereign as well as from the nation, and that Vic-
tor Emmanuel never hesitated to put aside his personal feelings where
they came into collision with any measure of public utility. A Pied-
montese, and attached to his birthplace with the passionate fondness
of a mountaineer, he abandoned his ancient capital when the exigen-
cies of his new state demanded the change. Heir and representative
of the Dukes of Savoy, he sacrificed his birthright of a thousand years,
the cradle of his race, as the ransom of Lombardy ; not even the last
entreaty of his dying mother, an Archduchess of the House of Lor-
raine, could move him from his ecclesiastical policy; and the strong
reluctance— call it presentiment or superstition — which made him
put off as long as possible taking up his residence in Rome, was
finally overcome by the stronger sense of political expediency. His
successor has begun his reign by a similar act of abnegation, in
sacrificing family tradition to the desire of the nation, letting his
father's sepulchre seal the work of his life, and giving his very dust to
Italy as a pledge of her completeness.

It is a singular circumstance that in the oflicial attestation of the
King's death, a document drawn up with the greatest solemnity in
the presence of ministers and chamberlains, there should be a patent
error as to the place of his birth, Florence being named instead of
Turin, although the date, the 14th day of March, 1820, is correctly
given. More than one of the Italian papers have since drawn
attention to the mistake, which seems to have arisen from a confusion
between Victor Emmanuel and his younger brother Ferdinand, Duke
of Genoa, whose birth on the isth of October, 1822, actually took
place in Florence, his parents having taken refuge there from the
troubles of 182 1. There, too, in the grand-ducal villa of Poggio
Imperiale, the little heir of Piedmont at two and a half years old was
near having his eventful career prematurely cut short, for his nurse,

VOL. ccxLii. NO. 1767. u

290 The Gentleman s Magazine,

Teresa Zanotti, had ihc misfortune to set lire to his cot, and though
help was inunediately at hand, he received two serious bums before
he was rescued, while the poor nurse suffered so severely that she
died from her injuries three weeks after the accident. Her husband,
Lorenzo Vittorio, received a pension for life.

Victor Emmanuel's mother, the Princess Maria Teresa, describes
him when a child as docile, but difficult to teach from his love of
running and jumping, though what he had once learned he did
not easily forget. If gossiping report can be credited, one of his
juvenile playfellows was Rosina, afterwards his wife and Countess
Mirafiori, whose father held some menial post about the palace in
Turin. If it be so, one of the influences that moulded his subsequent
life began at its earliest stages, but the story may go for what it is worth.

His public life may be said to have begun with the war of 1848,
when the brave little sub-Alpine kingdom boldly confronted the
whole power of the Austrian Empire in the cause of Italian freedom
and independence. The ardent young prince, then Duke of Savoy,
feared he might not receive a command or even be allowed to
take part in the war, and implored Cesare Balbo, his father's Minister,
to plead his cause in the Council of State. The Ministers sat late,
and it was past midnight when Balbo, leaving the council, saw a
shadowy figure pacing the further end of the courtyard. It was
the Duke of Savoy waiting to know his fate. Seven years later, at
a time of political struggle, when Victor Emmanuel, then king, was
perplexed and agitated, the son of Balbo ventured to suggest that he
might extricate himself from his dilemma by breach of faith, and the
king, while driving him from his presence in disgrace, told him that
it was only the memory of his father that saved him from even harsher
treatment.

The disastrous story of the campaign of '48-49 is known to all ;
how the hopes of Italy seemed crushed for ever on the fatal field of
Novara, and how the high-hearted Charles Albert, broken down by
misfortune, abdicated his throne in favour of his son, and retired to
end his days in exile and despair. Yet on that dark day, when
the cause of Italian freedom seemed lost for ever, Victor Emmanuel's
dogged courage refused to accept defeat as final, and in the me-
morable words " ritalia sarii" he gave the watchword to a happier
future.

He went in person to Radetzk/s tent to negotiate the terras of
peace, and the following were those first proposed by the marshal as
the conditions of stopping his victorious march. Abolition of the
constitution or Statute of Sardinia, suppression of tiie national flag

Victor EmmanueL 291

of Italy, retiim to the old system of government, and close alliance with
Austria. On these terms he would withdraw next day to Milan, would
exact no tribute or war indemnity, and pledged his government to
assist by every means in its power the enforcement of the new rkgime
in Turin. The Piedmontese Prince listened in silence, though he
with difficulty repressed his indignation.

" Marshal," he exclaimed, when Radetzky had concluded, " rather
than subscribe such conditions, I would lose a hundred kingdoms !
I will never be false to my father's pledges. You desire war to the
death ; be it so ! I will call upon the nation, and you will see Avhat
you will have to deal with in a general rising of Piedmont. If I
must succumb, I will succumb without disgrace. Our race knows
the way of exile ^ not that of dishonour. ^^

He was about to withdraw, but his firm attitude had made an im-
pression on the victorious Austrian, Avho perhaps shrank from driving
so resolute a foe to desperation. He proffered terms instead which
left the honour and independence of Piedmont intact, accepting a
war indemnity of a hundred millions of francs, with the occupation
of some portion of Sardinian territory in lieu of the political con-
cessions first required.

Victor Emmanuel always said he owed his success to the accidental
absence of General Hess, Radetzky's chief of the staff, who hastened
back as soon as he heard of the arrival in the camp of the Sardinian
Prince, but was too late to prevent the arrangement of the terms of
peace, and could scarcely conceal his mortification and dissatisfaction.
This negotiation was Victor Emmanuel's first act of sovereignty, for by
his father's abdication on tlie fatal day of Novara he was already
King of Sardinia. It was noticed at the time that the young monarch,
amidst the misfortunes of his country and his house, was able to
interest himself in the fate of a favourite charger which had fallen
into the hands of the enemy, and having recovered it firom the
Austrian general, rode it back to his camp, seemingly well content
to find himself once more on its back. This incident was thought
to indicate a want of feeling for the public calamity ; but if so,
it did not prove a true index to his character in later years, for
indifference to the welfare of his people and kingdom was not one of
the faults with which he could be charged.

Piedmont had fought unsuccessfully but not in vain ; for the seed
of Italian unity, sown on the blood-stained fields of Novara, Custoza,
and Goito, was destined to bear fruit under happier auspices. The
memory of that disastrous campaign sank deep into the heart of
Italy ; and still, the stranger who sneers at Piedmontese ascendency

U2

292 The Gentleman's Magazine.

in the Peninsula will hear in reply that neither princes or people of
Piedmont grudged blood and treasure in the cause of Italy when
Italy had no other champion ; and Florence still celebrates annually
the memory of '48 with a solemn requiem in Santa Croce for the
boy volunteers of Tuscany who joined the Piedmontese army, and
died facing the Austrian guns at Curtatone and Montanara.

The difficulties of the Sardinian Government after the campaign
were aggravated by the attitude of the Chamber, which proved so
unmanageable that the abolition of the Statute was urged on the
king by many of his counsellors. He was firm in refusing to annul
it, but dissolved Parliament instead, and in consideration of the
gravity of the situation so far infringed constitutional etiquette as to
address a personal appeal to the nation, known as the Proclamation
of Moncalieri. This spirited address, in which he claimed the
support of his people, and * plainly threatened the abolition of the
constitution if they continued to impede the fulfilment of the con-
ditions of peace, did not fail of its effect ; more moderate repre-
sentatives were returned, and the crisis was averted. It was during
this period of agitation that Victor Emmanuel, calling Massimo
d'Azeglio to the conduct of affairs, and declaring that he would not
violate the statute, said : " There have been so few honest kings
(Rfe Galantuomini) that it would be a grand thing to begin the
series."

The next crisis in Sardinian politics was the passing of the
Religious Corporations Bill in 1855, when the domestic misfortunes
that befel the royal household in the deaths at only a few days'
interval of the king's mother, wife, and brother, were represented as a
judgment on him for curtailing the privileges of the clergy. It was
then that the queen-mother, a most saintly princess, made a dying
appeal to her son to abandon the projected legislation, causing him,
as he is reported to have said, " the most terrible and bitter moment
of his life." It did not, however, turn him from his policy ; Cavour
was recalled, and the government, after violent opposition, passed the
obnoxious measure, one of whose main provisions was to make the
clergy amenable to the civil courts, previously without any jurisdiction
over them.

The participation of Sardinia in the Crimean war was also with
difficulty consented to by the Chamber, and the determination of the
king was mainly instrumental in carr>ing a measure pregnant with
consequences only foreseen at the time by him and Cavour. The
representation of Sardinia in the Congress of Paris, although strongly
opposed by Austria, was thereby secured, and the foundation of the

Victor EmntantuL 293

Franco-Sardinian alliance laid in the understanding come to by
Louis Napoleon and Cavour, who told one of his friends, on his
return, that within three years they should have a war and a good
one.

In 1854, when the cholera broke out in Genoa, and the panic of
the inhabitants increased the danger, Victor Emmanuel hastened to
take up his residence there, visited the hospitals, presided over the
distribution of relief, and remained until the epidemic had abated.
His safe return caused great rejoicing in Turin, where considerable
anxiety had been felt during his absence.

After the Congress of Paris, it was well understood by the national
party throughout Italy that the war of liberation was coming, and
the Piedmontese government had to guide and direct the suppressed
agitation beginning to ferment in all the various states of the Penin-
sula. The Austrian Cabinet sent a virulent note to its representative
in Turin, desiring Piedmont to silence its press and its orators. Vic-
tor Emmanuel replied that he took orders from no one, and the
Austrian Minister was recalled. Among the political demonstrations
of the time was a gigantic subscription throughout Italy, and Lombardy
more especially, for the armament of the fortress of Alessandria.
Collections were made in every city, yet the police could never dis-
cover one of the subscribers. All public offices in Piedmont were
thrown open to the refugees from the rest of Italy : Farini, Minister of
Public Instruction, was a Roman ; Paleocapo, who held the portfolio
of Public Works, a Venetian ; and General Cialdini, a native of
Modena, was aide-de-camp to the king.

1859 opened with Napoleon's celebrated address to the Austrian
ambassador, followed by Victor Emmanuel's speech to the Chamber
on the loth of January, in which he spoke the words so memorable
throughout Italy : " The horizon on which the new year rises is not
without a cloud. We cannot be insensible to the cry of suffering directed
to us from so many parts of Italy." These sentences were written in
the king's own hand.

So Piedmont took the field again as the champion of Italy, and
this time with an ally, by whose assistance the verdict of Novara and
Custozza was reversed at Palestro and Solferino. The king's personal
share in the campaign was a brilliant one, and the 3rd Zouaves, whom
he led to the charge at Palestro with his usual fiery ardour, created
him corporal of hoftour on the field, and presented him with the guns
taken by them from the enemy. Charles Albert had been in the
same way created first Grenadier of France by the French troops
iivith whom he served during a campaign in Spain. On the day of

294 ^^ Gentleman's Magazine.

Solferino, the fate of the battle seemed to turn on the possession of
the hill of San Martin o, from which the Sardinian troops had been
repulsed in five successive charges. " Come, my men," said Victor
Emmanuel in Piedmontese, " we must either take San Martino or
make San Martino " (an idiom for shifting quarters, from the date at
which the tenancy of houses usually terminates). The weary troops
rushed after him with renewed ardour, and the position was triumph-
antly carried.

The successful campaign ended, however, in a terrible disappoint-
ment to the Italians, and the armistice suddenly and unexpectedly
decided on by the Emperor without his participation came upon
Victor Emmanuel like a thunderbolt. It is said that when he re-
covered from the first stupefaction into which the announcement
threw him, he exclaimed that he would continue the war alone, calling
on all Italy to join him. Calmer counsels, however, came with reflec-
tion, and, hot-headed soldier though he was, he showed more wisdom
and self-control in accepting the inevitable than his great Minister,
who could not repress his rage and indignation, even in the presence
of his sovereign. Cavour, although he had heard of the peace, and
hastened to the head-quarters on receipt of the news, did not know
the actual terms until they were communicated to him by the King
himself in a most stormy interview, of which various accounts are
given. Ch. de Mazade, in his recent book on Count Cavour, says
that Victor Emmanuel, retiuning from the imperial camp at Valleggio
on the nth of July with the document he had signed, threw it on the
table, and divesting himself of his tunic, flung himself on a seat with
a sombre countenance, and said, " Read it." But when one of
those present began to read aloud the preliminaries of peace, Cavour
interrupted with an outburst of uncontrollable passion, and became
so violent that the King, unable to calm him, left him to the care of
General I^ Marmora. It is at any rate certain that he left the camp
with every appearance of high indignation, threw up office, and
went to travel in Switzerland. Ratazzi succeeded him in a time of
great difficulty for the Piedmontese Government, who were left with
the Italian Revolution half accomplished on their hands ; while the
political passions excited throughout the Peninsula threatened to lead
to outbreaks that might have compromised the whole future of the
country. To keep in check the seething excitement of the baffled
patriots, to enjoin calmness and patience on men frantic with partially
realised desires, to hold in hand the threads of the ravelled web of
intrigue, rudely broken off" at half completion, was the task of the
Turin Cabinet during the winter of '59-60; and so severely were their

Victor EmtnanueL 295

energies strained,, that the King has said that at this time he was
at least a hundred nights without going to bed.

The cession of Nice and Savoy cost him a severe struggle ; but
once consented to, he adhered loyally to his bargain, and never
favoured any scheme for the recovery of those provinces. In ad-
dressing the Chamber, which represented two-thirds of Italy, on the
2nd of April, i860, he alluded to the cession of territory in these
words : " As a proof of gratitude to France, for the welfare of Italy,
to consolidate the union of the two nations, which have their origin,
sentiments, and destiny in common, some sacrifice was needed, and
I have made that which was hardest to my heart. Saving the vote
of the people, the approbation of Parliament, and, in regard to
Switzerland, the safeguard of international guarantees, I have stipu-
lated a treaty for the re-union of Savoy and the district of Nice to
France." The announcement was not made by the King without
visible signs of emotion, and was received by the deputies with loud
cheers for his Majesty.

The annexation of Umbria and the Marches, and Garibaldi's
conquest of the Two Sicilies, followed rapidly, but Venice had to wait
six years longer before seeing the tricolor planted in the Piazza of
Saint Mark; and it is always a humiliating recollection to the Italians
that her liberation was due, not to their success, but to that of the
Prussians. There remained only Rome, desired rather as the seal
and crown of the enterprise than for her own sake ; and when that
too was won, Victor Emmanuel, first addressing an Italian Parliament
in the capital, must have felt that his father's cherished dream was
most strangely realised. Yet, save for the prestige it confers, the
possession of the seven-hilled city is a source rather of embarrassment
than of strength to the Italian Government, and the position of
hostility in which it places them towards the Pope causes a painful
struggle in the minds of many of their adherents.

With the completion of the national unity, the political romance
of Victor Emmanuel's life was over, and like the hero and heroine of a
nursery tale, Italy and her champion " lived happily together thence-
forward." It would be prosaic to trace the little pecuniary diflftculties
which in their case, as in that of so many other happy couples, have
been the chief source of embarrassment, but it must be acknowledged
that Victor Emmanuel's greatest fault as a sovereign was his utter and
hopeless recklessness about money. The royal extravagance drove
Ministers to their wits' ends to meet its demands, and placed the
King in a position most unbefitting his dignity. In the celebrated
Mantegazza trial for forging his signature, about a year and a half ago,

396 TIu Gentleman s Magazine.

it appeared that his bills were circulating all over Italy, and, so low
was the royal credit, were only cashed by the banks at a considerable
discount. His debts amount to between fifteen and twenty millions
of francs, which the present King has nobly taken on him as a
personal charge, refusing the offer of Parliament to pay them, out of
regard for his father's memory and for the sacredness of his private
afiairs.

Victor Emmanuel's popularity in Italy was abundantly proved by
the universal mourning for his premature death ; but the feeling he
inspired was rather abstract than personal, and his presence rarely
called forth any enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty from his new
subjects. He scarcely spoke their language, and his appearance in
public was little calculated to impress the multitude in his favour, as
he seemed rather uneasily than graciously conscious of being an
object of attention, and had in his bearing neither princely dignity nor
royal affability. His carriage generally passed almost as unnoticed as
that of a private individual, and even officers in uniform seldom saluted
him. His want of external polish exposed him to many a poignant
shaft of ridicule from the cultivated Florentines and ready-witted
Neapolitans ; but his people trusted, if they did not like, him, and
appreciated the strong good sense which was a bulwark between
Italy and all perilous or adventurous policy as long as he lived.

To the popular imagination he was most familiarly known as a
fiery soldier and mighty hunter, but history will recognise him in
another character — that of a sagacious and active politician. He
took a leading part in every discussion in his Cabinet, and exercised
a strong personal influence over all those who served under him.
One of his old advisers has stated that the best passages both in the
royal speeches and in political despatches emanated from the King
himself; and Cavour is reported to have said to a friend in a moment
of expansion, " He lets us go our own way, but if we miss our
footing he shows us where to plant our steps. That is always his
way." M. Thiers said of him, when he returned from his tour of the
Courts of Europe, that he was the most acute politician he had ever
met, and M. Gambetta is believed to have given the same verdict.
His penetration into character was shown when, on Massimo
d'Azeglio proposing to nominate Cavour for the first time to a place in
the Ministry, he answered with a laugh, "/have no objection to him,
but I can tell you he is a man who will unseat you all."

No Continental sovereign so well understood the principle of
parliamentary government, and his favourite answer when pressed
on political subjects was *^Son r^ costituzionale." In 1852, when

Vutor EmmanueL 297

MassiiiK) d'Azeglio advised him to visit some of the provinces where
there was political discontent, he answered, '' I will go if you will
ajisiirer for my being well received. A despot may dispense with
Reclamations, but the silence of his people is the condemnation of a
^institutional king." He had a strong personal antipathy to re*
publicanism, so much so that the sight of a red feather worn by a
lady admitted to an interview with him sufficed to bring a dark
cloud to his brow, and call forth a strong expression of displeasure,
appeased, however, in a moment by the removal of the offending
ornament ^^ Ah, vous etes bonne fille," he said, smiling again, when
the lady, with ready presence of mind, took off her hat and snatched
out the badge of revolution. Yet his personal prejudice did not
prevent him from employing as his Ministers men of all shades of
politics, and many of the most advanced, Daniel Manin among
others, gave in their adhesion to his Government It was the glory
of his reign to have closed, in the words of one of his own procla-
mations, "tlie era of revolution in Italy," thereby conferring a lasting
benefit on the whole of Europe ; for republicanism, rampant through-
out the Peninsula while it seemed identified with national existence,
is practically extinct under the present constitutional Government.

Victor Emmanuel's temper was generous and placable ; he was not
easily roused to resentment, and seemed incapable of harbouring a
grudge for any personal offence. If he had a susceptible point it
was the ancestral glories of his race, and his one violent quarrel with
Cavour is believed to have arisen from the Minister having permitted
himself to speak slightingly of the House of Savoy.

Two anecdotes may suffice to show how his ready wit sometimes
extricated him from awkward positions, and turned the laugh against
his opponents. In i860, when he wished to visit the Cathedral of
Pisa, Cardinal Corsi, the archbishop, forbade his clergy to receive
him ; so when the King arrived, escorted by the whole population, he
found the church deserted, and the great bronze doors shut in his
face. An ominous murmur of rage began to be heard from the
populace, and a riot seemed imminent, when the good-humoured
monarch, nothing disconcerted, espied a side door which by good
fortime was open, and directed his steps towards it " My friends,**
he said aloud, turning to the people, '* it is by the narrow gate that
we must enter Paradise." The mob laughed and applauded, and the
incident passed off without serious consequences. In the same way,
at Bologna, the ecclesiastics absented themselves during his visit to
the cathedral, but the Archbishop, fearing the consequences of so
decided a step, presented himself to the King next day, alleging some

298 The Gentlematis Magazitu,

'm

excuse for his absence. ** You were right not to trouble yourself,"
said Victor Emmanuel, "for I went to the church to pay my respects,
not to the priests, but to God."

Although in public affairs he could exercise a prudent and
judicious self-control, in private life he was wayward as a spoiled
child, and could not understand the slightest, even unavoidable
delay, in carrying out anything he had set his heart on. Many years
ago, when some horses were being imported from Ireland for his
stud, his impatience to get them was so great that he hurried on the
latter stages of their journey until the train they were in actually took
fire, and they narrowly escaped being burned to death. The person
in charge of them was harassed by telegrams at every stage, urging
more rapid travelling. When, on their arrival, he saw one of them
leap a bar, he remained gazing in admiration, and exclaimed, ** It is
not a horse, but a bird ! "

His way of life was peculiar, inasmuch as he only ate twice in the
twenty-four hours, at noon and midnight, always alone, and frequently
walking up and down the room, instead of seated at table. When
he entertained guests at a state banquet, he is described as generally
sitting during the meal with his hands resting on the hilt of his sabre,
and his chin propped on his hands. He went to bed and got up
twice in every four-and-twenty hours, thus going through the ordinary
routine of two days in one. The restraints of society were most
irksome to him, and he had no taste for luxury or elegance in his
surroundings. In the royal palace at Naples, where he spent several
winters, the rooms he occupied were on a stuffy entresol and fitted
up in the most ordinary way. He died on a plain iron bedstead
without canopy or curtains, and in a room scantily and modestly
fiimished. The money he lavished so prodigally was certainly not
spent in personal luxury or in keeping up the splendour of royalty in
its immediate surroundings.

During the later years of his life he suffered much domestic an-
noyance from the pretensions of the Countess Mirafiori, who used all
her influence to have her marriage legalised by the performance of
the civil ceremony — all that was required to raise her at once to the
position of Queen of Italy. He, however, was firm in refusing, even
threatening to abdicate when pressed too far, and in this case, as in
all others, declined to let female influence sway him in public matters.

Although some saw in his death a strange fiilfilment of his pre-
sentiment of misfortune in going to Rome, and others a judgment for
the profanation of the Quirinal, in point of fact his last illness was not
contracted there at all, but was already weighing upon him when he

Victor EmmanueL 299

left Turin. During the journey, on the 29th of December, he felt
the fetal chill of fever, and not all the rugs and coverings that
could be collected among his attendants could warm the hardy hunter,
accustomed at other times to brave all rigours of climate without
extra covering. He struggled to the last against illness, going about
and transacting business by day, but passing disturbed nights, and
when he took to his bed, four days before his death, he was already
far gone in fever. It is a matter of regret to all Italians that his
medical attendants should not have called in some man of established
eminence in his profession, particularly as they had within a few
hours' journey a physician second to none in Europe, Professor
Cipriani of Florence, whose judgment in a case is as nearly infallible
as it is given to human science to be.

The most striking feature in the grand cortege which followed
Victor Emmanuel's remains to the Pantheon was the celebrated Iron
Crown of Lombardy, the diadem of Charlemagne, the most venerable
political relic in Europe. Escorted on its journey by the corporation
and chapter of Monza, and received with royal honours in its transit
through Italy, it rested not unworthily on the bier of him whose
inheritance had ransomed Lombardy from the yoke of the stranger.

The prosecution of a great idea through life with the concentration
of an iron will, combined with the good sense which recognises
insuperable obstacles, and the patience which awaits the favourable
moment for overcoming them, constitutes a form of genius; and
judged by this standard, Victor Emmanuel may be held entitled to
rank among the great men of history. His finest quality, however,
was his utter and uncompromising honesty, and this it may be con-
fidently anticipated he has transmitted to his son and successor, for
the princes of the House of Savoy, whatever their individual failings,
have that in their blood which makes it impossible for them to break
their faith.

£. M. CLERKE.

300

SHAKSPERE'S SONNETS.

THERE is a great tendency, even amongst the most earnest
students of Shakspere, to shirk the Sonnets. A few of them
are generally selected for admiration ; the remainder, as far as possible,
suppressed. This is due partly to the overwhelming interest excited
by his dramatic works, partly to the subjects with which some of the
Sonnets deal, but to a great extent also to the nature of the criticisms
that have been bestowed upon them. So little is known of their
origin, that it is possible for any one of ordinary ingenuity to construct
a theory about them that will appear at least plausible, and will con-
sequently find some adherents. The result is that they have frequently
been treated as so many counters, to be transposed and re-arranged
according to the exigencies of the view to be supported, instead of
revelations of the character of a man about whom too little is known.
It is impossible within the necessarily small limits of this article to
pass in review the various criticisms to which the Sonnets have been
subjected. Its main object is to show that the first hundred and twenty-
six sonnets, at any rate, are arranged, in the Quarto of 1609, in an order
that is probably chronological ; and, if a thread of connection can thus
be traced, the onus is thrown upon those who maintain their right to
re-arrange the Sonnets to show that this connection is false or fancifiil.
The method adopted is that of Gervinus, not that of Mr. Gerald Massey.

It will be well at the outset to state the view that is to be supported.
It is this : — ^The first hundred and twenty-six sonnets were addressed
by Shakspere to a friend who is unknown, but whose Christian name
was probably the same as the poet's,* during a somewhat lengthened
period, possibly about three years,* and have for subject chiefly the
phases through which the friendship passed. They were not intended,
at the time when they were written, to form a consecutive poem,
though many were ^Titten at the same time, but were subsequently
strung together in the order in which we now possess them, and which
is approximately, if not actually, chronological.

The identity of Shakspere's friend (who for convenience will be
called ** Will ") has been the subject of much exhaustive enquiry,

' Cf. Sonnets cxxxiv. cxxxv, cxxxvi. * Cf. Sonnet civ.

Shaksperes Sottftets. 301

which has had little result. This will not be dwelt on here ; but
before commencing the exposition of the Sonnets, a slight attempt
will be made to sketch the leading characteristics of the two friends
and their social relation to one another, as far as it is possible to pick
them out.

In the first place, it is quite clear that Will moves in a much higher
circle of society than Shakspere. He has all the advantages that
birth can give him. This is implied in most of the sonnets, and is
the pivot of one section, as will be shown. He is still very young ;
he stands " on the top of happy hours ; "* but is still his mo/A^s ghiss^
in which she can call back "the lovely April of her prime."* He is
beautiful too ; and this is not merely the beauty that friendship reads
into a face that is dear, however plain, but genuine and conspicuous
beauty that strikes all beholders ; his "youth's proud livery"' is " so
gazed on." So much for the outside show; now for the heart. Thb
is more difficult to get at ; for if faults existed, Shakspere would not
be the one to disclose them, unless under compulsion. But one or
two clues may be gathered. It would appear that he was to a certain
extent selfish and conceited. He is " contracted to his own bright
eyes," and "feeds his light's flame with self-suhstantial fuel."* He is
" the tomb of his self-love."* " For shame," says Shakspere,

Deny that thou bear'st love to any
Who for thyself art so unprovident.
Grant if thou wilt thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lovest is most evident.*

And although the sonnets firom which these quotations are taken
are full of strained and quaint conceits, yet I think that these indica-
tions of character given in the earlier sonnets are not to be neglected,
as they seem to throw light upon the interpretation of the subsequent
phases of the series.

Now for Shakspere. We know, without the plentiful evidence
that the Sonnets afford, that his profession was one that rendered him
a sort of outcast from society ; at any rate, from such as Will would
move in. He might live to be the object of amusement for such a
man, but could hardly hope to be his friend ; and any attention shown
to him by a man in Will's position would be looked upon as an act
of condescension, if not of disgrace. In addition to this, Shakspere
was some years older than his friend. It seems almost too audacious
to try to sum up in a short paragraph Shakspere's mental and moral
character. Each man who studies his works carefully endeavours to

• Sonnet xvi. « Ibid. iii. » Ibid. ii. « Ibid. i.

* Ibid. iii. * Ibid. x.

302 The Gentlematis Magazine.

form a conception of this, and it is always a conception of beauty.
His spirit, the " better part of him," is, as he says, with us all, and each
must judge for himself This much may be said. He was a man of
brilliant and versatile wit, most attractive probably in society; and be-
yond that, possessing an almost unfathomable depth and immeasurable
breadth of human sympathy and love, which, if once devoted to an
object deemed worthy of it, would go out towards that object with an
entirety and abandonment of self incomprehensible to the ordinary
being, whose affections are beaten into subserviency to material welfare :
they would be given not as the world giveth — the "wise world," as he
himself called it. The probable intensity of the affection of the man —
who was in sympathy with Hamlet and Macbeth ; with Brutus and
Antony ; with Lear, and also with his fool — may be partially imagined
by most of us, but only described by himself.

Here then we have the basis upon which this friendship is to grow,
and it must appear clear that from the outset there is a want of
mutuality that is likely to bring about serious misunderstanding.
Will's affection for Shakspere is of a volatile, butterfly nature — a sort
of taking-to ; Shakspere's, on the other hand, a firm and everlasting
love ; a regular devotion to, growing to his friend, an admission that
he is " all the better part of him." ^ It is not difficult to detect which
of the friends will be the Antonio, which the Bassanio ; which will
sacrifice his heart for his friend, and which will be content to enjoy
himself unmindful of that heart-agony.

Let us now proceed to consider how far these suppositions, sug-
gested by the characters of the two men, are borne out by the Sonnets.
For this purpose, we shall class them in three groups, thus : —

I St class. From familiarity to friendship . . i. to xxv.

2nd „ Clouds xxvi. „ xcvi.

3rd „ Reconciliation xcvii. „ cxxvi.

The reasons for this classification will appear as the subject unfolds
itself. The titles are somewhat fanciful, but will serve to keep the
periods before the mind.

. The first group, " from familiarity to friendship," ^sill now be con-
sidered in detail.

The first section of this group runs to the end of Sonnet No. xiv.,
and treats of but two themes : Will's beauty, and his duty to get mar-
ried, and so perpetuate that beauty by having offspring. This theme
is presented in all imaginable lights, with all the quips and conceits
that mark Shakspere's earlier style, and sometimes in the spirit of

* Sonnet xxxix.

Skaksperes Sonnets. 303

banter suggestive of ^' Love's Labour's Lost" The chief feature of the
series is the lack of any sentiment indicative of a deep feeling of affec-
tion. In the eighth sonnet, indeed, Shakspere says that it is like music
to hear his friend's voice; and, towards the end, in Sonnet xiii.,he speaks
of him as " dear my love ;" but up to that point there is nothing to
suggest anything more than familiarity. Indeed, the arguments that
Shakspere brings forward are striking in this respect In one sonnet
he asks Will to pity the world} in another he points out that it is due
to Nature^ who has lent him his beauty, to return her her own with
usury ; in a third, he points out the wrong done to a possible wife? He
even becomes quite philosophical, and, with a dash of prophetic Dar-
winism, says : —

Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,
Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish :
Look, whom she best endowed, she gave thee more.
Which bounteous gifl thou shouldst in bounty cherish.^

But in no case is it even hinted that the opinion or wish of the
writer could possibly be an argument in favour of the course sug-
gested, as siu-ely would have been the case had the friendship at the
time had any depth of root Indeed, in the sixth sonnet Shakspere
implies that, if once Will had a son. Death would be a matter of
secondary importance : —

If ten of thine ten times refigured thee,

Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart.

Leaving thee living in posterity ?

How Utterly different this is from the pathos with which he subse-
quently meditates on his friend's possible death : —

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, —

That Time wiU come and take my love away.

This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.*

The chief value of these Sonnets is the insight they give us into the
character and position of Will, forming a sort of introduction to the
whole.

The fifteenth and sixteenth sonnets introduce a distinct variation
in the tone. If Will ^vill not take the advice offered to him, and per-
petuate his beauty in his children, Shakspere, seeing the transience
of all earthly things, must by his art " engraft him new."* The
former method would be far more efficacious than the poet's " barren
rhyme," which can do him justice " neither in imvard worth, nor

* Sonnet i. * Ibid. iv. • Ibid. iii. ^ Ibid. xi.

» Ibid. Uiv. • Ibid. XV.

304 Tlie Gentleman s Magazine.

outward fair.^ Here is the commencement of a distinct deepening
of Shakspere's feeling towards Will. It is not now the world, or
possible wives, or Nature, whose cause is advocated ; Shakspere him-
self has an interest in handing down to future ages some type of
Will's inward worth (which here appears for the first time) as well
as his mere external beauty. This deepening of affection continues
through Sonnets xviil and xix. Will is " more lovely and more
temperate " than a summer's day ; and Shakspere throws in firont of
him the shield of his loving verse to protect him from the assaults of
Time.

From this point each sonnet of this first group expresses some phase
of the unity and depth of love existing between the two friends.
In Sonnet xxii. they have changed hearts. In the following one
Shakspere's love so overmasters him that he cannot trust himself to
speak it ; and prefers to let his poems be ** the dumb presagers of his
speaking breast who plead for love : " no longer a mere vehicle for
handing down Will's beauty to posterity. The last sonnet of this
group perfects this happy bond of love. Not even the disrepute in
which the world holds Shakspere is to bar him from his friend ;
all such obstructions mutual affection has broken down : —

Let those who are in favour with their stars,

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,

Unlocked iorjoy in that I honour most.

Great Princes' favourites their lair leaves spread

But as the marigold* at the sun's eye ;

And in themselves their pride lies buriM,

For at a frown they in their glory die.

The painful warrior famousM for fight,

After a thousand victories once foiled,

Is from the book of honour razM quite.

And all the rest forgot for which he toiled.
Then happy I, that love and am Moved
Where I may not remove^ nor be removed. •

If Shakspere's estimate of his friend's love had been a correct one ;
if that love had really been so true and deep as he imagined, this
last couplet should have rung the final dose of the Sonnets ; for
what more could there be to say between them than this? But this,
as any outsider with as much knowledge of the characters of the two
men as we possess could easily see, was not the case. Shakspere
had read into his friend's superficial affection his own tnie loving
nature, and was feeding himself on air, promise-crammed. He might
well have said at this point, with Othello's dim presentiment of

* Sonnet xxv.

Shaksperes Sonnets. 305

future ill in his present happiness, " If it were now to die, 'twere now
to be most happy." This rope that he has been laboriously spinning
between himself and his friend is now to be put to the test ; perhaps
to be found but a rope of sand.

This then brings us to the second of the three great groups into
which we have divided the sonnets, and which we have called
" Clouds," as indicative, to a certain extent, of its contents.

The test to which the endurance of the friendship is to be exposed
is the separation of the two friends from one another. How they
would each feel and act under such circumstances we could partly
guess, had we no record. But Shakspere has left us an expression
of his state of mind in the sonnets which form the first division of this
second group. This includes Sonnets xxvi. to xxxii., the whole of which
are a " written embassage "^ to his friend, the " Lord of his love ; " to
" witness duty, not to show his wit : " and at the end he begs his
friend to keep the writing, and, if in the future, when the writer is
dead, he should re-read those " poor rude lines," ' to keep them " for
their love, not for their rhyme."

What then were Shakspere's feelings during this separation? They
are expressed in the five beautiful sonnets to which the two already
referred to form Prologue and Epilogue. He is evidently in a state
of intense mental depression ; he feels alone in the world, and
slighted by it : he has lost many dear friends by death, and " heavily
from woe to woe tells o'er the sad account of fore-bemoan fed moan." '
But, heaven be thanked, he has one joy that quite overwhelms and
destroys these griefs — the love of his friend ; when he thinks of him
" all losses are restored, all sorrows end." The love that was afore-
time due to the dead is now concentrated upon Will: he is " the grave
where buried love doth live." * By day his thoughts are all of Will ;
and even by night he tannot sleep for thinking of him, for then

My soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view ;
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.*

Each sonnet*^ of this group should be read and re-read with the
utmost care and attention ; they are a most inimitable analysis of this
phase of Shakspere's feeling. Perhaps the following is most typical : —

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eye,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries.
And look upon myself, and curse my fate ;

* Sonnet xxvi. ' Ibid, xxxii. * Il)id. xxx. < Ibid. xxxi.

* Ibid, xxvii.
VOL. CCXUI. NO, 1767. X ^

3o6 The Gentlematis Magazine.

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope ; —

Featured like him ; — like him with friends possessed ;

Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope —

With what most enjoy contented least ;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee ; — and then my state

(Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate :

For thy sweet love remembered, such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.'

But what about Will all this time ? He has left us no record of his
feelings: we have to gather what they have been from the next group,
which are sonnets of heart-break. It includes Sonnets xxxiii. to xxxviii.,
and it is clear from them that Will has said or done something that has
gone to Shakspere's sensitive heart like a knife. This is the wail that
it has called forth: —

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy ;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face.
And from the forlorn world this visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with his disgrace :
Even so my sun one early mom did shine
With all triumphant splendour on my brow ;
But, out, alack ! he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath masked him from me now.

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth ;

Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.'

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day

And make me travel forth without my cloak,

To let base clouds o'ertake me on my way.

Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke ?

'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break

To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

For no man well of such a salve can speak

That heals the woimd, and cures not the disgrace.

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief:

Though thou repent, yet have I still the loss :

The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence's cross.

Ah, but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds.
And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.'

What is this strong offence of which Shakspere has to bear the cross ?
It is difficult to say from these two sonnets that open up the subject,

> Sonnet xxix. ' Ibid, xxxiii. * Ibid, xxxiv.

Shaksperes Sonnets. 307

but it is believed that a full interpretation is afforded by Sonnets xxxvL
and xxxvii. Before noticing these, however, it may be useful to enquire
what upon a /nV?rr grounds the nature of this ''strong offence " is likely
to have been ; and with regard to the two sonnets just quoted, we will
only notice the nature of the metaphor employed. Will is the sun ;
something infinitely and eternally above Shakspere, that became his
for an hour: then clouds came between and separated them. Will,
the sun, bursts through those clouds, and smiles upon his friend
again ; but this is no reparation for the wrong done.

We have already noted that Will's affection would in all proba-
bility be light and superficial, Shakspere's deep and enduring ; that
Will held a position in society that would render his familiarity with
an actor a sort of stain upon his character. What would be the result
of this when the overwhelming attraction of Shakspere*s society was
removed ? Would it not be that Will's friends would remonstrate with
and taunt him about his association with the low-bom player ? And
would not he, because his love had no depth of earth, be tempted to
deny his friend? This is not stated as dogmatically true, but as
exceedingly probable under the circumstances of the case; and,
supposing it be true, the metaphor of Sonnets xxxiii. and xxxiv. would
gain in point.

Now let us bring Sonnets xxxvi. and xxxvii. to bear upon this
difficulty.

Let mc confebs that we two mubt be twain,

Although our undivided loves are one :

So shall those blots that do with me remain,

Without thy help by me be borne alone.

In our two loves there is but one respect.

Though in our lives a separable spite,

Which, though it alter not love's sole eflfecl,

Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.

I may not evermore acknowledge thee

Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame ;

Nor thou with public kindness honour me.

Unless thou take that honour from thy name.
But do not so : I love thee in such sort
As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.'

What light does this sonnet throw upon the offence that has been
conunitted? Does it not show that it has been borne in upon
Shakspere's mind that the perfect and entire unity of heart and life
that he fondly hoped for is impossible from the circumstances of the
case ? Their undivided loves might still be one, but they then were
and for ever must be twain. And why? because Shakspere must

* Sonnet xxxvi.
x 2

3o8 The Gentleman s Magazifie.

himself bear alone the blots that remain with him on account of
his profession. There is a " separable spite '* in their lives which,
although it cannot alter their affection, may place many bars between
its satisfaction. How? because for the future Will must never
recognise Shakspere in public, for that would bring dishonour upon
him; and Shakspere has his honour so much at heart that it becomes
his own.

Does not all this tend to show that the offence that has been
pointed out as a likely one, was that in reality committed ? During
the temporary separation Will had denied that he cared particularly
for his friend, and on his return had tried to put it all right Shak-
spere could willingly forgive and forget this sin ; but it brought home
to him painfully the fact that the bar that society had placed between
them, and which he thought affection had overleaped, was, in fact,
insuperable. How does he reconcile himself to this new position ?

As a decrepit father takes delight

To see his active child do deeds of youtli,

So I, made lame by fortunes dearest s/nte.

Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth :

For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,

Or any of these all, or all, or more,

Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,

I make my love engrafted to this store :

So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised

Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,

That I in thy abundance am sufficed.

And by a part of all thy glory live.

Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee :
This wish I have ; then ten times happy me ! '

There is something infinitely beautiful in the way Shakspere makes
the very cause of his grief, Will's superior position, his glory : he takes
with content tlic lowest seat ; acknowledges that he is lamed by
fortimc, and is sufficed in his friend's abundance.

The interpretation of this group of the Sonnets here suggested
recommends itself very strongly to the present ^Titer : but it is proper
to state here that it is not the one generally accepted. The group is
usually extended so as to include the .sonnets down to No. xlii.' It
will be seen that sonnets xl.-xlii. refer to an offence committed by
Will against Shakspere, which was evidently an intrigue with his
mistress, the " dark woman " of the second set of sonnets. The
accepted view is that all the sonnets just mentioned refer to this

I

' rSonnet xxxvii.

Sliaksptres Sonnets. 309

offence. The writer's opinion is that there were two separate offences :
the one that has already been referred to Will's denial of the friend-
ship ; and the offence of Sonnets xl.-xlii. The following arguments
have led to this conclusion. First : the nature of the metaphor in
Sonnets xxxiii. and xxxiv., in which Will is represented as something
infinitely above Shakspere, that has deigned once to notice him ;
secondly, the inevitable result of the offence — the separation of their
public lives, not of their hearts ; and thirdly and chiefly, that the
former offence has been freely and entirely forgiven before any
mention is made of the intrigue. A friend does not usually select the
moment after he has offered his friend full and free oblivion and
forgiveness of an offence committed against him to expatiate upon
the particulars of the sin ; and yet this is the interpretation that must
be forced upon the sonnets if only one offence is recognised. It
does not appear possible that the first offence could be taken up as a
theme of expostulation after Sonnets xxxvi.-xxxviiL

But it is necessary also to take notice of the thirty-fifth sonnet, in
which the first fault is styled a " sensual fault." If a sensual fault is
merely one that is a gratification of the senses, then it would go hard
with the suggested interpretation. But surely the word " sensual " is
capable of receiving a Avider meaning than this. Hooker, who was
no abuser of language, says, in his " Ecclesiastical Polity": — "The
greatest part of men are such as prefer t/uir own private good before
all things, even that good which is sensual before whatsoever is most
divine." And this seems a true definition. The man that seeks " his
own private good," at the expense of all higher considerations, is
essentially " sensual," although he may never have committed any of
the few offences which in the world pass under that name. George
Osborne was a sensual man ; and when he lit his cigar with poor
little Amelia Sedley's loving letters, he committed a most grievously
sensual fault. Tito Melema was another ; and the climax of his
sensuality was when he denied any knowledge of Baldassare. So when
Will, for the sake of his own ease, and to save himself a few taunts,
denied his friend, he was sensual to the last degree ; sacrificing every-
thing upright and honourable to " his own private good."

The division into two separate offences is for these reasons
adopted; and the thirty-ninth sonnet — an Absence-Sonnet — will be
classed by itself as marking the time elapsing between the first and
second offences.

The fourth section of this group includes Sonnets xl.-xlii., which
refer to WilFs second offence ; clearly an intrigue with Shakspere's
mistress. This is no doubt the place for a severe moral exercitation :

3IO The Gentleman's Magazine.

but the reader will be spared it It must be remembered that
relationships of this sort were in Shakspere's time less universally
reprobated, and perhaps less commonly entered into, than nowa-
days— our practical and our theoretical morality often standing in
an inverse ratio to one another. But this is beside our mark All that
we have to recognise is that a man fnay feel as deep and imalterable
affection for a mistress as for a wife ; and any injury done to him in
the former relation may inflict as deep a wound as if the connection
had been hallowed by the superimposed hands of Holy Church.

It was in such a position that Shakspere found himself. The first
wound his friend had inflicted had healed, although the scar remained.
But here, treading on the heels of the first offence, comes a second.
The hurt is in itself hard to bear, and is rendered more intolerable by
the hand that inflicts it The ciy of anguish that follows is not so
sharp as it was in the first case. The first revelation of neglect is
always the most astounding ; it is rather the dull moan that follows
severe recurrent pain.

Ay me ! but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
And chide thy beauty and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth, —

Hers, by thy beauty tempting her to thee ;

Thine, by thy beauty being false to me. *

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly ;
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.-

But what can he do but invent excuses for and forgive his friend ?
He does it, with a heavy heart, and an unconquerable feeling that he
is but inventing. But his love is not so shallow-rooted as to be torn
up by even this storm : —

I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief.

Although thou steal thee all my poverty :

And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief

To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows.
Kill me with spites ; yet we must not be foes I ■

The forty-third sonnet introduces the third separation. It appears likely
that the whole of the remaining sonnets of this " Cloud " group were

• Sonnet xll « Ibid. xlii. « Ibid. xl.

Shaksperes Sonnets. 311

written during this separation, for it is not until we commence the
" Reconciliation " sonnets that we get any hint of its termination ;
and then, in SOnnets xcvii. and xcviii. Shakspere tells us, that although
it has extended over a summer, autumn, and spring, it has been to
him all winter : so we get some idea of its length. This separation
is caused partly by a journey undertaken by Shakspere ; partly by
Will's neglect of him. The first offence was but a single slight ; but
in this period neglect is to become a familiar thing ; and the sonnets
we are now dealing with depict the gradual dawning of this fact upon
Shakspere*s mind and the corresponding moods produced in him.

' The first section of this group, including Sonnets xliii. to Iv., bears
a strong resemblance to the sonnets of the first separation, and is
intended, like them, to show how entirely, day and night, his thoughts
are centred upon his friend. But it is not now a " written embassage " ?
that he sends. His thought and desire, the air and fire of his body,
have gone " in tender embassy of love " to his friend, and left him
earthy and melancholy ; but there is no correspondence. And there
is another element of melancholy that does not pervade the earlier set;
the feeling that what has been may be again ; that the friend who has
been once capable of slighting him will be likely to do it a second
time.^ He feels that the time may come when Will will " frown on his
defects ; " that when love gives way to reason, there will be plenty of
reasons " of setded gravity " for pushing him on one side ; and this
makes him journey heavily. Yet he consoles himself with his own
faithfulness, and his power to make the memory of his friend eternal.
The next section, consisting of three sonnets, numbered Ivi. to Iviii.,
opens up another phase of this separation. The suspicion of what
might be of the forty-eighth sonnet has now become the suspicion of
what is. "Sweet love, renew thy force "^ is now a necessary

. admonition : "do not kill the spirit of love with a perpetual dulness."

Let this sad interim like the ocean be
Which parts the shores where two contracted -new
Come daily to the banks, that when they see
Return of love more blest may be the view.

In the next sonnet a little more is disclosed. There is no physic^

impediment to their reunion, but still they are separated. Yet

Shakspere will not think ill of his friend, nor chide the world- with^

out-end hour whilst he watches for him. In the utter self-abnegation

of love he cries : —

O let me suffer, being at your beck
The imprisoned absence of your liberty ;

' Sonnet xlv. » Cf. Ibid, xlviii. » Ibid. Ivi.

312 The Gentleman! s Magazine.

And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check
Without accusing you of injury.

I am to wait, though waiting so be hell ;
Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.*

In the next section, Sonnets lix.-lxv., Shakspere seems to find relief
in his art. He has that comfort at least amongst his troubles : he
can sing, and that song shall perpetuate his friend. It may be faiiciful,
but it appears to the present writer as if the more Shakspere's sorrows
gathered around him, the more he found relief, and even joy, in
making use of his talent : the eternity of his verse is the one percep-
tible streak of consolation in this dreary period.

The next section is one of unmitigated gloom. The world is
utterly rotten, and Shakspere would fain be out of it. It is even
a sad thought to him that Will should live in it, " and with his presence
grace impiety."^ Evetything is false and hollow and topsy-turvy : —

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry : —

As, to behold desert a beggar bom,

And needy nothing trimmed in jollity

And purest faith unhappily forsworn.

And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,

And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

And right perfection wrongfully disgraced.

And strength by limping sway disabled.

And art made tongue-tied by authority,

And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,

And simple truth miscalled simplicity.

And captive good attending captain ill : —

Tired with all these, from these I would be gone
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.*

In such a world as this Will was growing common — common to
everyone but his friend ; scarce to him alone : what wonder that he
should wish to be out of it !

It may be tliat there is a tinge of selfishness about this, but if
there be, it is only that self-denial may rise the higher. This friend-
ship, so dear to Shakspere, has been an ill-assorted one from the
point of view of " the wise world." It may be a source of annoy-
ance to Will after Shakspere*s death, and so he says to him : —

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly, sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell.

' Sonnet Iviii. - Sonnets Ixvi.-lxxiv. ' Ibid. Ixvi.

Shakspere's Sonnets. 313

Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it ; for I lore you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay.
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
But let your love even with my life decay ;

Lest the ^^dse world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.*

The bright side of this is to be the thought that Shakspere's spirit,
his " better part," ^ will still be with him in his poetry.

Sonnets Ixxv.-lxxxvi. will be treated as the next section. We have

^ • • •

seen suspicion of probable neglect on the part of Will confirmed into
suspicion of actual neglect, and its influence on Shakspere's mind.
Suspicion now gives way before actual knowledge. A rival has been
preferred before Shakspere. This group is aptly introduced by three
sonnets expressive of Shakspere's unvarying care for and love of his
friend. The first indication of the rivahry is given in the seventy-eighth
sonnet in general terms; but it is clear from the subsequent allusions that
there is one particular supplanter aimed at. He too is a poet, and it
is implied that he has won his way with Will by arts and flattery, means
that Shakspere has not used, finding the mere truth so hard to
express adequately. He is convinced that, when others have devised

What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou, truly fair, wert truly sympathised
In true plain words by thy true-telling friend.

The question who this rival was is one which, like the identity of
Mr. W. H., has agitated the learned world far more than the meaning
of the Sonnets. It is one of those points that may easily be argued
to all eternity, for the simple reason that there is hardly a scrap ofin-
formation worthy of the name of evidence upon the subject. Marlowe,
Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Chapman, and others have been the
favourites at different periods, and at present opinion is running in
favour of the last-mentioned poet. But as our object is to find out
Shakspere's feelings with regard to his friend, we need not trouble
ourselves about the question. All we need note is that the rival's
reputation was considerable. Shakspere compares himself to a ^' saucy
bark;"^ the new friend is "of tall building and of goodly pride. *
Before him Shakspere feels silenced : —

* Sonnet Ixxi. ^ Ibid. Ixxiv. * Ibid. Ixxz.

314 ^>^ Genilemafis Magazine.

My tongue-tied muse in manners holds 'her still,
While comments of jKfox praise, richly compiled,*
Reserve their character with golden quill
And precious phrase by all the Muses filed. ^

V

1

And, " like an unlettered clerk," he can only cry " amen " to the
utterances of the new comer. Yet Shakspere knows that the new
friend's words are but words ; and he adds something more to this
" most of praise : " —

But that is in my thought, whose love to you.
Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.
Then others for the breath of words respect.
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

But it was not '' the proud full sail of his great verse " that silenced
Shakspere's tongue. He felt quite able to cope with any adversary
upon this ground The damning fact was that Will had allowed him
to usurp Shakspere's place. Shakspere felt himself at last, as he
had long dreaded, finally deposed from Will's heart. He had been
'* in sleep, a king — in waking no such matter ; " and this certainty is
the introductory note to the last group, in which he bids farewell to
his friend.

Farewell ! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou knowst thy estimate —

is the commencement of this group ; and still, even in this, seemingly
the last phase of his affection, Shakspere's self-denial shines out
triumphantly. He knows that neglect will grow to scorn, scorn to
hate ; and when that day comes, he will be prepared to make a last
loving self-sacrifice : —

When thou shalt be disposed to set me light.

And place my merit in the eye of scorn,

Upon thy side against myself I'll fight.

And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.

With nunc own weakness being best acquainted.

Upon thy part I can set down a story

Of fiiults concealed wherein I am attainted,

That thou, by losing me, shall gain much glory.*

And again he says : —

Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill.

To set a form upon desired change,

As I'll myself disgrace : knowing thy will

I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange ;

> Sonnet Ixxxv. ^ Ibid. Ixxxviii.

Shaksper^s Sonnets. 315

Be absent from thy walks ; and in my tongue
Thy sweet-belov^d name no more shall dwell,
Lest I, too much profaue, should do it wrong,
And haply of our old acquaintance tell. '

He has but one request to make, and that not a hard one for Will to
grant There comes a time in the history of all griefis when the
probability of the trouble is so extreme that the anticipation is harder
to bear than the reality. To know all ; to explore to its uttermost
depths the abyss of sorrow over which we are trembling, becomes an
absolute necessity, and the grief long dreaded, when it does come,
brings with it a feeling of relief. It is in this spirit that Shakspere
wrote the ninetieth sonnet : — •

Then hate me when thou wilt : if ever, now :

Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,

Join with the spite of fortune ; make me bow,

But do not drop in for an afler-loss.

Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow,

Come in the rearward of a conquered woe :

Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,

To linger out a purposed overthrow.

If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last.

When other petty griefs have done their spite.

But in the onset come ; so shall I taste

At first the very worst of fortune's might.

And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so.'

Words that express what everyone has at some time felt ; that are
but an echo of the cry that went out from another agonised heart
some sixteen hundred years before : — " That thou doest, do quickly."
But it is only by passing through the Valley of the Shadow of
Death that Faithful is to be overtaken ; and under the grim portal of '^
Doubting Castle, — within the very swing of the club of Giant
Despair, — ^lies the road to the Delectable Mountains, where Know-
ledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere shall take the pilgrim by
the hand, show him all the dangers and pit&lls of the journey he
has passed, and the beauties of the Celestial City beyond The
gloom of the shadow of that castle's towers is thrown over the
whole of the group that we have just been considering ; and in the
one last quoted may be heard the whirring of the giant's cudgel
But this is not for ever : in the third group we pass ,xgain into the
sunshine, more pleasant for the clouds that have intervened.

* Sonnet Ixxxix. ^ Ibid. xc.

3i6 The GentUfnatis Magazine.

How the reconciliation came about it is impossible to surmise, but
it is clear that the separation had been due, to a certain extent, to
misunderstanding on both sides. Jealousy always goes hand in hand
with true love ; and its worst effect is that, when it arouses suspicion,
the person who has received the fancied injury, instead of going to his
friend and clearing up the difficulty once for all, sits brooding over
it, and, by surrounding it with a fog, makes a giant out of a dwarf.
Something of this sort seems legible between the lines of these
sonnets. Shakspere's own frankness makes clear the source of the
misunderstanding on Will's side. During the recent separation, or
part of it, Shakspere was probably away with his company upon an
acting tour in the country ; and Will, in the mean time, got himself
persuaded that Shakspere was debasing himself with the society
he was keeping. He might be fond enough of the man, but how
could he tolerate the low companions of his calling, with whom, after
all, he might be on better terms than himself? And perhaps Shak-
spere felt that his life had led him into a greater familiarity with such
people than his conscience could justify ; and he deeply felt the slur
his profession cast upon him. He says, answering as it were Will's
reproof: —

Alas! 'tis true I have gone here and there,
And made myself a motley to the view :

Most true it is that I have looked on truth
Askance and strangely.*

And thus he implores his friend to excuse this fault : —

O for my sake do thou with Fortune chide,

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

That did not better for my life provide

Than public nuans, that public mantifrs breeds.

Thence comes it that my name receives a brand ;

And almost thence my nature is subdued

To that it works in, like the dyer's hand.'

And he begs him to pity, not reprove him for this misfortune : —

Your love and pity doth the impression fill
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow.

From these outward secmings. Will had come to the conclusion that
Shakspere Jjad played him false. To this Shakspere says : —

X)h never gay that I was false at heart,
T'hough absence seemed my flame to qualify.

* Sdnnet ex. * Ibid. cxi.

\

Shaksperes Sonnets. 317

As easy might I from myself depart

As froih my soul, which in thy breast doth lie ;

That is my home of love.'

And there has been fault on Will's side too. What it was wc
have seen already ; and although Shakspere probably exaggerated the
offence, he still considered that one had been committed. What was
thoughtlessness only, he has construed into indifference ; and the
friends are united the more firmly for the passing misunderstanding.
Most of these latter sonnets contain a much deeper and more tender
appreciation of the friend and the friendship than the earlier ones ;
for ,

ruined love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.'

It is chiefly Will's beauty that stimulates Shakspere's pen in the earlier
sonnets; but now, although this theme is not by any means neglected,
he has got far beneath the skin, and other virtues besides mere
physical beauty are praised : —

Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence ;
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference —
/Jwr, kind and true^ is all my argument'

In every way the bond between the friends is drawn closer. Time,
that wastes his beauty,* can never make Will look old to Shakspere ;
his love has got beyond that ; and here for the first time it is hinted
that the verse shall confer immortality on Shakspere as well as Will.*
Hitherto the poetry has been subservient to Will alone ; now they are
both bound up in the same sheaf, to receive the same eternal honour.
It is true that a slight misunderstanding is hinted at in the later
sonnets of this last group,* created probably by busybodics,
"suborned informers;" but the friendship is now too firmly set to
be overturned by such means : the cloud is but a passing one, followed
quickly by explanation and oblivion.

In this firm-abiding unity we leave these two, content that they
now can neither " remove nor be removed ; " an assertion too rashly
expressed about the earlier, untried friendship. The battle against
adverse circumstances has been fought ; Love has been the victor ;
all the chains that bound him down have been burst asunder ; and
in these last sonnets the triumphant paean of the conqueror is shouted.

' Sonnet cix. * Ibid. cxix. • Ibid. cv. < Ibid. civ.

* Ibid. cvii. • Ibid, cxxii.

3i8 The GetUlemafis Magazine.

The climax of this song of Victory is reached in the one hundred and
fourteenth sonnet, in which, through the tramp and shouting of the
victorious army, can be heard the softer melody of a sweet and eternal
peace — a peace never again to be broken by jars and discord » —

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not Love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove :

O no ! It is an ever-fixed mark,

lliat looks on tempests, and is never shaken :

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool ; though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come ;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks.

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever lov*d.*

* Sonnet cxvi.

T. A. SPALDING.

319

ANCIENT BABYLONIAN
ASTROGONY.

IT is singular to consider how short a time elapsed, after
writings in the arrow-headed or cuneiform letters (the Keil-
schriften of the Germans) were discovered, before, first, the power of
interpreting them was obtained, and, secondly, the range of the
cuneiform literature (so to speak) was recognised. Not more than
ninety years have passed since the first specimens of arrow-headed
inscriptions reached Europe. They had been known for a consi-
derable time before this. Indeed, it has been supposed that the
Assyrian letters referred to by Herodotus, Thucydides, and Pliny,
were in this character. Delia Valle and Figueroa, early in the
seventeenth century, described inscriptions in arrowheaded letters,
and hazarded the idea that they are to be read from left to right
But no very satisfactory evidence was advanced to show whether the
inscriptions were to be so read, or from right to left, or, as Chardin
suggested, in vertical lines. The celebrated Olaus Gerhard Tychsen
of Rostock, and other German philologists, endeavoured to decipher
the specimens which reached Europe towards the end of the last
century; but their efforts, though ingenious and zealous, were not
rewarded with success. In 1801 Dr. Hager advanced the suggestion
that the combinations formed by the arrowheads did not represent
letters but words, if not entire sentences. Lichtcnstein, on the other
hand, maintained that the letters belonged to an old form of the
Arabic or Coptic character; and he succeeded to his own satisfaction
in finding various passages from the Koran in the cuneiform inscrip-
tions. Dr. Grotefend was the first to achieve any real success in tUs
line of research. It is said that he was led to take up the subject by
a slight dispute with one of his ftiends, which led to a wager that he
would decipher one of the cuneiform inscriptions. The results of his
investigations were that cuneiform inscriptions arc alphabetical, not
hieroglyphical ; that the language employed is the basis of most of
the Eastern languages; and that it is written from right to lefL
Since his time, through the labours of Rich, Botta, Rawlinson,
Hincks, De Saulcy, Layard, Sayce, George Smith, and others, the

320 The Gentleman's Magazine.

collection and interpretation of the arrowheaded inscriptions have
been carried out with great success. We find reason to believe that,
though the original literature of Babylon was lost, the tablet libraries
of Assyria contained copies of most of the writing of the more ancient
nation. Amongst these have been found the now celebrated descrip-
tions of the creation, the fall of man, the deluge, the tower of Babel,
and other matters found in an abridged and expurgated form in the
Book of Genesis. It is to that portion of the Babylonian account
which relates to the creation of the sun and moon and stars that I
wish here to call attention. It is not only curious in itself, but
throws light, in my opinion, on questions of considerable interest
connected with the views of ancient Eastern nations respecting the
heavenly bodies.

It may be well, before considering the passage in question, to
consider briefly — though we may not be able definitely to determine —
the real antiquity of the Babylonian account

In Smith's interesting work on the Chaldean account of Genesis,
the question whether the Babylonian account preceded the writing of
the Book of Genesis, or vice versa, is not definitely dealt i^nth.
Probably this part of his subject was included among the " important
comparisons and conclusions with respect to Genesis" which he
preferred to avoid, as his " desire was first to obtain the recognition
of the evidence without prejudice." It might certainly have inter-
fered to some degree with the unprejudiced recognition of the
evidence of the tablets if it had been maintained by him, and still
more if he had demonstrated, that the Babylonian is the earlier
version. For the account in the Book of Genesis, coming thus to be
regarded as merely an expurgated version of a narrative originally
containing much fabulous matter, and not a little that is monstrous
and preposterous, would certainly not have been presented to us in
quite that aspect in which it had long been regarded by theologians.

But although Mr. Smith states that he placed the various dates as
low as he fairly could, considering the evidence — nay, that he " aimed
to do this rather than to establish any system of chronology " — there can
be no mistake about the relative antiquity which he in reality assigns
to the Babylonian inscriprions. He states, indeed, that every copy
of the Genesis legends belongs to the reign of Assurbanipal, who
reigned over Assyria b.c. 670. But it is " acknowledged on all hands
that the tablets are not the originals, but are only copies from earlier
texts." The Assyrians acknowledge themselves that this literature
was borrowed from Babylonian sources, and of courses it is to
Babylonia we have to look to ascertain the approximate dates of the

Ancient Babylonian Astrogany. 321

original documents. " The difficulty," he proceeds, " is increased by
the following considerations : it appears that at an early period in Baby-
lonian history a great literary development took place, and numerous
works were produced which embodied the prevailing myths, religion,
and science of that day. Written, many of them, in a noble style of
poetry on one side, or registering the highest efforts of their science
on the other, these texts became the standards for Babylonian
literature, and later generations were content to copy these writings
instead of making new works for themselves. Clay, the material on
which they were written, was everywhere abundant, copies were
multiplied, and by the veneration in which they were held these texts
fixed and stereotyped the style of Babylonian literature, and the
language in which they were written remained the classical style
in the coimtry down to the Persian conquest. Thus it happens that
texts of Rim-agu, Sargon, and Hammurabi, who were one thousand
years before Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus, show the same language
as the texts of these later kings, there being no sensible difference
in style to match the long interval between them " — precisely as a
certain devotional style of writing of our own day closely resembles
the style of the sixteenth century.

We cannot, then, from the style, determine the age of the original
writings from which the Assyrian tablets were copied. But there are
certain facts which enable us to form an opinion on this point.
Babylonia was conquered about b.c. 1300, by Tugultininip, King of
Assyria. For 250 years before that date a foreign race (called by
Berosus, Arabs) had ruled in Babylonia. There is no evidence of
any of the original Babylonian Genesis tablets being written after
the date of Hammurabi, under whom it is supposed that this race
obtained dominion in Babylonia. Many scholars, indeed, regard
Hammurabi as much more ancient ; but none set him later than
1550 B.C

Now, before the time of Hammurabi several races of kings reigned,
their reigns ranging over a period of 500 years. They were called
chiefly Kings of Sumir and Akkad — that is. Kings of Upper and Lower
Babylonia. It is believed that before this period — ranging, say, from
about 2000 B.c. to 1550 B.C. (at least not later, though possibly,
and according to many scholars probably, far earlier) — the two
divisions of Babylonia were separate monarchies. Thus, evidence
whether any literature was \\Titten before or after B.C. 2000 may be
found in the presence or absence of mention, or traces, of this division
of the Babylonian kingdom. Mr. Smith considers, for example, that
two works — the great Chaldean work on astrology, and a legend

VOL. CCXHI. NO. I7f»7. Y

322 Tlie Gentlemafis Magazine.

which he calls "The Exploits of Lubara" — certainly belong to the
period preceding B.C. 2000. In the former work, the subject of
which specially connects it, as will presently be seen, with the tablet
relating to the creation of the heavenly bodies, Akkad is always
referred to as a separate state.

Now Mr. Smith finds that the story of the Creation and Fall
belongs to the upper or Akkad division of the country. The Izdubar
legends, containing the story of the Flood, and what Mr. Smith re-
gards as probably the history of Nimrod, seem to belong to Sumir,
the southern division of Babylonia. He considers the Izdubar legends
to have been written at least as early as b.c. 2000. The story of the
Creation "may not have been committed to writing so early;" but
it also is of great antiquity. And these legends "were traditions
before they were committed to writing, and were common, in some
form, to all the country." Remembering Mr. Smith's expressed in-
tention of setting all dates as late as possible, his endeavour to do
this rather than to establish any system of chronology, we cannot
misunderstand the real drift of his arguments, or the real significance
of his conclusion that the period when the Genesis tablets were
originally written extended from b.c. 2000 to b.c. 1550, or roughly
synchronized with the period from Abraham to Moses, according to
the ordinary chronology of our Bibles. " During this period it
appears that traditions of the creation of the universe, and human
history down to the time of Ninwod, existed parallel to, and in some
points identical with, those given in the book of Genesis."

Thus viewing the matter, we recognise the interest of that passage
in the Babylonian Genesis tablets which corresponds with the ac-
count given in the book of Genesis of the creation of the heavenly
bodies. We find in it the earliest existent record of the origin of
astrological superstitions. It does not express merely the vague belief,
which might be variously interpreted, that the sun and moon and
stars were specially created (after light had been created, after the fir-
mament had been formed separating the waters above from the waters
below, and after the land had been separated from the water) to be
for signs and for seasons for the inhabitants of the world — that is, of
our earth. It definitely states that those other suns, the stars, were set
into constellation figures for man's benefit ; the planets and the moon
next formed for his use, and the sun set thereafter in the heavens as
the chief among the celestial bodies.

It runs thus, so far as the fragments have yet been gathered to-
gether:—

Ancient Babylonian Astrogony. 323

Fifth Tablet of Creation Legend.

1. It was delightful all that was fixed by the great gods.

2. Stars, their appearance [in figures] of animals he arranged,

3. To fix the year through the observation of their constellations,

4. Twelve months (or signs) of stars in three rows he arranged,

5. From the day when the year commences unto the close.

6. He marked the positions of the wandering stars (planets) to shine in their

courses,

7. That they may not do injury, and may not trouble any one.

8. The positions of the gods Bel and Hea he fixed with him.

9. And he opened the great gates in the darkness shrouded,

10. The fastenings were strong on the left and right.

11. In its mass (i.e. the lower chaos) he made a boiling.

12. The god Uru (the moon) he caused to rise out, the night he overshadowed,

13. To fix it also for the light of the night until the shining of the day,

14. That the month might not be broken, and in its amoimt be regular.

15. At the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night,

16. His horns are breaking through to shine on the heaven.

17. On the seventh day to a circle he begins to swell,

18. And stretches towards the dawn further.

19. When the god Shamas (the sun) in the horizon of heaven, in the cast,
20 formed beautifully and

21 to the orbit Shamas was perfected

22 the dawn Shamas should change

23 going on its path

24. giving judgment

25 to tame

26 a second time

27

Of this tablet Smith remarks that it is a typical specimen of the
style of the series, and shows a marked stage in the creation, the
appointment of the heavenly orbs running parallel to the Biblical
account of the fourth day of creation. It is important to notice its
significance in this respect. We can understand now the meaning
underlying the words, " God said, Let there be lights in the firma-
ment of the heavens to divide the day from the night ; and let them be
for signs and for seasons, and for days and years." The order, indeed,
in which the bodies are formed according to the Biblical account is
inverted. The greater light — the sun — is made first, to rule the day :
then the lesser light — the moon — to rule the night These are the
heavenly bodies which in this description rule the day of 24 hours.
The sun may be regarded also as ruling (according to the ancient view,
as according to nature) the seasons and the year. The stars remain as
set in the heaven for signs. " He made the stars also." " And God
set them " — that is, the sun, moon, and stars — " in the firmament of
the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and
over the night," and so forth.

y2

324 The Gentlematis Magazine.

No one can doubt, I conceive, that the Biblical account is superior
to the other, both in a scientific and in a literary sense. It states
much less as actually known, and what it does state accords better
with the facts known in the writer's day. Then, the Babylonian
narrative, though impressive in certain passages, is overloaded with
detail. In both accounts we find the heavenly bodies set in the
firmament by a special creative act, and specially designed for the
benefit of man. And in passing I would observe, that the discovery
of these Babylonian inscriptions, however they may be interpreted,
and whether they be regarded as somewhat earlier or somewhat later
than the Bible narrative, appears to dispose finally of the fantastic
interpretation assigned by Hugh Miller and others to the Biblical
cosmogony, as corresponding to a series of visions in which the
varying aspects of the world were presented. It has long seemed to
me an utterly untenable proposition that a narrative seemingly in-
tended so directly to describe a series of events should, after being for
ages so interpreted, require now for its correct interpretation to be
regarded as an account of a series of visions. If the explanation
were reconcilable in any way witli the words of Genesis, there yet
seems something of profanity in imagining that men's minds had
thus been played with by a narrative purporting to be of one sort
yet in reality of quite a different character. But whatever possi-
bility there may be (and it can be but the barest possibility) that
the Genesis narrative admits of the vision interpretation, no one can
reasonably attempt to extend that interpretation to the Babylonian
account So that either a narrative fi*om which the Genesis account
was presumably derived was certainly intended to describe a series
of events, or else a narrative very nearly as early as the Genesis
account, and presumably derived from it at a time when its tnie
meaning must have been known, presents the sun, moon, and stars
as objects expressly created and set in the sky after the earth had
been formed, and for the special benefit of man as yet uncreated.

I am not concerned, however, either to dwell upon this point, or
to insist on any of its consequences. Let us return to the consider-
ation of the Babylonian narrative as it stands.

We find twelve constellations or signs of the zodiac are men-
tioned as set to fix the year. I am inclined to consider that the pre-
ceding words, " stars, their appeamnce in figures of animals he
arranged," relate specially to the stars of the zodiac. The inventor
of this astrogony probably regarded the stars as originally scattered
in an irregular manner over the heavens, — rather as chaotic material
from which constellations might be formed, than as objects separately

Ancient Babylonian Astrogony. 325

and expressly created. Then they were taken and formed into figures
of animals, set in such a way as to fix the year through the observa-
tion of their constellations. It is hardly necessary, perhaps, to
remind the reader that the word zodiac is derived from a Greek word
signifying an animal, the original name of the zone being the zodiacal
way, or the pathway of the animals. Our older navigators called it
the Bestiary.* " Twelve months or signs in three rows." Smith takes
the three rows to mean (i.) the zodiacal signs, (ii.) the constellations
north of the zodiac, and (iii.) the constellations south of the zodiac.
But this does not agree with the words twelve signs in three rows.
Possibly the reference is to three circles, two bounding the zodiac on
the north and south respectively, the third central, the ecliptic, or
track of the sun ; or the two tropics and the equator may have been
signified. Instead of twelve signs in three rows, we should, probably,
read twelve signs along a triple band. The description was written
long after astronomical temples were first erected, and as the designer
of a zodiacal dome like that (far more recently) erected at Denderah
would set the twelve zodiacal signs along a band formed by three
parallel circles, marking its central line and its northern and southern
limits, so we can understand the writer of the tablet presenting the
celestial architect as working in the same lines, on a grander scale ;
setting the twelve zodiacal signs on the corresponding triple band
in the heavens themselves.

The next point to be noticed in the Babylonian astrology is the
reference to " wandering stars." Mr. Smith remarks that the word
nibiry thus translated, " is not the usual word for planet, and there is
a star called Nibimtdi the place where the sun crossed the boundary
between the old and new years, and this star was one of twelve sup-
posed to be favourable to Babylonia." ** Ft is evident," he proceeds,

' The following pxssage from Admiral Smyth's Bedford Catalogue is worth
noticing in this connection : — *' We find that both the Chinese and the Japanese had
a zodiac consisting of animals, as zodiaa needs must, among which they placed a
tiger, a peacock, a cat, an alligator, a duck, an ape, a hog, a rat, and what not.
Animals also formed the Via Soils of the Kirghis, the Mongols, the Persians, the
Mandshus, and the ancient Turks ; and the Spanish monks in the army of Cortes
found that the Mexicans had a zodiac with strange creatures in the departments.
Such a striking similitude Is assuredly indicative of a common origin, since the
coincidences are too exact in most instances to be the effect of chance ; but where
this origin is to be fixed has been the subject of interminable discussions, and
learning, ignorance, sagacity, and prejudice have long been in battle array against
each other. Diodorus Siculus considers it to be Babylonian, but Bishop War-
barton, somewhat dogmatically tells us, ' Brute worship gave rise to the Egyptian
osterisms prior to the time of Moses.'" There is now, of course, very little
reason for questioning that Egyptian astronomy was borrowed from Babylon.

326 The Gentletnafis Magazine.

" from the opening of the inscription on the first tablet ot the Chal-
dsean astrology and astronomy, that the functions of the stars were,
according to the Babylonians, to act not only as regulators of the
seasons and the year, but also to be used as signs, as in Genesis i. 14;
for in those ages it was generally believed that the heavenly bodies
gave, by their appearance and positions, signs of events which were
coming on the earth." The two verses relating to Nibir seem to
correspond to no other celestial bodies but planets (unless, perhaps,
to comets). If we regard Nibir as signifjring any fixed star, we can find
no significance in the marking of the course of the star Nibir, that it
may do no injury and may not trouble any one. Moreover, as the
fixed stars, the sun, and the moon, are separately described, it seems
unlikely that the planets would be left unnoticed. In the Biblical
narrative the reference to the celestial bodies is so short that we can
understand the planets being included in the words, " He made the
stars also." But in an account so full of detail as that presented in
the Babylonian tablet, the omission of the planets would be very
remarkable. It is also worthy of notice that in Polyhistor*s Baby-
lonian traditions, recorded by Berosus, we read that " Belus formed
the stars, the sun, the moon, and the five planets."

In the tablet narrative the creator of the heavenly bodies is
supposed to be Anu, god of the heavens. This is inferred by Mr.
Smith from the fact " that the God who created the stars, fixed places
or habitations for Bel and Hea with himself in the heavens." For
according to the Babylonian thqogony, the three gods Anu, Bel, and
Hea share between them the divisions of the face of the sky.

The account of the creation of the moon is perhaps the most in-
teresting part of the narrative. We see that, according to the Babylonian
philosophy, the earth is regarded as formed from the waters and rest-
ing after its creation above a vast abyss of chaotic water. We find
traces of this old hypothesis in several Biblical passages, as, for in-
stance, in the words of the third commandment, " the heaven above,
the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth"; and again in
Proverbs xxx. 4, " Who hath bound the waters in a garment ? who
hath established all the ends of the earth ? " " The great gates in
the darkness shrouded, the fastenings strong on the left and right,"
in the Babylonian account, refer to the enclosure of the great infernal
lake, so that the waters under the earth might not overwhelm the
world. It is from out the dark ocean beneath the earth that the god
Anu calls the moon into being. He opens the mighty gates shrouded
in the nether darkness, and creates a vast whirlpool in the gloomy
ocean ; then " at his bidding, from the turmoil arose the moon like a

Ancient Babylonian Astrogany. 327

giant bubble, and passing through the open gates mounted on its
destined way across the vaults of heaven." It is strange to reflect
that in quite recent times, at least four thousand years after the
Babylonian tablet was written, and who shall tell how many years
after the tradition was first invented, a theory of the moon's origin
not unlike the Babylonian hypothesis has been advanced, despite
overwhelming dynamical objections ; and a modem paradoxist has
even pointed to the spot beneath the ocean where a sudden increase
of depth indicates that matter was suddenly extruded long ago, and
driven forcibly away from the earth to the orbit along which that
expelled mass — our moon — is now travelling.

It would have been interesting to have known how the Babylonian
tablet described the creation of Shamas, the sun ; though, so far as
can be judged from tlie fragments above quoted, there was not the
same fulness of detail in this part of the description as in that relating
to the moon. Mr. Smith infers that the Babylonians considered the
moon the more important body, unlike the writer or compiler of the
Book of Genesis, who describes the sun as the greater light It does
not seem to follow very clearly, however, from the tablet record, that
the sun was considered inferior to the moon in importance (and
certainly we cannot imagine that the Babylonians considered the
moon a greater light). The creation of the stars precedes that of the
moon, though manifestly the moon was judged to be more important
than the stars. Not improbably, therefore, die sun, though following
the moon in order of creation, was regarded as the more important
orb of the two. In fact, in the Babylonian as in the (so-called)
Mosaic legend of creation, the more important members of a series
of created bodies are, in some cases, created last — man last of
all orders of animated beings, for instance.

If we turn now from the consideration of the Babylonian tradition
of the creation of the heavenly bodies to note how the Biblical
account differs from it, not only or chiefly in details, but in general
character, we seem to recognise in the latter a determination to
detach from the celestial orbs the individuality, so to speak, which
the older tradition had given to them. The account in Genesis is
not only simpler, and, in a literary sense, more effective, but it is in
another sense purified. The celestial bodies do not appear in it as
celestial beings. The Babylonian legend is followed only so far as
it can be followed consistently with the avoidance of all that might
tempt to the worship of the sun, moon, and stars. The writer of the
Book of Genesis, whether Moses or not, seems certainly to have shared
the views of Moses as to the Sabaeanism of the nation from which the

328 The Gentleman's Magazine.

children of Abraham had separated. Moses warned the Israelite, —
"Take good heed unto thyself, lest thou lift up thine eyes unto
heaven ; and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars,
even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them,
and serve them, which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all
nations under the whole heaven." So the writer of Genesis is careful
to remove from the tradition which he follows all that might suggest
the individual power and influence of the heavenly bodies. The
stars are to be for signs, but we read nothing of the power of the
wandering stars " to do injury or trouble any one." (That is, not Jh
the Book of Genesis. In the song of Deborah we find, though
perhaps only in a poetic fashion, the old influences assigned to the
planets, when the singer says that the " stars in their courses fought
against Sisera." Deborah, however, was a woman, and women have
always been loth and late to give up ancient superstitions.) Again,
the sun and the moon in Genesis are the greater and the lesser lights,
not, as in the Babylonian narrative, the god Shamas and the god Uru.
We may find a parallel to this treatment of the Babylonian myth
in the treatment by Moses of the observance of the Sabbath, a day
of rest which the Babylonian tablets show to have had, as for other
reasons had been before suspected, an astrological significance. The
Jewish lawgiver does not do away with the observance ; in fact, he
was probably powerless to do away with it At any rate, he sufi*ers
the observance to remain, precisely as the writer of the Book of
Genesis retains the Babylonian tradition of the creation of the celes-
tial bodies. But he is careful to expurgate the Chaldaean observance,
just as the writer of Genesis is careful to expurgate the Babylonian
tradition. The week as a period is no longer associated with astro-
logical superstitions, nor the Sabbath rest enjoined as a fetish. Both
ideas are directly associated with the monotheistic principle which
primarily led to the separation of the family of Abraham from the
rest of the Chaldaean race. In Babylonia, the method of associating
the names of the sun, moon, and stars with the days, doubtless had
its origin. Saturn was the Sabbath star, as it is still called (Sabbatai)
in the Talmud. But, as Professor Tischendorf told Humboldt, in
answer to a question specially addressed to him on the subject,
*• there is an entire absence in both the Old and New Testaments of
any traces of names of week-days taken fi-om the planets." The
lunar festivals, again, though imquestionably Sabaistic in their origin,
were apparently too thoroughly established to be discarded by Moses ;
nay, he was even obliged to permit the continuance of many obser-
vances which suspiciously resembled the old offerings of sacrifice to

Ancient Babylonian Astrogony. 329

the moon as a deity. He had also to continue the sacrifice of the
passover — the origin of which was unmistakably astronomical — cor-
responding in time to the sun's passage across the equator, or rather
to the first lunar month following and including that event But he
carefully dissociates both the lunar and the lunisolar sacrifices from
their primary Sabaistic significance. In fact, the history of early
Hebrew legislation, so far as it related to religion, is the history of a
struggle on the part of the lawgivers and the leaders of opinion
against the tendency of the people to revert to the idolatrous worship
of their ancestors and of races closely akin to them — especially against
the tendency to the worship of the sun and moon and all the host of
heaven.

In the very fact, however, that this contest was maintained, while
yet the Hebrew cosmogony, and in particular the Hebrew astrogony,
contains indubitable evidence of its origin in the poetical myths of
older Babylonia, we find one of the strongest proofs of the influence
which the literature of Babylon when at the fiilness of its develop-
ment exerted upon surrounding nations. This influence is not more
clearly shown even by the fact that nearly 2,000 years after the decay
of Babylonian literature, science, and art, a nation like the Assyrians,
engaged in establishing empire rather than in literary and scien-
tific pursuits, should have been at the pains to obtain copies of many
thousands of the tablet records which formed the libraries of older
Babylonia. In both circumstances we find good reason for hoping
that careful search among Assyrian and Babylonian ruins may not
only be rewarded by the discovery of many other portions of the
later Assyrian library (which was also in some sense a museum), but
that other and earlier copies of the original Babylonian records may
be obtained. For it seems unlikely that works so valuable as to be
thought worth recopying after 1,500 or 2,000 years, in Assyria, had
not been more than once copied during the interval in Babylonia.
" Search in Babylonia," says Mr. Smith, " would no doubt yield
earlier copies of all these works, but that search has not yet been insti-
tuted, and, for the present, we have to be contented with our Assyrian
copies. Looking, however, at the world-wide interest of the subjects,
and at the important evidence which perfect copies of these works
would undoubtedly give, there can be no doubt," Mr. Smith adds,
" that the subject of further search and discovery will not slumber,
and that all as yet known will one day be superseded by newer
texts and fuller and more perfect light."

RICHARD A. PROCTOR.

330

DAVID COX.

I.

CRITICISM has been strangely little occupied with the "god
of Art " of the well-to-do British householder who cares about
pictiures. But perhaps it has been felt that the simple force of David
Cox has much defied analysis, or hardly repaid it. His very merits
as well as his faults are simple, plain, and rough. In his art and in
his life he was manly, blunt, straightforward — ^what we call " English."

So much of what he painted appealed to the rapid gaze and the im-
mediate opinion. A moment's turn to the wall, and his drawings could
be tasted and enjoyed. He had few subtleties that must be waited
for — only in his latest art some secrets that must find you in a mood
to receive them. The hurried observer of nature can value much in
David Cox, for he depicted in the main, and with audacious truth,
her first features, her most familiar looks. Therefore his art was for the
hasty man, even more, perhaps, than for the carefiil collector and the
slow student. It was for the bustling even more than for the busy. If
Manchester must have art, David Cox's was the art for Manchester.

The artist with whose favourite achievements his own had most in
common was undoubtedly Constable; and Constable, had he painted
much and easily in water colours, might have become, though hardly in
his own day, as popular as David Cox. But Constable had two disad-
vantages, two drawbacks to popularity : he died before the ]andsca]>e
art of Cox had approached its late perfection — long before the public
existed that was able and willing to value it and such as was akin to it —
and his use of the material destined immediately to be more popular
was but a fumbling employment ; that is, his water colours were sugges-
tive and even sufficient, if he was careful to aim at suggestion alone,
but disappointing, harsh, unskilled, if he sought to realize and to com-
plete. Constable's art reached its perfection when Cox's was tentative
and immature. Constable was original and a master when Cox was
seeking his way; and the honour of precedence, the honour of discover)',
will always be his. But Cox, in that slighter art of water colour
which he made so much his own — each trick of which he turned and
wrought so adroitly that his work came at last to seem not a task but

David Cox. 331

a very revel of familiar play — Cox, in that slighter art, came near to
Constable's effects; nay, even presented the like of them with a
richer variety. They were both painters not so much of abiding
nature as of fleeting and vanishing things. That has been said before
and seen often — that the facts of nature were less interesting to them
than the caprices of weather and wind. But we distinguish here ;
for in painting these changing, these transient effects. Constable had
the greater unity of impression : he was dominated by one idea:
nearly each work of his expressed a very personal sentiment that
possessed him at the time, and the line of English verse from the
new poetry of nature that he wrote under it was not chosen with
curious care out of a book of extracts, but was with him, in his mind,
and had suggested the thing. But Cox was not so often the painter
of sentiment as of material facts or physical sensations. His art of
painting hardly sought either to rival or to supplement, by its appeal
to the eye, the achievements of our art of Literature. He rarely in-
vented, rarely imagined, rarely even combined. But in that strong and
simple, and never subtle fashion of his own — ^which a thousand
water colours reveal to the world — he felt and saw keenly, and keenly
recorded. And with the late ripeness of his art came the unsur-
passed instinct in selecting the thing it was his business to record,
and in rejecting the detail, the accessory, with which that later art of
his had little enough of sympathy. Thus, Cox from the first con-
fined his work within the limits proper to pictorial art; and, at the
last, as to the language that his art employed — as to his method of
expression — he preferred to the subtleties of elaborate discourse
the pregnant brevity of more summary speech. Simple from the
first in his theme, he became simple also in the delivery of his
phrase.

II.

David Cox was the son of a blacksmith, and was born near a
forge.* He had little physical strength in his boyhood, and the
Birmingham working man, his father, was content for him to enter,
in the easiest humble way, on the practice of art which he cared for
almost in childhood. Apprenticed first to a locket painter, the
indentures were cancelled, or had lapsed, on the master's death, and
the boy Cox, lacking work, engaged to prepare colours for the
Birmingham scene painters, and from that, without loss of time,
became able to help in the painting. For four years he was with

* One of the most vivid sketches of his later days has for its subject the red
glow of the forge at Bettwys, in contrast with the weird brown-grey light over the
mountains above it.

332 The Gentleman's Magazine.

the company at Birmingham; then travelled with its manager to
Leicester, and other country wanderings begat a love of landscape ;
but the travelling, on actors' "circuit" of those days, wearied
him. He wanted settlement, and in 1803, being twenty years old,
came up to London. He had a modest appointment in the scene-loft
at Astley's. Near to Astley's Amphitheatre was an art shop of that
period — Falser s, a dealer in water colours, then in the Westminster
Road, but destined to be afterwards celebrated in Covent Garden.
The sight of the drawings there roused or renewed whatever ambition
of David Cox*s had slumbered or been relaxed. He was able to
make the acquaintance of John Varley, who was among the leaders
of the art. Varley encouraged him, and from scene painting Cox
proceeded to study drawings for the folio and the cabinet. In 1805
he went to Wales for a fruitful holiday. Gradually, though in humble
form, his career was shaping itself. He made a series of drawings to
be sold at a few shillings apiece, and bethought him of the usual
employment of youth and obscurity in art — the giving of lessons, on
terms left generally for the pupil to fix.

Cox, on first coming to London, had been placed by his mother,
who was a careful woman, thoughtful beyond most of her station, in
the house of a Mrs. Ragg, likewise a sober person and of good repu-
tation— the mother of daughters of whom one was to become the
wife of Cox. In 1808, while still young in age, but with the
temperament of a man whose youth is short and maturity long,
David Cox married Mary Ragg. She was a little older than he was,
but he (lid not feel that, and they lived together in much calmness for
well nigh forty years. Her intelligence and common sense were often
useful to him in supplementing his own, and she had interest in Art
and many things.

Living in a cottage on Dulwich Common, and employed now entirely
in the department of his final choice. Cox made some slow progress in
his profession ; and though a poor man still, and with little demand for
his work, he must have stood sufficiently well in the estimation of his
brother artists, for in 18 13 they made him a member of the Society
of Painters in Water Colour, to whose exhibitions he, through many
vicissitudes, remained a constant contributor for not much less than
half a century. The next year to that he was appointed teacher at
the Military College, Bagshot ; but the work there was irksome to
him, and he began to wish for a residence less costly even than his
humble one of I>ondon, and for the opportunity of regular study
amongst country scenes. A good boarding school at Hereford
offered a hundred a year to a capable drawing master ; and Cox

David Cox. 333

accepted the post — so slenderly equipped just then, as to material
resources, that he had to borrow from Lady Arden forty pounds
before he could accomplish his removal. She was one of those who
had liked in London his straightforward character and painstaking
work — his simplicity of manner and of heart

Those times, when England suffered from the impoverishment of
war, were hardly times in which any art but the most thoroughly
accepted was likely to receive a superfluous or even an adequate
reward. And though Cox, even in the first dozen years of his
practice, was making good his right to a fair place among contem-
porary artists of the second rank — nay, was well abreast of many who
were accounted before him — his art, at that time, gave, as I cannot
too much insist, no faintest sign of possible rivalry with the art of
Turner, already immense and immortal. In narrow circumstances,
then, David Cox, his wife, and their young boy, for whom the father
had already planned the benefits of the Hereford Grammar School,
settled at Hereford, Cox still hoping to gain gradually some hold on
the picture-buyers of London, or scheming the publication of designs
in sepia as well as of an essay on painting in water colour. But
Fame had still to be long waited for, and Cox was not yet doing the
work which was to deserve it. Once a year he journeyed to London
— a two or three da)rs' coach journey — to see the Exhibitions and to
keep himself a little in the memory of the artists in town ; but I
suppose it was the secluded and restricted life of those years at
Hereford that gave to Cox the provincial stamp permanently — the
restriction and seclusion coming not then at a time when they found
his mind full enough to profit by them, but at a time when he should
more swiftly have received and developed, when he should have been
open to influences more numerous and various. Probably, however,
his character gained in intensity what it lost in breadth. When he felt
and admired, he felt and admired strongly. In politics, he war a Liberal
of that day. In art, he made no special attempt to study the received
masters of any great school ; but at a time when the genius of Turner
was still under the discredit of novelty, he — half a dozen years before
he left London — had put himself down enthusiastically as a subscriber
to the " Liber Studiorum." Eventually he contemplated a work of
his own in distant competition with that.

It was not until 1829 that he came back to London, and was
established at Kensington, to push his fortunes with greater ra-
pidity, if that might be. He was now six and forty, and the time
is chosen by Mr. Solly— hir, voluminous and devoted biographe — as
a dividing point between two periods in his art : between the recond

334 ^^ GentlenuifCs Magazine.

and the third out of four, according to the view of that careM and
sympathetic if not always faultless student Later, there will be
something to say about this division : for the moment we may accept
it as indicating change of subject, if not quite of manner ; it was at
this time that David Cox began to travel abroad, and to note, not
indeed the characteristics of the lands he crossed to — for these he
never specially entered into — but the charm of the sea. To this
period, when settlement in London made such brief expeditions easy
to him, belong his drawings of far down the River, of the Thames
mouth, of Calais Sands. Spirited enough already — fresh and breezy,

the colours wanting in variety and pleasantness : the tone, how
much less truthful to agreeable and vivid impression than that of the
kindred themes of Ulverston and Lancaster a dozen years later !

Confining himself still, in the main, to small and finished work,
with increased range of subject, as I say, and with increased vivacity
of treatment, as all of us who like his later work still better may readily
admit. Cox struggled on : the admitted equal now, it may be, of
certain prominent comrades ; producing much, with diligence, and
so at last — though no considerable price is ever paid for the constant
labour — at last saving money. The years bring many changes in his
domestic life. His son is a man, and has left him. The health of
his wife, now approaching old age, is more and more uncertain. His
interest in Society is anything but keen : social ambition, if he ever
had it at all, has quite ceased. He withdraws himself, or seeks to
withdraw himself, more and more in his art; and not so much in the
art that is accepted and bought at Exhibitions as in that which
presents to his deepening intelligence problems he would like to
solve. Urgent need for him to stay in London no longer exists.
He goes down in 1844 to the village of Harbome, outside his native
town — busies himself for a while with his bit of land and garden.

The country came to David Cox as a great rest. And the rest
brought a renewal. The freedom from engagement, the absence of
visible rivalry— of competitive activity akin to his own, pushing him
on, whether he wished it or no — were themselves advantages. He
began, I think, to possess himself; and in the new familiarity
with the quiet and common land, the flat field, the hedge-row, the
imeventful country road, the wide, open, and changeful sky, he
began to feel distinctly what it was that he wanted to do, and
began to feel that he could do it In country unromantic and no-
wise remarkable, changing weather is the main interest : wind and
sunshine make such country alive ; and Cox's representation of wind
and sunshine became now more imaginative and dramatic. His

David Cox. 335

wife's death, soon after their removal — so soon as 1845 — ^^^^ ^^"^ ^or
a while crushed and lonely ; but he recovered himself, and one feels
sure that his whole nature was enriched by his later experience. His
art, simple as heretofore, waxed passionate and personal, and his
genius came to him in his old age.

That period, of eighteen forty-four and five, is the real period of
his change. Not, I think, with any other need we greatly concern
ourselves. That there had been growth and wider range and alter-
ation of style and subject long before, I have already allowed, and
these things have interest for us if we stand before a great collection
of his work. But the main thing to remember will continue to be
the point at which his more significant artistry emerges firom the
accumulated mass of his skilful achievement — the point at which
undeniable talent gives place to undeniable genius.

Not long after his final departure from London, Cox began to
paint in oil. The bolder effects at which he was now aiming were
effects to which his new medium was suited, and Cox in his oil
pictures became more visibly the brother of Constable and of the great
Frenchmen who, following after Constable, were painting, at that
moment, neither strict fact, nor accurate detail, but impressions. The
comparative readiness with which Cox mastered his new practice in
oils is certainly remarkable, but it is hardly to be supposed that the
tardiness with which he began it should have left no sign on his
work.

Devoting himself with a now cheerful energy to his new and self-
set task, and recording at the same time, in his older craft of water
colour, visions of windy moor and pasture more penetrating and
impressive than any of his youth or of his middle age, David Cox
lived happily in his chosen home in the country. As time went on
he was surrounded by a group of sympathetic persons — some of
them Birmingham men, proud of him as a native of their town, and
simple and hearty admirers of the old man's genius. Amongst them
and amongst his humbler village neighbours. Cox lived a life of old-
fashioned kindliness and quaint courtesies. His charities were
impulsive and not discriminating. He bestowed not seldom oh
some thriftless villager the best slice out of his leg of mutton ; he
gave people raisins and sugar on St. Thomas's Day — had formed his
habits before it was the fashion to be cynically weary of festivals —
and sent gifts round by his housekeeper on the birthday of the
Queen. As long as he was able he set off every summer on a
sketching tour with some familiar friend : Mr. Stone Ellis, whose
precious collection of his later and finer work was sold last year at

336 The Gentleman's Magazine.

Christie's, being several times his companion. To London, for the
sake of his son, for the sake of Mr. Ellis, and for that of some
friendly artists, he still occasionally journeyed. But about 1856 ill-
health and very failing sight began to limit his movement. The
hours became few in which, with an art ever more and more abstract
and summary, he jotted down the vivid memoranda of expression in
Nature — Nature sunny or turbulent. His grand-daughters were
accustomed to be about him, to cheer him as his feebleness grew.
One day, as the biographer tells us, he said good-bye to his pictures.
With a gesture that would have seemed theatrical and affected in
any artist who had lived less simply for his art, he waved his hand
and withdrew himself from his parlour and his work. He felt that
the business he had lived for was over. He lay helpless for a very
little while — died on the 7th of June, 1859.

HI.

One of the greatest of English landscape painters. Cox painted
Wales. It had been a favourite country with some of his elder
contemporaries. John Varley had been there much. And he
himself, born in the town of Birmingham, turned naturally to Wales,
which is Birmingham's playground. But the drawings in which he
represented Wales the best — drawings sometimes splendidly slight
and always of masterly vehemence — were done only at a period of
his life which allowed his contemporaries to say already that the
work of his life was over. That local love of Cox's for the nearest
country to him that was free and wild, was conceived early, but it
bore its best fhiit chiefly at a time remote and unexpected. Very
long years and a life of almost monotonous struggle were in store
for David Cox before the profounder feeling, bred in part of experi-
ence and age and loss, came to make his rendering of the landscape
of Wales vivid, intense, and personal.

While true to the peculiar forms of Welsh scenery, he was truer
still to its effects. You have but to go with a keen eye by the North-
western Railway from Chester to Holyhead, and you see, not only
in form but in colour and light, a gallery of David Cox's. Flint
Castle, the ruined tower (Turner's subject in the " Liber ") still set firm
on the shore, the shingle of the beach, the great distance, the " wash
of air." Rhyl, with its long sands, its sea fresh and open, its wide
outlook and breadth of the sky. Then, behind it, the Vale of Clwyd,
the stream, the massed foliage, the bare and precipitous hill rising
suddenly out of the very green and very flat pastures — a subject
essentially Cox's. Further on, as you get towards Bangor, a glimpse

David Cox. 337

of Beaumaris, the windy headland, with the sharp turn in the road
that surrounds it — the road with cliff above it, and stout sea wall below.
Then the quick current of the Straits : little boats tossing : a breeze
blowing fresh. He has realized each scene vividly — the view, and your
feeling too, as you look at the view. But it was in the solemn inland
country, in the remote seclusion of its mountain valleys, that David
Cox found landscape and effect most completely accordant with the
feeling and interest of his later time. Many artists, since Cox, have been
to Bett\vys, and some had been there before him ; but the rest have
been content to find there what is commonly pretty and easily
picturesque — for the most part the mere traditional and accepted
beauty of falling water, and sky reflected in clear and shallow
streams, and sunlight glinting through green leafage — the art of our
lightest and emptiest hours — the water colour of the drawing-room.
Cox found other things — the truer characteristics of that remote
scenery and of its desolate life : the woods heavy with rain, the
stone-walled fields, the dogged tramp of the cloaked peasant woman
over the wet path, the blown shepherd and huddled flock on the
mountain sheep-walk. Cox entered into the spirit of that lonely
landscape, simple ani humble even in its grandeur — by turns
melancholy, admonishing, passionate. For him alone the landscape
of Wales, with its winds and showers, grey and shrouded morn-
ings, spaces of quietness and tender light breaking out in evening
skies after a day of storm, was alive and expressive.

He was at Bettwys first in 1844, and thenceforward once every
year till 1856, when, three years before his death, he needs must see
it for the last time. From the first it attracted him; and in those
simple elements of the lower mountain scenery, which he got to
know so well, there was always, for him, some effect, some com-
bination, which, if not actually new, was as good as new to his mind
at the moment, since he felt it vividly. He reproduced without
satiety, reproduced with variations, and with interest continually
maintained; nay, even strengthened by familiarity. He had himself,
in his old age, of the Welsh poetic nature, the brooding and tender
stedfastness. Going, in one of his summer tours — I think it was
with Mr. Ellis — to the famous woods and Abbey of Bolton, he
expressed himself in writing, that it was all unquestionably fine, but
he could not find much new to interest him. In Wales it never
occurred to him to ask for the new. There, the old was enough
for him.

And so the scenery and feeling of Wales, as these are appre-
hended by the receptive and the watching — and not by the tourist,

vou ccxLii. NO. 1767. z

338 The GentUmaiis Magazine.

the guide-book's laborious yet cheerful slave, who hurries from show-
place to show-place — so the scenery and feeling of Wales came to be
recorded in a hundred sketches. Sometimes he did not only record
an impression, but retained and intensified it, and then there came
from him the triumph of his artistry and native and natural sentiment
— such a work of controlled pathos and deepest gravity as "The
Welsh Funeral." The figures there are still but landscape painter's
figures : little attempt to individualise them : none that they should
move us — it is out of the landscape alone, and the according move-
ment of the humble troop towards the churchyard, that he has
wrung the expression. He painted the picture in 1850 : a day of
passing storm ; light breaking on the top of Bettwys Crags that he
had painted so often in so many moods of sunshine or shower.
There is a long space of shadow low on the hillside, where, from
amongst the thick and doleful woodland, the little church lifts its
grey stone belfry, and its bell clangs for the dead ; and along the
field-path, by the stone-walled field, the funeral crowd, with bent
heads — neighbourly folk, gathered from cottage in the valley, and farm
away on the mountain — step slowly to the churchyard. He had
beheld the scene himself, and felt it intensely. In the foreground,
children handle flowers — a detail that he knew his work too well to
insist upon. Make what you like of it; but for him it had a meaning he
was not careful to urge; only he told some one who was looking at the
picture, "Those are not chance flowers, but poppies. They symbolize
the sleep of death." All the solemnity of the art of David Cox, the
graver and profounder chords of his music, came to him in Wales.

But of course all the delightful and splendid records of those
later and greater years are not confined to Wales. Almost in the
first of them, he made an expedition to Haddon and Rowsley.
Tender little sketches of the village of Rowsley, nestled under its
low line of hills, were cherished by Mr. Ellis, his companion, to the
last. The amateur who requires upon each of his Coxes the special
Cox label, would hardly, I imagine, deem them characteristic or
desirable, for while they have greater variety and greater harmony of
colour than his earlier work, they are without the slashing strength of his
later, and are valuable as exceptions, just because in them no big fore-
ground grasses are wet and meadows spongy, no sheep huddle in storm,
no ship bears up against the wind, no stout woman on the bare common
struggles in boisterous weather. They are valuable just because they
show David Cox's sensitiveness to an order of beauty he very rarely
portrayed. The sketches of Haddon — the Hall, the terrace, the
stately garden — are perhaps less fascinating, but as a series they will

David Cox. 339

continue to be noteworthy as examples of slight, bold, and broad
execution, of work done in the fullest vigour of the artist, of draughts-
manship inexact, indeed, but splendidly firm and indicative. And
as to draughtsmanship it is too much forgotten that the standard
exacted of an artist in home studies tranquil and laborious is not
fairly to be demanded in rapid out-door work. To each work its
conditions, and to each its triumph. Certain of the drawings of
terrace steps and balustrade at Haddon show that Cox was not
blind to the quality of massive line — pure, simple, and unbroken.
One says this : one does not say that his training would ever have
allowed him to render faultlessly the quality he perceived and
indicated. There is a masterly accuracy, and a masterly /^accuracy
— the last was David Cox's.

Cox reached his highest point, in out-door work alone, in a sketch
of "Stokesay, near Ludlow" (1852) — a drawing now, I believe, be-
longing to Mr. Levy.* Leaving for the nonce the solemn tone of the
best Bettwys subjects, he here, in an hour's delightful task, recorded
the vivid and strong enjoyment which all true lovers of nature take
in wind and tur])ulent sky and the open and common country; and
in all landscape art there is no record of effect more decisive and
vigorous than this — more vehement, more energetic, or more pos-
sessed with the very spirit of the scene. Some other generation, if
its colours keep, will put it beside the " Three Trees " of Rembrandt —
beside the "Watercress Gatherers" and the "Solway Moss" oi Liber
Studioruvi — and it will not suffer by the comparison. A pathway leads
us through long grass in the foreground, and two peasant women tramp
in the blustering weather. A lowering sky — yet much of it bright and
windy — its darkness splendidly concentrated to a point of storm.
On one side the low-toned hills, green with the sharpness of light still
upon them, recede to a narrow blue moor — the distance rich and
mysterious, and veiled : the near country in the keen light after rain.
The elements of the landscape are after all very nearly the accustomed
ones : what is memorable is the sudden and resolute truth.

Cox would have had small claim to lasting greatness, if the truth
of impression, which his sketches seized so promptly, had been
wholly frittered away in the long elaboration of the studio labour to
which he was almost bound to betake himself during the eight months
of the English winter. It was not frittered away, though, indeed, it
was undeniably weakened, as is generally the fate of the landscape
painter ; for he deals, and especially in our newer art, as the buyers

' Hought at the Stone Ellis Sale, 1877.

z 2

33^ The Genliemaris Magazine.

the guide-book's laborious yet cbeeiAil slave, who hurries from staow-
place to show-place — so the scenery and feeling of Wales came to be
recorded in a hundred sketches. Sometimes he did not only record
an impression, but retained and intensified it, and then there came
from him the triumph of his artistry and native and natural sentiment
— such a work of controlled pathos and deepest gravity as "The
Welsh FuneraL" The figures there are still but Iandscap>e painter's
figures : little attempt to individualise them ; none that they should
move us— it is out of the landscape alone, and the according move-
ment of the humble troop towards the churchyard, that he has
wrmig the expression. He painted the picture in 1850: a day of
passing storm ; Ught breaking on the top of Bettwys Crags that he
had painted so often in so many moods of sunshine or shower.
There is a long space of shadow low on the hillside, where, from
amongst the thick and doleful woodland, the little church lifts its
grey stone belfry, and its bell clangs for the dead ; and along the
field-path, by the stone-walled field, the funeral crowd, with bent
heads — neighbourly folk, gathered from cottage in the valley, and farm
away on the mountain — step slowly to the churchyard. He had
beheld the scene himself, and felt it intensely. In the foreground,
children handle flowers— a detail that he knew his work too well to
insist upon. Make what you like of itj but for him it had a meaning he
was not careful to urge; only he told some one who was looting a.t the
picture, "Those are not chance flowers, but poppies. They sytribofo*
the sleep of de.tth." .^11 the solemnity of the an of Tiavvd Co^,*^
graver and profounder chords of his music, came to him \y\ ^NaXes-

But of course all the delightful and splc-iniicJ rceotOi.^
later and greater years are not confined lu Waicu. .^
first of them, he made an expedition to Haddor*.
Tender little sketches of the village of Rowsley, ir"*e.ax\jj
low line of hills, were cherished by Mr. Ellis, his c^
last The amateur who requires upon each of his «
Cox label, would hardly, I imagine, dc<.-m
desirable, for while they have greater variety s
colour than his earlier work, they are without tint
later, and are valuable as exceptions, just bee;
ground grasses are wet and meadows spongy, t
no ship bears up against the wind, no stout wo
struggles in boisterous weather. They art v;
show David Cox's sensitiveness to an order 0
portrayed. The sketches of Haddon — th'
stately garden — ore perhaps less fasdnating

3 rO The Gentleman s Magazine,

of elaborate landscape little enough remember, not with the beauties
of permanent form, but with those of vanishing effect. And how are
they, or how is the impression of them, to be arrested while he works ?
<'Ulverston Sands" and "Rhyl Sands" — ^both of them drawings of
his later years — are both, in their way, happy examples of the art of
Cox, when the comparative elaboration of his second thoughts had
come to modify in the studio something of the fervour of the first.
The " Ulverston " is the more poetical in sentiment : the more harmo-
nious and beautiful in grouping and line. Throughout most of the
landscape the wide sands are lifted into the wind, and there is little
beside : only at the left corner, where the blast is strongest, a party
- of wind-blown gipsies huddle together or make laborious advance.
In "Rhyl"* the painter has grappled with common-place figures,
semi-fashionable seaside costumes, and has saved the work from its
natural impression ot common-place by splendid power of lar^e
wave drawing, and the old skill in effects of atmosphere, here clear
and fresh.

Cox worked much in sepia; and in sepia, too, for his proper
satisfaction and benefit, and not only as lessons to pupils. Vivid
effects portrayed at the hour of^their observation convince us of
this, but we are convinced also that for the full exercise of his genius
the range of the water-colour painter needed to be available — black
and white were not enough for him. Other men have portrayed
sunshine in black and white ; but Rembrandt and M^ryon, even
more keenly and delicately sensitive than Cox to the last subtleties
of the effects they sought to reproduce, handled, not sepia and the
brush, but ink and the etching-needle. Moisture and wind and
wide spaces and movement were within the range of David Cox
in black and white. He was perhaps too absolute a colourist to
dispense with colour in sunshine. His richest harmonies are har-
monies in colour : it is in colour that his tone is generally truest.
So it is in Mr. Holbrook Gaskell's sketch of Dort — " Dort from the
Sea"* — Van Goyen's favourite subject, but Cox's means must not be
restrained to the monochrome of the great old Dutch master : he
must have patches of red and blue on sailors and flag — a delicious
thin light of showery sunshine over further sails and distant church
and windmills. So it is in a " Bridge in VV^arwickshire," — so keenly
true HI brilliant colour — among the best of his not latest drawings.
And so again in Miss Coates*s sketch of the Welsh coast " Near

' Exhibited at the Old Masters, January 1875.

* Exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery, January 1878.

David Cox. 341

Afon Wen " ' : a chosen example of deep harmony of tone and unity of
eflFect— a sketch of hillock and down under grey and gathering slvies
— a landscape across which a broken path, with its group of lonely
riders, wavers to right and left among sandhills and long grasses
blown — no, torn through — by wind from the sea. Cox, who had
painted already the track of the tourist, turned southward this time
with the coast below Carnarvon, and passed, where Turner (as
England and Wales will show) had passed before him, to the lost
world's end of Afon Wen and Cricceith. And here is a sketch of the
late Welsh wanderings, arid one of the finest fruits of that fruitful
time, which lifted Cox, as nothing had lifted him before, above the
level of high talent which many may reach, to the place reserved, in
our English Art, for a very few, of whom he became among the
greatest

FREDERICK WEDMOKE.
' Stone Ellis Sale, 1877.

342

PARASITES AND THEIR
DEVEL 0PM E NT.

IF man is to be regarded as the favoured child of Nature, and if it
be held as true that life at large is subservient to his sway and
rule, it is no less true that he is liable to suffer severely from the
attack of certain of his lower neighbours, and that he is despoiled in
various fashions by some of the most insignificant of living beings.
Insects of various kinds, insignificant as to size, but powerful beyond
comprehension in virtue of their numbers, devastate the crops which
exercise his mind and appliances in their cultivation. And after the
crops have been duly stored and garnered, the labour of months and
the full fruition of the farmer's hopes may be destroyed by the in-
sidious attack of granary-pests. Plants of lowly grade — minute fungi
and like organisms — personally known to the microscopist alone,
blight at once the prospects of the agriculturist and of his cereals. A
minute fungus, burrowing its way within the tissues of the potato -
plant, has ere now brought destitution and famine on a nation,
and still causes disease amongst our tubers to an extent which
none but our potato-growers can fully realise. Nor is the farmer's
sphere singular in respect of its liability to the attack of animal and
plant foes. Parasites, the complexity of whose life-history almost
defies belief, invade the stock of the breeder of cattle and sheep and
decimate his flocks ; whilst these same parasites may occasionally in-
vade the human domain itself, and cause disease and death to ])revail
to an alarming extent. Hidden enemies in the sea burrow into the
sides of ships, or undermine man's piers and bulwarks. Poison-traps lie
in wait for human footsteps : and claw and tooth ape as ruthless when
opposed to humanity as when prepared to attack lower life. Speaking
generally, therefore, man may be readily shown to be by no means
the undisputed " monarch of all he surveys " in the territory of cither
botanist or zoologist ; and the province of mind and intellect may be
invaded by foes against which man may find it impossible to contend.
Much has been done, it is true, in the way of repressing many of our
lower enemies, and the increase of scientific knowledge has had
few triumphs of higher kind than are witnessed in those researches

Parasites and their Development. 343

which' have exposed the nattire of our animal and plant enemies, and
shown us the steps necessary to be taken for their annihilation. But
the field of inquiry seems well nigh boundless; and it should certainly
form one of the most powerful arguments in favour of the study of
natural science, that on the advance in our knowledge of economic
botany and zoology the prosperity of our commerce and the conser-
vation of our health may be shown largely to depend.

Perhaps one of the richest fields of research in the way of repression
of our lower enemies, is offered by the life-history of some of the most
common parasites which decimate our flocks and herds, and which, as
already remarked, occasionally invade the human territory itself. Well
does the shepherd know the symptoms of " rot" in his flock, and anxi-
ously does he apply to the veterinarian for advice in his extremity. His
sheep, in such a strait, present a dull and dejected appearance ; they
are ** off their feed," he will tell the observer, and are in a thoroughly
emaciated condition, despite shepherd's kindly care and supervision.
By-and-by deaths will begin to be of frequent occurrence, and when
the dead subjects are carefully inspected the cause of the disorder is
not hard to discover. The body of the affected sheep exhibits a state
of thorough disorganisation, and when the liver is carefully inspected,
hundreds of small flattened bodies, each about three-quarters of an
inch long, are found within the bile ducts ; whilst in the bile itself
thousands of small particles are to be discovered by microscopic aid.
The small flat bodies are " flukes," and the particles are the eggs of
these animals. What, it may be asked, are these " flukes " which,
according to trustworthy evidence, carry off annually bet^'een one
and two millions of sheep at the very lowest computation ? The reply
to this question is readily given. The " liver-fluke " is one of a group
of internal parasites which has been known from comparatively early
times. It was certainly known in 1547, and was lucidly described in
1552 by an author who was shrewd enough to attribute to its presence
an epidemic which decimated the flocks of Dutch farmers in that
year. Its " area of distribution," to use a scientific but expressive
phrase, is not confilied to sheep alone, but includes cattle, the horse,
hares and rabbits, the spaniel, deer and antelopes, and even man
himself. A little flat and somewhat oval body, with a tree-like
arrangement of tubes for a digestive system, and possessing a couple
of suckers for adhesive purposes — such are the main features which
a " liver-fluke " presents for examination A more innocent-looking
animal could hardly be found, and the cause of its injurious effects
upon its'animal hosts might remain a mystery, did our inquiries cease
with the investigation, so to speak, oi \\s personnel.

344 ^^ Gentlemaiis Magazine.

A highly important consideration, however, and one which extends
beyond the restricted domain of our present subject, is that which
recognizes in numbers and time two important factors in elevating
agencies of apparently unimportant kind into forces of vast or uncon-
trollable nature. The rain-drop is insignificant regarded merely as a
particle of water, no doubt ; but multiply your rain-drops indefinitely,
and you obtain the agent which will wear the hardest rock, excavate
the giant-cavern, or form the foaming cataract with strength to sweep
away the greatest obstacles man or nature may oppose to its fury.
Invest the idea of the single rain -drop with time, and the action
which appears feeble, if viewed for a single moment, becomes of
mighty extent when multiplied into years and centuries. And similarly
with the case of the fluke and its neighbour-parasites. A single fluke
is of itself an unimportant quantity, but when this quantit)' becomes
multiplied by hundreds, the proverb that " union is strength " receives
a new and very decided application. Existing in large numbers within
the liver-ducts of the sheep, the flukes cause irritation, and a whole
train of symptoms which end usually in starvation and death. Hence
the extreme fertility of parasites might well afford a text whereon a
sophist might inveigh against the >vise regulation of the domain of
living nature, were it not that in reality these animals are checked and
controlled through the actual complexity of their own development
Strange as the statement may seem, it is nevertheless true that Nature
appears to offer a premium against the development and increase of
these and other parasites, through their having to undergo a series of
very striking changes on the way to maturity. The parasite's path to
adult life may truly be described as chequered in the highest degree.
There are numerous pitfalls and snares laid for its reception, and for
the extinction of its young life ; and the " struggle for existence " in
the present case is not only fierce, but, in the case of a very large
majority of the combatants, utterly hopeless.

Let us briefly trace the life-history of a fluke by way of practical
illustration of these latter remarks. From each individual fluke resid-
ing within the body of its sheep-host, hundreds of eggs are discharged.
Each egg undergoes a preliminary process of development, and from
the eggs which escape into water, little free-swimming bodies are
liberated. These minute living particles are young or embryo flukes.
Each resembles an inverted cone in shape, and swims rapidly through
the water by aid of the microscopic filaments which fringe its body.
It is clear that such eggs as do not reach water, will not undergo
development, and hence a first check to the increase of the flukes
exists in the fact, that many eggs must perish from the absence ot

Parasites and their Development. 345

appropriate surroundings. Sooner or later, the young fluke loses its
power of swimming, and becomes of oval shape ; crawling inelegantly,
by contractions of its body, over the muddy bottom of its pool or
river. Thereafter it appears to seek an entrance to the body of some
co-tenant of its pool, such a creature being usually found in the shape
of a water-snail Buried within the tissues of this first " host," the
young fluke becomes transformed into a sac or bag, within which
other young may arise by a veritable process of budding. This rising
generation appears in the form of small bodies, each provided with a
vibratile tail. From the body of the snail, these " secondary young "
soon make their escape ; and whilst existing in the water, are readily
conveyed into the stomach of the sheep in the act of drinking.
Thence these young flukes penetrate to the liver of the animal, and
become transformed into the mature and flattened adult

The unexplained necessity for such a complicated series of changes
in development, and for the varied circumstances which mark the career
of the young fluke, present us with conditions which operate powerfully
against the undue increase of the race. An exactly analogous series of
changes is to be perceived in the development of many other para-
sites, and amongst others in that of the various groups of tapeworms
which reside within the digestive system of man and other quadrupeds.
But for the complexity of their development, and for the consequent
limitation of their increase, these parasites would overrun and exter-
minate their hosts in a short period of time. A common tapeworm
begins life as a minute body, set free from its coverings and investments,
and provided with a special boring apparatus, consisting of six hooks.
This little creature will perish unless it can gain access to the body
of some warm-blooded quadruped, and the pig accordingly appears on
the scene as the most convenient host for the reception of the little
embryo. But within the body of the pig, there is not the slightest
possibility of the little embryo becoming a tapeworm. The pig has
merely to perform the part of unconscious " nurse," and to prepare its
" guest " for a yet higher stage of existence. Being swallowed by the
pig, the young parasite bores its way through the tissues from the
digestive system to the muscles of the animal, and there developes
around its body a kind of bag or sac In this state it represents the
" cystic worm " of old writers ; and occasionally it may prefer the liver,
brain, or even the eye of its first host to the muscles in which it usually
resides. Here, however, it can attain no further development. If the
pig dies a natural death, there can be no possibility of the tapeworm
stage being evolved. But if, as is most likely, the pig suflers death at
the butcher's hands, the little '' cystic worms " may be bought by man-

346 The Gentleman's Magazine.

kind at large along with the pork in which they are contained, and
such persons as partake of this comestible in an imperfectly cooked
condition, thereby qualify themselves for becoming the " hosts " of
tapeworms : since, when a cystic worm from the muscles of the pig is
introduced into the human stomach, the little bladder or sac which the
worm possesses drops off, and the minute head of the worm becomes
attached to the lining membrane of the digestive system. Once fixed
in this position, the circle of development may be said to be com-
pleted. A process of budding sets in, and joint after joint is produced,
until the adult tapeworm, measuring, it may be, many feet in length, is
developed ; whilst each egg of this full-grown being, if surrounded by
the requisite conditions, and if provided with a pig-host to begin with,
will repeat the marvellous and complicated life-history of its parent.

The history of the tapeworms, like that of the flukes, therefore, ex-
hibit?a"Trery complex series of conditions, and unless these conditions
are fulfilled by the young parasite, development is either cut short or
is altogether suspended. The fact of a double host having to be pro-
vided for the due development of tapeworms is not peculiar to the
production of the species inhabiting man. All of these parasites pass
through an essentially similar series of developments. The cystic
worms which cause the " measles " in the pig become as we have
seen, and when eaten by man, the common species of human tape-
worm. The cystic worms man obtains from underdone beef are
developed within his economy into a tapeworm of another kind.
The young parasites which reside in the liver of the rabbit, and which
attain no higher development than that seen in the pig, become, when
swallowed by the dog or fox, the special tapeworm-tenant of these
animals. The cystic worm of the mouse developes into the tapeworm
of the cat ; so that the dog, fox, and cat do not enjoy an immunity
from enemies, but actually acquire disease from the victims they so
ruthlessly pursue. The chances of destruction which beset the young
parasite on its way through the world are so multifarious when com-
pared with its chances of favourable development, that, practically,
the immense number of eggs produced by these animals are of small
account Of the thousands of eggs developed, the merest fraction
attain development, and the presence of a complex life-history in
parasites must be regarded as in reality forming a saving clause, as
far as man is concerned, when we consider our comparative immunity
from their attack.

Even more extraordinary than the phases of development which
have just been detailed, are those undergone by a special form of
tapeworm inhabiting the dog. The egg of this latter parasite gains

Parasites and tfieir Development. 347

admittance to the body of the dog-louse, and therein becomes the
cystic worm, similar to that formed within the muscles of the pig in
the case of the human tapeworm. The dog, in the process of cleaning
his skin, swallows the skin-parasite with its contained but immature
tapeworm ; and, once introduced to the dog's digestive system, the
latter form liberates itself from the louse and becomes the mature
tapeworm. Anything more extraordinary than this peculiar circle of
development can hardly be imagined in the life-histories of animals.
Nor are the conditions which have determined, and which continue
the development, rendered clear to us by the most careful study of the
subject. Why it is that the tapeworm should not attain its full develop-
ment within the pig, rabbit, mouse, or dog-louse, as its first host, we
do not know ; nor can it be rendered plain what conditions have so
sharply divided the life of these parasites into two periods of such
well-marked kind.

The whole question of parasitism, however, exhibits a striking illus-
tration of the influence of habit and of surrounding conditions on the
life of animals. No one may doubt that the habit of one animal attach-
ing itself to another is an acquired one. The most ardent advocate of
the doctrine of special creation would never dream of maintaining
that parasites were created as we find them in relationship with their
hosts. Even were this argument advanced as a mere matter of
unsupported belief, the order and succession of life upon the globe
would present facts which would at once veto the belief. The lowest
animals appeared first, and were succeeded by forms of gradually in-
creasing complexity. Hence the parasites must have been developed
before their hosts. Man appeared long after the tapeworms or their
ancestors were produced ; and the intricate relationship between
man and his neighbour-animals and the parasites must have been
acquired in a gradual fashion. Best of all, this opinion is supported
by the information to be gained from a survey of parasitic life at large.
We may begin such a survey by noting animals which attach themselves
to other animals as mere " lodgers." Such are external parasites.
Next may be traced parasites which depend for house-room upon
other animals, but which do not require board and sustenance from
their hosts. Such " messmates " are presented by the little fishes which
live within the bodies of large sea-anemones and of other organisms,
and which swim in and out at will, obtaining their food for the most
part from the external world. A simple modification of habit in such
animals would convert them into true parasites. Suppose that the
guest finds that it may readily obtain food by living on the matters
its host is elaborating for its own use, and suppose, further, that the

348 The Gentlemaits Magazine.

animal-guest gradually accommodates itself by successive modifica-
tions to its new mode of life, and we have thus the influence of habit
brought into play and exercised upon the descendants of the first
parasite in producing a literal race of such beings. Such a belief or
theory is neither contrary to facts as we find them, nor is it unsup-
ported by direct evidence. Take, for example, the case of Sacailinay
a well-known parasite which attaches itself to the bodies of hermit-
crabs and their allies. In shape the sacculina resembles a simple sac
or bag — a kind of miniature sausage, in fact — which sends into the
body of its host a number of root-like processes. These roots en-
twine themselves amongst the organs of the crab's body, and serve to
absorb from the tissues of the host a certain amount of nourishment.
If we lay open this curious organism, we find that the sac-like body
contains eggs. No traces of structure are discernible ; and but for
occasional movements of the body, destined to inhale water and to
expel that fluid from its interior, one might regard the sacculina as
some abnormal growth which had protruded from the body of the crab.
The sacculina is a true parasite in every sense of the term. It is
dependent, not merely for lodgment, but for nourishment also, upon
its host ; and, as we shall presently note, its thorough dependence
upon the crab becomes the more curious when the past history of the
sacculina, as revealed by its development, is duly studied.

From each egg of the sac-like parasite thus described, a little
active creature is developed. Known to naturalists as a " nauplius,"
the young sacculina is seen to be utterly unlike its parent. It pos-
sesses an oval body, and is furnished with three pairs of jointed
feet, which are used actively as swimming organs. By aid of the
long bristles with which the feet are provided, the little sacculina
swims merrily through the sea. Its body terminates behind in a
kind ot forked appendage of movable nature. After the lapse of
a short period, changes ensue in the structure of the little body, but
there appear as yet no indications of its parasitic origin, or of any
tendency to imitate the fixed and attached existence of its parent.
The body of the young sacculina next becomes folded upon itself, so
as to enclose the young animal in a more or less complete manner ;
and the two front limbs become developed beyond the other pairs,
and form large organs wherewith the little creature may ultimately
moor itself to some fixed object. From the extremities of these
altered fore-limbs two elongated processes or filaments are seen to
sprout, and these processes are regarded as the beginnings of the
root-like organs seen in the attached, parasitic, and full-grown
sacculina. The other two pairs of feet are cast off, and in their place

Parasites and tJteir DevelopmenL 349

six pairs of short swimming feet of forked shape are developed.
After this stage has been attained, the young animal seeks a crab-
host ; the root-like front feet attach themselves to the body of the
crab and penetrate into its substance ; the other feet are cast away as
useless organs ; and with the assumption of the sac-like body, the
young sacculina becomes converted into the likeness of the parent-
form.

Such is a brief sketch of the development of a true parasite, and
we may now inquire what the life-history of this animal teaches us
concerning its antecedents, and regarding its assumption of a parasitic
life. The most reasonable view which can be taken of the develop-
ment of an animal or plant is that of regarding the phases of its pro-
duction as presenting us with a condensed or panoramic picture of
the stages through which it has passed in the course of its origin or
evolution from some pre-existing form. If we refuse to regard
development in this light, the stages through which the living being
passes in its progress towards maturity present themselves as a set of
unmeaning and wholly inexplicable actions and conditions. Whilst, on
the other hand, when we recognise that in the development of an animal
we may trace its ancestry, much that is otherwise incomprehensible
becomes plain and reasonable, and very discordant phases of life
become harmoniously adjusted through such a consideration. And
when we further discover that a large number of animals, widely
differing from each other in their adult structure, exactly resemble
each other in their young state, the feasible nature of the statement,
that such a likeness implies a common origin, is readily demon,
strated. On any other supposition, in short, the development of
living beings presents us with phases of utterly unintelligible nature.
Now the young sacculina is found to present a close resemblance to
a large number of other animals belonging to the great class known
as the Crustacea, To this group belong the barnacles, water-fleas,
flsh-lice, shrimps, crabs, lobsters, &c Most of these animals
leave the egg in the form of a ** nauplius," and present the closest
possible resemblance to young sacculinae. The young of the fixed
and rooted barnacles, which attach themselves like pseudo-parasites
to the sides of ships, so closely resemble young sacculinse that it
would be a difficult, if not absolutely impossible, task to separate or
distinguish the young from those of the sacculina in the earlier
stages of growth. The young barnacle, like the young sacculina,
resembles a shrimp of peculiar kind on a roving commission, much
more closely than the adult and attached form. And hence we
discern in the common likeness of the young of these animals a

350 The Gefitleman' s Magazine.

proof of their common origin. At one time, therefore, we may believe
that the sacculina existed as a free smmming creature, of active habits,
and possessing a tolerably high degree of organisation. Doubtless
some less energetic member of the sacculina family secured a temporary
resting-place on the body of a crab, and found such a position to be of
desirable kind from the rest and protection it afforded. The feet,
which were at first used for mere attachment, may have come in time
to penetrate the body of the crab-host, and may thus have become
transformed into organs of nourishment. By-and-by the sedentary
life, with its advantages in the way of cheap living and easy existence
for the sacculina, became a fixed habit. The sacculinae, which ac-
quired this habit, together with their descendants, would flourish and
increase in numbers owing to the advantage gained by them in that
*' struggle for existence " in which sacculinae and their highest animal
neighbours are forced, one and all, to take part And as the wholly
free sacculinse became transformed into higher forms of life, or be-
came extinct, their rooted and parasitic brethren may be regarded as
having gradually degenerated. A process of physiological backsliding
invariably takes place in such cases, and this retrogression would be
manifested in the sacculinae by the casting off of structures which
were no longer of use to a fixed and rooted being — the degeneration
and disappearance of structures not required in the animal economy,
taking place in virtue of the well-known law of the " use and disuse "
of organs. The legs would thus become gradually diminished, and
would finally disappear altogether. Internal organs, and j)arts useful
to the free swimming animal, would become useless as the creature
became more and more dependent on its host. And finally the sac-
like organism would be evolved as the result of its parasitic habits ;
and the degeneracy which marks the slavishly dependent mind in
higher life is thus viewed as also destroying the independence and
as warping and distorting the chara.cter which once marked the free
and active creature of lower grade. Thus we may understand by the
study of life-histories, such as those of sacculina and its comrades,
how parasitism is induced, and how a change of life and habits of such
sweeping character, converting an active being into a sedentar>' and
degraded animal, becomes established through the slow but sure
effects of habit, use, and wont, perpetuated through many generations.
Perhaps the most inveterate and dreaded enemy which man has to
encounter in the ranks of parasites is the little Trichina, which has,
on more than one occasion, caused a fatal epidemic, on the Continent
especially, through its development in excessive numbers. This little
worm-like parasite ^"as first discovered in the dissecting-room of

Parasites and their Development. 351

St Bartholomew's Hospital. The circumstances of its discovery have
been frequently repeated in anatomical rooms by the observation that
very small hardened bodies are to be sometimes met with embedded
amongst the muscular tissue of the human subject. When one of these
little bodies is carefully examined, it is found to consist of a little sac
or bag of oval shape, and to contain within a little worm coiled up in a
spiral fashion. These sacs attain a length of about the ^'^jth of an inch
or so, and if they have existed within the muscles for a lengthened period,
they will be found to be somewhat limy in structure ; the presence of
this mineral implying d^eneration of the sac and its tenant When the
first trichina were examined and named by Professor Owen, their life-
history and importance, as regards the human economy, were un-
known and undreamt of. But the occurrence on the Continent of
certain mysterious cases of illness and the careful investigation of such
cases by medical men, led to the recognition of the fact that this tiny
worm, which, in its fully-grown condition, does not exceed a mere frac-
tion of an inch, may nevertheless, through its development in large
numbers, prove a source of fatal disease to man. In proof of this fact
we may quote Dr. Cobbold's extract from the " Leipziger Zeitung *' for
December 8th, 1863, in which it is stated that six persons were seized
with all the symptoms of trichina disease, " after eating raw beef mixed
with chopped pork.'' The " Neue Hannoversche Zeitung " for De-
cember 13th of the same year, chronicles the death of 21 persons
in Hettstadt through eating the flesh of an English pig, the butcher
himself perishing from the trichina-disease. Eighty persons, accord-
ing to the "Zeitung fiir Norddeutschland," were affected in De-
cember, 1863, in Plauen, but only one died. In 1862, of 38 persons
attacked in Calhe, near Magdeburg, 8 died ; and in Hettstadt 20 died
out of a total of 135 who were attacked. The symptoms exhibited by
the patients were those of an acute fever, accompanied by distressing
pains in the muscles. The discovery of the trichina's fatal powers,
as might be expected, caused no little consternation, but we are not
aware that the affection of our Continental neighbours for raw meat
declined in consequence. If one narrative, indeed, is to be trusted,
there were not wanting, it seems, those who affected an entire disbelief
in the trichina and in the fatal effects it was capable of inducing. One
headstrong savant was thus said to have fallen a v^'^tim to his scep-
ticism. Holding in his hand a piece of sausage, whicu he alleged had
been declared to contain trichinse, he avowed his entire disbelief in
the fatal effects which were said to follow the introduction of those
parasites within the human economy. He would, in fact, have no
objection, for that matter of it, to eat the sausage. " Eat ! eat I " was

35 2 2^^ GmtleniarHs Magazine.

the cry which resounded through the hall, and in compliance ^-ith the
request, the sazfant ate the saus/ige. Lamentable to relate, the trichinae
proved too much for even a scientific organisation, and the subject of
the experiment was said to have died from the trichina-disease induced
by his own act. Nor may the fatality of the trichina-disease be
regarded as a mystery in the light of the facts as to the numbers of
the parasites which one **host " may contain. Dr. Cobbold affirms,
and with good reason, that 20,000,000 of trichinx may be contained
in one subject. In one ounce of muscle taken from a cat which
had been experimented upon as a producer of trichinae, Leuckart
slterated that 325,000 of the parasites were contained. An average-
sized man, weighing ten stones, will carry about four stones of muscle;
and assuming that all the voluntary muscles of the body were affected,
such a person might afford lodgment to 30,000,000 of these parasites.
In this instance, therefore, numbers clearly mean power, and that,
too, of a fatal kind.

The history of the trichina's development again brings before us
a most singular series of phases, and once more presents us with the
necessity for a " double-host," as in the case of the tapeworms. If
we start with the trichina as they exist within the muscles of the
pig, we find that the parasites are contained each within the little sac
or cyst already mentioned. The pig, it may be remarked, is not the
only host which affords lodgment to the trichina, since dogs and
cats, rats and mice, rabbits and hares, oxen, horses, sheep, guinea-
pigs, and other animals, are found to be subject to their attack. It
must, however, be noted that, as found in the muscles of any animal,
the trichinae are not only perfectly harmless to that animal, but,
further, exist in an undeveloped or immature condition. As seen
enclosed in their little sac-like cradles, the trichinae are, in every
sense of the term, " juvenile " parasites. They represent, in fact, a
young and rising generation waiting for a favourable turn of Fortune's
wheel to start them on the further stages of their life-history. This
favourable turn arrives at the moment when the flesh containing the
young and immature trichina-population is eaten by a warm-blooded
animal. Suppose the " trichiniased " flesh of a pig to be eaten without
due culinary preparation by man, the result of the preliminary pro-
cesses of digestion in the stomach is the dissolution of the little cysts,
and the consequent liberation of the "juvenile " population. In two
days thereafter, the precocious "juveniles," influenced by the change of
life and situation, have become mature trichinae ; and, after the sixth
day, enormous numbers of eggs are produced by these matured forms.
After this stage has been attained, the parent parasites become of no

Parasites and their Development. 353

further account in the history of the host, but the young form the
subjects of grave concern. This new generation is found to be a
restless and migratory body, and influenced by the habits of their
ancestors, the young pass from the digestive organs, through the
tissues of the body, to seek a lodgment in the muscles. Now comes
the tug of war — for the host at least. With thousands of these micro-
scopic pests boring their way through his tissues, there is no lack of
explanation of the excessive muscular pains felt by the trichiniased
patient But relief comes in due course when the restless brood has
located itself in the muscles. There each young trichina developes
around itself a cyst or capsule, and returns to the primitive form in
which we first beheld it. There, also, it will rest permanently, and
degenerate into a speck of calcareous matter — unless, indeed, an
unlooked-for contingency arises. Were cannibalism a fashionable
vice amongst us, the eaters would receive from the muscles of the
eaten the young population of trichinae, just as the original subject
received the juvenile brood from the pig. Within the cannibal or-
ganisation, the young parasites would become fully developed, would
produce young in large quantities, and would inflict upon the digester
of human tissue, pains and grievances compared with which the
proverbial troubles which afflict the just are as nothing.

Less to be dreaded than the trichina, but more extraordinary in
its habits, is the " Guinea-worm," a well-known parasite, confined in
its distribution to certain portions of Arabia, to the banks of the
Ganges, and to Abyssinia and the Guinea coast From the latter
locality the organism derives its name. The Guinea- worm-troubles
not the internal economy of man, but has, strange to say, a striking
and persistent aptitude for locating itself under the skin of the legs
and feet The interest with which the Guinea^worm is regarded by
naturalists and others is derived from the fact of its curious life-history
and habits, and from the supposition that this parasite represents the
"fiery serpents" which so exercised the minds and tortured the
bodies of the ancient Israelites. This supposition is somewhat
strengthened by the knowledge that Plutarch, in his " Symposiacon,"
quotes a remark to the effect that " the people taken ill on the Red
Sea suffered from many strange and unknown attacks," and that,
amongst other worms, "little snakes which came out upon them,
gnawed away their legs and arms, and when touched, retracted, coiled
themselves up in the muscles, and there gave rise to the most in-
supportable pains." Making allowance for a few exaggerations, such
a description, especially in its latter portion, applies very closely to
this curious enemy of man. In length the Guinea-worm may vary

VOL. CCXLII. NO. 1767. A A

354 The Gentleman s Magazine.

from one to six feet, whilst specimens of twelve feet in length are not
unknown. The body is cylindrical in shape, and attains a thickness
of about one-tenth of an inch. Curiously enough, not a single male
Guinea-worm has yet been met with, all the known specimens be-
longing to the opposite sex. The worm enters the skin as a minute
organism which possesses a singular vitality, and which exists in its
free condition in muddy pools, in wells, tanks, and in marshes. In all
probability the young Guinea-worm gains access to the skin through
the sweat-ducts. Once located within the skin, the animal grows rapidly,
and in about a year attains the dimensions just given. Every traveller
in the East knows the Guinea-worm by repute, and has witnessed the
familiar operation performed for its extraction. Ancient works on
medicine contain descriptions of this operation, and exhibit drawings
of the worm and of the appearances produced by its tenancy in the
skin. The sole aims of the operator are those of extracting the
parasite by gentle traction, and of avoiding the infliction of any injury
to its body. This latter forms, in fact, the great desideratum of the
operator ; since, if the body of the parasite be broken, and a portion
left still within the body of its host, additional and it may be serious
irritation is thereby set up. The long and slender body of the worm
is accordingly wound slowly and carefully around some object, and
the negroes on the Guinea coast are said to be dexterous and skilful
in the performance of this somewhat delicate operation.

Perhaps one of the most remarkable points in the history of para-
sites is that which refers to the geographical distribution of certain of
their numbers. That parasites require to be provided with certain
appropriate conditions for development is a fact already noted.
Indeed, we may go much further and say that the conditions de-
manded for the successful development of many of these animals are
infinitely complicated, and are in many cases of singularly curious
nature. But it would also seem that in their " distribution " over the
surface of the globe, and in their selection of certain countries or
regions as especial spheres of development, some parasites evince
remarkable traits of character. One of the best kno\\'n instances of
this fact is afforded by a species of tai)eworm, to which the somewhat
uncouth — to ears unscientific, at least — name of Bothriocephalns has
been given. This latter is a species of " broad-headed " tapeworm,
differing from its common neighbours in several points. It is un-
questionably the largest or longest parasite which invades the human
territory, and may attain a length of over twenty-five feet ; its average
breadth being about an inch or rather less. In a large ** broad-
head," as we may call it, upwards of four tliousand joints or segments

Parasites and their Development. 355

may exist, and as each joint — ^after the first six hundred — is capable
of producing eggs and embryos, this foreign neighbour is seen to be
fully as productive as its commoner relations. The most interesting
fact regarding the " broad-head," however, relates to its geography
and to its exact range amongst the human populations of the earth. It
is a tolerably well-ascertained fact, that our common tapeworms may
affect inhabitants of any climate, but the " broad-headed " species
affects a singularity in its distribution in that it has never been known
to occur outside the European province — that is, it has never been
found in any other continent save in such cases as those in which it
has been conveyed to other continents by European hosts. But the
" broad-head " is moreover found to affect certain districts or regions
within this European area, so that its distribution in Europe is itself of
peculiar kind. Its headquarters appear to be the cantons of Western
Switzerlaiid and the nearest French provinces. It affects Poland,
Russia, and Sweden in the north and north-western parts, and it also
occurs, but less typically, in Holland and Belgium. In Eastern
Prussia and Pomerania the " broad-head " has occasionally appeared ;
but the latter districts are probably to be regarded in the light of
occasional habitats rather than of stated and permanent kind.

The reasons for the restriction of the parasite to such a limited
field are by no means clear. We are not yet sufficiently acquainted
with its development and life-history to make generalisations, but one
significant fact remains to be noted, namely, that the " broad-head "
flourishes in the regions in which the common tapeworm is an un-
known or comparatively rare visitant. Now this observation is exactly
paralleled by the peculiarities of the distribution of higher animals. In
one country we may find what are termed " representative species " of
the animals which occur in another and distant region. Thus the
puma in the New World assumes the place of the lion of the Eastern
hemisphere ; the tapirs of the Eastern Archipelago are balanced in
the opposite side of the world by the American species ; and the
llamas of South America represent their camel neighbours of the
Old World. There thus appears in such cases to be a balancing
of animal life : the one species in one region or continent assuming
the functions of the nearly related but different species inhabiting
another area of the world. Regarding the case of the parasites in this
light we may deduce a similar conclusion, namely, that the " broad-
head" may discharge in its especial field of action the functions
performed in other fields or areas by the commom tapeworm. Nature,
in any case, may certainly be credited with the general avoidance of
any confusion of interests, and with the exclusion of rivalry from the

A A 2

356 The GentUfnafi s Magazitte.

domain and functions of like or nearly-related creatures, wherever
that domain may exist, and whatever these functions may be.

As a final example of a most singular and at the same time utterly
harmless little intruder on the human domain, may be mentioned the
minute mite knonn to naturalists as a species of Demodex^ and which,
curiously enough, seems to take up its abode in the ducts or " follicles"
of the skin at the sides of the nose. It is highly probable that this
little creature is very frequently to be found in the situation just
mentioned, its minute size and harmless character preventing our
being made aware of its mere existence. Demodex measures a mere
fraction of an inch in length, and may be said to present us with yet
another instance of an organism whose selective powers in the choice
of a habitation appear to be of the most singular description.

The lessons to be drawn from a consideration of the entire subject
of the parasitic enemies of man bear very strongly on questions of
common hygiene and sanitation. The extension of our knowledge of
parasites and of their life-histories clearly points to the desirability
for the exercise of great care in the choice and preparation of our
common foods — especially of animal kind. Uncooked animal food
in any form should be unhesitatingly rejected on common sanitary
grounds — the prevailing and fashionable taste for " underdone " rbeat
notwithstanding. The Mosaic abhorrence of the pig is fully justified
by an appeal to zoological knowledge regarding the parasites to which
that familiar and not uninteresting quadruped plays the part of enter-
tainer and host ; but the due exercise of the culinary art should in
large measure mitigate the severity of the sentence passed against
pork as a common medium of parasitic infection. Unwashed vege-
tables, which may harbour or lodge, without developing, the embryos
of parasites, are similarly to be regarded with suspicion. Indeed, it
may be said that the chances of parasitic infection from this latter
source are greater than those from badly-cooked meat, the vegetable
matter escaping even the chance of having its minute tenants de-
stroyed. Unsavoury as the subject may at first sight appear, the whole
question before us teems with an interest which should effectually
appeal to everyone in the light of saving knowledge. And it is not
die least worthy remark which may be made regarding such a topic, that
zoological science may be shown capable of extending its interests
into the most intimate departments of the household, and even of
encroaching on the sphere of that domestic autocrat, the cook.

ANDREW WILSON.

357

LORD CARNARVON'S RESIGNA-
TION.

THE recent withdrawal of Lord Carnarvon from the Cabinet
coincided with the departure of Lord Beaconsfield's private
secretary, Mr. Montagu Corry, to the South of France on the plea
of ill-health, and the mot dordre was given along the ranks of the
Conservative party to speak of the latter as the graver event of the
two. It was admitted, in those circles where independence is called
mutiny and the claim to private judgment treason, that Lord Car-
narvon had been an able Colonial Secretary, and that his successor
might experience some difficulty in collecting clearly and firmly in
his hands the threads of a department of which the four quarters of
the globe are subdivisions. But, on the other hand, it was said that
Lord Camar\'on, though a competent administrator, was a whimsical
and impracticable politician, and that at a great European crisis the
Cabinet would be stronger for the removal of a potential dissentient
from a vigorous and definite programme. As long as Lord Beacons-
field was at the head of affairs the country might be confident that
" British interests " would be protected and the exigencies of an
Imperial policy obeyed; while the Prime Minister's extraordinary
skill in the selection of capable officials was such that Lord
Beaconsfield would infallibly find the right man for the vacant
place, and probably in the least likely person. As regards Mr. Mon-
tagu Corry it was a different matter. For some time he had become
to the Prime Minister the one indispensable man. He had been the
social link that connected Lord Beaconsfield with a world which he
surveyed as a contemptuous critic rather than inhabited as a born
denizen. He gave the Prime Minister all the gossip of the clubs
and all the chatter of drawing-rooms, noted the germs of nascent dis-
content in some quarters and the nucleus of invaluable services in
others; was a sure authority as to where a peerage or a step in
the peerage, a baronetcy, or an inferior dignity was best deserved,
and might be conferred with the certainty of a large and quick
return. He was the daily companion and confidant of the great man

358 Tlie Gentleman's Magazine.

in his walks, in his visits, even in his meditations. Popular and discreet
in society, he was naturally dear to the chief to whom he had de-
voted so much of the freshness and vigour of his golden youth. He
was, in a word, the model of secretaries ; and, as Lord Beaconsfidd
had not for some years attempted to do without him, considerable
alarm was felt, or was affected, as to how the experiment, now that
it was inevitably made, would answer. The whole art of government
was defined by the Prime Minister, some years before he had even a
prospect of being Prime Minister, as consisting of the proper mani-

tion of men, and for the successful accomplishment of this
process, the social services rendered and the social information
collected for the Premier by the most pathetically loyal of his satel-
lites had been simply invaluable.

But fate willed it, and the Conservative newspaper was compelled
one morning to announce, in the same type which it would have given
to a paragraph proclaiming the death or resignation of a Minister,
that Mr. Montagu Corry had sought a more genial climate, and was
about to repair his broken health by a brief absence from the scene
of his heroic toils. Meanwhile Ix>rd Carnarvon made his exodus
from the Colonial Office and Sir Michael Beach reigned in his stead ;
or, to put it differently, one good Minister had chosen to take the bit
between his teeth and bolt, and another equally good Minister, at once
more firm and more docile, had been selected to fill the vacant place.
Such at least was the conventional Conservative view of the incident,
and the journals affected to the Ministerial cause displayed a tendency
to congratulate themselves — faintly indeed, as was decent — over the
happy conclusion of the episode. The circumstances attending and
long preceding Lord Carnarvon's resignation are such that one may
be pardoned for declining to dismiss it as the trivial event which
it is conveniently represented by mechanical partisanship as being.
Ix>rd Beaconsfield, and those who are supposed to speak for Lord
Beaconsfield, protested that the grounds on which Lord Carnarvon had
separated himself from his colleagues were frivolously indifferent —
that between the Colonial Secretary and the Prime Minister there was
no substantial difference, and that if Lord Carnarvon would but remain
in Downing Street he would see nothing done of which, as patriot
and statesman, he could disapprove. But it is impossible to believe
that a statesman who lacks neither patriotism nor ambition should
insist upon resigning the seals of an important office, which he had
administered with such singular success as to be a feature — perhaps
the feature — in the history of the present Government, at an hour
of darkness and danger for one of our dependencies, and consider-

Lord Carnarvms Resignation. 359

able domestic difficulties for more than one other, unless he were
animated by motives which were not exclusively those of vanity or
faction, and which must ensure a fair amount of reasonable approval.
This is the second time on which Lord Carnarvon has voluntarily
thrown up his portfolio. He did so on the first occasion — March 3,
1867, after one of the stormiest Cabinet meetings ever held — in the
company of Lord Salisbury and General Peel. He has done so now
alone, and there is no doubt something in the general view that a
politician who is exceptionally amenable to inconvenient scruples is
likely to be considered somewhat of a colleague to be shunned by
the makers of future Cabinets.

Before we indicate the circumstances which have preceded the
step taken by Lord Carnarvon at the end of last January, and suggest
some of its possible consequences, it is as well that we should thoroughly
understand the nature of the work which the Colonial Secretary did
and the character of the position which he quitted. For an expenditure
of less than two millions he brought to a successful conclusion the
Ashantee campaign, to which he was committed by his predecessor —
the Abyssinian expedition having cost upwards of eleven millions. He
annexed, and established a Government in, Fiji. He conceived and
executed the project of reorganising the administration of the Gold
Coast He annexed the Transvaal. He elaborated the grand permis-
sive measure known as the South African Confederation Bill. He
stood at the time of leaving the Colonial Office with a Kaffir war on his
hands, with which he had already given proof that he would not be
unqualified to grapple. These are all of them Imperial duties.* In
those offices where the responsibilities are heavy the opportunities are
large, and the promotion at the disposal of the Colonial Secretary
perhaps exceeds, in the number of appointments to be filled, that
which is enjoyed by any other Minister of the Crown. In addition
to these there is a Colonial Order of Knighthood and other minor
dignities. The competition of applicants for the places and the honours
is as severe as might be expected, and it is the business of the
Colonial Secretary to keep mental rather than documentary note or
record of the rival claims of these. No small portion of Lord Car-
narvon's success has been due to the fact that his decisions in the
case of the troops of candidates have been uniformly acceptable to
local opinion. Nor is this the only, or indeed the most important,
way in which he has contributed to consolidating Colonial and
Fjiglish sentiment Young communities, like young persons, are
gratified by the notice of their elders. It is not the possibility
of conflicting interests, but rather the fact of wounded sentiments.

^

60 The Gentlematis Magazine.

which bodes ill for the continued union of Great Britain and her
dependencies. Lord Carnarvon has shown the Colonies that they are
not neglected. The success of his Colonial policy has attracted an
unprecedented degree of attention to the subjects of it, and Colonial
topics have definitely taken their place m the list of those which the
average Englishman feels it more or less his duty to study. But Lord
Carnarvon has done a good deal more than this. The Colonial ex-
Secretary of State is not merely a great administrator, but a great noble.
In this latter capacity he has extended his hospitalities in London, and
more especially in the country, to the chief men of the various com-
munities, with their complex and oflen mutually antagonistic interests,
that make up the sum of England's Colonial Empire. The unity of
that Empire is far from assured. Human forethought, political genius,
can take no guarantees against the ultimate severance of the relations
which now exist between the mother country and the Colonies. But
the sinister sequel which such a severance might be thought inevit*
ably to entail may be minimised, or may be averted altogether, by the
timely exercise of a kindly forethought If we are to part we may
at least part as friends. The existence of such a sentiment of
friendship is largely dependent on the action, the position, the
personal character, of the statesman who is Minister for the time
being. The qualifications and opportunities of Lord Carnarvon
were, from this point of view, as exceptional as his exertions. His
successor has not merely an office to fill, but a tradition to perpetuate
and a sentiment to keep alive.

Lord Carnarvon, then, was bound by ties, personal as well as poli-
tical, not only to the Cabinet but to the Colonies. If it could have
been the plain, unmistakable duty of any public man to remain at
his post, to ignore merely trivial susceptibilities, and to apply an
unction to a too easily lacerated sensitiveness, it was the duty of Lord
Carnarvon. Is it, then, to be supposed that he has been guilty of a
grievous dereliction of that duty — that he has, in fact, merely played
the part of a political Quixote ? In the attempt to answer this ques-
tion it must be borne in mind that the circumstances — and, it may be
added, the personal influences — under which Lord Carnarvon entered
the present Cabinet were of a very exceptional nature, and Mr.
Disraeli may well have congratulated himself on the advocacy which
he was able to enlist in support of his offer. Lord Carnarvon
had originally separated from the Prime Minister on a point ot
political conscience. He objected to the Reform Bill of 1867, not
only on the ground that it would make an entire transfer of political
power in four-tenths of the boroughs, but that it would he a gross

Lord Carnarvon's Resignation. 361

act of perfidy to Conservative traditions. It was also on a point of
political conscience diat Lord Salisbury abdicated. But there was
this difference between the withdrawal of the two from the Derby-
Disraeli Cabinet of 1867: Lord Salisbury left it as a bitter and
outspoken foe of the Disraeli rkgime^ and a foe throughout the
whole of the rest of its existence he continued ; Lord Carnarvon left
it as a friend. Contrast the speeches of Lord Carnarvon in the
Peers, and Lord Salisbury — then Lord Cranbome — in the Commons.
This is quite the bitterest passage in Lord Carnarvon's criticism
of the Reform Bill of '67 :—

Your Lordships are called to hazard a great experiment in a country of old
traditions, and with an area of soil both limited and coveted— in a country
whose trade is sensitive and whose commerce rests on the precarious footing of
credit. Even if success were to crown your work you would not be justified.
The mere fact that you are making such an experiment under such circumstances
ift a sufficient condemnation cf it. It is very painful for me to have to speak in
these terms of a measure introduced by those with whom I have for a great
number of years acted in relations of political and personal friendship. ... I have
spoken freely and strongly, and, perhaps it may be thought by some, bitterly also.
But there has not in fact been any bitterness in what I have said. If I had wished
to speak bitterly I might have done so. '

He certainly might, and he did not; and the best proof of the
absence of any malignance or excitement in the criticism was
that Lord Carnarvon wound up his speech with an appeal to Earl
Grey not to press his amendment, ''as there would be sufhcient
time to make amendments in Committee, and they would enter upon
the consideration of the Bill in a better and higher spirit if the sub-
ject were lifted altogether above party prejudice and grounds." This
appeal was successful, and to Lord Carnarvon it was due in no small
degree that the measure passed its second reading in the Peers, July
22, 1867, without any opposition. With the tone of Lord Carnarvon
compare that of Lord Salisbury, a week earlier, in the House of
Commons: —

If you borrow your political ethics from the ethics of the political adventurer
you may depend upon it that the whole of your representative institutions will
crumble beneath your feet. It is only because of that mutual trust in each other
by which we ought to be animated, it is only because we believe that expres>
sions and conditions expressed and promises made will be followed by deeds, that
we are enabled to carry on this party government which has led the country to so
high a pitch of greatness. . . . Even if I deemed it most advantageous I still
should deeply regret to find that the House of Commons had applauded a policy
of legerdemain ; and I should above all things regret that the great gift to the
people— if gift you think it — should have been purchased by a political betrayal

* See Lord Carnarvon's Speech in the House of Lords, March 2, 1867.

362 The Gentleman's Magazitie.

which has no parallel in our Parliamentary annals, which strikes at the root of idl
this mutual confidence which is the very soul of our party government, and on
which only the strength and freedom of our representative institutions can be
maintained.

It cannot be surprising that, after the expression of such personal
sentiments as these towards the Prime Minister, a certain amount of .
pressure beyond that which his own sense of duty or love of power
would supply was necessary to induce Lord Salisbury to join Mr.
Disraeli's Cabinet four years ago; it is legitimv^te to conjecture that
some at least of the arguments whicli won him to the step were
administered by Lord Carnarvon. If, therefore, Ix)rd Carnarvon felt
convinced that the hour had arrived when he could no longer give his
support to the policy of Lord Beaconsfield, it might have been
expected that Lord Salisbury would have simultaneously signified
the exhaustion of his confidence. The Indian Secretary had long
since publicly identified himself with a certain section of the pro-
Russian party both in England and at Constantinople. 1/)rd
Carnarvon had done nothing of the kind. Why, then, when it came
to be a question of taking precautionary measures, of making a
demonstration against Russia, should Lord Carnarvon have departed
and Lord Salisbury remained ? AVhy, further, let it be asked, should
Lord Carnarvon and Lord Derby resign in company at the same
moment, and yet not withdraw their resignations in company when
the Premier and his colleagues gave an assurance that the decisive
measure originally contemplated should be abandoned? The ex-
planation— such will be the obvious answer — is to be found in the
different conceptions which the two noble Earls had of political duty,
national obligation, political honour: Lord Derby saw his way to
comfortable association with his colleagues where Lord Carnarvon
did not All this may be perfecdy true. But suppose Lord Salis-
bury had resigned at the same time as Lord Carnarvon, what would
Lord Derby have done then ? If the jealous imagination of the
house of Stanley had not seen the head of the house of Cecil filling
the vacancy at the Foreign Office, would Lord Derby be Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs at this moment ? Let those who have
reason to know answer. The simple truth is that the continued
existence of the Cabinet, with the sole change that for Lord Carnarvon
the Duke of Northumberland is substituted, is a crowning tribute to the
skill of Lord Beaconsfield in the art of political manipulation. To
secure alliances there is no plan like that of gratifying foibles and
feeding ambitions. Eleven years ago Mr. Disraeli had no such
bitter, uncompromising antagonists as Lord Salisbury and the Duke

Lord Carnarvon's Resignation. 363

of Northumberland. Northumberland House had not then been
razed to the ground at Charing Cross, and Northumberland House
was then the rendezvous of the Adullamite band. But when party
considerations and questions of personal aspiration are at stake
past political differences may be interred.

" I must say," remarked the Prime Minister in the House of
Lords on January 25, " that I am at a loss to understand that there
was sufficient reason for the step taken by him [Lord Carnarvon]
in quitting the Cabinet of Her Majesty's Government." The reason
which Lord Carnarvon deemed sufficient was practically and osten-
sibly— for he offered no objection to the money vote as a means
for strengthening our diplomacy — the despatch of the fleet to the
Dardanelles. But, it will be replied, at the time Lord Carnarvon in-
sisted on his resignation the order for the despatch of the fleet had
been cancelled. It is necessary, therefore, to look at the concluding
portion of the Minister's statement — "I have seen for some time
that this issue must come: we were travelling along a road together
to a point at which the path diverges " — and to look at these words
by the light of certain indisputable facts. " I venture to think,"
continued Lord Carnarvon, with due deference, " that I have held
on the right path. My colleagues will, of course, take a different
view; but this I know, that when any man is guided by the light of
conscience and a sense of personal honour, his countrymen will not
be extreme to mark what is amiss in an error of judgment." We
may venture to add that these words are more suggestive of the real
nature of the general reasons which determined Lord Carnarvon
definitely to withdraw from Lord Beaconsfield's Cabinet than the
technical explanation given already. " Honour" and " conscience "
are not cant terms in the lips of a man like Lord Carnarvon; and
when they are employed by him on a great occasion of state we may
well be induced to examine somewhat closely the conditions under
which they are uttered.

Nothing could be more unsuitable, and nothing could be fiirther
from our purpose, than to bring a railing accusation against the
Government or its policy. All true Englishmen can just now have
but one wish — to strengthen the hands of Her Majesty's Ministers in
view of the dangers and difficulties with which they have to deal.
Ix)rd Carnarvon may be said in his speech in the House of Lords to
have appealed to his countrymen. We shall merely mention one or
two facts which they should not forget in arriving at a decision. It
is possible that they may have no difficulty in understanding that
which the Prime Minister declares is beyond his comprehension.

364 The Gentleman's Magazine.

And, indeed, this is not the first time that Lord Beaconsfield has
professed his inability, no doubt sincerely, to fathom the motives
which govern the political conduct of commonplace British members
of Parliament. If the secret political history of the year 1852 were
fully and faithfully written, it would reveal a series of rather startling
transactions. Mr. Disraeli was then Chancellor of the Exchequer,
and his great aim was to prevent a coalition between the Peelites
and Whigs. His great difficulty was his Budget, and his great hope
was to secure the support of Mr. Bright and the Cobden party in
his financial policy against the Whigs. This was the argument — a
common detestation of Whiggism — which he addressed to the leader
of the Manchester school, on the occasion of a memorable private
interview in one of the rooms of Westminster Palace. But it was
not successful, and Mr. Disraeli " could not understand " why the
Radicals of the Opposition should refuse to make common cause
with the Conservatives against the Whig monster. In a similar
spirit he could not understand how it should have been supposed
that any importance attached to his conversations with Count
Seebach in Paris in 1857, — when a reference to Hansard will show
that the idea of a coalition with the Radicals against Palmerston and
the Russo-phobists had suggested itself as possible, — although Count
Seebach was at this time notoriously the representative of Russian
interests in the French capital. It may be admitted that Lord
Carnarvon's resignation would have been inexplicable if, as Lord
Beaconsfield assumed in the House of Lords on January 25,
it was solely and entirely provoked by one isolated act — the order
for the fleet to sail to the Dardanelles— which, as soon as it was
committed, was undone. But it can scarcely seem inexplicable when
we look at a long train of antecedent — and subsequent — occurrences.
Although Lord Beaconsfield stated in the House of Lords as recently
as the March of last year, that the policy of Her Majesty's Ministers
was to maintain the integrity and independence of the Ottoman
Empire, this policy had been tacitly abandoned long before Parlia-
ment met. For that definite programme there had been substituted
the perpetually vanishing point of British interests, and the British-
interests policy may be briefly defined as the determination not to
allow Russia to establish herself at Constantinople, to throw the
shadow of her destructive and aggressive might athwart our road to
India, to touch Egypt, or, last and most important of all, to settle
the Eastern Question — to arrange a peace with Turkey over the heads
of Europe. Now, what did Lord Carnarvon say, in his speech
of January 2, to the South African deputation? He deprecated

Lord Carnarvon's Resignation. 365

the conclusion that Russia had already placed upon England an
intolerable affront; he deprecated a repetition of the policy of the
Crimean war ; he denounced such a repetition as an act of insanity.
But here he merely shaped into language the views of which his
colleagues had signified their approval by quietly dropping the
policy of the maintenance of the independence and integrity of the
Ottoman Empire. The object of the Crimean war, or one of its
objects, was the maintenance of this. Lord Salisbury, on the first
day of the session, remarked with satisfaction that the very idea of it
had disappeared from the Ministerial programme; therefore it is fair
to conclude that on January 2 Lord Carnarvon's views were in
accordance ^ith the publicly-declared views of the Cabinet.

But, on the other hand, there were the " extra- Parliamentary utter-
ances " of Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gathome Hardy ; there was the
famous Mansion House manifesto of the Prime Minister's sympathy
with Turkey ; there were the outlines of a definite pro-Turkish
policy, on the ground of English prestige — not English interests — in
the East, clamorously advocated in a semi-official or purely official
I^ondon newspaper ; there was the English Ambassador at Constan-
tinople ; there was his adlaius, the correspondent of the Daily Tele-
graph ; above all, there was the war agitation in the country, the
growth of a spurious patriotism and a. flashy militarism, stimulated
by many leading members of the Conservative party, certainly
discouraged by no protests on the part of any member of the
Cabinet, and the promoters of which were gladdened by an occa-
sional note of the Prime Minister, gratefully acknowledging the
" sympathy and support " of which a pro-Turkish demonstration had
made him the recipient. Between the statements made in Lord
Carnarvon's South African speech and the latest official words
and acts of the Cabinet there was no inconsistency. The Dculy
Telegraphy indeed, called the Colonial Secretary of State to account
for his "unwise statements" in a very peremptory manner, and
hinted that a certain Royal personage had done, or desired to do,
the same thing. It appears that about the same time the Prime
Minister, to quote Lord Carnarvon, " thought himself at liberty to
condemn very severely the language that I had used." Now, if
this language, while not conflicting with the official words or acts of
the Government, was deemed sufficient cause of the Premier's dis-
pleasure— as it was of the displeasure of the Daily Telegraph — the
legitimate inference is that Lord Carnarvon had reason to believe
that the designs of at least a section of his colleagues were not those
to which he could conscientiously be a party. To use his own

366 Tlie Gentleman's Magazine.

metaphor, the time had come when he could no longer ignore that the
path pursued by the rest of the Cabinet must not be the path pursued
by himself.

And before this, Lord Carnarvon must have seen reason to doubt
how long he could comfortably remain a member of the Beaconsfield
Cabinet. It is now perfectly clear that Her Majesty's Ministers have
had, since the time of the atrocities agitation, nothing that could by
courtesy be called a policy, and for this absence of a policy Lord Car-
narvon must bear his share of the responsibility. On the other
hand. Lord Carnarvon may have believed that events were tending
to bring about that consummation, to advance which he may have
thought should be the real policy of England, " the fuller liberty
and the better government of the Christian subjects of the Porte."*
For himself, absorbed as he was by his duties at the Colonial Office,
he may have felt entitled to hope that all would happen for the best,
and that the end would justify the means. But the time came when
he could cherish this fond delusion no longer, when he saw that
the policy of the Cabinet must be, by mere force of numbers, a
policy of action to-day and of re-action to-morrow — a policy go-
verned by no principle, directed towards no fixed end, but calculated,
from its very uncertainty, to jeopardise the peace of England and to
involve us in a war of which we had not counted the cost. To a
man who is troubled with old-fashioned scruples on the subject of
the rapidly decaying virtue of literal truthfulness and the manifest
meaning of words, the moral atmosphere of the Cabinet can scarcely
have been more satisfactory than the political. Lord Beaconsfield
denied in the House of Lords, on the day of the opening of Parlia-
ment, that there had been any kind of dissension or division in the
Cabinet The proof of the verbal veracity of the Prime Minister
was the resignation of Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon. On the
same day, also, Tx)rd Salisbiury, who has hitherto been supposed rather
to disapprove of playing fast and loose with words and phrases,
said —

As to dissension in the Cabinet, I was anxious to know on what pounds that
charge was brought, and as far as I could see there were only two — one was that
Musurus Pasha had provided the Constitution from which I differed ; and the other
was our old friends the newspapers.

Compare with this the following : —

I have been led to consider carefully the events of the last few weeks, and
the divei^cnces of opinion which have, unfortunately, devcloj)ed themselves among
us, and I cannot conceal from myself that those differences have been ver>' con-

* See Preface to Lord Carnan/oM^s S/fuY/i, published by Messrs. Kegan Paul.

Lord Carnarvons Resipiation. 367

siderable on a question where it is of the utmost importance to the country that
the Government should be one and undivided. — Lord Carnarvon, January 1 8,
1878. (Letter to Lord Beaconsficld. )

So much has passed since these miserable exposes took place that
they may be considered to belong to ancient history ; but, as Lord
Carnarvon's position cannot be understood without it, their repeti-
tion is necessary here. The political action of the Government
had all the faults of the Ministerial statements in Parliament, and
Lord Carnarvon must have felt that it was no valid excuse for the
numerically most-powerful Administration that England has seen
for many years, alternately to plead Mr. Gladstone's agitation as a
plea for inaction, and the music-hall demonstrations as the necessity
for vigorous measures. Her Majesty's Ministers have either done
nothing, or else, when they have done it, they have laboured to
undo it Whether they have acted or refrained from acting, there
has been as little consistency in their explanations as in the mani-
festations of what they are pleased to call their policy. Thus, as
regards the despatch of an English Squadron to the Sea of Marmora —
at last an accomplished fact — we have been told by the Prime Min-
ister that it was rendered necessary by the Russian advance and the
delay in the signature of the armistice, and by Sir Stafford Northcote
that it was necessary for the protection of the lives and property of
British subjects in Constantinople. It is not necessary to agree with
the views which Lord Carnarvon is, or was, thought to entertain as to
the desirability of acquiescing in the annihilation of the Turkish Em-
pire in Europe, to see and to admit that a Cabinet in which orders
were given one day to be rescinded the next, and in which the
clamours of a philo-Turk meeting were set off against the significance
of an anti-war demonstration, was no place for a man who did not
wish to see English statesmanship become a plaything and a reproach.
The Cabinet, in truth, was already discredited not only at home
but abroad— in the eyes not only of Russia but of Turkey. The
correspondence published on February 11 between Mr. Layard,
Mr. Gladstone, and Lord Tenterden reveals a state of things
which it is not easy to understand how English gentlemen can recon-
cile with their ordinary ideas of patriotism, justice, and honour.
Again and again have Lord Derby in the Upper House, and Mr.
Bourke in the Lower, risen to make the humiliating reply to
anxious questioners, that no information on the alarming or alarmist
rumours of the hour had reached Downing Street. Mr. Layard has
known nothing, in fact, except what Turkish and Russian diplo-

368 Tfu GentUniafis Magazine.

matists have desired that he should know. He is the very humble
servant of the Porte, and the Porte, as well as the astute diplo-
matists of the Czar, fools him to the top of his bent He is entirely
ignorant that one of the preliminary conditions of peace was the
virtual occupation of Constantinople by a Russian force. He is
quite unprepared for the news that Russia has persuaded Turkey to
close the Straits against English ships of war. He is the dupe and
tool of any moderately clever diplomatist or publicist who professes
sympathy with the Ottoman cause. He does not represent, he has
never represented, England : he represents certain interests and
sympathies ; but they are not British interests, and the sympathies
are those not of the statesman nor the patriot, but of the partisan.
Such, indeed, is his partisanship that it has betrayed him into the
most unscrupulous acts of which an English ambassador has pro-
bably ever been guilty. His diplomacy is so feeble that he can give
us no news, and he has, therefore, according to his own showing, occu-
pied himself with hunting up casual — ^and exceedingly indiscreet —
letters of Mr. Gladstone, sometimes reading, sometimes conjecturing
their contents, and communicating the text or the impression which
the perusal of the text has left to notorious newspaper corre-
spondents.

It is useless to deny that for all these transactions Her Majesty's
Government is directly or indirectly responsible. They are not the
transactions with which it can be agreeable to be associated, and
when protest against them is vain, when from being merely shabby
they begin to be dangerous, the only thing for one who declines to
be implicated in the responsibility any longer is to bid Her Majesty's
Government farewell. This is what Lord Carnarvon has done. It
is not his motives, which in their exactness can, of course, only be
known to himself, that we are called upon to conjecture ; it is not the
policy, whatever that may be, which commends itself to him that we
are called upon to criticise : the one thing we have to consider is
his action, and when it is said that the late Colonial Secretary has
not borne out his reputation for statesmanship or for patriotism by
deserting his colleagues at a critical moment, it is necessary to re-
member what the facts of the situation are, and for Lord Carnarvon's
critics to ask themselves whether the wonder is, not that Lord
Carnarvon went, but that many of his colleagues did not follow.
This, we venture to think, will be the verdict, not of history, not of
the next generation only, but of all sober-minded politicians a very
little while hence. Lord Carnarvon has simply chosen to exercise the
courage of his self-respect, and the time is probably not far off when

Lord Carnarvon's Resignation. 369

the conviction of this fact will immensely strengthen his position
merely as a politician in the country. Political empiricism cannot
last for ever. A policy dictated by a narrow expediency, and the
most selfish of party exigencies, decked out in bizarre phrases, seeking
to conceal its pusillanimity in big words and its nakedness in the
clothing of a tawdry rhetoric ; a policy that is a hybrid growth be-
tween the quiet confidence x)f Bobadil and the high chivalry of Bob
Acres, may do for a while, but cannot satisfy the English people
a as permanence. We are gradually nearing a new — and, it may be
trusted, a nobler — point of dej)arture in politics. The forces at present
operative are gradually wearing themselves out, and the political
organisation which rests upon no other basis than the astounding
cleverness of a gifted alien will be remodelled and renewed. When
the dominant ideas of English statesmanship are once again in
accordance with English traditions, and have ceased to be repro-
ductions of the Italian statecraft of mediaevalism, it is not rash to
predict that Lord Carnarvon's conduct will be no longer inexplicable,
and that Englishmen will not consider it creditable to profess their
inability to understand why Lord Carnarvon resigned.

T. H. 5. ESCOTT.

VUL.CCXLII. NO, 1767. CB

370 The Gentlemati s Magazine.

SPRING.

O FRESH flower-litany of spring !
Each year it comes with sweet surprise :
No deeper blue the violet knew,
No sunnier was the crocus-gold,
No greener tinge had snowdrop fringe,

Than when in times grown old
They greeted childish eyes.

O bright bird-litany of Spring !

The robin sang the winter thro',
But now the lark is up i* the dark,
Brown mavis carols o'er lawn and glen.
With golden bill the black merles trill,

Flutters the atom wren,

The birds are wild to woo.

Fresh flowers that spring ! Bright birds that sing !
Alien and yet akin are we.

By rill and stream of care men dream,

And nought can cure their fever-fret :

But no trouble have I 'twixt turf and sky
When laughs my darling pet
With birds and flowers and me.

MORTIMER COLLINS.

371

PARISH REGISTERS.

FEW people realise the fact that every parish, large and small,
has, or ought to have, a record of every baptism, marriage, or
burial that has taken place in that parish for more than three hundred
years ; and fewer persons still know that amongst the archives of
every diocese there ought to be, though in very few cases there is,
a duplicate of the register of every parish contained in it. But the
reality falls far short of the ideal; for few parishes have perfect
records, some have none at all, and the registers of most are more or
less imperfect ; while as regards the transcripts which should have
been forwarded year by year to the Bishop, they have been irregularly
sent, carelessly stored, and now in many cases are absolutely uncon-
sultable. And yet, though musty and perishing with damp, yellow
with age, grimed and dirty with the curious thumbing of generations
of parish clerks, filled with the crabbed characters of the ignorant as
well as with the elegant handwriting of the scholar, parish registers
contain facts not to be again lost sight of when once their importance
has been recognised. Though each entry in itself may be of small
account, taken altogether they are a history for some three centuries
of the whole of the English people, of the peer as well as of the
peasant, of the countryman as well of the townsman, of the squire,
the yeoman, and the hind ; and though at the present time a cen-
tralised system of registration has been adopted, its province is to
record births, marriages, and deaths, while the parochial system
concerns itself with baptisms, marriages, and burials. Nor are the
contents of parish registers limited to genealogical entries alone ;
notices of long-forgotten facts and quaint fancies are often met with —
when the bells of the church were cast, and when the new gallery was
put up ; when the lirne-trees were planted in the churchyard, and
when the vicarage was rebuilt ; what tlie parson thought of the
politics of the time, and the verses he wrote on the events of the day.
A distinct blank in our knowledge of the people of England is filled
by parish registers ; they record incidents in the lives of the people,
while history concerns itself with princes.

What is to be done to preserve for the use of future generations

RB 2

372 Tlie Gentleman s Magazine.

the fast-perishing information they contain ? How are they to be
kept from the ravages of time, or the neglect of the ignorant ? — from
the risk of fire, and damp, and mould ? Now they are under the care
of some 1 1,000 clerg}Tnen, who may or may not take any interest in
their charges, and may or may not be able even to decipher them ;
and they are entitled to demand nearly a prohibitory fee for a simple
search in the parish books, apart from the fee payable for a certified
extract ; and though, to their credit be it said, they do not often exact
their pound of flesh, it is in their power to do so if they choose. WTiat
an anomaly is this, that a man who happens to be the spiritual head of
his parish, who is well paid for his signature to a certificate when it is
required, should be able to le\y a tax for consulting a record which
does not concern him in the least, and which he keeps merely on
account of the permanence of his office and not from any merit of his
own ! Whether the enquirer be a parishioner or no, the fee is the
same; whether the enquiry be prompted by curiosity as to his
great-grandfather's wedding-day, or by the hope of gaining market-
able knowledge, the fee is the same ; and whether the register is in
perfect order and the entry be at once found, or whether, through the
most culpable carelessness and neglect, only tattered pages and ille-
gible entries remain, the fee is the same : for the fee is for the search
and not for the finding. Surely, too, if any benefit is to be gained by
the sale of the information contained in the register, it should belong
to the parishioners and not to the parson ; to those whose predecessors
bought the book to write in, and the chest to keep the book in, and
not to the man who happens to be the successor of men who, not
of their own free-will but under the compulsion of law, made the
entries, seldom heartily, often carelessly, sometimes not at all. And as
to accessibility, although by pa>Tnent of the recognised fee a register
can be seen and notes taken from it by anyone who chooses to do so,
still it is not by any means a comfortable proceeding. If the register
is kept at the rector>', the enquirer feels that he is taking up the
rector's time, who rightly in such a case ought never to allow the
regist'jr out of his sight ; that he is preventing him from following his
usual occupations, and depri\'ing him of the use of his study for as
long a time as the search lasts — perhaps for the whole day, for an
extended search takes much longer than might be expected. The
visitor feels that no fee can pay for such intrusion by a stranger upon
a stranger. If the register is kept at the church, and the visitor is
handed over to the parish clerk, he has to put up with a badly-lighted,
cheerless vestry : to >\Tite at a rickety table, seated upon a rickety

Parish Registers. 373

chair ; and to endure the garrulosity and curiosity of the old clerk,
who seizes upon a stranger with such a mission as his lawful prey.

How then can the minimum of danger and the maximum of accessi-
bility be best combined ? Clearly by the collection of all such documents
in London, at all events those of a certain antiquity. In the case of
registers the year 18 12 might be taken as a convenient dividing-point,
since in that year, by George Rose's Act (52nd Geo. III. cap. 146),
the old method of registering by written entries in a parchment book
was superseded. The Act required all entries of baptism and burials
to be made by filling up printed forms in books appropriated to each
class of entry, in the same manner that marriages had been registered
since Lord Hardwicke's Act in 1753 (26th George II. cap. 33). New
books were consequently provided in every parish, and the old ones
put away, so that an universal break occurs which could well be
taken advantage of Nor need the clergy, by thus proceeding, be
deprived of their legitimate fees for granting certified copies of
entries in the register. Few copies of entries before that date are
now required, and, should one be needed, the signature of the clergy-
man of the parish to which the certificate relates might still be made
necessary to constitute such copy evidence, for which signature the
usual fee would be paid To the proposal, then, of transferring the
registers to a central office, the objection that it would cause the
clergy the loss of their fees should have no validity ; nor that such a
forcible divorce of their records from a parish would increase their
inaccessibility. Though that might be the case with regard to the parish
itself and its next neighbours, to all the rest of England there would
be manifest advantage; for they could much more easily consult it
than in its native home, and as well compare it on the spot with
the registers of other parishes. Not the least advantage would be the
possibility of following a family through all its ramifications in scat-
tered parishes at the same time, and in the same room. Lord
Romilly, when Master of the Rolls, proposed to transfer all eccle-
siastical documents, including parish registers, firom their present
scattered repositories to the Record Office ; but there arose at once
such a chorus of disapproval from their present custodians, anxious
about their fees, that the scheme was abandoned. It is certain,
though, that when the public attention becomes more directed to
documents of this class, the scheme will not only be revived but
carried out. The transference of these records to London need in
no wise be considered as interfering with any scheme of publishing
parish registers; nor, on the other hand, will the most extended
publication do away with the duty of preserving them in the most

374 ^^ Gentleman's Magazine.

careful manner possible. Even in London, with all the care the
parchments would receive from official custodians, there would
necessarily be some risk, and certain deterioration. To translate
their crabbed handwriting and fading characters into a form more
easily read, and to multiply copies of an unique document will ever
be a desirable object; and though it is manifestly impossible to
publish every register, yet, on the other hand, there are very few worthy
of being published in their entirety; of the great mass, selections of
those entries likely to be of general interest would be sufficient,
though if a register be touched at all, an index at least of every name
in it should be given, since entries of extreme importance to indi-
vidual enquirers might appear in very humble guise. A model ot
t a volume of registers ought to be is to be found in Colonel
Chester^s " Westminster Abbey Registers," published by the Harleian
Society ; and though perhaps few registers deserve such careful anno-
tation and painstaking editing, if the like were done to registers of
importance throughout the land, much knowledge would be gained,
in addition to what we already possess, of the antecedents of both
peers and commoners ; in fact, of the whole of the English people.

JOHN AMPHLETT.

375

TABLE TALK.

THE jelly-fish have at length been shown to possess a nervous
system, a point which had been considered doubtful. Grant
and Ehrenberg, indeed, had asserted the fact, but Eschscholtz and
others had failed to discover any traces of nerves in the largest jelly-fish
they examined. Mr. Romanes, by a series of physiological researches,
the microscope being only used as an auxiliary instead of being solely
relied on, as by former enquirers, has succeeded in proving satis-
factorily that jelly-fish or Medusida have a nervous system. His
experiments were hardly perhaps as satisfactory to the jelly-fish
selected for observation as to himself and the scientific world.
Everyone knows the umbrella or mushroom form of the jelly-fish.
The stem part, it appears, has no tissue elements possessing a properly
ganglionic function, which is the pleasing scientific way of indicating
that there are no nerve centres in this part of the jelly-fish to exercise
control over the movements of the umbrella part or swimming-belL
These movements are regulated from the margin. When Mr.
Romanes cut off the margin, the pulsations of the swimming-bell
immediately ceased, and were not again renewed, but the severed
margin continued its rhythmical pulsations for some time, and as
regularly as the entire bell had pulsated before the operation. The
whole of the muscular sheet which lines the cavity of the bell is
pervaded, it seems, by a dense mesh-work of nerve fibres, which serve
to convey the ganglionic impulses from the margin over the whole
expanse of the muscular sheet.

THE intelligent affection of the animal creation has of late years
been severely questioned. The dog, it is asserted, has
drowned a good many more masters than it has saved, by beating
them down (in fun) with its forepaws. And now comes an
unpleasant piece of canine news from Kaffirland. " Many horrible
things have been seen by our volunteers over the Kei, but perhaps
the most revolting sight was that of a dog lying gorged by the side of
hb dead master, upon whose body it had been feeding from day to

376 Tlie Gentleman s Magazine.

day." The correspondent goes on to indulge in the theory as to
whether faithful and intelligent animals '* degenerate by contact with
a savage race." Saddened by this terrible anecdote, I will tell you
something which I have hitherto kept locked in my own heart, out of
respect for Mr. Jesse and Dr. John Brown on the one hand, and on
the other for the memories of Scott and Wordsworth. I was once
hospitably entertained for a few days at the farmhouse of a certain
" statesman " (as yeomen in those parts are termed) in Cumberland,
the mountain district of which is the very home of dogs, and those of
the brightest and most intelligent kind, the collies. We were talking
of the sad death of the pedestrian Gough, on Helvellyn, who, as every
one knows, perished in winter and was found in spring with his faith-
ful dog beside him. With the ardour of youth I quoted to him some
of Scott's lines upon the event : —

More stately they couch by this desert lake lying,
Their obsequies sung by the grey plover flying,
With one faithful friend but to witness their dying
In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedicam.

" It's all very fine," was all the statesman remarked upon it In
my innocence, I thought he meant this for approbation and turned
my Wordsworth tap on (with " Fidelity ") to the very last drop : —

Yts, proof was plain that since the day

When this ill-fated Traveller died,
The dog had watched about the spot

Or by his Master's side ;
How nourished there thrpugh such long time

He knows, who gave that love sublime ;
And gave that strength of feeling, great

Above all human estimate.

** And thats all very fine too," observed the statesman.

"Of course it is," said I. " Have you yourself, as an inhabitant
of the mountains, any theory upon the question how the dog did
sustain life all that time ? "

"Theory? No ! I know how he lived, if that's what you mean,
well enough ; he lived upon his master ! "

A DUTCH Company is said to have obtained from the Khedive
a right of draining Lake Mareotis, and turning to profitable
account the land, about seventy-five thousand acres, thus reclaimed.
The damage resulting from one of the most high-handed of English
proceedings will thus be remedied, since the continued existence of
the ancient lake,'which at one time was almost dry, is attributable to

Table Talk. 377

the action of British troops while besieging the adjacent city of
Alexandria. If patience and ingenuity can accomplish the task, the
Dutchmen will execute it. They may obtain in its performance
soime Anther preparation for the greater task they are supposed to
contemplate of draining the Zuyder Zee, the effect of which would be
to add to the existing territory of Holland about six hundred and
eighty-seven thousand square acres. Here would be something like
a haul for the indefatigable Dutchmen, who, according to Andrew
Marvel}, were wont to collect

Anxiously small loads of clay
Less than what building swallows bear away,

and who regarded as important

So much earth as was contributed
By English pilots when they heaved the lead,
Or what by the ocean slow alluvion fell
Of ship-wrecked cockle and the mussel shell.

It is curious that our few quarrels with the Dutch, with whom we have
had close and long-enduring alliance, should have supplied our litera-
ture with some of the best satire it possesses, while scarcely a single
line worth preservation has been directed against the French, who
during many centuries were regarded as our natural enemies.

A BURSAR in a certain Oxford college, highly distinguished for
scholarship, grew tired last year of University life, and though
verging on middle age determined to read for the Bar. For tliis pur-
pose he applied to a famous chamber counsel, who knew more of Law
than of the ways of Alma Mater, and set to work as his pupil. The
lawyer was delighted with his application to study and its results, and
on the conversation at his own dinner-table happening a few months
afterwards to turn upon University topics, he thus delivered himself :
" As for me, you know, I have never been to college, and on that
account, perhaps, have been given to decry such institutions : they are
full of abuses, no doubt ; but, upon my life, they produce — I mean the
mere atmosphere of them produces — some very remarkable characters.
I've a man now with me, as a student, nearly as old as myself, not a
poor man, as is usual in such cases, far from it — I dare say a very
rich one — but who has doubtless got his money by fattening upon
imdergraduates; perquisites on food and wine, and so on. Yet at his
mature years he wishes to learn something ; to improve himself; to
escape from sordid emoluments. His name is C. ; he was the Butler
at Christ College."

37^ '^f^ Gentlemofis Magazine.

"My good sir," exclaimed one of the guests, "if you mean C.
that reads with you, he was the Bursar ; and took one of the best
d^ees of his year."

" Good Heavens ! " ejaculated the host, " I thought a Bursar was
a Butler." And he was very silent for the rest of the evening.

THERE has been some discussion in the Times as to the possi-
bility of conceiving the real significance of a billion. Many
ways of presenting the significance of a billion were suggested, but
it may be doubted whether any of these indicate clearly the vastness
of the number. For, after all, whatever device we employ to show
what the number is, the real difficulty lies in conceiving the number
as such. It is easy to show what a billion really means, in terms
relating to things separately conceivable, — which by the way was
not always the case with the illustrations suggested in the Times.
(For instance, of what use can it be to say that so many sovereigns
set side by side will encircle the earth, when no one is able to
conceive the dimensions of the earth?) Thus, if an inch be
divided into tenths, and one of these tenths into ten equal parts, we
have visibly presented to the eye ten hundredth parts of an inch.
Again, if we pace a distance of 278 yards, we have a range of distance
which the eye can readily estimate. This distance contains a million
of the minute measures first obtained, a million hundredth parts of an
inch. We can readily conceive it divided into yards and feet and
inches and hundredths of an inch. But we cannot readily conceive
the number of these small divisions. Again, we can readily conceive
a square having each side 278 yards long, each side divided into
hundreths of an inch, and the whole square divided up into squares
each having sides a hundredth of an inch long. But we cannot con-
ceive the number of these minute squares, — viz. one billion. Yet
again, we can conceive a cube having the large square as its base,
and divided into a multitude of cubes each having edges a hundredth
of an inch long. But we cannot conceive the number of these minute
cubes, — a trillion. The mind fails to conceive such numbers, how-
ever presented. We can conceive a length of 278 yards easily enough,
and we can easily conceive the division of any smcUi part of such a
length into hundredths of an inch ; but the mind cannot picture the
number of divisions resulting from such subdivision of the mtin
length.

s

OME misapi)reheiision, by the way, ajjpears to exist as to the
use of the words billion, trillion, quadrillion, — probably because

TcAU Talk. 379

occasion so seldom arises for the employment of these terms. On
the Continent a billion generally means a thousand millions, a trillion
means a million millions, a quadrillion means a thousand million
millions, and so on. This is unquestionably erroneous ; the best
proof of which is that with this usage it is impossible to give any
reasonable significance to the " bi," " tri," " quadri," &c., of the
numbers in question. A thousand is made the multiplier, but a
billion is a thousand cubed or raised to the third power, according to
the Continental practice, a trillion a thousand raised to the fourth
power, and so on. Our English usage is the correct one. According
to it a billion is a million millions, or a million squared (that is, raised
to the second power,) a trillion is a million billions, or a million million
millions, i.e. a million raised to the third power, and a quadrillion is a
million million million millions or a million raised to the fourth power,
and so on ; the " bi," " tri," " quadri," &c., implying always the power
(second, third, fourth, &c.,) to which a million is raised to give these
numbers respectively.

FRENCH ignorance concerning things English is colossal. In
a recent supplement to the Paris Figaro^ devoted wholly to
London, we obtain some startling information. We are thus told
that whenever several Englishmen are dining together, and the moment
for drinking toasts has arrived, the oldest man in the company rises
glass in hand to propose the health of the Queen. We learn that the
Prince of Wales is universally proclaimed a " gentleman good fellow,"
and that when a newspaper correspondent arrives in a foreign capital,
he shows his letters of introduction, signed by the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, to the English representative, who answers immediately by a
ticket of soufy that is to say^ an invitation to dinner. Frenchmen tell
me that mistakes as crass as these are constantly made in English
newspapers. This I do not beheve, since, for one Frenchman with a
moderate knowledge of English, there are two Englishmen with a
thorough knowledge of French. The Times did its best to foster an
opinion of this kind when it allowed a flagrant error to creep into the
letter of M. Victorien Sardou, in which he disowned all connection
with the version of his play of " Patrie," brought out at the Queen's
Theatre. M. Sardou at least will have a low opinion of English
journalism, as regards its familiarity with things French.

THE startling theory was once advanced that when a planet grew
very old and therefore very cold, its sun also no longer warming
it, its atmosphere and all gases existing upon it would be condensed

380 The Gentlentafis Magazine.

to the solid or liquid form. In a treatise on Sauirn, a modem writei
(who has since abandoned the idea) suggested that conceivably the
Moon's mass may have become so intensely cold that the atmospheric
envelope once surrounding it has been condensed into the liquid
and thence into the solid form. " It need not," he proceeded, " be
necessarily assumed that all the gases on the Moon have been thus
solidified. Small seas of liquefied gases may exist upon the Moon's
surface ; and again, some of the phenomena that have been supposed
to indicate the presence of an atmosphere may be due to gaseous
envelopes of small extent still uncondensed. We may imagine, for
instance, that hydrogen would resist an intensity of cold that would
liquefy or solidify all other gases." Since Lord Rosse's experiments
show that at lunar mid-day the Moon's surface is hotter than boiling
water, we cannot very readily assume that a snow of frozen oxygen
and nitrogen has covered the Moon's surface. But we now know
certainly that oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen are no exceptions to
the general rule that every substance elementary or compound may
exist, under suitable conditions of temperature and pressure, in any
one of the three forms, gaseous, liquid, or solid. Pictet and Cailletet
have independently succeeded in liquefying oxygen ; and Cailletet
has further succeeded in liquefying nitrogen. He has also forced
hydrogen to assume the form of mist, that is, he has converted it into
diops not separately visible, which is as clear a proof that it can be
liquefied as though he had obtained a jet of liquid hydrogen. In
liquefying both hydrogen and nitrogen, Cailletet used a temperature
of 300 degrees below zero Centigrade (or 508 degrees below zero
Fahrenheit). This is 27 degrees Centigrade below what was supposed
to be the absolute zero of temperature below which it was impossible
to go ! The pressure required for nitrogen was 200 atmospheres, for
hydrogen 280.

IN spite of the temporary invasion of that Bashi-Bazouk of card
games, Baccarat — whose very existence is, in the eyes of all
sober denizens of the clubs, an outrage and a scandal — whist steadily
keeps its pre-eminence amongst us. The [)raisers of the past may
insist that **the ask for trumps" has spoiled the game, but, at all events,
it has put even the most inferior players upon the alert, and in impe-
ratively demanding their attention to one particular point has to some
degree secured it for others. There are certainly fewer careless
players than before its invention. As a rule the grand old game begets
friendships and cements them ; but it is, no doubt, attended with
certain traits of temper — crucial ones — out of which comes a fair

Table Talk. 381

share of good hating. One man will not sit down at the same table
with another, who, on the other hand, though sharing the like
antagonism, is often not so delicate, and makes no scruple of cutting
into his enemy's rubber. A. and B., both excellent players, were in
this unfortunate relation to one another. A., who did not care whom
he played with — it was his boast that ** he would sit down with the
Devil " (his friends added ** and beat him ") — ^would cut in remorse-
lessly at B.'s table, whereupon B. would get up and go. But late last
autumn, when the card-room grew thin, and there was a difficulty in
finding another table, this persecution grew intolerable to B. " The
next time that fellow joins my rubber," he said, " I won^t go, and
when we cut for partners I'll throw him over. I shall not revoke,
because that is not fair, but I shall claim the privilege of a Briton in
playing just as I please, and that will be very badly."

Unconscious of this resolve, A. did cut in at B.'s table, and with
the most unfortunate results. When he came to be his partner, B.
trumped his best cards, threw his kings away to the other's aces
and lost every trick that he could lose. It was funny enough to see
A.'s face, who could not, or did not, say anything, because they were
not upon speaking terms ; but whose eyes, and even his teeth, spoke
volumes. Yet something presently happened which increased still
more the absurd drollery of the situation. A certain dignitary of the
Bar — one of Her Majesty's Judges — who had recently joined the club
in question, happened to drop into the card-room that afternoon for
the purpose of watching B.'s play, which he had understood to be, in
the way of science, " a positive treat." He was not himself a good
whist-player, but he flattered himself he knew how to appreciate skill
in another. He therefore seated himself at B.'s elbow, and was
favoured with one of the most extraordinary specimens of whist-
playing that could be imagined. Though not exactly a diffident
person, he had that respect for established authority peculiar to
his profession, and instead of saying " This man is mad," he was
heard to softly murmur, " Well, B. may be a great player, but I don't
like his * coups.' "

This opinion was shared by A. to such an extent that he
brought B's conduct before the Committee. The Committee agreed
with A., and I agree with the Committee; but, nevertheless, I feel
indebted to B. for the most amusing twenty minutes— for A. had
such great hands as retarded his defeat throughout that period — that
I (thank goodness, like the Judge, a mere spectator) ever passed in
clubland.

382 The Gentleman's Magazine.

I HAVE been poring recently with more perplexity than advantage
over some statistics quoted by Mr. Richard A. Proctor, relative
to the '* Influence of Marriage on the Death-rate." One conclusion
supported by these is that the married state, so far as men between
the ages of twenty- five and thirty are concerned, is more conducive
to longevity than what has been called in an undue spirit of levity,
single blessedness. This might, I think, fairly have been anticipated.
Marriage, in the case of men of mature age, promotes, temporarily at
least, the steadiness of life and the quietude of existence which are
most conducive to health. AVhat, however, is to me wholly be-
wildering is the wonderfully high death-rate that prevails among those
deprived in early life of their partners. One example will show this.
In France the mortality per thousand amounts to 6*2 in married men
between twenty-five and thirty, 10*2 in bachelors of the same age,
and 2 1 '8 in widows. Statistics exhibiting similar results are sent by
Belgium and Holland. If these are to be trusted, we must suppose
that loyalty to the dead is more common than philosophers and
moralists from the time of Hamlet have maintained. If grief over
the loss of a mate can raise the average of death to double what it is in
bachelors, and thrice that of the happily married, human nature is less
sophisticated than is generally supposed. Do we not repeat the
assertions of satirists and the epigrams of poets imtil we begin
seriously to believe in them ? Old Weller's advice to his son, to
" beware of widows," has been held to be the ** true word spoken in
jest." Surely statistics, such as those to which I point, should make
us return to the days of pastoral poetry, and resume the old analogy
of the turtle mourning over its mate.

AN experiment on a scale larger than has yet been attempted in the
direction of protecting public buildings from lightning is about to
be made in Paris. L'Abattoir General of La Villette, which covers about
80,000 metres, is to be protected by a series of rods and conductors
arranged upon a very elaborate scale. I do not intend to enter into
the particulars of these. What I wish to draw attention to is the
fact that the French authorities maintain that the balance between
the clouds and the earth is obtained by the withdrawal of electricity
from the latter to the former, and not, as was previously believed, by
the reverse process. As the result of recent observations, I could
almost believe that the paratonnerrcs, of which a large number have
of late been erected in France, have indeed drawn much electricity
from the soil and from the people also. No alann need be created
as yet on this score, since both have plenty to spare.

Table Talk. 383

IF it should prove that our entire system of drainage is a mistake,
it will be the most stupendous mistake in its class that has ever
been made. Those who " go down to the sea in ships " have little
difficulty in believing what Captain Calvert reports concerning the
state of the Thames at the outfall of the sewage. That the floating
matter in the Thames off Gravesend and Erith is as pestilential as it
is offensive is shown by the fact that fish once caught in those portions
of the river have now deserted them. Dutch eel-vessels, which used
once to send fish in perforated boxes astern of wherries, are now
unable to do so, the water being poisonous to their cargoes. London
is not the only town that has made a blunder of this class, nor is
" Royal-towered Thame " the only river that has suffered from so
obnoxious treatment. It is shown, indeed, that the sea itself is con-
taminated with the refuse poured into it, and the favourite sea-side
haunts of the Englishman are commencing to suffer from the system
of discharging into it the matter for want of which our fields arc
suffering.

Although the occan*s inmost heart be pure,
Yet the salt fringe that daily licks the shore
Is gross with sand,

says Alexander Smith. It is gross with something worse than sand
you will find, if you choose to visit Ramsgate, the bay between Dover
Harbour and Shakespeare Cliff, and other localities.

Come unto these yeUow sands
And there take hands,

will be an invitation not lightly to be given, as one hand at least
will be needed for guarding the olfactory sense. It is indispensable
that something should be done at once to remedy a state of affairs,
the end of which no one can foresee. Not on the borders of any
English river will Dr. Richardson be able, under existing conditions,
to plant his city of health.

HAVING seen into the grave the last of his enemies except
Garibaldi, Pope Pius the Ninth has at length relaxed a hold
upon life which may almost be described as grim and relentless.
His death has taken place under conditions of storm and convul-
sion appropriate enough to the important part he has played in

history. If

No rough-bearded comet
Stared on his mUd departure,

the accompaniments of war and suffering were impressive and terrible

384 The Gentleman's Magazine.

enough to light up his death-bed with lurid grandeur. He was,
however, a small man for the rdle that was thrust upon him. Kind,
meek, and amiable in nature, he had that sheep-like obstinacy of
disposition which of all human qualities is the hardest to conquer.
The " fwn possumus " with which he answered all entreaties to
submit to a compromise which should reunite the Papacy to the
Italian kingdom, the formation of which is described in the present
number of the Gentleman^ s Magazine^ has received a species of proverbial
application. It is difficult now to realise the kind of rapture with which
the population of Rome greeted his first measures reforming the Papal
administration and service, and the amnesty he pronounced upon all
political prisoners. It amounted to an absolute regeneration of the
people. In his admiration for his new ruler the Roman laid
aside his vices and his crimes. A contemporary observer not too
friendly to the Papacy, describing Rome, reports: " You hear of no
more crimes or disorders in Rome. The example of the ruler
and the fear of displeasing him have animated every heart and
ameliorated all classes of the people." This is not the place in
which to discuss the events of his life, or to show the manner in
which thi menaces of Austria, the proclamation of the French revo-
lution, and the excesses of a portion of the Italian Radicals drove
the timid ruler into Conservatism and effected the " rift within the
lute." How wide a breach was subsequently established is matter
of history. At the outset of active life Pius the Ninth was a soldier,
and served as one of the guard of nobles of Pius the Seventh. The
two Popes thus intimately associated cover between them a period of
the world's history which goes back to the last Jacobite insurrection
in England. What changes the world has seen since then cannot
easily be conceived. It may be consoling to those, however, and
they are not few, who believe in the vitality of the Papacy and its
aggressive tendency, to think that every great movement has ended
by limiting its powers and v/idening the breach between it and the
people. The next wearer of the tiara will succeed to a diminished
empire and a less j:)otcnt sway.

SVLVANUi) URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

April 1878.

ROY'S WIFE.

BY G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE.

Chapter XVII.

BAFFLED.

FOR one who has ever lived long enough in London to make it
a home, there is something in the stir and bustle of its streets,
the shifting variety of its faces, the very tread of busy feet on its
pavement, that brings his mind, as it were, to its proper bearings,
causing him to appraise himself, his afiairs, and his interest at their
real value, and reminding him that any one individual, though the
centre of his own circle, is but an insignificant unit in the great
scheme.

Before John Roy had rattled through half-a-dozen streets, and
shaved as many lamp-posts, in a hansom cab, he began to take a
clearer view of his position, and to suspect that he might have been
in a greater hurry than behoved a man of his experience, who had seen
so much of life. It was unwise thus to jump, without inquiry, to
conclusions. It would have been better to put his pride in his pocket,
and get what information he could from the railway officials at his own
station concerning his wife and her supposed travelling companion,
before he rushed up to London, breathing blood and gunpowder, on
an expedition that might turn out a fooFs errand after all !

Such reflections came too late. He had arrived in town by the
early train for a particular purpose, and he must carry it through.
Obviously, the first thing to be done was to dress at an hotel and go
down at once to his club.

Yet, for all his knowledge of the world, it seemed strange to this
man, whose mind was pre-occupied with matters of life and death,
voL.ccxLii. NO. 1768. cc

386 The Gentletnan' s Magazine.

that half-a-dozen acquaintances whom he had not seen for years
should greet him, as if they were in the habit of meeting every
day, with a careless nod and a growl at the east wind. Truly, your
London welcome is the reverse of gushing, and an earthquake would
hardly affect the well-bred placidity of St. James's Street if it took
place east of Temple Bar.

Club usages and dub maimers are of themselves. In other
phases of life, men may seem pleased with the society of their friends
and even interested in their welfare ; but as soon as they have passed
the hall-porter and received their letters, such exuberance of natural
feeling is at once discarded. As a huntsman puts on his kennel-coat
when he goes amongst his hoimds, so the members of these social
institutions think well to clothe themselves from head to foot in an
indifference which, but for its exceeding carelessness, would not be
far removed from disgust.

Like most reserved people, John Roy was somewhat impres-
sionable. It is not too much to say that he felt both discouraged
and disheartened as, entering the morning-room of the Junior Amal-
gamated, he scanned nervously the array of hats and newspapers repre-
senting the members of that exclusive association. Where all &Ges
were hidden, it was difficult to identify a friend ; and his spirit sank,
while he reflected how severely he must put that friend's attachment
to the test. Shy, awkward, and perplexed, he walked stiffly to the fire-
place, feeling, like a thorough Englishman, that his present ordeal was
the most unpleasant part of the whole business. A true Briton stands
fire better than inspection, quailing pitifully before a battery that
consists of impassible faces and calm, inquiring eyes.

On the hearthrug he brushed against a gentleman in an easy chair,
completely hidden behind the broad sheet of the Times, Turning to
apologise, he found himself face to face, of all people in the world, with
Lord FitzoweiL

It would feebly express John Roy's discomfiture to say you might
have knocked him down with a feather. He stood with his mouth
open in dumb surprise.

The other nodded, yawned, rose and stretched himself.

"How d'ye do, Roy?" said he. "Why didn't you come up
yesterday with me and St George there ? I found him at the station.
I suppose you won't go away again now ? Have you brought Mrs.
Roy?"

No man could put on this assumption of complete innocence had
he been the cleverest actor that ever wore paint : besides, " St George
there," who wsa in the room« could have attested the veracity of Fits-

owea's ptatefxienty and John Roy felt utterly at a loss. There vpaf
nothing for it .t)ut to regain his oomposiure as best, he mighty and shak^
by the hand the man he had meant to shoot thzough die head, with
such overdone cordiality as should serve to cover his own confusion.

" It's only a flying visit,'' he stammered. " Business and that
kind of thing. Going down again this evening. Town rather epipty
stilL Nothing to keep one here just now."

" Nonsense ! Stay till to-morrow. Dine with me quietly — €n
garfon. Nobody but St. George. I've a box at the Deucalion. Well
see the *Ugly Duck' — it's rather a good burlesque — ^and bring
what's-her-name back to supper. It wouldn't be bad fun."

Such evidence being circumstantial, and therefore of the best kind,
became more conclusive with every word. It was beyond all bounds
of probability that a gentleman who had run away with his friend's
wife less than twenty-four hours ago, should be entertaining bachelors
at dinner, asking actresses to supper, and otherwise partaking of those
amusements on which feminine influence of any kind puts an im-
mediate extinguisher ; nor was it credible that he should calmly invite
the injured husband to participate in such demonstrations of inde-
pendence and self-government at a moment's notice, without any
hesitation or embarrassment whatsoever. Again John Roy excused
himself, though in his heart half tempted to accept, so completely
had the atmosphere of London changed his sentiments in the space
of two hours.

" I see," said Fitz, laughing good-humouredly ; " Mrs. Roy won't
stand it I Quite right. Give her my kind regards. After all, you
have the best of it There is something very superior and respectable
in being a married man ! "

With whomsoever Nelly had run away, the culprit was clearly not
Lord Fitzowen.

John Roy walked out of the Junior Amalgamated a good deal
easier in mind than he walked in ; yet, strange to say, conscious that
his displeasure against his wife was stronger now than while he believed
her criminal conduct had estranged her fh)m him for ever. She
seemed a belligerent then, declaring open war; now she was only a
vassal who had rebelled.

Turning matters over in his mind, he made sure she had taken
refuge with her aunt He would go to Comer Street at once, and
bring her back, but in such a manner as to make her feel the whole
weight of his dissatisfaction, and prevent her from ever having
recourse to such refractory measures again.

He was soon at the Comer Hotel : it had never appeared so cLou&i

CC2

388 The Gmtlemaris Magazine.

dirty, and uncomfortable before. Again came over him the miworthy
feeling that he had descended too low in his choice, and that from
the very beginning his marriage was a mistake.

This untoward mood seemed only aggravated by his reception.
Mrs. Phipps, in the dingiest of caps, no sooner heard his name than
she rushed at him open-armed, then curtsied and looked foolish,
seeing that he eluded her embrace.

This good lady's face was browner and more oblong than ever,
her dress more faded, her forehead more shiny ; her general appear-
ance, he thought, had changed sadly for the worse.

"Why, you're quite a stranger, Mr. Roy," she exclaimed. " Now,
do set down and rest yourself. You'll take a glass of wine, I hope.
But first and foremost, how's Nelly ? You've brought her with you,
in course?"

He was taken aback, and looked it. " Nelly ! " he repeated. " Is
she not with you ? I came here to look for her."

Mrs. Phipps dropped into an arm-chair with a plump that spoke
volumes for her confidence in its strength.

" You come here to look for her ! " she gasped. " Oh, Mr. Roy,
whatever do you mean ? "

He was vexed beyond measure. " Mrs. Roy has chosen to leave
her home, madam," he answered harshly, '^ and were she not dead to
all proper feeling she would have come straight here. Had I found
her under your protection, I might have been prevailed upon to look
over such conduct in consideration of promised amendment for the
future. But she has taken her own line, and I shall now feel justi-
fied in taking mine."

"Mr. Roy, you drove her to it ! "

" I have no wish to exchange recriminations, Mrs. Phipps. If
you choose to support your niece in her outrageous defiance of all
social laws, of the customs, even the decencies of life, that is your afiair.
I shall decline to communicate with either of you, except through a
solicitor."

" You drove her to it, Mr. Roy ! If it was my last breath, I'd say
it. When she left this house to get married — and a black day it
seems to have been — there wasn't a better-behaved young woman in
all London than Nelly, nor a better principled, nor a better brought-
up. There may be faults on both sides. I'm not a-going to say as
there isn't But when you come to leaving a home like yours, and
going out alone into the wide world, nobody shall persuade me but
what I told you before is gospel truth, and you drove her to it, Mr.
Roy. You did, as sure as you stand there ! "

Roy's Wife. 389

Mrs. Phipps, who loved her niece, seemed a thorough woman,
insensible to argument, but staunch in her affections. It was no use
disputing the point, and John Roy was forced to content himself with
as dignified a retreat as could be made under the circumstances, for
his hostess followed him, even to the street-door, with a volley of
reproaches that gathered violence and incoherence at each successive
discharge. The storm no doubt was succeeded by a torrent of tears,
and the poor woman herself, in the midst of her dismay and anxiety,
regretted bitterly that she had " spoke up," as she called it, with so
much freedom ; but her visitor had placed a quarter of a mile between
them before this inevitable reaction, and it was too late to call him
back.

He felt sadly perplexed. Nelly was gone, there could be no doubt,
but where ? If she had fled with Lord Fitzowen, he would have known
how to act. If she had taken sanctuary in her aunt's hotel, he could
have extricated her from that unsavoury refuge, with a certain loss of
dignity, perhaps, but with an undoubted accession of authority for the
future. In either case his course would have been clear. But now
she had baffled him completely. How could he return to Royston
Grange without his wife ? how reply to the inquiries of a whole neigh-
bourhood that she had gone away from him, he didn't know where !
He must have time for consideration. He ought not to be in a hurry.
To-morrow or next day something might turn up. He had better stop
in London, he thought, wishing heartily that he had never left it.

Chapter XVIII.

DO YOU REMEMBER?

What should he do with himself in the mean time ? He looked
at his watch. It was a little after four. The Academy had not yet
opened, Hurlingham was too far off". Prince's was sure to be empty at
this hour, and, with the thermometer scarcely ten degrees above
freezing, nobody would be in the ParL There was still a long blank
to fill up before the earliest possible dinner, and the only choice of
pastime lay between a visit to Christie and Hanson's and a Turkish
bath.

He had almost decided in favour of the latter, when a victoria
pulled up with a jerk so close to the kerbstone, that its stiff leathern
wing brushed his elbow, while a lady bent on shopping, and enveloped
in furs, landed on the pavement under his vexy nose.

390 The GefUlematis Magazine.

''Good gracious, Mr. Roy!'' exclaimed a voice that had
haunted him for many a weary day since he heard it last, and that
he had not quite forgotten even now. ** Is it you or your ghost?
What ages since we met ! I can't say how glad I am to see you
again ! "

It was Lady Jane, and nobody else ! The Lady Jane of whom he
had taken leave long years ago, under the elms in Kensington Gardens,
with a few hurried words of sorrowing kindness and good-will, sorely
curtailed because of that matron's proximity to whom Jane had been
temporarily intrusted, and who '' stood in " with the lovers, but only to
a limited extent.

Now, the one was a prosperous widow, already out of black ; the
other, a husband, whom we may term unattached, smarting under a
sense of conjugal ill-usage, and disposed to separate himself con-
clusively from his wife.

Lady Jane could not but feel gratified by the confusion of his
manner while he returned her greeting. Though a woman's empire
have been swept away ever so completely, she likes to think that its
glories are not wholly forgotten. What is it all but a dream — ^an
illusion, of which, perhaps, memory is the sweetest and most sub-
stantial charm !

" I — I hope you're quite well," stammered the gentleman ; " I didn't
know you were in town."

" How should you ?" she answered kindly, and with perfect self-
possession. '' It is a centiuy since you and I have forgotten each
other, — or tried to, at any rate."

The last very faintly, and with a downward look that used to be
most effective. " When at close quarters aim low ! " was her maxim,
and Lady Jane's fire could do execution stilL

" Do not say forgotten," he replied, trying to recover himself, as
behoved a man of the world. " It's not so very long, after all ; and
to look dityouj it seems as if we had been walking together only last
weekl**

''You always used to flatter one," she answered coquettishly.
" Now, will you come and see me ? Don*t say no, for tfie sake of old
times."

"When?"

" Any day. To-day, if you like. I am always in at five. I am
on my way home now. Twenty-seven in the next street I shall
expect you in a quarter of an hour."

There were but a few minutes to talk, and they passed quiddy
enough. He walked like a man in a dream. HefeltasifhisMezitten

Roy's Wife. 391

lifC) hi^ return home, his vegetation at Ro3rston Grange, even his
marriage to Miss Burton, were fancies of the sleeper that had dis-
appeared with morning light. Yes, he was awake now, and nothing
seemed real but Lady Jane.

Very real, too, and more substantial than of old. Face and figure
were both rounder and fuller than when last they parted, all those
years ago ; but, like many English beauties, the first love's maturity
was handsomer than her girlhood, and, had it been otherwise, what
matter? The charm was in her eyes and voice ; still, it woke up feel-
ings that had only slept while he* believed them dead. John Roy
began to think that, without knowing it, he might have been in love
with two women at once all the time.

" Lady Jane at home ? "

"Yes, sir;" and mounting a dark staircase, pervaded by a heavy
odour of hot-house plants, he found himself bowing over her lady-
ship's white hand, with more of deference and even devotion than is
absolutely essential to politeness in a mere morning call.

But he began to talk about the weather nevertheless, forgetting,
in his perturbation, that when conversing with a lady it is only good
manners, and saves a deal of trouble besides, to let her " make the
running" from end to end.

She wasted little of her energies on the east wind. Before his tea
was cool enough to drink, she asked him pointedly whether he found
her much altered, and wondered that he recognised her at once !

** I should have known you anywhere," he answered. " Do you
think I forget so easily ? "

The cream-jug in her hand shook a little, perhaps by accident.

" What is all one's life," she returned, " but trying to forget ? It's
the lesson everybody has to learn. I fancy it comes harder to
women than men."

" You succeeded pretty easily. You didn't want much teaching ;
perhaps you've a natural talent independent of education."

" Why do you say that ? It's unkind. If I wanted to be rude, I
should say it's untrue. How can you tell what I have thought or not
thought, done or not done, since — since we were both young and
foolish ? You've not taken much trouble to find out."

She had ingeniously turned the tables, and put him on his defence.
He looked foolish, and replied vaguely, " Did you ever expect to see
me again?"

**Na But I A^ it!"

^' Lady Jane, were you reaily glad to 'meet me? Do you mean
that.you still— that you still "

39^ ^^ Gentleman s Magazine.

'' Let me give you some more tea. No? Well, sit down again;
don't go away yet I want you to tell me all about your wife."

His face fell, and he fidgeted in his chair. With a woman's tact,
she saw there was something wrong, and continued in the same easy
confidential tone —

" I was pleased — ^yes — I think I was reaiiy pleased to hear of your
marriage. I had a great mind to write and congratulate you."
"\Vhy didn't you?"

" Well, there were reasons. If my poor husband had been alive,
I should have done it frankly enough. Matrimony is the best and
happiest state for people, after all."

" I am glad you found it so. It is not everybody's experience.
I am rather of Dr. Johnson's opinion, that marriages would turn
out better if they were arranged by the Lord Chancellor."

'' Mine was. At least, we could do nothing without his consent
My poor husband did not come of age till he was five-and-twenty.
It made a great many complications, and at one time I very nearly
changed my mind."

" But it answered ? You were happy together, I suppose?"
** We got on very well Yes — I can't say it answered badly. He
did everything I told — I mean, I asked him. Still, Mr. Roy, when
people are to pass their whole lives together, it's a fearful risk. How-
ever little one expects, one is sure to be disappointed."

'' But you married a man in your own station ; that is a great
point You never could have borne with somebody you were
ashamed of. Mr. de Banier came of a very old family, I believe ? "
" Very. But — but his father was in a trade all the same. No ; I
shouldn't say the De Baniers were exactly in our own set. Do you
think that matters so much ? "

'' I think it is the most important consideration of all."
" \Vhat ! More important than that people should like each
other? You used not to be so practical Do you remember our
argument on that very subject at I-Ady Yorkminster's ball?"
''T>oyour

" Every word of it. I could tell you the very names of the couples
that passed us on their way to the tea-room. I could tell you the
number of the dance we sat out I believe I've got my card still.
You had a white flower in your button-hole, and I wondered whether
it was given you by my cousin Blanche."

" What a memory you have ! Is it of the head or the heart ? "
" Nonsense ! Tell me about yourself. \Vhen did you come to
town ? Where are you staying ? I am dying to know Mrs. Roy."

Roy's Wife. 393

He hesitated; but she looked so kind, so sympathising, and
withal so handsome, that he took the plmige.

** Lady Jane," said he, " I don't mind your knowing the truth.
The fact is, we— we — don't get on very well together, and Mrs. Roy
is not with me at present."

She tried to seem sorrowful and commiserating, but there was a
latent sparkle in her blue eyes, a something of satisfaction in her
tone, while she answered, " I am so grieved to hear it. Don't you
think, Mr. Roy, if you tried patience and kindness, she might be
brought to reason? I can't understand anybody quarrelling with
your'

There is an esprit de corps in the sex which prompts every
woman ostensibly to stand up for another. It takes but little per-
suasion, however, to satisfy her that the erring sister is wholly in the
wrong.

"I have my faults," he answered, "but I don't think I am
inclined to be hasty or unreasonable. Lady Jane, I will trust you
entirely, and I feel sure you will not abuse my confidence. In the
first place, were you siu^jrised to hear of my marriage ? "

** A httle. I thought — I thought — never mind what I thought"

" Well, it seems to be one's fate to make some great mistake in
life sooner or later. I wonder whether the lady I chose was the
least sort of person you would have expected me to marry. I did
a foolish thing, and now I have to pay for it"

Sympathy and curiosity, two veiy strong motives, prompted her
ladyship to discharge a volley of inquiries, but she possessed a large
share of that discretion which is only acquired in the uninterrupted
training of society, and contented herself with a kindly glance and a
sigh of commiseration.

" My wife," he continued, " though well-bom and well-educated, is
not — is not exactly one of the people you are accustomed to meet.
In short, she don't quite understand the ways of society. You see,
she has never lived much in the great world."

" Has she been presented at Court ? " interrupted Lady Jane
earnestly. " That is where the line should always be drawn. I heard
she had notr

" Then you did hear about my marriage ? "

" Of course. I was interested, and I asked. Can you wonder ? ^

*^ 1 never wonder. Still, there is such a thing as an agreeable
surprise. I thought I had passed out of yoiu: life, and that even my
name never came into your head."

" You thought nothing of the kind. Do you suppose a woman

394 ^^ Genilematis Magazine.

gives up her — her friendships in that way, even under the hardest
pressure, without scruple or regret? How little you understand us !
Well, well — that's over and done with now I Let me hear all about it,
Mr. Roy. Were you very much in love ? "

" With Lady Jane ? Yes ; I am sure I told her so often
enough:"

" And she believed you. One need not be ashamed of the truth
now. But you understand what I mean. Were you very much in
love with your wife when you proposed to her — ^let me see, only
the end of last summer? or was it one of those scrapes men
get into from sheer laziness, and want of moral courage to say
No?"

He had chivalry enough to scorn the loophole she left for his
escape.

" Yes, I was in love with her," he answered rather sadly. ^I
thought she would have made me happy. Never mind, I can do
without her. I dare say it's all for the best."

*' Poor Mr. Roy ! " murmured her ladyship, " I am sorry. You
know I am, don't you ?"

" I know you have a kind and sympathising nature. Lady Jane,"
he answered, putting on his gloves as with intention of presently taking
leave ; " that is why I am inflicting my troubles on you now. It's not
a long story, and I will begin at the beginning. Last summer I went
to Beachmouth, simply because I was bored at home, meaning to
have a dip in the sea, spend Sunday, and go back. Lady Jane, I
stayed there three weeks."

" You found the Sundays so amusing, I conclude."

" Every day was a holiday. Each seemed brighter than the last.
I never was so happy in my life. Never — ^but once."

" I am not going to ask you when that was. Go on."

" The very first evening, I was struck by the appearance of a lady
staying at the hotel ; and next day, through the merest accident, 1
succeeded in making her acquaintance. I found her frank, pleasant,
unaffected, and handsomer even than I thought."

"Dark or fair?"

" Dark, with beautiful black hair."

" How odd ! you never used to admire dark women. Well, how
long did this seaside romance go on before — excuse me, Mr. Roy —
before you made a fool of yourself?"

*^ Not long. We met half-a-dozen times a day. I thought she
seemed to like me, and soon hardened my heart to ask whether she
tcally did or not Then she told me all about herself, making no

■ May's Wife. '"'' 39'g'

secret of her birth and bringing up. Her father was a bookseller, and
her aunt kept an hotel."

" Mr. Roy, how could you?"

" I C0u/d and I did We were married in London, and I carried
her off to Royston Grange, firmly persuaded that with a few hints,
and a little practice among our country neighbours, she would mak^
as good a lady as if she had been registered in the stud-book — I beg
your pardon ; I mean the Peerage."

" They never do. You see it didn't answer.'*

*' That was no fault of mine. I took the greatest pains— explained
everything, rehearsed everything. She wasn't obstinate, she wasn't
exactly stupid ; but somehow she seemed unable to take it in. After
a time she lost her spirits, grew pale and silent ; but declared there
was nothing the matter, even while she looked up from her work with
eyes full of tears."

" Poor thing ! Perhaps she was unhappy."

" She was imhappy. Lady Jane, but not about m^. Yesterday, at
a moment's notice, she left her home during my absence, as far as I
can learn, without a companion of any kind."

Lady Jane pondered. ''Have you reason to suspect that she —
that she cares for anybody in particular? "

" t had, and now I have not I am puzzled — I am at iny wits*
end She left no letter, no message. I am not even sure that she is
in London. A man can't well advertise for his wife — can't have her
cried like a lost dog. Lady Jane, what would you advise me to do ?"

"Nothing!" answered her ladyship with decision. "That is
always safe. Go about among your friends — show yourself everywhere.
If people ask after Mrs. Roy, say you have come up to take a house,
and she is to join you in London. Then they will insist on their own
favourite situation, and that changes the subject In the mean time,
confide in nobody but me. You may be sure I have your welfare at
heart. When shall I see you again ? Come and dine here to-morrow.
My sister is in town ; I'll ask her to meet you, and we will go to
the French Play. Good-bye, Mr. Roy, but not for quite so long as
last time. To-morrow, at half-past seven. Don't forget."

He bent over the hand she gave him till his lips almost touched
her rings, and walked downstairs, thinking the world a much bettei
place to live in than it seemed an hour or two ago.

.1

t

396 The Gentlemaiis Magazine.

Chapter XIX.

IN THE WILDERNESS.

Like Hagar in her banishment, Nelly felt utterly desolate and
forlorn when she turned her back on the home that had once seemed
such a paradise, in which but a few weeks ago she had promised her-
self long years of wedded happiness and love. Like Hagar, too, she
was faint and weary from physical exhaustion. Mr. Roy's displeasure
had taken away her appetite for breakfast, and she forgot all about
luncheon, though it was ready on the table when she went away. It
cost her a painful effort to preserve composure before the servants at
the hall-door, and she parried with difficulty the curiosity of her maid,
who could not imderstand why Mrs. Roy had packed a trunk with her
own hands, or how that lady could possibly dispense with her ministra-
tions for a single night.

At the station, too, where she arrived long before the train, her
footman seemed exceedingly loth to be dismissed with the carriage as
ordered, and proposed, though hardly in good faith, to return on foot
the whole way, rather than not see Mrs. Roy*s luggage into the guard's
van with his own eyes. When these objections had been overruled,
and the trot of the dear horses died out on the far high-road, our
outcast felt very forlorn indeed. Behind her was the still fondly
beloved patriarch on whom she could not bear to think ; before her, a
future too vague and gloomy to contemplate ; while about her brooded
the desolate silence of an unfrequented railway station.

Poor Hagar turned into the ladies' waiting-room to cry. No doubt
it did her good, but, looking in the glass over the fireplace, she could
not but oteerve that her eyes were swollen and her nose was red.

Presently a spectral arm, shot out from the signal-post, denoted
the arrival of her train. It was time to emerge and take a ticket
She shrank back to her hiding-place, nevertheless, in considerable
vexation and dismay when she caught sight of Lord Fitzowen on the
platform, laughing and talking with a young man of his own age, in
dress, manners, and appearance an exact counterpart of himself.

'* Of all people on earth,'' thought Nelly, " this is the last I wanted
to meet How can I explain to him why I am here and where I am
going ? Besides, I look perfectly hideous. He is sure to see I have
been crying. Good gracious ! If he was to ask me the reason, and
I couldn't keep from bursting out again ! What would his friend
think ? What would he think himself? No. Here I shall stay till
Fve leen tbem safeoff. After all that has passed, rather than travel

Ray's Wife. 397

by the same train with Lord Fitzowen, perhaps in the same carriage,
I would never go near London again ! "

So she flattened her face against the window, and watched the two
gentlemen into a first-class compartment, labelled " Smoking, " with
eager eyes and a beating heart, waiting impatiently enough till the
train panted on and disappeared.

Then she drank some water from a dusty carafe, sat down, and
collected her energies to think out the whole situation. Once, in
momentary weakness, she half resolved to walk back on foot to
Royston Grange, and be reconciled with its master ; but her heart was
still too sore, and she dismissed the idea almost as soon as it arose.

Consulting a time-table, aided by a sympathising railway porter,
she made up her mind to go down the line to a certain junction
some thirty miles distant, where she could meet a late express, that,
from inability to keep its time, was called, in contumely, The Flying
Dutchman ; and so proceeding to London, she would arrive there in
the middle of the night ; but this intricate plan of operations she was
unable to carry out. At the hour when she should have been taking
her seat in The Dutchman she was in bed at an hotel, where she had
resorted to get some tea, with a headache that incapacitated her from
standing or even sitting upright.

"What does it matter?" thought poor Nelly. " Nobody expects
me ; nobody cares if I am alive or dead 1 Auntie has got accustomed
to do without me, and nothing would please Mr. Roy better than to
be quite sure he would never hear of me again."

She did them both injustice. Mr. Roy was seeking her in London
before her headache allowed her to get out of bed ; and when, on the
second day after her departure from Royston Grange, she arrived at
the Corner Hotel, it needed but one look in her relative's face to be
assured of Auntie's overpowering anxiety and her delight at the
wanderer's return.

" So he came here to find me?" repeated Nelly for the twentieth
time, when she had taken her bonnet off and settled down in her
own old place. " Did he look disappointed ? Did he seem sorry,
Auntie, or what?"

"Sorry?" returned Mrs. Phipps — a practical person, who called
spades and everything else by their right names. "Not a bit! Angry,
if you like. There was a precious blow-up, I can tell you. I gave
him a piece of my mind, and he went away in a huff."

" He'll come again," said Nelly. " He must, if he's in earnest.
Don't you think. Auntie, he is sure to come again?"

" I hope not," replied her aunt " You're better without him, my

39.8 ^^ GefUlematis Magazine.

dear. I never thought much of them consequential^ stuck-up ways
of his. When he made you a lady, why didn't he treat you as s^chf
No, no, you're better without him, Nelly, depend upon it You've
got a comfortable home here as long as you like to stay, and for my
part I hope he will never darken our doors again."

Nelly did not quite agree, yet she often asked herself how she
would decide if her husband were to propose that she should come
back and live with him once more. Hurt, vexed, humiliatedjL.she
could yet have forgiven him only too readily; but, because she loved
him so dearly, it seemed better that she should never see him agaiik
As the nightingale is said to lean her breast against a thorn ; as the
horse, most assuredly, in his gallant, generous nature, presses down
and crouches on the stake that drains his life-blood away, sa does
woman seem to derive some mysterious and morbid gratificatiofi
while hugging her keenest sorrows tight to her bosom, and immp^
lating herself at the altar of an unworthy idol, that looks down on
the sacrifice calm, pitiless, and imperturbable, with a stony smile. But
whatever might have been her decision, she would have liked at least
the option of refusing. And day by day Nelly's step became heavier,
and the colour faded from her cheek, as visitor after visitor poured
into the hotel, but no Mr. Roy.

He was differently employed. Putting off, from week to week, his
intention of going back, he left Mrs. Mopus, much to her content-
ment, in sole command at Royston Grange, while he amused himself
with the gaieties of early spring in London, and devoted his spare
time to the dangerous society of Lady Jane.

It was not long before people began to talk. " So sorry we could
not come to you, my dear; we dined with Lady Jane de Banier. —
Whom had you ? Mr. Roy, of course ! It's really getting too barefaced.
She has not been a widow eighteen months, and there she is, flaunting
about in colours, and I don't know what all, with a married man I
It's true, my dear, I assure you. There's a wife hidden away some-
where in the country. Lord Fitzowen has seen her, and declares she
is perfectly beautiful. Jane ought really to be spoken to. One must
draw a line ; and if nobody else has courage to give her a hint, I will
do it mysel£"

So Jane was spoken to, with the usual result She resented such
interference warmly, and became only the more engrossed with her
present fancy, that it was represented as injurious to the future of her
children, and hazardous to her own good name. " I suppose you
would have me go about in a yash-mak, with a guard of what-d'you-*
call-ems^" protested her ladyship, tossing her head in high dudgeon.

Roy's Wife. %^

"Thank you, I'd rather not ! I am a Christian woman in a Christian
country, and I think I am the best judge of my own conduct"

Thei;i she had a quiet little cry, and sat down to write an incoherent
note to Mr. Roy, entreating him not to come near her again, which
brought him to her door in a violent hurry within half an hour of its
delivery.

It must be admitted, however, that although her friends expressed
great dissatisfaction among themselves, they dined with her readily
enough, notwithstanding the obnoxious Mr. Roy, issuing their own
invitations to the imprudent couple freely in return, so as to aJ^rd
them every opportunity of meeting at home and abroad.

Ere long the one was never asked to anything without the other,
and ap easy-going world made up its mind to recognise this in-
discreet renewal of former intimacy as ''an established thing.''

, Society has compiled a code of its own for which it is answerable
to itself, and has ruled that " one person may steal a horse while
another must not look at a halter." The principle is sufficiently
dastic, and it has been so liberally extended of late that the horse-
stealers are increasing every day. I do not mean to imply that Lady
Jane was one of these. Her conduct, though imprudent, originated
in the only natural and healthy impulse of her artificial life. In girl-
hood she had liked John Roy honestiy enough — ^bad loved him,
indeed, in so far as she was capable of that unworldly sentiment
She gave him up perhaps too readily, but who knows what amount
of pressure was put on her in her own family ? The female depart-
ment has its secrets in the households of Mayfair as of Stamboul. I
dare say she often lay awake crying, and envied the sweeps or the
milkman when her mamma thought she was sound asleep. I dare
say, while she stood at the altar in that love of a wedding-dress
{corsage Louis Quatorze), she glanced approvingly at her bridegroom,
who was as spruce as a new pin, and admitted that she liked him
better than anybody in the world — "bar one !"

So she made Mr. de Banier a good wife enough, managing his
house, ordering his dinner, and contradicting him no more than was
absolutely necessary before his servants or his guests. She nursed
him, too, kindly and tenderly through his last illness, and, perhaps,
never felt so attached to him in her life as the day the doctor gave
him over.

For weeks after the funeral she refused to see a soul, going softly
about the house with a pale face and red eyes ; so that the very
maids declared they '^ never thought her ladyship had been one to
take on like that ! " And she put up a monument to his memory.

400 The GentUmatCs Magazine.

unequalled in hideousness, that cost the best part of a thousand
pounds.

When she found herself a rich widow, still handsome, in the
prime of life, was she to be wholly debarred from those pleasures of
the heart she had given up so dutifully to obey papa and mamma?
Lady Jane thought not. She saw men in society every day on whom
she might have set her affections with the certainty of a return ; but she
had always been fastidious, and now seemed more than ever hard to
please. This one was vulgar, the other overbearing, a third hunted,
a fourth smoked, and the vacant situation had not yet been filled on
the afternoon when she went out shopping in her victoria, and met
Mr. Roy.

She experienced a want in life, which the society of her children
— two slips of girls and a fat-headed little boy — proved quite
inadequate to supply. There are women for whom the interests of
a nursery can be the end and aim of existence ; but Lady Jane,
though a kind, even an indulgent mother, was not one of these. She
had dreamed her dreams, as the most practical of us will ; had even
imagined an ideal of her own, an impossible person, full of antagonistic
qualities, good and bad ; which misty phantom she dressed in the
renmants of her old, worn-out attachment, and believed that it
reminded her of Mr. Roy: was it likely that she should let him go,
when he came once more within range of her attractions, — a lonely
man, ill-used, disappointed, with a history, and, perhaps, none the
less desirable that he hung just out of reach, and was not exactly
free?

I am little surprised, for one, that she should have asked him to
tea, and then to dinner, and afterwards to come and see her when-
ever he liked. Finally, that she made her servants understand she
was always at home to Mr. Roy, and to nobody else when he called.

" Love is of man's life a thing apart," says Byron. I fear that
with the ruder and less sensitive half of our species, this delightful
fallacy requires certain favourable conditions, both of body and mind,
to become the one engrossing occupation of both. Love-in-idleness,
however, is a plant that needs but little care or culture to arrive at
rich maturity. Like the young trees of the thrifty Scotsman, it is
growing while we are sleeping ; and a man who has nothing to do
finds plenty of time for folly when the occasion offers.

John Roy, neglecting his duties as a country gentleman and land-
owner, living vaguely from hand to mouth, as it were, at a London
hotel, undecided how to act, with no certain task for to-day, no
definite intentions for to-moirow, was of all people in the world the

R(>y*s Wife. 401

most likely to drift into some egregious absurdity, from a mere sense
of helplessness and discouragement, a morbid conviction that it was
impossible for him to keep straight ; and even if he did, by painful
self-denial, succeed in following the right road after all, what was the
good!

But he was by no means happy ; his self-love had been grievously
wounded; and Lady Jane's continued preference, however flattering,
could not heal the sore. It was pleasant, no doubt, and not very expen-
sive, to send her bouquets, and paper-cutters, and stalls at the French
Play. He experienced a certain*excitement in watching for her appear-
ance at a party, in catching her eye across a room, with the conscious-
ness that there was a something between them in which the bystanders
had no share; and in putting her affectionately into her carriage
when she went away. Still there was also a sense of sameness about
the whole affair; he was going over the old ground that had been
traversed often enough before; and a path even of roses may
become wearisome when it has to be trodden again and again. We
catch ourselves saying precisely the same things to Mary that we said
to Jane ; Susan's pressure of the hand is exactly like poor Henri-
etta's ; and how can we send cut flowers to Margaret without
repeating the message that used to be forwarded with her posies to
Kate? Sometimes he admitted that, even if he had married Lady
Jane, he might have got tired of her. Did he ever feel tired of
Nelly ? No ! A thousand times no ! Annoyed, irritated, provoked,
fjsmcying he wished he had never seen her, — but weary of her ? — cer-
tainly not. In his married life there had been nothing irksome,
nothing out of character, nothing of that continued sense of effort
which is so exhausting to a man in a false position, and which made
him feel something akin to relief, rather than disappointment, on
those rare occasions when he passed an afternoon without dancing
attendance on Lady Jane.

How could he be happy while continually at war with himself?
Now he would seek Nelly out, no matter where she was hiding,
humble himself at her feet, and entreat her to return to a home that
should never be entered but by their own two selves. Anon he
resolved to take legal measures for a separation, nay, move heaven
and earth for a divorce, that he might put an end to this unsatisfac-
tory state of things by a marriage with I^dy Jane. And stiU he lived
on from day to day, settling nothing, doing nothing, alternately
making and breaking resolutions of amendment, but calling, never-
theless, at No. 27 as persistently and nearly as often as the penny
post

VOL. CCXUI. NO. I768» D D

i(bi The Gentl^mafis Magazine.

Chapter XX.

A BLUE-JACKET.

In the mean time Nelly settled down to her former habits at the
Comer Hotel, much to the gain of that establishment in matters of
cleanliness and comfort. Mrs. Phipps, who had missed her sadly,
while protesting against her own selfishness, could not but rejoice to
have her back, estimating at its real value her niece's supervision of a
continually changing household. Mrs. Roy, who now chose to call
herself Mrs. John, as a compromise between the assertion of a
married woman's dignity and the independence of an cUias^ resumed
without a murmur the old leathern stool on its three high 1^, the
volumes ruled in red ink, the long quills, the bunches of keys, and
other appliances of that authority which was exercised from her seat
of government, a glass cage off the entrance-hall, secluded from the
light of day.

Servants and tradespeople saw little difference in her demeanour.
Punctual, exact, methodical, always decided, while always courteous,
she might be graver in manner and slower in gesture than of old, but
that was all. "Mrs. John had known trouble," they observed,
" along of a good-for-nothing 'usband." Such a calamity, being in no
way remarkable, demanded little pity and less surprise. Only her
aunt looked below the surface. Mrs. Phipps, vexed and saddened,
told herself that Nelly was breaking her heart for an unworthy object,
as she phrased it, " out of sheer nonsensical trumpery and trash."

It was not long before the good woman boiled over and spoke
out.

" You'll do yourself a mischief, my dear," she expostulated, when,
coming down to breakfast earlier than usual one morning, she found
Nelly reading the Bible, bathed in tears. " I wonder as you haven't
more pride, I do. If it was me, I'd never so much as waste a
thought on a man who could conduct himself like Mr. Roy, except
to thank my stars I was well rid of him. IVe no patience with you,
nor him neither. A haughty, arbitrary, unfeeling, unprincipled Herod.
That's what he is, and I wish he may be punished like Herod, and
worse ! "

" Why should you blame him. Auntie," answered Nelly, " if I
don't ? Didn't he come herejaf^er me, and couldn't I go back to
him any moment if I chose ? But I don't choose. It would only be
misery for him and for me. ' Think what a dreadful thing for a maa
to be ashamed of his wife."

Roy's Wife. 403

^ Ashamed, Nelly? How can you speak so random ? There's
shame enough, Fll not deny it, but none on our side. In my opinion,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Queen, or the Lord Mayor, or
somebody should have the power of undoing such a marriage as
yours, just as if you had never been asked in church at all."

" Suppose I don't wish it undone ? "

" Suppose the moon was made of green cheese I You ought to
wish it — you ought to insist on it ; and if I had to pay twenty
lawyers, twenty times over, Fd spend my last shilling, but I'd see you
righted. You've no spirit, Nelly, no more hadn't your poor mother.
I only wish it was nie. If they could keep me down like that, I'd
let 'em."

" It's no use worrying, Auntie. People think so different Why
are both of us to be miserable ? Surely one's enough. I dare say I
expected too much. I have been disappointed, and must bear it the
best way I can. I've always got you left, and a -happy home here,
haven't I, as long as I like ? "

" Happy home, indeed ! Yes, it was a happy home before I let
you go to that sinful place Beachmouth, and I wish the sea would
rise to-night and wash clean over it, I do ! Forgive and forget, says
they, but I am one of them that can't forgive, and won't, even though
I might forget. Nelly, Nelly, how can you look me in the face and
mention the word happy ^ with your eyes as red as a chimney-sweep's,
and all your beautiful colour gone ? "

" Nobody is quite unhappy who is doing right. Auntie. I may
be a little low and out of spirits now, I don't deny it ; but perhaps
it's my own fault, thinking too much of things that cannot be helped.
It will wear off after a time. Don't distress yourself about me. And,
Auntie dear, if Mr. Roy should come and ask to see us, don't you
fly in his face and be so short with him as you were last time, for my
sake."

" Why, Nelly, you are not going to say you'd go back?"

" No, dear. I hardly think I should if he asked me ever so.
But we won't speak of that. Who can tell what is going to happen,
or where we may all be this day week ? I don't care to look forward
much. I'm quite content to stay as I am, only if you see me rather
doi^vTi sometimes don't you take notice. I'm such a silly that a word
of kindness sets me off crying in a moment, and I can't stop."

" Crying, indeed ! " concluded Mrs. Phipps. " I'd set some folks

crying to a pretty tune if I had my way. There, Nelly, you could

always coax your old aunt to do whatever you asked, fix)m the time

you was in short frocks. Ill say no more ; and if \ could only see

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404 The Genilemafis Magazine.

you look a little brighter, with a bit of colour in your cheek, there
wouldn't be a happier woman than me between here and St. Paul's!"
So the good lady retired to the basement, where she could forget
her vexation among those domestic implements she delighted to
see in use ; while Nelly ruled another column in the ledger, and made
out their week's bill for a family on the second floor, with unfailing
accuracy of mind and finger, but with a heavy heart longing to be far
away.

" Quite a superior person that Mrs. John," said the ostensible
head of the family on the second floor to its actual ruler. " So quiet,
80 ladylike, and — handsome I should say, my dear ; shouldn't
you?"

" I hardly looked at her," replied his wife, whose feminine eye
had scanned every feature of Nelly's face, every article of her clothing,
with critical inspection. " Possibly she may be attractive to people
who admire that st^'le. I confess I cannot interest myself about a
barmaid ! "

" Of course not, my dear," was the meek rejoinder, equally
sincere. " I only caught a glimpse of her by accident. I dare say
I was mistaken. Can I do anything for you in the Haymarket ? I
thought of going as far as the club."

Must I admit that he lingered in the passage, asking for letters he
had no reason to expect, so as to have another look at Mrs. John, if
only through the blurred and dingy panes of her glass cage ?

Nor was this worthy gentleman — a roundabout person of mature
age, under strict control of his wife — the only visitor who appreciated
her attractions. Every stranger of the male sex coming to engage
rooms, whether he went away disappointed or remained rejoicing,
paid his tribute of respectful tones and admiring glances to the pale,
sad, handsome woman who seemed to superintend this establishment
Friends of Mrs. Phipps, suddenly remembering they had been shame-
fully negligent, began to make afternoon calls with increasing fire-
quency, lingering and loitering in hopes of being invited to tea, until
some of the more persistent discovered that the aunt presided alone
over this agreeable refireshment, and the niece was satisfied with a
solitary cup and plate in her glass house. She kept them at a distance
all alike, and, if not unconscious of their admiration, accepted it with
calm disgust, as a necessary adjunct to the situation, like blacks in
the milk-jug or beetles on the kitchen floor.

So the weeks dragged on. Easter set in as usual with sleet and
snow ; the sweeps were too cold to dance with any attempt at merri-
ment on May-day ; and her Majesty's drawing-room was held in a

Roy's Wife. 405

pouring rain, that ladies clothed in virtue and loyalty, but otherwise
most insufficiently clad, only hoped might be the forerunner of a
thaw.

Everything seemed dismal enough. Tradesmen " supposed we
should have a dull season/' there was no news at the clubs, and those
who make dinner-conversation asserted incredible statistics of houses
to let and coachmen out of place.

But people thronged into town, nevertheless. The authorities
seized this opportunity to pick up the principal thoroughfares, so that
London, in its main streets, became impassable for many hours of the
day. Only by exercise of exceeding patience and dexterity, could
the driver of a four-wheeled cub thread his way along the Strand, and
when one of these vehicles stopped at the door of the Comer Hotel,
Comer Street, the cabman grinned his thanks for an extra shilling,
as having obeyed his fare's injunctions to " steer small."

Mrs. Phipps happened to meet this fresh arrival in the entrance.
At the first glance she made a bounce that seemed to lift her a foot
from the ground, and it is no reflection on her sense of propriety to
affirm that she resisted with difficulty a strong impulse to fling her
arms round his neck and hug him to her breast.

"What cheer, Mr. Brail?" she exclaimed, between laughing and
crying, in the exuberance of her welcome. "What cheer? as you
taught us to say before you sailed, and now I can't believe my eyes
to see you back, and you looking so well and hearty, not a pin the
worse ! "

" The worse ! " he repeated, taking both her hands; " why should
I be the worse ? Such a welcome as a man seems to get from all hands
when he sets his foot on shore might bring him into port again
though he had cleared out for the other world. England, home, and
beauty, Mrs. Phipps — that's the ticket ! This is home, and you are
beauty. Now, can you give me a bed ? "

" Ah I you 're the same man still ! I'm sure I wonder how you
keep your head on without somebody to hold it down I It wouldn't
have been^^//, of course, to liave thought of writing beforehand."

" I knew you would like a pleasant surprise, my dear lady. I
must have a bed here in the old shop, and that's all about it ! "

She looked affectionately in his frank, open face, tanned by
exposure to the colour of mahogany, contrasting well with his short,
crisp, light-brown hair, bearing sailor written on every line, and in
thorough keeping with his square, sinewy figure, his loose, powerful
limbs.

" I'm full," she said, " up to the attics. I sent away a French

4o6 The Gentlematis Magazin^

family not an hour ago; but I would rather turn out myself, and sleep
on the kitchen dresser, than not make room for you. Where is your
luggage ? — your traps, as you call them. Leave them there in the
passage, while I go and ask Nelly what's to be done."

" Nelly ! Miss Burton ! Is she here still ? Not spliced yet, nor
you neither, Mrs. Phipps ! That's even more extraordinary ! If I'd
kno^Ti you were going to keep single for my sake, I would never
have stayed away all this time cruising after the North Pole ! "

" Go along with you ! " she ansi^'ered, pushing him into her
sitting-room. " You're no better than you always was, and you'll
never mend your ways now ; but bad as you are, I've lain awake
many a stormy night thinking of you, and I am more than pleased,
young man, I am humbly thankful to see you back at home once
more ! "

Collingwood Brail, Esq., Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, lately of
her Majesty's shx^ Aurora^ paid off after the Arctic Expedition, had
frequented this Corner Street Hotel since the time when he used to
run up from Portsmouth on a week's leave, as mischievous a mid-
shipman as ever nibbled a biscuit or cut a brother reefer's hammock
down by the head. His frank boyish manners and kindly disposi-
tion wound themselves roimd the heart of his landlady, who darned
his stockings, mended his shirts, and overhauled his kit generally on
so many occasions that she began to consider him almost as a son.
Once when, after a long stare at the monument to Sir John Franklin
near the Duke of York's column, he found his pocket picked of every
shilling he possessed, she insisted on keeping him till his leave
expired, without sending in her bill, and then lent him a five-pound
note to take him back to his ship. She was fond of relating how, in
process of time, he returned the amount of his debt in full, not for-
getting gratuities to the ser\-ants, by the hand of a staid messmate,
who did not conceal, perhaps, that the scraping of such a sum
together out of daily pay was indeed, as young Brail described it, " a
tight fit" After he was " made," he wrote to her from the Tagus —
she had not an idea where it was, but prized her ship-letter all the
more, producing it with great importance at tea-parties and such occa-
sions of festivity, where it formed the principal topic of conversation.

" It's not out of sight out of mind with the blue-jackets," she
would say, wiping her eyes; " and the warmest hearts you will find
in this world of ours, take my word for it, are the hearts of oak ! "

Many a time when a gale of wind swept over London, bringing
showers of soot and dirt, with here and there a chimney-pot crashing
into the street, her blood ran cold to realise the dangers her young

Ray's Wife. ^ 407

sailor-friend must encounter ten thousand miles ofi^ wheiie, perhaps,
he was pacing the deck, impatient, in a dead calm, whistling for the
Iwceze.

She could never be brought to understand this, entertaining a
profound conviction that day and night a seaman was always battling
for life ; and she regarded every member of the profession as a hero
and martyr, with a turn for conviviality and light comedy, that
rendered him the pleasantest companion in the world.

Next to her niece there was nobody for whom she entertained so
strong a personal regard as Collingwood Brail.

And the man deserved it. Every inch of him was gentleman and
sailor — the finest combination in the world. Plain and downright in
conversation, but of a pleasant good-nature that made it impossible
to be rude, he would differ with you frankly, but never put you in
the wrong ; utterly devoid of affectation in dress, manner, and senti-
ments, he was scrupulously courteous and polite, without yielding a
jot of his own independence or self-respect Exceedingly deferential
to women, he did not seem to imply that they belonged to a different
order of beings either above or below his own; and to offend one by
word or deed would have appeared to him no less unmanly than to
hurt a child. As in person he was strong without being clumsy,
active without being restless, so, morally, he possessed good sense
without pomposity, and courage without bravado.

Then, besides these solid qualities, Mr. Brail had a hundred
trifling accomplishments, due to his nautical training, invaluable in
social life. Nobody organised a pic-nic, even to tjie tying-up of the
hampers, with such facility and such success. It seemed as if he could
turn his hand to anything, whether it were picketing the horses, light-
ing a fire in the copsewood, or washing plates and dishes when all
was done, and he had danced a hornpipe in and out the crockery
without damage to a single article. In a coimtry house, too, he was
never late for breakfast, never sleepy at night, dressed quicker and
turned out neater than any dandy in the company; shot well if he
was asked, fished if they wanted him, rode to hounds with unbounded
nerve, if little judgment; and imder any conditions would have
thought it as disgraceful to confess he was a pickpocket as to admit
he was bored !

With the success he achieved in his own profession we have
nothing to do, but it is easy to understand how such'a character would
be welcome everywhere to men, and exceedingly popular with women.
When Mr. Brail paid one of his visits to Comer Street as a lieutenant
of a year's standing, he found no difficulty in obtaining his share of

4o8 The Gentleman's Magazine.

those gaieties which are supposed to enliven the London season. It
was at a flower-show in the Horticultural Gardens that our light-
hearted sailor lost his liberty for good in a casual introduction to
Miss Bruce. Never before had he found himself unequal to such
social occasions, or utterly undone and consumed by a pair of bright
eyes that only meant to enliven and to warm. It was all up with
him in less than ten minutes. A handsome girl bending over the
azaleas ; a crafty old lady enjoying his discomfiture ; an introduction;
a bow; a walk to the next tent, and he was a free man no longer.
To use his own words, " He hauled down his colours at the first
shot, and for that kind of service never had the heart to hoist them
again ! "

Chapter XXI.

THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM.

A LIEUTENANT in the Royal Navy, by no means laid on the shelf,
could have but few opportimides of ingratiating himself with a young
lady in that class for which the amusements of a London season
constitute the great business of life during four months of every year.
The fact of her being an heiress, and only daughter, seemed but to
place her more completely out of reach ; and Collingwood Brail,
walking pensively home to Comer Street, had the good sense to tell
himself that, for all its romance, this late vision of love in the azaleas
must henceforth be looked back to as a dream.

The image of that handsome, high-bred girl, in her light summer-
dress, herself so like a flower, would haunt him for years. That could
not be helped. He would think of her when he walked the deck,
keeping his watches in the golden tropical nights, while topsails and
courses were bleached in the moonlight, and the ship almost steered
herself, smooth and easy, on an even keel. Yes, there could be no
harm in thinking of her at all times and seasons, in harbour or at sea,
always the last thing before going to sleep when he turned in. She
would never know it What matter? A man must do his duty according
to his rating, fore and afl, below and aloft. It was no use whining !
As for getting spliced to such an angel, he might as well expect to
be a rear-admiral in next week's Gazette. No. He must stick to
his profession, and make up his mind not to see Miss Bruce again.

But on his table lay a smooth, glazed card, such as he dis-
respectfully termed an '' invite to a hop," setting forth, in polite

Roy's Wife. 409

language, that Mrs. Lightfoot would be at home the same evening
at ten o'clock, with the word '' dancing^ added in fine Italian cha-
racters, lest visitors should be taken unawares. He had no earthly
reason to suppose that this hospitable lady numbered Miss Bruce
among her acquaintance ; but after '' holding on/* as he called it, in
profound reflection for five minutes, he rang the bell, ordered his
pumps to be polished up to the nines, and hardened his heart to go.

Mrs. Phipps, who had herself starched and folded his white
neckcloth, inspected him critically before she let him out, observing,
with her usual freedom, that " if the young ladies didn't flock round
this handsome sailor like flies to a jam-pot, they was a good deal
changed since her day, and changed moreover for the worse ! "

Fortune, while captious and uncertain, is so far a woman that
she favours those who trust her without reserve. Before young Brail
had been five minutes in the dancing-room, Miss Bruce entered it
with her chaperone, and, to the credit of our l^lue jacket be it said,
he hesitated not one moment, but, like the gallant tar immortalised
in verse, —

He stepped up unto her, and made a congee,
And axed of her pardon, for makin' of so free :

leading her off in triumph to a quadrille, which, on first acquaintance,
is perhaps a more eligible dance than a waltz.

Modest and unassuming, CoUingwood Brail was by no means
shy. Like most of his profession, he had plenty of self-confidence,
of self-consciousness none at all. Miss Bruce, rather tired of the
conventional dandy, who may or may not be amusing, but is
invariably egotistical, found her new admirer a most agreeable
partner ; so much so that she consented to accompany him to the
tea-room, unconsciously riveting his fetters with the slim white hand
she ungloved while giving him a bunch of film and gossamer, that
represented fan and handkerchief, to hold in his own. These little
graces completely finished him. She had made him fast now with a
double turn, and from that moment Mrs. Lightfoot's ball, its lustres,
music, and decorations, with all his other partners, ceased to have
any intrinsic value whatever, rendered precious only as contributing
to the greater glorification of Miss Bruce.

She danced with him once more after supper, and in that blissful
measure he contrived to make himself acquainted with her tastes and
usual haunts ; but his leave was nearly out, and he only met her
again, by one of those accidents which happen so often, at the Royal
Academy, after parading that exhibition for three mortal hours, till
his head swam and his eyes ached, while hat and boots felt so tight

41 o The GenUemafis Magazine.

that he could hardly bear to keep them on. Here she gave him a'
moment of intense happiness by stopping before a sea-piece, ordering
him to explain its details, and professing an interest in everything
pertaining to ships or sailors that set his pulses tingling with delight.
Such confidential interviews fleet only too fast, but he managed to
hint that those who went to sea carried with them many sweet
memories from the shore ; and though she looked down and madje
no answer, she seemed to think they left behind them pleasing
recollections in their turn.

While he walked along Piccadilly, he felt as if he had hazarded a
declaration in form ; but catching sight of her sweet face, half an
hour later, in an open carriage bowling through the Park, a chill
crept round his heart with the conviction that after all they lived in
separate worlds, and that when out of sight he was no more to her
than the crossing-sweeper in the street.

There are hot and cold fits in these maladies both equally
unreasonable. It is strange that the more experience men acquire
in such matters, the less subject are they to attacks of diffidence and
despondency, estimating their chances of winning in an inverse ratio
to their own value and appreciation of the prize. In the first flush
of manhood, they believe no woman thinks them worth looking at ;
in the decline of middle age, they fancy themselves objects of interest
and admiration to all. My own observation leads me to con-
clude that in love-making, as in other hazardous amusements, con-
fidence is a prime element of success. A rider should leap without
misgiving to the saddle, a swimmer trust himself fearlessly to the
wave ; and he who would advance in the good graces of a lady, old
or young, must be persuaded of his eventual success — above all,
must spare her the exertion of meeting him half-way. However
premature the advances of an admirer, no woman is quite taken so
much by surprise as she would have him think.

But Mr. Brail's captain was one of those smart officers who insist
on duty being done ; and within twenty-four hours of our young
lieutenant's visit to the Academy he had touched his hat to her
Majesty's quarter-deck, and reported himself " come on board," with
little chance of setting foot on English ground again till the ship was
paid off. He might not have revisited London during the whole
time she remained in commission, but that he was allowed to
volunteer for the Arctic Expedition, and, on being transferred to the
Aurora, made another trip to the metropolis for completion of his
kit. Of course he put up in Comer Street, and equally of course he
so disposed his leisure as to meet Miss Bruce more than once,
perhaps two or three times, always in rooms full of people, and

Roy^s Wife. 411

vigilantly guarded by her friends. It was love-making under diffi-
culties, I admit " A cat," they say, " may look at a king," but she
must not stare too often or too long ; and poor pussy would soon be
made to know her place if her eyes expressed half the affectionate
admiration she felt I protest these two young people never ex-
changed a word that might not have been entered on the ship's log,
and yet each was conscious of some mysterious interest in common,
some vague and delightful illusion, shared by the other, and forming
the happiness of both.

Once he plucked up courage to ask for a flower — forty people
were looking on — ^and she refused. "I should like to give you
something better," she murmured, with a glance over her bouquet
that was well worth all the posies ever gathered in a garden ; and
from that moment a faint ray of hope began to tremble in the dark-
ness, like the false dawn he had so often welcomed in his morning
watch, because he knew it was a sure forerunner of day. Their fare-
well, half-an-hour later, sounded commonplace enough.

" Good-bye, Miss Bruce ! I shall not see you again before I sail."

" No, indeed ! I am so sorry for you, Mr. Brail. How cold you
will be. Good-bye ! "

But cold as it was in latitude 84'* he contrived to keep that fare-
well warm in his heart, because of the wistful look that accompanied
it, and a little tremble in its accents detected by no ear but his own.

And now he was back in England, hearty, safe, and warm, pointed
at wherever he went as one of a handful of heroes, proudly conscious
that he had done his duty, and delighted to look in the homely, honest
face of his hostess once again.

**So you come to see rat, first P^ said Mrs. Phipps in a tone of
exceeding triumph, when she had pushed her visitor by main force
into her own particular chair. "Not before your mother? — now,
don't say it I know you better than that"

" My mother was on the jetty when I came ashore," he answered,
laughing. " I had the greatest difficulty in preventing her from treating
the boat's crew with new rum, and making every man-jack of them
beastly drunk ! "

"Have you brought her to London? Why didn't she come here?"

" Because I left her at home. I am going back in a day or two,
but I was bound to get to London at once. I didn't even go round
by Nether- Warden to see the old ladies, I was in such a precious
hurry to shake you by the hand."

Mrs. Phipps wiped her eyes. So conclusive a mark of friendship
could not but be gratifying, and no doubt the lieutenant was sincere,
not in the least suspecting that he hankered after London because

412 The Gentleman's Magazine.

he learned from his aunt's letters that the usual inmates of Warden-
Towers had gone to town for the season.

"You'll take some tea, my dear?" continued Mrs. Phipps, full of
affectionate hospitality. " It will be made directly the ketde boils.
Nelly ! Nelly ! " she continued, throwing up the window of the glass
case in which Mrs. John sat over her accounts, " you're wanted in
the parlour this minute. Never mind the washing-book just now.
Here's somebody come to see you that's dropped from the clouds ! "

Mrs. John's heart made a great jump, and then stood still. She
was white to the lips as she emerged from her hiding-place, and her
knees so shook that she could with difficulty stand upright. It was
wonderful how quickly she recovered her composure, when, on entering
her aunt's sitting room, the Arctic navigator grasped her cordially by
the hand. Even to herself the greeting she offered seemed cold and
restrained. It needed a strong effort to conceal her disappointment
and infuse a little heartiness into her tone.

She had expected something so different ! A sad, forgiving face,
loving, reproachful, yet more in sorrow than in anger, and a husband's
arms open to take her back in silent welcome to his heart and home.

The sailor only thought she looked worn, worried, and in weak
health, attributing her pale cheeks to a London atmosphere, and
deciding that she wanted nothing to set her up again but a good
long cruise in the country for change of air.

" Why, Miss Burton ! " he exclaimed, with friendly interest and
concern, "you've not been ill, have you? Handsome you always
were, and always will be, but, my dear young lady, what have you
done to lose all your roses since I saw you last ? "

" You must not call me Miss Burton," she replied, with the ghost
of a smile. " I go by the name of John now — Mrs. John — do you
think it pretty ? Hasn't auntie told you I've got married while you
were at sea ? "

" Married I " he repeated. ** Spliced ! you take away my breath !
And yet," he added gallantly, " I don't know why I should be sur-
prised, except at your finding anybody good enough. Well, I hope
you are very happy, and I'm sure I wish you joy with all my heart ! "

He took both her hands, and wondered to feel them lie so cold
and listless in his own.

Nelly had plenty of courage. Her frank, open disposition made
her only too ready to take the bull by the horns, and it was her
nature to trust a friend without reserve.

"Mr. Brail," said she, "joy does not come by wishing, and
whether it's our own fault or not, very few of us seem meant to be
happy in this world. I am manied, as I told you. I can't bring

414 ^^ Gentleman's Magazine.

\.

''THE CHARTER OF OUR POLICY"
AND THE TERMS OF PEACE.

IN his speech in the House of Lords, on the 26th of January last.
Lord Beaconsfield said : " The charter of our policy with regard to
the politics of Eastern Europe is the despatch of May." In that
despatch Lord Derby laid down on behalf of her Majest/s Govern-
ment four points which specially affected British interests, and therefore
vitally touched the conditions of our neutrality. These were Egypt,
the Suez Canal, the Straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, and
Constantinople. Egypt and the Suez Canal must be kept outside the
theatre of Russia's operations ; no alteration must be made in the stcUus
quo of the Straits without the consent of England; and "her Majesty's
Government could not view witii indifference " a change of masters at
Constantinople. As to Egypt and the Suez Canal, an impartial neu-
trality would surely have laid on the Sultan the same embargo which
it laid on the Czar. As a matter of fact, however, the Sultan was
allowed to embrace Egypt and the Suez Canal within the area of his
operations against Russia, while the Emperor of Russia was prevented,
by the conditions of neutrality laid down by Lord Derby, from
defending himself in that quarter. Nevertheless, the Russian Govern-
ment overlooked this unfairness, and frankly accepted Lord Derby's
somewhat one-sided conditions. In his reply to the despatch of
May 6 — " the charter of our policy" — Prince Gortchakoff promised to
exclude Egypt and the Suez Canal from the field of warfare, and to
submit whatever arrangement Russia might propose in regard to the
Straits to the final decision of the great Powers. As to Constanti-
nople, while reserving the right to occupy it for military purposes if
necessary, Prince Gortchakoff declared that it could not be allowed
to fall into the hands of any of the great Powers, and that its future
destiny, if the issue of the war should raise that question, must be
decided by the common voice of Europe.

Before the receipt of Prince Gortchakoff 's despatch, however, Mr.
Cross delivered the oft-quoted speech in which he appeared to deny
to Russia the right of "approaching" Constantinople, and still more

" The Charter vf mir PoBc^." 415

of occupying it, ^en temporarily. Russia had no official cognizance
of the Home Secretary's speech, and was in no sense bound by it. But
the Emperor of Russia and his Government were evidently most
anxious to have a complete and friendly understanding with England;
They determined accordingly that the ambiguity which Mr. Cross's
language had cast over "the charter of our poHcy" should be cleared
up without delay. Count Schouvaloflf was in Russia at the time, and
immediatdy on his return to London he made a clean breast of the
Russian terms to Lord Derby. In the important Memorandum
which contains what may be called " the charter of Russian policy,"
the Emperor repeats his promise about Egypt, the Suez Canal, and
the Straits. But—

With regard to Constantinople, our assurances can only refer to taking posses-
sion of the town, or occupying it permanently. It would be singular and without
precedent, if, at the outset of war, one of the belligerents undertook beforehand
not to pursue its military operations up to the walls of the capitaL It is not im-
possible that the obstinacy of the Turks, especially if they knew themselves to be
guaranteed against such an eventuality, may prolong the war instead of bringing
it to a speedy termination. When once the English ministry is fully assured that
we shall under no circumstances remain at Constantinople, it will depend apon
England and the other Powers- to relieve us of the necessity of even approaching
the town. It will be sufficient for them to use their influence with the Turks with

a view to make peace possible before this extreme step is taken England

appears to fear lest the spreading or consequences of the war should lead us to
threaten Bassorah and the Persian Gulf. It is not at all to our interest to trouble
England in her Indian possessions, or, consequently, in her communications with
them.

There are those, I am sorry to know, who proclaim aloud that the
solemn assmances of the Emperor of Russia and of his Government
are not to be believed. But the necessary corollary of that opinion
is, that we should break off all diplomatic intercourse with Russia.
Indeed, according to these wiseacres, we ought never to have held
such intercourse with her; for their impeachment of her honesty and
veracity extends back into the twilight of Russian history. It is not
necessary to answer absurdities; but, as a matter of fact, the Emperor
gave hostages for his good faith on this occasion. He exposed his
plans, and thereby gave Lord Beaconsfield an opportunity of defeating
them, if he thought them incompatible with " the charter of our
policy." " What is necessary to England," said the Emperor, " is the
maintenance in principle of the Ottoman Empire, and the inviolability
of Constantinople and the Straits." It may indeed be questioned
whether " the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire," either in principle
or in fact, is " necessary to England." But the Czar may be excused
for believing what English j statesmen andjpublicists were constantly

41 6 The Gentlematis Magazine.

dinning into the ears of Europe. He accepted our Government's
definition of English policy, and he promised to respect it

Has that promise been violated by the terms of peace agreed
upon at San Stefano? ''We may briefly compliment General
Ignatieft's skill," says the Daily Telegraph of March 5, " by saying
that, without aflbrding England a technical casus belli^ he has
undermined every single British interest laid down in the " charter of
our policy." And then follows the usual rodomontade about " the
sacrifice of his master's honour." But the terms of peace agreed
upon between Count Ignatieff and the Turkish Government are
substantially the same as those communicated to the English Go-
vernment in the early part of last June. They differ in no essential
respect, and certainly not on any point which touches " the charter of
our policy." Russia engaged "not to touch" Egypt or the Suez
Canal: she has not touched them. She promised to reserve the question
of the Straits for the decision of a European Congress : she has reserved
it. She stipulated for the right to occupy, while she disclaimed the
intention of holding, Constantinople: she has resisted the temptation
to occupy Constantinople, though urged thereto by a victorious army,
and provoked by the forcible entrance of the English fleet into the
Sea of Marmora.

But we are told that the terms of peace place Turkey at the
mercy of Russia. Be it so. But that objection applies with equal
force to the terms of Russia as revealed to our Government last
June. In fact, not a single objection can be made against the terms
of peace radfled at San Stefano, which are not equally applicable to
the terms of peace communicated to our Government nine months
ago; and for the simple reason that the Emperor of Russia, with
singular moderation, has offered to Turkey, at the end of a campaign
which has crushed her, the same terms, with scarcely an alteration,
on which he offered to make peace with her before he crossed the
Danube. And this, though he expressly reserved the right of raising
his terms in the event of his army being obliged to cross the Balkans.
On the other hand. Lord Beaconsfleld's Government, far from
resenting the Russian terms as an infringement of " the charter of
our policy," expressed " satisfaction " at their moderation so long ago
as the beginning of last August^ If, then, Count Ignatieff has
" undermined every single British interest laid down in the * charter
of our policy,' " he has done so not only with the full knowledge, but
with the express " satisfaction," of the British Government

But let us look at these "undermined" interests, and see if we can

« ParL Paper, Turkey, 9 (1878), p. 3,

" The Charter of our Policy T 417

discover the damage they have received. They are four in number:
and with respect to two of them (Egypt and the Suez Canal), Mr.
Cross, in his famous speech, said truly, that if either were attacked by
Russia, " it would not be a question of the interests of England, but
of the whole world." As Russia is not very likely to challenge the
hostility of " the whole world," we may safely consider that two at
least of the British interests which make up " the charter of our
policy" have escaped the "undermining" craft of the wily Ignatieff.
There remain Constantinople and the Straits. But the importance
of Constantinople and the Straits to England depends on their being
used as a base of operation against India. Destroy the nexus between
these two ideas, and you destroy the special value of Constantinople
as a ^tor in British policy. England will be less interested in its
£ite than almost any of the great Powers of Europe.

Now, if Russia has no designs on India, her possession of Con-
stantinople would not greatly concern us. Has she any such designs ?
" It is not at all to our interest," says the Memorandum of Russian
policy communicated to our Government last June, "to trouble
England in her Indian possessions." Nor would it be at all to the
interest of Russia, I believe, to possess herself of Constantinople.
Let us examihe the question, then, by the test of Russian interests.

And, first, as to India. It is the settled belief of a large section
of Englishmen that Russia is pursuing her conquests in Central Asia
for the purpose of pushing her firontier to some convenient point firom
which she may be able to invade India. In considering the pos-
sibility of such an enterprise, it is necessary to remember that the
conditions of warfare h^ve greatly changed since the oriental expedi-
tion of Alexander the Great An army now requires a very different
train from that which would have sufficed for the days of spears
and bows and arrows. The campaign which has just ended has
lasted more than nine months, reckoning from the crossing of the
Turkish frontier to the signature of the armistice at Adrianople ;
and it has required the active service, from first to last, of at least
400,000 soldiers. Yet Turkey lies close to the enemy's frontier. No
hostile population intervened, and no physical barriers of any moment
had to be surmounted. We may safely assert, therefore, that a
prudent commander would not undertake the conquest of India from
any base of operation open to Russia with an army of less than
500,000. Half that number would probably be required to keep
open his line of communication. But let us suppose, for argument's
sake, that an army of 200,000 would give Russia a bare chance of
success. That host, with all its necessary equipments, Russia would

TOL. CCXLII. NO. 1768. B B

41 8 The Gentlemaris Magazine.

have to transport through hundreds of miles of what is, to a large
extent, a trackless waste. Through most of it there are no other
roads than camel paths. An army of the size I have supposed would
therefore require, according to the estimate of mihtary experts, a
transport service of about 400,000 camels, 300,000 horses, and
1,500,000 camp followers. The territory to be traversed is poor, and
singularly ill-suited to supply the wants of so huge a multitude. But
let us suppose that by some miracle the difficulty could be overcome.
Even under the most favourable circumstances the invading army would
take many months to traverse the distance between its base and our
frontier. And what should we be doing meanwhile ? We should be
doing two things. We should be making preparations to meet the
attack on a scale commensurate with the occasion and with our vast
resources, and our agents would be busy stirring up disa£fection in
the rear of the invaders and hampering their communications over an
extent of roadless territory so vast as to be incapable of being effec-
tively guarded. Considering the difficulties and dangers Russia had
to encotmter in invading so puny a Power as Khiva, it is easy to
estimate the risks she would have to face in a march to India.
Financially the enterprise would be most ruinous. According to
Major Wood, a competent authority, every round shot now brought
to Central Asia costs Russia £2 in transport alone. What would a
park of artillery cost by the time it reached the frontiers of British
India?

But let us postulate another miracle, and assume that the
Russian Army escaped all the perils and difficulties which I have
indicated, and which, in fact, would be inevitable. Let us suppose
that it arrived 200,000 strong, and thoroughly equipped, at the base
of the range of lofty mountains which guard our Indian Empire. I
believe I am correct in saying that the only practicable route for any
invading army that Russia could send against us in India would,
according to the best military opinion, be through Afghanistan.
This would limit such a force as I have supposed to the choice of
one of two passes — the Kyber and the Bolan. A British army
received, a generation ago, a memorable lesson as to the difficulty of
traversing the Kyber Pass in the face of a comparatively insignificant
foe. The passage of the Bolan Pass would be hardly less perilous
when disputed by a determined adversary. The mouths of these
passes are in our possession, besides a series of detached forts and
military stations scattered along our frontier at the foot of the
mountains. Here, supposing it to advance so far without molesta-
tion, the Russian army would find us fresh and ready to give it a

*• The Charter o/aurPoluy:' 419

wann reception; behind us boundless resources in men and money,
plains seamed by railways, and an ocean owning our undisputed
sway. Defeat to the Russian army under such circumstances would
be absolute ruin. Its prestige gone, swarms of enemies would rise
up behind and around it to cut off its retreat And the blow of so
great a disaster would reverberate far beyond the Indus ; it would
imperil riot only the Asiatic position of Russia — ^it would shake her
to her centre even in Europe.*

Let us, however, make another concession for the sake of
argument Let us suppose that our arms received a check in our
first encoimter with Russia. This, no doubt, would be a serious
mishap, as it might encoiu^ge disaffection on the part of some of our
native population. But we should have made ample preparation for
such a contingency, and, with the certainty of being able to rely on
the loyalty of our most warlike tribes in the emergency, we should be
able to dispute the advance of Russia step by step, while at the same
time harassing her in the rear.

But if, contrary to all reasonable calculations, Russia should
succeed in breaking oiu* power in India and driving us to our ships,
even in that case she would be only at the threshold of her difficul-
ties. Having got rid of us, she would have to begin afresh the
conquest of India for herself. Her only chance against us would lie
in the seduction of some of our Indian subjects from their allegiance,
thus turning their arms against us. But it is safe to say that no
appreciable section of the people of India would help Russia to break
our yoke for the purpose of having her own imposed in its stead. If
they assisted her to get rid of us at all, it would certainly be in order
to get rid of foreign rule altogether. So that Russia, after driving us
out of the country, would find herself surrounded by hostile popula-
tions— ^both those who helped her against us and those who fought
on our side — all eager to drive her after us.

The defeat of the English rule in India, therefore, supposing it
possible, would be only the beginning of Russia's troubles. She
would have to subdue India to her own rule and reorganize its civil
service; and no one who will take the trouble to think out the
problem can doubt that long before its solution India would accom-
plish the ruin of Russia. The task is one which, under such favour-

' It may be as well to state that the whole of this article was written before I
saw Mr. Laing's able article in the Fortnightly Review, In fact, I used the same
line of argument against a Russian invasion of India in a volume entitled The
Eastern Queftion : its Facts and FallacieSy which I published a year ago.

BE2

430 The GentUmafis Magasine.

able conditions as Russia could not expect, has taken ouisdves more
than a centuiy to fulfil

Thus we see that, when the theory of a Russian conquest of India
is dragged out into the light and confronted with what the late
Emperor Napoleon used to call " the irresistible logic of fects," it is
found to have no more substance in it than a nursery bogey. Lord
Hardinge, who afterwards succeeded the Duke of Wellington as
commander-in-chief, characterised the fear of a Russian invasion of
India as '' a political nightmare." '' Lord Hardinge is quite ri^t,"
said the Duke, when this was reported to him. '' Rely upon it, you
have nothing to fear from Russia in that direction."

So much as to the possibility of Russia conquering India if she
wished it But does she wish it ? She is a country which is supposed,
even by those who fear and dislike her most, to understand her own
interests uncommonly well. Would it, then, be to the interest of
Russia to acquire India, even if she could do so without firing a shot
or sacrificing a man ? My belief is that, on the mere ground of an
enlightened self-interest, Russia would decline the perilous gift of
India, if England were to make her the offer of it. I will go further,
and hazard the opinion that there is not a single State in Europe
which would accept India at our hands. Indeed, I doubt whether
we should accept it ourselves at this moment if it were offered to us
by a foreign Power. Being there, we must of course make the best
of our position. We have contracted responsibilities towards the
people of India which we are morally bound to discharge^ even at the
cost of some detriment to interests which are purely British. But it
may be questioned whether our profit from India is not more than
counterbalanced by the loss. India gives employment to some
portion of our educated population, and a change of rulers might
possibly affect a certain class of British merchandise injuriously for a
season. On the other hand, tlie possession of India adds consider-
ably to our annual expenditure, and cripples us seriously as a
European Power. The protection afforded by the " streak of silver
sea " may be sneered at ; but it is a very real protection. Not only
does it make this country almost invulnerable to attack ; it affords
at the same time a good security against any reasonable motive
for attack. States whose frontiers touch each other have the
materials for a quarrel ever ready to their hands. Their relations are
always liable to be disturbed by questions of boundary, or of race or
religion. There is scarcely a State on the continent of Europe
which would not gladly rectify its frontier at the expense of its
neighbours. The frontier of England was made by nature, and

" The Charter of our Policy!' 42 1

cannot be altered by man. Were Ireland separated from France by
no stronger barrier than a narrow river or a mountain range, it might
at this moment be a French province. India is our great weakness
as a military power. It keeps our relations with Russia — most need-
lessly, as I think, yet as a matter of fact — in a state of chronic
friction ; and if we were engaged in war with Russia or with any
other Power, half our strength would be neutralized by the necessity
of keeping a large army in India to prevent a rising of our Mussul-
man population.

These are considerations which would certainly prevent any
English Government from running even a moderate risk for the
acquisition of India, though India is undoubtedly more profitable to
us than it would be to any other Power. Yet a number of sane
people among us are dominated by an insane fear that Russia would
risk her existence to wrest India from our grasp. Of what use
would India be to her ? It would be more likely to impoverish than
to enrich her exchequer, and in the event of war with this country
India would be a source of much greater weakness to her than it is
now to us, with our undisputed command of the sea. Nor does
Russia need any outlet, as we do, for a redundant population. On
the contrary, her population is far too sparse for the area over which
she rules. In short, if the enemies of Russia could devise a scheme
more certain than any other to lead her to ruin, it would be to tempt
her to engage in the desperate hazard of a war of conquest in India.
So that, in refusing to believe that Russia harbours any design of the
sort, I am not crediting her with any transcendental unselfishness
or any extraordinary freedom from political ambition. I am crediting
her with nothing more than the possession of reasoning faculties, and
a lively sense of her own interests. Even the most timid or most
violent of Russophobists do not believe that Russia is a nation
of lunatics ; yet they speak and act as if this were their settled
conviction.

But it may be answered that Russia, without intending to acquire
India for herself, would be likely to use her position in Central Asia
or Armenia to intrigue against us in India. And this will certainly
be the case if we succeed in convincing Russia that British interests
are in eternal antagonism to Russian interests. In that case it will
be the interest of Russia, as of any other Power in similar circum-
stances, to do us all the mischief she can. But I have shown that
there is no necessary antagonism between the interests of Russia and
our interests as rulers of India. Where, then, does this conflict of
interests lie ? In Constantinople ? Now, I do not wish to see the

422 The Genilemads Magasmt.

Russians in possession of Constantinople (I do not qiean a temporaiy
occupation, which is a different matter), for the same reason that I
should not wish to see the French, or for that matter the English, in
possession of it; namely, because they have no business there.
I wish to see Constantinople restored to those who are politically the
residuary legatees of its present possessors. The Turks have never
established a righteous claim of ownership either to Constantinople
or to any other territory under their withering rule. The so-called
right of conquest is simply the right of the sword ; and that is a
right which is never legitimate unless sanctioned by justice. A
people deprived of the elementary rights of justice and humanity,
which is the condition of the Rayahs of Turkey in law and fact, owe
no allegiance to the governing Power, and are justified in rising
against it as often as a fair chance of success presents itself. Length
of time cannot convert brigandage into a legitimate rule or consecrate
slavery into lawful ownership. The rule of the Turk has ever been
that of the brigand and the slave-owner, and it was one of the cardinal
blunders of the Treaty of Paris to admit him into the society of
civilized States, Constantinople, therefore, has never belonged to the
Sultan as of right ; and if it cannot at present be made the capital of
a Greek or Slav State, or Confederation of States, it might surely be
made a Free City under the protection of Europe.

But if I were a believer in the sordid gospel of British interests
before all things, and at the same time feared a Russian invasion of
India, I should consider it part of my mission as a British patriot to
do what I could to entice Russia to Constantinople. For Russia at
Constantinople would mean Russia in command of some of the
fairest and most fertile regions of the globe — regions now l3ring
desolate under the blight of Turkish misrule; but which would
again blossom as the rose under the fostering influences of civilized
government. An idea of the withering curse of Mussulman domina-
tion may be gathered from one pregnant fact mentioned by Pro-
fessor Paparrigopoulos, of Athens, in his " History of the HeUenic
Nation."* In the beginning of the 13th century the annual revenue
of the Byzantine Empire was 26 millions sterling, equivalent to about
130 millions sterling at the present day. Yet at that time the chief
part of Asia Minor, with its numerous flourishing cities, had been
wrested from the Byzantine Empire by the Turks. Lower Italy, too,
had been seized by the Normans, and the Crusades had entailed
losses which seriously reduced the public revenue. Freedom from
customs dues and other privileges had been gradually granted to

' *\aropia roS 'EXXifyiicov ''Etfrovt, vol. ill bk. x.

'• The Charter of our Policy:' 423

the Venetian, Genoese, and Pisan Colonies which had settled in
Constantinople and other parts of the Empire ; and this made
another hole in the public revenue. In short, the Turkish Empire
of our day possesses an extent of territory far more productive than
that owned by the Byzantine Empire in the early part of the 13th
century. Yet, whereas the public revenue of the former amounted to
130 millions sterling, that of the latter before the commencement
of the present war was only about 18 millions.

The process of decay might be illustrated in detail. Let a few
examples suffice. And first as to agriculture. Tiurkey possesses all
the conditions favourable to agricultural development in a degree
imapproached by any other country in the wdrld: climate, geo-
graphical position, fertility of soil, easy channels of exportation.
Possessing the climates, it yields the fruits and products, of all the
zones. Astride on Europe and Asia, it commands the richest terri-
tories of both continents, and is still sovereign over the fertile valley
of the Nile. It abounds in lakes, is indented by numerous bays
and gulfs, and is washed by six seas, all which offer it rare advantages
for maritime commerce. The country is, besides, intersected by
broad and deep rivers, ready to bear its produce to the sea: in
Eiurope, the Danube, Save, Morava, Sereth, and Olto ; in Asia, the
Euphrates, Tigris, Kizil-Ismak, and the storied Jordan ; in Africa,
the fertilizing Nile. In no country of the world have the gifts of
God been lavished in richer profusion. In none have they been so
grossly and so systematically abused by the perverseness of man.
The silence of desolation now broods over vast tracts of land which
once waved with golden harvests, and over scores of flourishing
cities which were the homes of busy industries and an advanced
civilization. Regions which formerly supported the capitals of
ancient kingdoms — Pergamos, Sardis, Cyzica, Prusium, Troy, Nico-
media, and many more — ^have been reduced by Turkish rule to
cheerless solitudes, broken at intervals by the tents of nomad
Kurds or Turcomans. According to Ubicini, who wrote twenty years
ago as an apologist of the Turkish Government, the annual produce
of com in Asia Minor was then estimated at 25,000,000 Turkish
kilfes, representing a value of about ;;^3,ooo,ooo. And he thinks
that this amount might easily be increased tenfold, ** if the great
productiveness of the soil were tinned to account." ^ " The same
remark applies," he adds, " to all other productions which serve for
local consumption or for exportation."

The decay of every kind of manufacturing industry is not less
conspicuous than that of agriculture. A few examples must suffice

' Lettres sur la Tiirguu, voL L p. 367.

4^4 The Gentleman's Magazine.

on this head also. In 1 812 there were two thousand looms of muslin
at work in Timova and Scutari. In 1841 the number had &llen to
two hundred, and I question whether they now reach one hundred.
Diarbekir and Broussa, which were once so famous for their velvets,
satins, and silk stuffs, have been ruined by Turkish misrule, and do
not now produce a tenth part of what they yielded even fifty years
ago. Aleppo and Bagdad tell the same tale.

Turkey also abounds in mineral wealth. It possesses copper
mines which yield thirty per cent of ore, while the best English
mines, I believe, yield no more than ten per cent And it has coal in
abundance within easy access of its iron and mineral ore. In Asia
Minor alone eighty-four mines were in full operation when the country
passed into the hands of the Turks. I believe the number worked
now is under a dozen, and these yield, under Turkish mismanage-
ment, but a small part of their wealth.

Am I not right, then, in saying that a policy which had for its
supreme object to keep Russia away from India would welcome her
to Constantinople ? She has no motive to vex us in India, except in
so far as it might enable her to checkmate us in Turkey. On the
other hand, we have no motive, from an exclusively British-interest
point of view, to checkmate Russia in Turkey, except for the pur-
pose of preventing her from troubling us in India. But put Russia
in possession, of the fair lands which now lie fallow under the
dominion of the Turk, and can anybody out of Bedlam imagine that
she would turn her back on the buried treasures which lie so invitingly
at her feet in order to waste her resources on the stake — fatal if lost,
profitless if won — of conquering India ? Prince Gortchakoff might
well declare that so egregious an absurdity belongs to the '' domain
of political mythology." '

But is there any evidence that Russia really covets Constanti-
nople at all? Successive Emperors and Governments have dis-
claimed any such desire. But let us put aside all such disclaimers,
and let us again test the question by the touchstone of Russian
interests. Would it be to the interest of Russia to be mistress of
Constantinople ? I believe, on the contrary, that it would be her ruin.
The possession of Constantinople would force her to annex a con-
siderable portion of territory inhabited by populations whose grati-
tude for dehverance from Turkish oppression would soon change
into hatred of their new masters. But let us suppose, against all
probability, that Russia succeeded in reconciling with each other and
to her own rule the various races of her new territory. She would
then have to face a new difficulty. The attraction of Constantinople

- Pari. Paper, Turkey, No. i (1877), p. 736.

" The Charter of our Policy:' 425

would be such that the political centre of gravity of the Empire
would inevitably settle on the Bosphorus. The result would be a
conflict of interests. Moscow would be jealous of Constantinople,
and Constantinople would look down on Moscow. Byzantium and
Muscovy would refuse to amalgamate, and the Russian Empire
would go to pieces in the vain effort of mutual assimilation. All
intelligent Russians know this, and, consequently, do not wish to
possess Constantinople. What they do wish they have more than
once frankly avowed. Three months after the Peace of Adrianople,
the late Chancellor Nesselrode wrote as follows to the Grand Duke
Constantine of that day, uncle of the present Emperor : —

There was nothing to prevent our armies from marching on Constantinople
and overthrowing the Turkish Empire. No Power would have opposed, no
danger menaced us, if we had given the finishing stroke to the Ottoman monarchy
in Europe. But, in the opinion of the Emperor, that monarchy, weakened and
under the protection of Russia, is more advantageous to our interests, political
and commercial, than any new combination which might force us either to extend
our territories by conquest, or to substitute for the Ottoman Empire some States
which would not be slow to compete with us in power, in civilization, in industry,
and wealth. It is on this principle that his Imperial Majesty has always regulated
his relations with the Divan.

The letter from which this extract is taken, let it be remembered,
was a private letter addressed to a member of the Imperial family.
So that the writer had no motive for disguising his real sentiments.

In the summer of 1853 Count Nesselrode made a similar dis-
claimer on behalf of his Imperial Master ; and in the course of the
same year the Emperor held his memorable conversations with Sir
Hamilton Seymour on the condition of the Sick Man and the des-
tiny of his inheritance. I quote the following extracts : —

With regard to Constantinople, I am not under the same illusions as Catherine II.
On the contrary, I regard the inmiense extent of Russia as her real danger. I should
like to see Turkey strong enough to be able to make herself respected by the other
Powers. But if she is dooined to perish, Russia and England should come to an
agreement as to what should be put in her place. I propose to form the Dann-
bian Principalities, with Servia and Bulgaria, into one independent State, placed
under the protection of Russia ; and I declare that Russia has no ambition to
extend her sovereignty over the territories of Turkey.

England might take Egypt and Crete ; but I could not aUow her to establish
herself at Constantinople, and this I say frankly. On the other hand, I would
undertake to promise, on my part, never to take Constantinople, if the arrange-
ment which I propose should be concluded between Russia and England. I(
indeed, Turkey were to go suddenly to pieces before the conclusion of that con-
vention, and I should find it necessary to occupy Constantinople, I would not, of
course, promise not to do so.

On a subsequent occasion the Emperor said : —
I would not permit any Power so strong as England to occupy the Bosphorus,

4^6 The GenUemafis Magazine.

by which the Dnieper and the Don find their wayinto the Meditenanean, "While
the Black Sea is between the Don, the Dnieper, and the Bosphoms, the command
of that Strait would destroy the commerce of Russia and close to her fleet the road
to the Mediterranean. If an Emperor of Russia should one day chance to conquer
Constantinople, or should find himself forced to occupy it permanently, and fortify
it with a view to making it impregnable, firom that day would date the decline of
Russia. If I did not transfer my residence to the Bosphorus, my son, or at least
my grandson, would. The change would certainly be made sooner or later ; for
the Bosphorus is warmer, more agreeable, more beautifiil than Petersburg or
Moscow ; and if once the Czar were to take up his abode at Constantinople,
Russia would cease to be Russia. No Russian would like that There is not a
Russian who would not like to see a Christian crusade for the delivery of the
mosque of Saint Sophia ; I should like it as much as anyone. But nobody would
like to see the Kremlin transported to the Seven Towers.

These are the views of all thoughtful Russians ; but their chief
recommendation is that they are the dictates of common sense and
political prudence. The practical protectorate of an impotent Turkey
ruling over a cluster of petty vassal Principalities will suit Russia
much better than the actual possession of Constantinople with its
contiguous, territory. But whatever objections may be urged on
other grounds, our Indian Empire runs no risk from either contin-
gency. The more that Russia gravitates towards the South, the less
likely is she to meddle with India.

Thus we see that the policy of Russia, tried by the rule of selfish-
ness, is in no way antagonistic to British interests. In truth, there
are not two States in the world whose interests so imperatively
demand mutual co-operation on the part of their respective Govern-
ments. Let it go forth throughout the East that there is an entmte
cordiaU between Russia and England, and neither country need fear
any rebellion on the part of its Asiatic subjects. It is in our mutual
hostility that the hopes of the disaffected lie.

What, then, ought to be the policy of England at the coming
Congress or Conference? I think I have in the preceding pages
given some good reasons to show that there is no necessary
antagonism between British and Russian interests. Russia has no
more idea of conquering India than she has of capturing the man in
the moon. Not being a nation of idiots, the Russians know that the
one enterprise would be almost as feasible and quite as profitable as
the other. But if the notion that Russia meditates the conquest of
India is so utterly groundless and irrational, how shall we account
for its dominating the minds of so many able men, some of them
remarkable for political capacity and for experience in affairs? As
well ask me to account for any of the myriad superstitions that have
at various times awed and vexed mankind Why did the laws of
Ei^land condenm innocent women to be burnt as witches? Why

" The Charter of fmr Policy^ 427

did the same laws visit with capital punishment a theft in a shop to
the amount of five shillings ? Why was Sir Samuel Romilly's Bill for
the abolition of that atrocious law rejected in the House of Lords by
a majority of three to one — the majority including the most eminent
members of the Episcopal Bench and all the law Lords, and being
backed by the unanimous recommendation of all the judges in the
land ? Why did the Duke of Wellington and a large proportion of
the ablest men in the kingdom believe that the Reform Bill of 1832
involved the ruin of the State? Why did Mr. Disraeli declare in
1866 that Mr. Gladstone's very moderate Reform Bill would '^ change
England from a first-rate empire to a third-rate republic"?* Why
did the same minister maintain, two years ago, that the title of
Empress of India would be an eternal securit}' to our Indian Empire
against the ambitious designs of Russia ? What did Lord Palmerston
believe about the Suez Canal? Read his words : —

It may safely be said that as a commercial un^^'^^ang it is a bubble scheme
which has been taken up on political g.'. in antagonism to English

interests and English policy . . . The political objects of the enterprise are
hostility to England in every possible modification of the scheme.

But why should the French nation plan this subtle scheme for
the ruin of England? Lord Palmerston had his answer ready: —

We have on the other side of the Channel [he wrote in 1862] a people who,
say what they may, hate us as a nation from the bottom of their hearts, and would
make any sacrifice to inflict a deep himiiliation upon England.*

When Lord Palmerston spoke and wrote thus he was the popular
and trusted Prime Minister of England, and probably the majority of
Englishmen shared his opinions. There is probably not a sane
man in the kingdom now who does not consider those opinions more
fit for the babble of the nursery than for the debates of a deliberative
assembly. Yet we are separated from that delusion by a period of
no more than sixteen years. I venture to predict that long before
we span the same space of time lying before us the Russian
hobgoblin will have been laid in the spacious tomb of obsolete
superstitions, and the only wonder will be that sane men and
sensible women ever allowed themselves to be disturbed by so
unsubstantial a phantom.

But if Russia has no designs on India, it is plain that our chief
interest in the terms of peace lies in their bearing on the future of
the liberated provinces. Two courses are thus open to us. We
may enter the Congress inspired by jealousy of Russia, and determined
to abate as much as possible the charter of rights which she offers to

* Disraeli's Speeches on Parliamentary Reform^ p. 397.
' Ashley's Ltfe of Palmerston^ vol. ii. pp. 224, 326.

428 The GentUmafis Magazine.

the victims of a long and cruel bondage; or we may co-operate
with her and the other Powers in the work of reconstruction, and
even in advocating, if we see a chance, an extension of freedom. By
the former policy we shall be gratuitously throwing away an opportunity
— perhaps our last — of ingratiating ourselves with the future rulers of
the lands which have virtually ceased to be the Turkish Empire.
We shall at the same time be playing into the hands of Russia with
a maladroit skill which will serve her much better than the cunning
of Ignatieff or the skill of Gortchakoff. We shall compel the
liberated races of Turkey to look to her as their only friend and
protector, and we shall be giving Russia at the same time a plausible
excuse for future intervention. By the latter policy we shall, in the
first place, be making some atonement for past wrongs. England must
bear the largest share of blame for the crime — for crime it is— of having
turned for so long a time " the keys of hell" — to use Mr. Lowe's
forcible expression — upon " the prisoners of hope." The Rayahs of
Turkey would long ago have broken their fetters and achieved their
freedom, if the brutal — ^and not more brutal than purblind — selfish-
ness of the Christian Powers, and of England in particular, had not
conspired with the tyrant to keep his victims down. Let us then,
even at the eleventh hour, grace at least with our benediction a
deliverance which we did nothing to accomplish and much to thwart
Should there be a question of revising the bounds of the liberated terri-
tory, let us make sure that if any retrenchment is made, not an inch
of soil on which the sun of freedom has smiled shall be given back
to bondage. If Bulgaria is to be a loser, let Greece, not Turkey, be
the gainer. But surely the better policy would be — ^better in the
interest not of humanity merely, but of the peace of Europe — that,
if the Sultan is still to retain any sovereign power in Europe, his
direct sway should not extend beyond Constantinople and its
environs. WTien we are about it, why not give Greece at once the
provinces to which she has a fair claim? To leave them under
Turkish administration, while the Slav provinces are rejoicing in
freedom, would be not less short-sighted than cruel. The Greek
War of Independence, with its impotent conclusion, ought to be a
sufficient warning against the folly of attempting to put artificial
bounds to the natural development of a vigorous nationality. Even
the most strenuous advocate of a " traditional policy " can hardly
think that the Turkish Government is any longer a bulwark to our
Indian Empire. Is it not wiser to discard a policy discredited by
events, and to believe for the future that "Britannia needs no
bulwarks" which require the support of a cruel and debasing
tyranny? malcolm maccoll.

429

JOSEPH SURFACE.

" ^\7'0U forget, Jack, I wrote it*' said Sheridan, when John Pakner
X approached him with Joseph Surface airs of sanctimonious
humility, his body bowed forward, his eyes upturned, his hands clasped,
and began in soothing tones, '^ My dear Mr. Sheridan, if you could
but know what I feel at this moment here /" and then he laid his hand
upon his heart. Palmer had returned, professing penitence, to Drury
Lane, after a vain attempt to establish an opposition theatre in
Wellclose Square, Goodman's Fields. He was wont to state con-
cerning Sheridan's witty interruption, " It cost him something, for
I made him add three pounds per week to my salar}'." He was
designated " Plausible Jack." He protested, " I am not so irresis-
tible as I am said to be ; but one thing in the way of address I am
able to do. Whenever I am arrested, I think I can always persuade
the sheriffs officer to bail me." It so happened that he was fre-
quently arrested. To avoid the bailiffs, he lived for some time in his
dressing-room at Drury Lane Theatre, and was conveyed thence at
the close of the season, concealed in a cart full of scenery, &c.

John Palmer was bom in 1747, in the parish of St. Luke, Old
Street. His father, a private in the Guards, who had served in
Germany under the Marquis of Granby, had subsequently filled the
offices of doorkeeper and bill-sticker to Drury Lane Theatre. It was
proposed that Young Palmer should follow in his father's steps and
enter the army ; but the youth was stage-struck. He waited upon
Garrick, and, in hopes of an engagement at Drury Lane, rehearsed
before its manager the parts of Geoige Barnwell and Mercutio.
Garrick shook his head gravely : he did not think the young man at
all qualified to shine in a theatre. Bowing to this decision, he turned
his thoughts towards painting : he was for some time assistant or ap-
prentice in a print-shop on Ludgate Hill. Still his thoughts and wishes
tended towards the theatre. On the occasion of his father's benefit
he was allowed to appear at Drury Lane as Buck, in Foote's fisarce
of "The Englishman in Paris." An introduction to Foote
followed. Foote, who was engaging a company for the Haymarket,
heard the aspirant rehearse, and decided that his tragedy was very

430 The GentUfPum's Magazine.

bad, but that his comedy might do. He was entrusted with the
part of Harry Scamper, in Foote's new farce of "The Orators." The
Haymarket season over, he again addressed himself to Garrick, but
again in vain. In 1766, however, Palmer s^ems to have secured a
regular engagement at Drury Lane, albeit at a very small salary.
About this time he must have been a very unprepared actor. On one
occasion it is related, when the part of lago had been allotted him,
it was found necessary to relieve him of the arduous task, and to
entrust him instead with the inferior character of Montano. But he
was presently enabled to secure the good opinion of Garrick by very
rapidly learning the part of Harcourt in " The Coimtry Girl," upon
the sudden illness of his namesake. Palmer, who should have sus-
tained the character. This elder Palmer, often confounded with
John Palmer, to whom he was wholly unrelated, was the Palmer of

the Rosciad :

** Emboxed, the ladies must have something smart :
Palmer ! oh I Palmer tops the jaunty part.'*

Upon his death in 1768 many of his characters were inherited by his
young namesake.

He was engaged by Garrick, for four years, at the modest salary
of forty shillings j)er week for the first two seasons, and forty-five and
fifty shillings per week for the last two. He was invited to the
manager's house at Hampton, to rehearse with him, and Garrick
seemed, indeed, very well disposed towards him, offering an engage-
ment to his wife, although she was wholly without experience as an
actress. She was a Miss Berroughs, of Norwich, who had fallen in
love with the young actor. It was said that he had married her
believing her to be an heiress ; her fortune, however, depended upon
the favour of an aunt, who was so indignant at her niece's imprudent
union, that she renounced her, bequeathing all her property to a
domestic servant. The marriage did not result happily. Mr. Palmer
had the reputation of being a very bad husband. Mrs. Palmer was a
most forgiving wife, and, from all accounts, had very much to forgive.

It was in December, 1785, that Palmer laid the first stone of the
Royalty Theatre, in Wells Street, VVellclose Square. Garrick had
made his first appearance as an actor in the immediate neighbour-
hood. It was supposed that the dwellers in Goodman's Fields would
lend valuable support to the undertaking, and that playgoers from
Western London might be tempted occasionally to the new theatre
in the east. Certainly the to>\Ti at this time was but poorly supplied
with playhouses. Covent Garden and Drury Lane were only open
in the winter ; the Ha3rmarket was open only in the summer. There

yosepk Surface. 431

were no other London theatres presenting dramatic entertainments
of any pretence. It seemed reasonable enough to erect a new theatre
at three miles' distance from the old ones. The Royalty was a com-
modious structure, handsomely decorated, possessed of large gal-
leries ; it aimed at being popular rather than fashionable. But the
West-end managers, Messrs. Linley, Harris, and Colman, became
alarmed concerning their patents, special privileges, and vested
interests. The new enterprise threatened injury to their property.
Palmer had engaged a strong company, and contemplated perform-
ances of the first class. The theatre opened in June, 1787, with
" As you Like it " and " Miss in her Teens." Between the first and
second acts of the comedy a youth of fourteen sang '^ The Soldier
Tired; " he was then known as Master Abraham, he was afterwards
famous as Mr. Braham, the greatest of English tenors. Above the
proscenitun appeared an inscription applicable rather to the position of
Palmer than to " the purpose of playing " — Vincit qui patiiur — " He
conquers who endures ; " or, as Tom Dibdin facetiously translated it :
" He conquers who has a patent" It was announced, however, that
the proceeds of the representation would be given to the London Hos-
pital. The West-end managers had publicly notified that they held
the Royalty to be an unlicensed theatre, infringing upon their rights
and patents; moreover, they threatened proceedings against the players
offending against the Licensing Act, and thereby becoming liable to
committal as rogues and vagabonds. Palmer had obtained a magis-
trate's licence, but this only permitted inferior entertainments, such as
dancing, tumbling, and juggling. Further, he was armed with the
sanction of the Lord-Lieutenant of *•' the Royal Palace and Fortress
of the Tower ; " this authority, however, was of no real worth. It
was clear that he was at the mercy of his rivals. On the opening
night he delivered a spirited address, written, it was alleged, by
Arthiur Murphy. He spoke of **the three gentlemen" who were the
only enemies of the undertaking ; it would be for them to consider,
he said, whether they were not at the same time opposing the wishes
of the public. " For myself, I have embarked my all in this theatre,
persiiaded that, under the sanction I obtained, it was perfectly legal.
In the event of it ever3rthing dear to my family is involved." This,
however, was only a manner of speaking. Mr. Palmer's " all " was
of inconsiderable amount; he was without means — indeed, had been
always in embarrassed circumstances ; certain gentiemen of fortune
had supplied the fiinds for erecting the Royalty Theatre. " I was de-
termined," he went on, '* to strain every nerve to merit your favour, but
when I consider the case of other performers who have been also

432 The Gentlematis Magazine.

threatened with prosecutions, I own, whatever risk I run myself^ I feel

too much to risk for them We have not performed * for hire,

gain, or reward/ and we hope that the three managers, with the magis-
trates in their interest, will neither deem benevolence a misdemeanour
nor send us, for an act of charity, to hard labour in the House of Cor-
rection. . . . Tumblers and dancing dogs might appear unmolested
before you, but the other performers and myself standing forward
to exhibit a moral play is deemed a crime. The purpose, however,
for which we have this night exerted oiurselves may serve to show
that a theatre near Wellclose Square may be as useful as in Covent
Garden, Drury Lane, or the Ha3anarket"

Palmer was summoned before the magistrates, who designed to
commit him to prison if he failed to produce his authority for opening
the Royalty Theatre in defiance of the rights of die West-end
managers. The actor met the justices in the upper room of a tavern.
He assured them that his papers were at his lodgings but a street's
length off j if he might himself go for them, he should be back in two
minutes. Permission was given. Palmer, " with his usual bow of
humility, and turning up the whites of his eyes," prayed Heaven
bless the justices for their kindness ! He hurried out, closing the
door after him — quietly locking it, indeed. It was some time before
the magistrates discovered their imdignified position. Palmer had
made good his escape ; there was for the time an end of the pro-
posal to lock him up, and it was necessary to obtain the aid of a
locksmith to release his judges.

Palmer's connection with the Royalty Theatre was soon brought to
an end. The opposition of the monopolists was too severe ] no
further attempts were made to present dramatic entertainments of a
high class in Wellclose Square. The new theatre was handed over to
the mountebanks, devoted to such musical, scenic, pantomimic, and
gymnastic exhibitions as were within the scope of a magistrate's licence.
The Royalty was ruled by many speculators one after the other,bringing
profit to none : now it was imder the management of Macready, the
father of the eminent actor of that name ; now the performers of Astley's
Amphitheatre, burnt out of their own establishment in Lambeth, hired
the E^t-end theatre for a season. But bankruptcy fell upon its lessees.
It was sold by auction in 1820 ; it was afterwards leased by Messrs.
Glossop and Dunn, of the Coburg Theatre ; finally it was completely
destroyed by fire in April, 1826.

Palmer's debts, not incurred solely on account of the Royalty
Theatre, although it was convenient to credit his difficulties generally to
that lucklew cnterpriiey now led to hit being confined u a prisoner

_ I

Jos^h Surface. 433

within the Rules of the King's Bench. But, of course, his liberty was
not seriously restricted. Certainly, in the time of day rules, ^^ stone walls
did not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." He delivered the popular
Lecture on Heads, written by George Alexander Stevens, at the Circus
in St George's Fields, afterwards known as the Surrey Theatre, three
nights weekly, at a salary of twelve guineas. Presently he was
appearing as Henri du Bois, the hero of an attractive melodrama
founded upon the destruction of the Bastille. The principal materials
of the play were gathered, we learn, from the newspapers of the time ;
" the dreadful sufferings of the wretched beings who had been incar-
cerated in the dungeons of the Bastille, and the uncontrollable effer-
vescence of popular heroism which led to the destruction of that horrid
fortress and prison, were faithfully represented." Great applause was
bestowed upon Palmer's ''noble figure, animated action, and just
delineation of the different passions." The theatre was crowded beyond
all precedent ; as a consequence, the wrath of the West-end managers
was again kindled against Palmer. He was seized and committed to
Surrey Gaol as a rogue and a vagabond. But he was soon released
upon an assurance being given that the season at the Circus should be
limited to the interval between Easter and Michaelmas.

Peace prevailed for a little while only. The West-end managers,
Sheridan, Harris, and Colman, on behalf of their privileges, kept jealous
watch over the proceedings of the minor theatre. Upon the pro-
duction at the Circus of a play entitled the " Death of General Wolfe, "
the part of the hero being sustained by Mr. Palmer, litigation recom-
menced. Palmer was again, with other members of the Circus
company, committed to the Surrey Bridewell, and detained in prison
until a verdict of guilty was recorded against the accused at the
Guildford Quarter Sessions in July, 1790. This determined for some
years the attempts to present dramatic entertainments at the Circus in
St. George's Fields. The next campaign against the patentees was
commenced by Elliston in 1809.

Palmer's misfortunes and escapades scarcely prevented his appear-
ance, every season, as a member of the Drury Lane company. He
was absent in the season 1 789-1 790, possibly because of his de-
tention in the Surrey Bridewell ; otherwise, from 1766 to 1798, not a
year passed but found him wirming hearty applause at Drury Lane.
Season after season he fulfilled summer engagements at the Haymarket
Theatre and at Liverpool. His repertory was most extensive; in
Geneste's "History of the Stage" nearly three hundred characters are
assigned to him, and these are said to be a selection only of his im-
personations. He shone alike in tragedy, comedy, and farce. He

VOU CCXLIl. Na 1768. F F

434 ^^ GentUmafis Magazine.

was handsome, with an expressive face, a commanding presence, and a
powerful voice of musical quality. He possessed little education, but
he was naturally intelligent ; he was elegant and impressive, and
*' seemed to be led by instinct to the characters most fit for his talents.'
He performed the tyrants and villains of tragedy with excellent effect;
he was famous for his delivery of sarcasm and irony ; he was the
original Sneer in " The Critic : " " When shall we see such a Villeroy
or such a Stukely again ? " demanded Mrs. Siddons. But no doubt
his best successes were obtained in comedy, in characters of liveliness
and impudence, the bucks, bloods, and saucy footmen of the past
Some idea of his variety or his universality may be gathered from the
list of his Shakespearian characters. He played, as might be the most
convenient to his manager, Jacques or Touchstone, Master Slender
or Falstaff, Hamlet or the Ghost, Banquo, Macbeth, or Macduff, lago
or Cassio, Buckingham or Henry VIII., Gratiano, Bassanio, or
Shylock ; he appeared as Petruchio, as Prospero, as Mercutio, as Sir
Toby Belch, as Faulconbridge, as Edgar or Edmund in " King Lear."
In " Love for Love " he now personated Valentine and now Ben ; in
"The Critic" he was alternately Puff and Sneer. He played Abraham-
ides in the burlesque of " The Tailors," and Abomelique in the melo-
drama of" Blue Beard." No part seems to have come amiss to him ;
he was always able to gratify his audience.

Charles Lamb speaks of Palmer as of " stage-treading celebrity : "
an allusion to the importance of his histrionic manner. " In sock or
buskin there was an air of swaggering gentility about Jack Palmer.
He was a ^^i/Z^wtf/i with a slight infusion of the y2?^/wa«. . . . >Vhen
you saw Jack figuring in Captain Absolute, you thought you could
trace his promotion to some lady of quality who fancied the handsome
fellow in his topknot and had bought him a commission." But the
" footman element " must have pertained only to a certain class of
his impersonations; it could hardly have affected his Joseph Surface,
for instance. The character must have been written for him ; he was
its first representative ; it was, in truth, himself. " It is something,"
writes Lamb, " to have seen the * School for Scandal ' in its gloiy.
It is impossible that it should be now acted, though it continues
at long intervals to be announced in the bills. Its hero, when
Palmer played it, at least, was Joseph Surface." And Lamb
dwells admiringly upon " the gay boldness," the " graceful, solemn
plausibility," the "measured step, the insinuating voice "of the
actor. " John Palmer was twice an actor in this exquisite part. He
was playing to you all the while he was playing upon Sir Peter and
his lady. You had the first intimation of a sentiment before it was

Joseph Surface, 435

on his lips. His altered voice was meant for you, and you were to
suppose that his fictitious co-flutterers on the stage perceived nothing
at all of it. . . . Jack had two voices, both plausible, hypocritical,
and insinuating ; but his secondary or supplementary voice still more
decisively histrionic than his common one. It was reserved for
the spectator ; and the dramatis personae were supposed to know
nothing at all about it. The lies of Young Wilding and the sentiments
of Joseph Surface were thus marked out in a sort of italics to the
audience."

Palmer was, as John Taylor records, " silent in company ; but he
compensated by his expressive gestures for his taciturnity ; " he
proved by his manner that he fully understood and enjoyed the wit
and humour of others. Taylor noted the ingenuity with which he
varied his dumb-show admiration of the facetious sallies of George
Colman. " He was a well-bred man, but he carried his courtesy to
such an excess as to excite a suspicion of its sincerity." Altogether
his nickname of " Plausible Jack " seems to have been well earned. In
his case there must often have been doubt as to whether Joseph
Surface was playing John Palmer, or John Palmer was playing Joseph
Surface. He has been charged with many acts of humorous dupli-
city, accomplished perhaps as much for their humour as for their
duplicity. He deceived Sheridan upon one occasion, and escaped
the performance of an arduous character by pretending to be seriously
ill. Sheridan suspecting a trick, called upon the actor at his house in
Lisle Street. Palmer had but a few minutes' notice of his manager's
visit. He hurried to his bedroom, enveloped himself in a dressing-
gown, drew on a large woollen nightcap, and tied a handkerchief
round his jaw ; he groaned audibly, his face seemed strangely swollen ;
he affected to be suffering agonies of toothache. Sheridan was com-
pletely duped ; he expressed his sincere sympathy with his distressed
actor, recommended the extraction of the tooth, &c. A favourite
excuse with Palmer was the accouchement of his wife ; and there was
this to be said for the excuse, that the lady had in truth presented
him with eight children. " He would postpone an engagement by
sighing forth, with his white handkerchief to his eyes, * My best of
friends, this is the most awful period of my life ; I cannot be with you ;
my beloved wife, the partner of my sorrows and my joys, is just con-
fined.' " He . merely smiled with his usual bland benignity when
congratulated by Michael Kelly upon the happiness of having a wife
who at least every two months rendered him a contented father.
But with all his faults, and they were many, he was a great favourite
with the public, and was fondly regarded by his fellow-players. His

F F2

43^ The Gentleman's Magazine.

appearance upon the stage was invariably hailed with loud applause.
'* He appeared to have been made for the profession, and trod the
stage as no other man could do." Acting, both on and off the stage,
came naturally to him ; otherwise he was a careless student enough
of his art, and often failed to commit thoroughly to memory the
speeches he was required to deliver in the theatre. But there was dex-
terity about his very errors. It is told of him that on the production
of Hayle/s tragedy of '* Lord Russell," in which he was to personate
the hero, he had wholly neglected to study the text — he was most im-
perfectly acquainted with the play ; but he knew well the tragedy of
the Earl of Essex, and as it presented points of resemblance to
Hayle/s work, he glibly recited passage after passage from the old
play, adroitly fitting them into the new, so that the audience never
discovered his ignorance and incapacity.

Boaden's account of Palmer is curious from its correspondence
with Lamb's description. Palmer assumed " fine manners " with
great ease ; but they were assumed ; " he seemed to me to have
attained the station rather than to have been bom to it. In his
general deportment he had a sort of elaborate grace and stately
superiority, which he affected on all occasions with an accompani-
ment of the most plausible politeness. He was the same on and off
the stage ; he was constantly acting the man of superior accom-
plishments. This it was that rendered Palmer so exquisite in * High
Life below Stairs.' He was reaiiy my Lord Duke's footman affecting
the airs and manners of his superiors." If he was not the first of
tragedians, he was one of the most useful ; he played tyrants because
of his grand deportment ; he played villains because of his insidious
and plausible address. His Villeroy in " The Fatal Marriage " " had
a delicate and hopeless ardour of affection that made it a decided
impossibility for Isabella to resist him. He seemed a being ex-
pressly favoured by fate to wind about that lovely victim the web of
inextricable misery." Further, Boaden says of him : " he was the
most general actor that ever lived; ... he was fairly entitled to
the greatest salary in the theatre, as he combined the most general
utility with talent, often surprising, frequently excellent, and always
respectable. His noble figure and graceful manners threw him into
a variety of temptations difficult to be resisted, and sworn foes to
professional diligence and severe study." His habits were expensive,
and he affected splendid hospitalities. He was, indeed, irreclaimably
reckless and profligate ; " but he would throw up his eyes with
astonishment that he had lost the word, or cast them down with
penitent humility, wipe his lips with his eternal white handkerchief

Joseph Surface. 437

to smother his errors, and bow himself out of the greatest absurdities
that continued idleness could bring upon him«"

Tom Dibdin, who had been apprenticed to an upholsterer in the
city, has recorded his boyish enthusiasm on behalf of John Palmer.
Dibdin had witnessed the laying of the first stone of the ill-fated
Royalty Theatre, and lived to see " the last vestige of its remaining
rubbish " after the fire in 1 826. " For a sight of * Plausible Jack ' " he
would have done anything — everything. " Deservedly a favourite
with the public, to me he was the most enviable mortal I could
figure to my perverted imagination." He describes how warmly he
entered into the contest between Palmer and " the tyrannical trium-
virate " ; how constantly he attended the performances at the Royalty.
" To my once-favourite actors of the Theatre Royal I could now
allow no spark of merit ; talent was only to be found at Palmer's,
where * Don Juan/ * The Deserter of Naples,' and * A Peep into
the Tower,' formed my whole study." The author of the famous
pantomime of '^ Mother Goose " thus obtained his theatrical education.

Palmer's grand presence and lofly airs contrasted somewhat with
the humbleness of his origin. He was thought to be too foi^getful,
that his father had been a mere bill-sticker ; at any rate, his profes-
sional brethren often reminded him of the fact. He entered the
green-room upon a certain occasion wearing a valuable pair of
diamond knee-buckles, the gift, it was alleged, of an admiring lady
of quality. " Palmer, I perceive, deals in diamonds," observed
Parsons, the inimitable comedian of that day. "Yes," said
Bannister, " but I can well recollect the time when he dealt only in
paste." Thereupon Parsons whispered to Palmer, " Why don't you
stick him to the wall. Jack ? "

It was said of him, that when he first, in 1782, played Stukely in
"The Gamester " to the Mrs. Beverley of Mrs. Siddons, he experienced
a novel reception from his audience. His personation of the hypo-
critical villain was so complete, and at the same time so revolting,
that the force of the illusion moved the audience to hiss the actor as
he left the stage. Upon his re-appearance he was greeted with un-
bounded applause; but presently the cunning of the scene again
took possession of the spectators, and they hissed Mr. Palmer very
heartily. He was much gratified by this tribute to the force and skill
of his performance.

In the " Children of Thespis," by the scurrilous Williams, calling
himself Anthony Pasquin, a full-length portrait of Mr. Palmer is
supplied. No man on the stage, it is said, holds so wide a dominion.
He is *' the Muse's great hackney."

438 ^^ Gentleman s Magazine.

Come Tragedy, Comedy, Farce, or what will,

He still gives a manifest proof of his skill .... . .

He still claims applause, though, like Proteus, he changes.
For equal to all through the drama he ranges,

And bears with much ease its vast weight on his shoulders

Till, like Atlas, his powers surprise all beholders.

So graceful his step, so majestic his nod,

He looks the descendant from Belvidere's God,

His tragedy is censured, however; especially his performance of
Dionysius —

He out-herods Herod^and tears his poor throat
Till Harmony trembles at every note.
Though twelvepenny gods may with this be delighted.
Common Sense is alarmed and meek Reason affrighted.

His Joseph Surface and Young Wilding are much praised, but there
is some laughing at his love-making :

£re lovers gentle passion he'll deign to disclose.
His handkerchief ten times must visit his nose, &c.

and he is reproached for being " fond of porter ! "

While fulfilling an engagement at the Liverpool Theatre, Palmer
died suddenly, on the 2nd August 1798. The circumstance of his
death has been often narrated. He had been for some time ia a
depressed condition of mind owing to the recent loss of his wife and
of a favourite son, and had freely confessed his fear that these heavy
afflictions would bring him to the grave. He had performed, how-
ever, with his usual spirit on the night before his death, appearing in
his admired character of Young Wilding in " The Liar." On the
morrow his dejection was extreme ; " all the efforts of his friends
were scarcely capable of rousing him from the state of melancholy
in which he seemed to have sunk.*' He was bent, however, upon
accomplishing his professional duties. The play was '*The Stranger ; "
in the country he personated the hero of that work, contenting him-
self in London with the inferior character of Baron Steinfort. In
the two earlier scenes he exerted himself with good effect, but as the
representation proceeded he displayed evidence of suffering. In the
third act, when the Stranger is required to speak of his children,
Palmer became unusually agitated. " He endeavoured to proceed,
but his feelings overcame him ; the hand of death had arrested his
progress ; he fell upon his back, heaved a convulsive sigh, and
expired immediately." For some time the spectators believed that
his fall was merely contrived to add to the effect of the scene ;
but the hurried entrance of certain of the actors to remove the body

yosepk Surface. 439

of their departed playfellow undeceived the house ; the '' utmost
astonishment and terror became depicted upon every countenance."

It has been frequently stated that Palmer's last utterance upon
the stage was the observation made by the Stranger to Francis in the
third act of the play — " There is another and a better world." In a
sketch of Palmer's theatrical career, published very shortly after his
death, currency was first given to this version of the circumstance,
and it was even proposed that the extract from the play should be
engraved upon the actor's tombstone. Reynolds, the dramatist,
states, however, upon the authority of an actor named Whitfield, who
played Baron Steinfort upon the night in question, that Palmer fell
suddenly before him on the stage while answering the inquiry as to
the Stranger's children in the fourth act, and that his last words
were really : " I left them at a small town hard by." But the narra-
tive, in its earlier and perhaps more dramatic form, obtained the
greater popularity, and has been very frequently repeated. The
report that the actor's last words had referred to another and a better
world led to a great demand for the play ; fifteen hundred copies of
" The Stranger " were forthwith disposed of by the publisher. The
story, as Reynolds declares, was instantly seized upon by the Metho-
dists, and " most adroitly confirmed and hawked about the town as a
means of enforcing their anti-dramatic tenets," and of demonstrating
that severe judgment surely lay in wait for the players.

Mr. Aikin, of Covent Garden Theatre, tlien manager of the
Liverpool Theatre, endeavoured to inform the house of Palmer's
death, but his feelings overcame him, and he was unable to articulate
a single word. A brief speech from Incledon, the singer, made the
audience acquainted with the sad occurrence. The theatre was
closed for three nights. The remains of the actor were interred at
Warton, a village near Liverpool ; the funeral was followed by a long
string of coaches. A night was appointed by Mr. Aikin for the
benefit of Palmer's orphan family, when an appropriate address,
written by Roscoe, was delivered by Mr. Holman. On the 8th August
performances, consisting of ** The Heir at Law " and " The Children
in the Wood," were presented at the Opera House in the Haymarket,
under Colman's management, " for the benefit of the four youngest
orphans of the late Mr. Palmer." When Drury Lane re-opened for
the season, on the 15th September, the representation was announced
to be for the benefit of Palmer's orphan family. John Kemble
played the Stranger to the Mrs. Haller of Mrs. 3iddons ; Bannister
and Mrs. Jordan lending their assistance in the farce of *^ The Citizen."
Banymore, who succeeded to many of Palmer's chaiaucter^^ thss^asj^

440 The Gmtlemaiis Magazine.

considered to be but a poor substitute for him, appeared as Baron
Steinfort Boaden writes : '' The common notion was that the last
words uttered by poor Palmer were parts of a passage commencing
with an apostrophe to the Deity, and that the agony attending their
delivery had destroyed the actor. The house was therefore in con-
siderable alarm till the real Stranger had got over words that had
proved so fatal, and some degree of surprise buzzed along the seats
when Mr. Kemble, in the proper tone of resignation, uttered the
calm address to Francis in the first scene of the third act : * Have
you forgotten what the old man said this morning? '* There is
another and a better world ! " Oh ! 'twas true. Then let us hope
with fervency, and yet endure with patience ! ' Mr. Kemble dis-
appointed apprehension or expectation, and safely survived this
important performance of * The Stranger.' "

The circumstance of Palmer's death inclined many to be credulous
in regard to a story of the appearance of his ghost or fetch. The tale
has been told by the Rev. J. Richardson, at one time connected with
the Times newspaper, in his " Recollections of the last Half-Century,"
published in 1856. Palmer, it seems, retained apartments in a house
in Spring Gardens, tenanted by Mrs. Vernon, widow of the comedian
and singer of that name, and was accustomed to enter at all hours
by means of a latch-key. It was the night of the 2nd of August,
1798. It was known that Palmer was absent from town, fulfilling a
provincial engagement ; but it was thought that he might return at
almost any moment The house was very fiiUy tenanted, insomuch
that a youth named Tucker slept in the hall or passage, his couch being
" a bed by night, a chest of drawers by day." His services were so
laborious in the day that he was allowed to retire to rest at an early
hour, long before the other inmates of the establishment sought sleep.
Those who entered after nightfall had, therefore, as a rule to pass the
slumbering Tucker on their way up to bed.

It so happened that on the evening in question Tucker had retired
to rest at an earlier hour than usual ; but the company in the drawing-
room was numerous, and the sounds of merriment prevented him from
falling asleep ; " he was in a sort of morbid drowsiness produced by
weariness but continually interrupted by noise." As he described the
scene, he was sitting half upright in his bed, when he saw the figure of
a man coming firom the passage which led from the door of the house
to the halL The figure paused on its way for a moment and looked
Tucker fiill in the fiice. He felt no alarm whatever; there was
nothing spectral or awful about the figure ; it passed quiedy on, and
apparently mounted the stairs, Tucker recognising the form, features,

yoseph Surface. 441

gait, dress, and general aspect of John Palmer. He supposed the
actor to have returned from Liverpool and quietly entered the house
by means of his latch-key. He marvelled nevertheless at the visitor's
lack of politeness : he had failed to ask after Tucker's health, or even
to wish him good-night.

In the morning, during some general conversation with Mrs. Vernon,
he mentioned the retiun of Mr. Palmer, and expressed a hope that he
had benefited by his trip to Liverpool. He was assured by the lady that
Mr. Palmer had not returned, and most certainly had not joined the
festivities in the drawing-room; the youth must have been dreaming, or
drinking, or out of his senses, to imagine such a thing. His delusion,
as it was called, was the subject of much amusement, especially as he
stiurdily persisted in his assertion that he had really seen Mr. Palmer.
On the following day news arrived firom Liverpool of the sudden
death of Palmer upon the stage at about the hour when Tucker avowed
that he had seen the actor quietly let himself into the house in Spring
Gardens. There was an end to laughter upon the subject, and many
were inclined to think that there was much more in Tucker's stoiy
than they had at first believed.

" Stories of this sort," writes Mr. Richardson, " like marvellous
stories of all sorts, must stand or fall by the evidence with which
they are supported. The story is here told as it was told to the writer
by the principal party connected with it" This must, of course, have
been Tucker himself.

DUnON COOK.

442 The Gentleman's Magazine.

SAVAGE PENAL LAWS.

IF, interpreting the present by the past, and taking as our standard
of the past contemporary savage life, we endeavour to gain
some insight into the origin of those legal customs and ideas which
are so interwoven with our civilisation, the statements of travellers
relating to the judicial institutions of savage tribes will gain con-
siderably in interest and value. For their modes of redressing
injuries, of assessing punishment, of discovering truth, reveal not a
few striking points of resemblance and of contrast to the practices
prevalent in civilised communities ; whilst they serve at the same
time to illustrate the natural laws at work in the evolution of society.

The different stages of progress from the lowest social state,
where the redress of wrongs is left to individual force or cunning, to
the state where the wrongs of individuals are regarded and punished
as wrongs to the community at large, may be all observed in the
customs of modem or recent savage tribes. Yet instances where the
redress of wrongs is purely a matter of personal retaliation are not
really numerous, occurring chiefly where the rulership of a tribe is
ill-defined and is an exercise of influence rather than authority, as
among the Esquimaux, the Kamschadals, and some Califomian and
other American tribes. In such states of society, some political
sovereignty is vested in the heads of the different famiHes, though
they have but little power either to make commands or to inflict
punishments. But generally this deficiency in the legal protection of
life and property is made up for by a principle which lies at the root
of savage law — the principle, that is, of collective responsibility, of
including in the guilt of an individual all his blood-relations jointly
or singly.

This consideration of crimes as family rather than as personal
matters, (the duty of satisfying the family of anyone injured devolving
upon the family of the wrong-doer,) must have tended in the earliest
times to withdraw attention from the merely personal aspect of injuries
and to direct it to their more social relations. The common test of
likelihood is no bad guide in ethnology; and the diflUculty of con-
ceiving any society of men, even the most savage^ living together

Savage Penal Laws. 443

absolutely unaffected by, or uninterested in, wrongs done by one of
their members to another, is only equalled by the difficulty of finding
credible records of any such society. Even in Kamschatka, where the
head of an ostrog had only the power to punish verbally, a man caught
stealing was held so infamous, that no one would befriend him, and
he had to live thenceforth alone without help from anybody ; whilst,
if the habit seemed inveterate, the thief was bound to a tree, and his
arms bound by a piece of birch-bark to a pole stretched crosswise ;
the bark was then ignited, and the man's hands, thereby branded,
marked his character in future to all interested in knowing it*
Even in so rude a tribe as the Brazilian Topanazes, a murderer of
a fellow-tribesman would be conducted by his relations to those of
the deceased, to be by them forthwith strangled and buried, in
satisfaction of their rights; the two families eating together for
several days after the event, as though for reconciliation. ^ And
several other tribes, destitute of any chiefs possessing the power or
right to judge or punish, have fixed customs regulating such offences
as theft or murder. Thus the Nootka Indians avenge or com-
pound for punishable acts, though their chiefs have little or no
vpice in the matter. Where, as among the Haidahs of Columbia,
crime likewise has no legal punishment, murder being simply an
afiair to be settled with the robbed family, we may detect the begin-
nings of later legal practices in the occasional agreement among the
leading men to put to death disagreeable members of the tribe, such
as medicine-men, and other great offenders.^ So that wherever,
from causes of war or otherwise, tribal chieftaincy has become at all
fixed and powerful, we may expect to find the chief or chiefs called
upon to settle disputes between individuals or families ; and thus
gradually a way would be found for the addition of judicial functions
to the other duties of government.

From this natural tendency of submitting disputed claims or the
measure of redress to the decision of a single chieftain or of several,
the personal right of retaliation would soon become a tribal one ; and,
ignorant of the science of jurisprudence, most savage tribes seem early
to have learnt to treat torts or offences against an individual as crimes
or offences against the community, taking as their standard of punish-
ment the measure of the wrong to the individual The transfer of
sovereignty from smaller units to the tribe is clearly marked in instances
where the chiefs of a tribe try crimes and decide guilt, but leave the

> Steller, Kamschatka^ 356.

* Eschwege, BrazUien^ i. 221.

' Bancroft, Native Races of Pacific States^ u l6S,

444 ^"^ Gentleman's Magazine.

punishment to the discretion of the injured persons or family ; of
which let the following illustrations suffice.

According to Catlin, every Indian tribe he visited had a council
house in the middle of their village, where the chiefs would assemble,
as well for the investigation of crimes as for public business, giving
decisions after trial concerning capital offences, but leaving the
ptmishment to the nearest of kin, to be inflicted by him under the
penalty of social disgrace, but free from any control by them as to
time, place, or manner.^ Similarly, on the Gold Coast, suits were in
the hands of the caboceros or chiefs, and the original conception of
murder appears clearly in the practice for the murderer to get gene-
rally some abatement from the relations of the deceased of the pecu-
niary penalty affixed by law to his crime ; they being the only
persons the criminal had to agree with, and free to take from him
as little as they pleased, the king having no pretence to any share of
the fine except what he might get for his trouble in exacting it* In
the Central African kingdom of Bomou, a convicted murderer was
handed over to the discretional revenge of the murdered man's family.*
In Samoa, again, the chief of a village and the heads of families formed
the judicial as well as legislative body. They might condemn a culprit
to sit for hours naked in the sun, to be hung by his head, to take five
bites from a pungent root, or to play at ball with a prickly sea-
urchin, according to the natiu^ of his offence. But one punishment
was especially remarkable, as showing how the right of punishment
originally belonging to the ^unily may survive in form long after it
has in reality passed to a wider political union. This was the
punishment of being bound hand and foot and suspended from a
prickly pole run through between the hands and feet, and carried to
the family of the village against which the prisoner had transgressed,
and there deposited before them, as it were, at their mercy.*

If then the original standard of punishment was just that amount
of severity which would suffice to prevent individuals seeking satis-
faction by their private efforts and avenging their own wrongs, it i
intelligible that penal customs should be cruel in proportion to their
primitiveness. It is distinctly stated that in Samoa fines in food
and property gradually superseded more severe penalties. Yet, in
the face of the very varying penalties found in most different con-
ditions of culture, it is a subject on which it is difficult to lay

* Catlin, u. 24a

* Pinkerton. Bosnian's Guinea^ xvi. 406.
' Denham's Disccveries in Africa, L 167.
« Toner, Pdymsia^ 286.

Savage Penal Laws. 445

down any rule. Sometimes murder alone is a capital crime, some-
times theft, witchcraft, and adultery as well; sometimes all or some
of them are commutable by fine. Nor does it seem that, wherever
an offence is punishable by fine, the penalty has been mitigated from
one originally more severe. In some cases the chief judges may
have found their interest in assessing a more humane, and to them-
selves more profitable, forfeit than that of life or limb ; but savages,
living in the most primitive conditions, seem to have been led by
their natural reason alone to observe fitting proportions between
crime and retribution. For their pimishments, in default generally
of imprisonment or banishment, are not as a rule gratuitously cruel ;
and slavery, so common a pimishment in Africa, far from being
essentially cruel, is rather a sign of an amelioration of maimers, of
willingness to take the useful satisfaction of a man's labour in lieu
of the useless one of his life. It would, indeed, seem that severity of
the penal code is rather a concomitant of growth in civilisation, of
stronger and deeper moral feelings, of a sense of the failure of milder
means, than of a really primitive savagery. On the whole continent
of America no savage tribe ever approached the Aztecs in cruelty
of punishment, nor is it with people like the Mandans that we
should ever find a death penalty assigned alike for the lightest as
for the gravest crimes, for slander no less than for adultery, for in-
toxication no less than for homicide.^

It would be erroneous to suppose, because the laws of savages
are unwritten and depend on usage alone for their preservation, that
therefore they are entirely uncertain and arbitrary. On few points
are the statements of travellers less vague than on the details of native
penal customs; a fact which is only compatible with their being
both well known and regularly enforced. What the Abbd Froyart
says of the natives of Loango, may be said of all but the lowest tribes:
" There is no one ignorant of the cases which incur the pain of death,
and of those for which the offender becomes the slave of the person
offended.' ' The laws of the Caffre tribes are said to be a collection
of precedents, of decisions of bygone chiefs and councils, appealing
solely to what was customary in the past, never to the abstract
merits of the case. There appears, it is said, to be no uncertainty
whatever in their administration, the criminality of different acts
being measured exactly by the number of head of cattle payable in
atonement. So the customs reported from Ashantee manifest a
sense of the value of fixed penalties. An Ashantee is at liberty to

I Bancroft, ii. 454-472, for the penal code of the Aztecs.
* Pinkerton. Froyait's History of Loango^ vn. ^\.

44^ The Gentlemaiis Magivdne.

kill his slave, but is punished if he kills his wife or child \ ooljr a
chief can sell his wife or put her to death for infidelity ; whilst a
great man who kills his equal in rank is generally suffered to die by
his own hands. If a man brings a frivolous accusation agaiatt
another, he must give an entertainment to the family and friends- of
the accused ; if he breaks an Aggry bead in a scuffle, he must pay
seven slaves to the owner. A wife who betrays a secret forfeits to
upper lip, an ear if she listens to a private conversation of her
husband.^ And savage as is the kingdom of Dahomey, arbitrary
power is so far limited, that no sentence of death or slavery, adjudged
by an assembly of chiefs, can be carried out without confirmation
from the throne; and such a sentence ^'must be executed in the
capital, and notice given of it by the public crier in the market"
It is no paradox to say, that human life, even in Dahomey, enjoys
more efficient legal protection at this day than existed in England
long after the signature of our Magna Charta.

The forms of legal procedure manifest often no less regularity than
the laws themselves. In Congo the plaintiff opens his case on his
knees to the judge, who sits imdera tree or in a great straw hut built
on purpose, holding a staff of authority in his hand. When he has
heard the plaintiffs evidence he hears the defendant, then calls the
witnesses, and decides accordingly. The successful suitor pays a
sura to the judge's box, and stretches himself at full length on the
ground to testify his gratitude.' In Loango, the king, acting as
judge, has several assessors to consult in difficult cases, and the suit
begins by both parties making a present to the king, who then
proceeds to hear in turn plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses. In default
of \iitnesses the affair is deferred, spies being sent to gather ampler
information and ground for judgment from the talk of the people.
In the public trials of Ashantee " the accused is always heard fully,
and is obliged either to commit or exculpate himself on every point."
On the Gold Coast a plaintiff would sometimes defer his suit for
thirty years, letting it devolve on his heirs, if the judges, the
caboceros, from interested motives, delayed to grant him a trial, and
thus obliged him to wait, in hopes of finding less impartial or else
more amenable judges in the future.^

Several rules of savage jurisprudence betray curiously different
notions of equity from those of more civilised lands. The Abbrf

* Ilutton, Voyage to Africa^ 319.

* Pinkerton, xvi. 242, in Merolla*s Voyage to Congo,

' Pinkerton. Bosnian's Guinea^ xvL 405. For an account of a savage law
suit, see Maclean's Caffrt Laws and Customs^ 3^43«

Sat/age Penal Laws. 447

Froyart was shocked that, on the complaint of the missionaries to
the King of Loango of nocturnal disturbances round their dwellings,
the king should have issued an ordinance making the disturbance of
the missionaries' repose a capital crime. The reason the natives
gave him for thus putting slight offences on an equality with grave
ones was, that in proportion to the ease of abstinence from anything
forbidden, or of the performance of anything commanded, was the
inexcusableness of disobedience and the deserved severity of punish-
ment. Again, impartiality with regard to rank or wealth, which is
now regarded in England as a self-evident principle of justice, as a
primary instinct of equity, is by no means so regarded by savages ;
for not only is murder often atoned for according to the rank of the
murderer, as on the Gold Coast or in old Anglo-Saxon law, on the
basis, apparently, of the value to the individual of his loss in death,
but such difference of rank sometimes enters into the estimate of the
due punishment for robbery. Thus the Guinea Coast negroes
thought it reasonable to punish rich persons guilty of robbery more
severely than the poor, because, they said, the rich were not urged to
it by necessity, and could better spare the money-fines laid on them.
Caffre law distinguishes broadly and clearly between injuries to a
man's person and injuries to his property, accounting the former as
offences against the chief to whom he belongs, and making such
chief sole recipient of all fines, allowing only personal redress where
a man's property has been damaged. Thus Caffre law divides itself
into lines bearing some analogy to those of our criminal and civil
law : such offences as treason, murder, assault, and witchcraft enter-
ing into the criminal code, and constituting injuries to the actual
sufferer's chief; whilst adultery, slander, and other forms of theft,
enter as it were into the civil law, as injuries for which there are direct
personal remedies.^

The almost universal test among savages of guilt or innocence,
where there is a want or conflict of evidence, is the ordeal. At first
sight it would appear that such a practice presupposes a belief in a
personal supernatural deity — that it is, in fact, as it was in the middle
ages, a judgment of God, an appeal to His decision. If so, a theistic
belief would be of wide extent, for the ordeal is common to very low
strata of culture ; but, in consideration of the savage belief in the
personality and consciousness of natural objects or in spirits ai
mating them, it would seem best to regard the ordeal simply a/ a
direct appeal to the decision of such objects or spirits themselves
or through such objects to the decision of dead ancestors, a nj/^ans

* Maclean, Caffre Laws, 34. /

448 The Gmtlematis Magazine.

for the discovery of truth that would naturally suggest itself to the
shamanic class. For it is at the peril of his life that a shaman, or
priest, asserts a title to superior power and wisdom; and as his skill
is tested in every need or peril that occurs, he is naturally as often
called upon to detect hidden guilt as to bring rain from the clouds
or drive sickness from the body. Driven, therefore, to his inventive
resources by the demands made upon him, he thinks out a test
which he may really consider just, or which, by proving fatal to the
suspected, may place his ingenuity and the verdict beyond the reach
of challenge. Such ordeals not only often elicit true confessions of
guilt by the very terror they inspire, so that, according to Merolla, it
sufficed for the Congo wizards to issue proclamations for a restitu-
tion of stolen property under the threat of otherwise resorting to
their arts of detection, but they are valuable in themselves to the
shamanic class from being easily adapted to the destruction of an
enemy, and offering a ready channel for the influx of wealth. A
comparison of some of these tests, which decide guilt not by an
appeal to the fear of falsehood, as an oath does, but by what is
really an appeal to the verdict of chance, will display so strong a
family resemblance, together with so many local peculiarities, as to
make the origin suggested appear not improbable.

Bosman mentions the following ordeals as customary on the
Gold Coast in offences of a trivial character :

1. Stroking a red-hot copper arm-ring over the tongue of the

suspected.

2. Squirting a vegetable juice into his eye.

3. Drawing a greased fowl's feather through his tongue.

4. Making him draw cocks'-quills from a clod of earth.
Innocence was staked on the innocuousness of the two former

proceedings, on the facility of the execution of the two latter. For
great crimes the water ordeal was employed, a certain river being
endowed with the quality of wafting innocent persons across it, how
bad swimmers soever, and of only drowning the guilty.*

Livingstone mentions the anxiety of negro women, suspected by

their husbands of having bewitched them, to drink a poisonous infusion

prepared for them by the shaman, and to submit their lives to the

effect of this drink on their bodies: a judicial method strikingly

similar tp the test of bitter waters ordained in the Book of Numbers

> decides^ the guilt of Jewish wives whom their husbands had reason

suspecKof infidelity. The Barotse tribe, who judge of the guilt

\ n accu^d person by the effect of medicine poured down the

suit, se tfleu * Pinkerton, xvi. 259.

Savage Penal Laws. 449

diroat of a dog or cock, manifest more humanity in their system
of ordeal.'

But perhaps the best collection of African ordeals is that given in
the voyage of the Capuchin Merolla to Congo in 1682. In case of
treason a shaman would present a compound of vegetable juices,
serpents' flesh, and such things to the delinquent, who would die
if he were guilty, but not otherwise ; it being of course open to the
administrator to omit at will the poisonous ingredients. Innocence
was further proved by suffering no bad effects from a red-hot iron
passed over the leg, from chewing the root of the banana, from
eating the poisoned fruit of a certain palm, from drinking water In
which a torch of bitumen or a red-hot iron had been quenched, or
from drawing a stone out of boiling water. The crime of theft was
proved by the ignition or the non-ignition of a long thread held at
either end by the shaman and the accused on the application of a
red-hot iron to the middle.

So great in general is the dread of such ordeals, that they often
actually serve as the most potent instruments for the discovery of
crimes. In the kingdom of Loango was kept a fetich in a large
basket, before which all cases of theft and murder were tried ; and
when any great man died, a whole town would be compelled to
offer themselves for trial for his murder by kissing and embracing
the image, in the fear of falling down dead if they fancied them-
selves guilty. In the space of one year Andrew Battel witnessed
the death of many natives in this way.

In the Tongan Islands the king would call the people together,
and, after washing his hands in a wooden bowl, command everyone to
touch it. From a firm belief that touching the bowl, in case of
guilt, would cause instantaneous death, refusal to touch it amounted
to conviction.'-*

Among the Fijians, distinguished in so many points from other
savages by originality of conception, the ordeal of the scarf was the
one of greatest dread, extorting confession, it is said, as effectually as
a threat of the rack might have done. The chief or judge, having
called for a scarf, would proceed, if the culprit did not confess at the
sight of it, to wave it above his head, till he had caught the man's
soul, bereft of which the culprit would be sure ultimately to pine
away and die.*

Among the ordeals of the Sandwich islanders, was one called the

' Livingstone's South Africa^ 621, 642.
» Klemm, Culturgeschichte, iii. 334.
» Williams, Fiji, 250.
VOL. CCXLII. NO. 1768. G G

45P The dnilemofis Magazine.

** shaking-water." The accused persons, sitting round a calabash foil
of water, were required in turns to hold their hands above it, that
the priest, by watching the water, might detect, when it trembled, the
•presence of guilt. On the Society Islands the ordeal, only differed
slightly, the priest reading in the water the reflected image of. the
thief, after prayer to the gods to cause his spirit to be present . The
mere report that such a measure had been resorted to often led to
timely restitutions.'

In Sardinia there is, or was, a well, the waters of which were
supposed to blind a person suspected of robbery or lying, if he were
guilty, otherwise to strengthen and improve his sight'

The above instances, remarkable for their practical efficiency
no less than for their puerile ingenuity, will suffice to show the nature
of savage judicial ordeals, and the extreme variety displayed in their
invention. The identity of many ordeals among different people, such
as that by fire or water, is probably due to the readiness with which
such tests would suggest themselves to the imagination. He who,
holding fire in his hand, said the Indian law, is not burnt, or who,
diving under water, is not soon forced up by it, must be held veracious
in his testimony upon oath ; and the same was the idea in China and
Afirica as well as in Europe. That these ordeals, like others, originated
from the class of shamans, and were traditionally preserved by them
as one of the sources of their power, derives probability from their
dose analogy to the judicial ordeals invented and administered by the
priests of early Europe. The trial by the hallowed morsel, which
decided guilt by the effects of swallowing a piece of hallowed bread
or cheese ; the trial by the cross, when both accuser and accused
were placed under a cross with their arms extended and the wrong
adjudged to him who first let his hands fall ; or the trial by the two
dice, when innocence was proved if the first dice taken at hazard
bore the sign of the cross — though they may have been metamor-
phosed heathen ordeals, seem rather to have been of pure Christian
invention ; nor are they distinguished in any point above correspond-
ing practices on the coast of Guinea, except in this, that they were
called the judgments of God, and implied some belief in a personal
spirit, who could and would control the verdict of chance to prove
guilt or innocence.'

• Ellis, Polynesian Raearehes^ i. 378, iv. 423,

* Pinkerton, xvi 690.

» Wuttke, Geschkhte eUs Heidenthums^ 102, speaking of ordeals, says,
'* Wir konnennicht sagen, dass ein monothebtischer Gedanke hier vorhanden sei ;
die Menschen glauben an die Gerechtigkeit des Schicksals noch nicht an eineQ
gerechten Gott"

Savage Penal Laws. 451.

. As m Europe after the fifteenth century the oath of canonical
piugation gradually displaced the older system of ordeals, so it would
seem that in savage life too the judicial oath succeeds in order of
time the judicial ordeal. An oath implies a prayer, an invocation of
punishment in case of perjury \ and a man's conscience is evidently
more directly appealed to where his guilt is tested to some extent by
his own confession, than where it is decided by something quite
external to himself.

The witness in a modem English law-court, invoking upon
himself divine wrath if he swear falsely by the book he kisses, pre-
serves with curious exactitude the judicial oath of savage times and
lands. Our English judicial oath has withstood all attacks upon it,
for the insuperable practical reason that the majority of men are
more afraid of swearing falsely than of speaking falsely ; and that the
fewer scruples a man feels about lying, the more he is likely to feel
about perjury. The notion that one is morally worse than the other.
is probably due to the imaginary terrors which, associated time out
of mind with perjury, have given it a legal existence apart, and made
it, so to speak, a kind of lying-extraordinary.

In Samoa, each of the persons suspected of a theft was obliged
before the chiefs to touch a sacred cocoa-nut drinking cup and to
invoke destruction upon himself if he were the thief. The formula
ran : "With my hand on this cup, may the god look upon me and send
swift destruction if I took the thing which has been stolen." " Before
this ordeal the truth was rarely concealed," it being firmly believed
that death would ensue were the cup touched and a lie told. Or
the suspected would first place a handful of grass on the stone or
other representative of the village god, and laying his hands on it,
say : " In the presence of our chiefs now assembled, I lay my hand
on the stone ; if I stole the thing, may I speedily die," the grass being
a symbolical curse of the destruction he invoked on all his family, of
t\it grass that might grow over their dwellings. The older ordeal of
fixing the guilt upon a person to whom the face of a spun cocoa- nut
pointed when it rested, shows how ordeals may continue in use after
the attainment of judicial oaths and contemporaneously with them. '

To understand the binding force of oaths among savages, it is
necessary to observe how closely connected they are with savage
ideas of fetichism, and their belief in witchcraft as a really active
natural force. The hair or food of a man, which a savage bums to
rid himself of an enemy, is no mere symbol of that enemy so much
as in some sense that enemy himself. The physical act of touching

* Turner, Polynesia^ 241, 293, 215.

G2

452 The Gentleman's Magazine.

the thing invoked has reference to feelings of causal connection
between things, as in Samoa, where a man, to attest his veracity,
would touch his eyes, to indicate a wish that blindness might strike
him if he lied, or would dig a hole in the ground, to indicate a wish
that he might be buried in the event of falsehood. In Kamschatka,
if a thief remained undetected, the elders would summon all the
ostrog together, young and old, and, forming a circle round the fire,
cause certain incantations to be employed. After the incantations {zu
Ende der Schamannerey) the sinews of the back and feet of a wild
sheep were thrown into the fire with magical words, and the wish
expressed that the hands and feet of the culprit might grow crooked;
there being apparently a connection assumed between the action of
the fire on the animal's sinews and on the limbs of the man. And in
Sweden there are still cunning men who can deprive a real thief of
his eye, by cutting a human figure on the bark of a tree and driving
nails and arrows into the representative feature. But perhaps the
best illustration of this feeling is the practice of the Ostiaks, offering
their wives, if they suspect them of infidelity, a handful of bear's hairs,
believing that, if they touch them and are guilty, they will be bitten
by a bear within the space of three days. Now, it would seem that
oaths appeal to the same idea of vicarious or representative influence,
a real but invisible connection being imagined between the actual
thing touched and the calamity invoked in touching it. Instances
from the oaths of other tribes will manifest the operation of the same
feelings as that which makes grass a symbol of utter ruin in Samoa,
or some bear's hairs of a bear's bite among the Ostiaks.

Among the Nomad races of the North, three kinds oi oaths
are said to be usual, the first and least solemn one being
for the accused to face the sun with a knife, pretending to
fight against it, and to cry aloud : ** If I am guilty, may the
sun cause sickness to rage in my body like this knife ! " The
second form of oath is to cry aloud firom the tops of certain
mountains, invoking death, loss of children and cattle, or bad
luck in hunting, in case of guilt being real. But the most solemn
oath of all is to exclaim, in drinking some of the blood of a dog.
killed expressly by the elders and burnt or thrown away: " If I
die, may I perish, decay, or bum away like this dog."* Very
similar is the oath in Sumatra, where, a beast having been slain, the
swearer says: "If I break my oath, may I be slaughtered as this
beast, and swallowed as this heart I now consume."^ The most

' Klemm, iii. 68.

» Wuttke, Geschickte des Heidenthums^ 103.

Savage Penal Laws. 453

solemn oath of the Bedouins, that of the cross-lines, is also charac-
terised by the same belief which appears in the case of the slain beast
affecting with sympathetic decay the man guilty of perjury. If a
Bedouin cannot convict a man he suspects of theft, it is usual for
him to take the suspected before a sheikh or kady, and to call on him
to swear any oath demanded of him. If the defendant agrees, he is
led to a certain distance from the camp, *' because the magical nature
of the oath might prove pernicious to the general body of Arabs
were it to take place in their vicinity." Then the plaintiff draws with
his sekin, or crooked knife, a large circle in the sand with many cross,
lines inside it, places his right foot inside it, causes the defendant to
do the same, and makes him say after himself : " By God, and in
God, and through God, I swear I did not take the thing, nor is it in
my possession." To make the oath still more solemn, the accused
often puts also in the circle an ant and a bit of camel's skin, the one
expressive of a hope that he may never be destitute of camel's milk, the
other of a hope that he may never lack the winter provision of an ant*

Firm, however, as is the savage belief that the consequences of
perjury are death or disease, a belief which shows itself not unfre-
quently in actually inferring the fact of perjury from the fact of death,
escape from the obligation of an oath is not unknown among savages.
On the Guinea Coast recourse was had to the common expedient of
priestly absolution, so that when a man took a draught-oath, impre-
cating death on himself if he failed in his promise, the priests were
sometimes compelled to take an oath too, to the effect that they
would not employ their absolving powers to release him. In Abyssinia
a simpler process seems to be in vogue ; for the king, on one occa-
sion having sworn by a cross, thus addressed his servants : '' You
see the oath I have taken ; I scrape it clean away from my tongue
that made it." Thereupon he scraped his tongue and spat away his
oath, thus validly releasing himself from it.'

It does not appear that savages refine on their motives for
punishment, the sum of their political philosophy in this respect
being rather to inflict penalties that accord with their ideas of retri-
bution deserved for each case or crime, than to deter other criminals
by warning examples. The statement that New Zealanders beat
thieves to death, and then hang them on a cross on the top of a hill,
as a warning example, conflicts with another account which says
that thieves are punished with banishment.* But, subject to the

* Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins^ 73.
' Latham, Descriptive Ethnology^ ii. 98.
' Klemxn, iv. 354.

454 ^^ Gentlematis Magazine.

influence of collateral circumstances, savage penal laws appear to
be as fixed, r^;ular, and well-known, as inflexibly bound by prece-
dent, as often improved by the intelligence of individual chiefs, as
penal laws are in more advanced societies. The case of an Ashantee
king, who, limiting the number of lives to be sacrificed at his mother's
funeral, resisted ail importunities and appeals to precedent for a
greater number, is not without parallel in reforms of law. Thus we
are told of one Caffre chief who abolished in his tribe the fine pay-
able for the crime of approaching a chiefs kraal with the hccid co-
vered by a blanket ; whilst another chief made the homicide of a man
taken in adultery a capital offence, thus transferring the punishment
for the crime from the individual to the tribe.*

In legal customs analogous to those of the savage or rather semi-
civilised world, the lej^al institutions of civilised countries, their
methods of procedure, of extorting truth, of punishing crimes, seem
to have their root aiid explanation. For this reason the same interest
attaches to the legal institutions of modem savages as attaches to the
laws of the ancient Germanic tribes or to the ordinances of Menu, the
interest, that is, of descent or relationship. The oath, for instance,
of our law courts presupposes in the past, if not in the present, pre-
cisely the same state of thought as the oath customary in Samoa ;
and the same virtue inherent in touching and kissing the Bible leads
the Tunguse Lapp to touch and then kiss the cannon, gun, or sword,
by which he swears allegiance to the Russian crown,* The High-
lander also, of olden time, kissing his dirk, to invoke death by it if
he lied, is a similar instance of the survival of the primitive concep-
tion, that physical contact with a thing creates a spiritual dependence
upon it. The ordeal, so lately the judicial test of witchcraft, still
retains a foothold of faith among our country people, as is proved by
the fact that not longer ago than 1863 an octogenarian died in con-
sequence of having been " swum " as a wizard at Little Hedingham,
in Essex. And, lastly, the English law that no person could inherit
an estate from anyone convicted of treason, or from a suicide, shows
how naturally the savage law of collective responsibility, in reality so
unjust, may survive into times of civilisation, whilst the ignominy still
attached to the blood-relations of a criminal shows with what difficulty
the feeling is eradicated.

J. A. FARRER.
* Maclean, 124, iio.
' Klemm, in. 69.

455

WILLIAM HARVEY.

% fftrttntcnnrg Cribult.

Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,
Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words ;
And in such change is my invention spent, —
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.

Shakespeare, Sonnets^ 105.

A BIRTHDAY PROLOGUE.

VADE mecum. Let us think of a fine first of April morning, in the
year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-nine,
and let us in imagination go into Smithfield, field of the noble army of
martyrs, and a field which every stranger from the country new to
London would surely visit. Then, as now, we see standing across
one side of the square a great house for the reception and treatment
of sick people. It is the house founded by Rahere, — Bartholomew's
Hospital.

As we look at the house of the sick we see passing to it from
another house on the western side of Smithfield, an energetic,
brisk-stepping man, past the meridian of life, who evidently has
business before him of importance. He is a litde man, below the
middle stature, and his face, which is round, is " olivaster in colour,
wainscot like/' His hair is raven black. His eyes are small, very
black, and sparkling. His featiures are expressive of energy, vivacity,
penetration, courage. His temperament, as we should say in these
days, is nervous and bilious, the nervous preponderating. He is not
really an irritable man, but quick and soon on fire. He wears a short
dagger, as is the fashion of the day amongst gentlemen, and there at
the door of the hospital, where he is now speaking with some other
gentleman, fiiend or brother worker, he gets into an argument and,
as you observe, unsheathes his little dagger automatically, and, holding
it in his right hand, lays the flat surface of the blade across his left
hand, as if clenching an argument; or directs the point, with energy, in
some new direction, as suggesting a statement, reason, or qualification.

45 6 The Gentleman s Magazine.

You might think this an ebullition of temper, if you did not know the
man. You soon see you are deceived. That polished movement and
farewell indicates a thoroughbred gentleman, with no little affectation
of courtly polish, and you observe that the friend spoken to departs
smiling and satisfied. The friend is clearly proud of an interview,
which he will not fail to talk of to his neighbours and family, for in
the interest it has excited in his mind he almost forgets to pick his
way over the big stones which loosely cover the rough pavement,
and has nearly gone down on his nose. He must be careful. Every-
body must be careful of tripping, physically as well as politicaUy,
in the reign of Charles the First.

At a respectful distance, we will venture to follow, into the house of
the sick, him in whom we have become so much interested. He is,
we detect, treated with great reverence, and we quickly discover his
vocation to be that of the healer of those who are there to be healed.
He has removed his King Charles hat by this time, and has thrown
off his loose cloak, whereby we are able to distinguish that the short
stature of the man is not thrown out of symmetry by great girth of
body and limb. He has a lithe and spare body, on which body is
set a head of fine proportion. The forehead is high and broad ; the
nose well chiselled and slightly Roman ; the cheeks flattened ; the
lips compressed and thin ; the chin curved and pointed. From
the extreme of the chin and lower line of the lower jaw depends a
pointed, neatly-cut beard, and from the upper lip, curving gracefully
down on each side, is what we modems know as a moustache. The
raven hair on the head is combed straight back in neat and comely
style.

The dress of our man is, according to the professional taste of
the day, of rich black cloth. He has rather a full doublet, with
sleeves cut somewhat after the manner of a professor's gown, light
plaits at the shoulders, a loose band round the elbows, and a tighter
band, rather broad, at the wrist, edged beyond by a white cambric
border. The doublet is buttoned all the way up the chest, but is
open at the throat, and from out of it, overlapping the shoulders
on each side, is a broad white collar, which sets off the fine dark
face in striking contrast. The length of the doublet hides the cut of
the nether garments, or breeches. The stockings are seen to be of
black silk, seamed or ribbed. The boots, which reach far up the legs,
stretching widely out, are fringed at the top, and are fitted neatly to the
feet, high at heel and rounded at the toe. Round the waist is a loose
band, from which, on the left side, the small fashionable and demon-
strative dagger depends, an instrument which is never used for

William Harv^. 457

warlike purposes, except in a battle of science or learning, and then
only in harmless and silent eloquence of gesture.

The healer, surrounded by his staff of attendants, makes his
round. Patients, medical and surgical aHke, come under his care,
for he is a physician, and the physician is the be-all and end-all of
physic in the time of the Stuarts. No great surgeons, like James Paget
or Spencer Wells, have climbed in his day to the top of the tree of
medical art ; but such as are then called surgeons follow their leader,
and, acting merely as his handicrafts, do what he bids them with
blind obedient skill. He is an exceptional physician, for now and
again he will prefer to take their duties on himself, and, with the true
dexterity of an anatomist, will teach them some practical lesson in
their craft.

We see with what respect and admiration the man we accompany
is followed. The dark eyes command the admiration. Is the admira-
tion imiversal ? Is it possible that from every lip there is praise ?
It had not been a man we were looking upon if this had been his
fate, and his fate it was not, for he was of man begotten and of
woman bom. So he was not altogether without his detractors.
There crosses our path a busy, envious physician, who, disliking the
admiration he observes, takes the first opportunity he gets of telling
us that the man we are looking at is a good anatomist enough, but
that, as a practical physician, he would not give twopence for one
of the man's bills, — prescriptions, — and cannot understand his
*' therapeutique way." In the hospital itself there is some little strife,
for the great physician is expected soon to go out of the country for a
long season on an important mission, and is anxious to leave
behind as a substitute, one Dr. Smith, while the governors of the
institution, not having " knowledge and satisfaction of the efficiency
of Mr. Smith," are getting determined to appoint Dr. Andrews to
the office, whom by the way, in course of time, they do so appoint
Again, there is another person, an exceedingly knowing person,
knowing and communicating, who gives us his views without telling
us who he is or where he comes from; but who tells us confidentially
that the little man with the raven hair, olivaster face, piercing black
eyes, and quick expression, is a "crack-brained," who thinks he
has made a discovery that will render him immortal ; who has set
Galen and all the masters right ; and who expects some other men,
equally crack-brained perchance, to be writing about him hundreds
of years to come. Fine joke for a man to entertain respecting him-
self. Crack-brained indeed, indeed 1

Meanwhile, our observed of observers goes his round caring as

s

458 The Gefitlemans Magazine.

little what is said of him as of the gusts of wind which blow up the
dry dust in the streets on that April morning. He does his dudes,
or, as a contemporary greater even than he, and whom at the time he
knows much less of than he will have to know, is wont to say, ** he
obeys his call," and that is sufficient for him.

The work in the house of the sick completed for the day,
wounds dressed, prescriptions written, and directions given, the cloak
and hat are resumed, and once more we follow our great man to the
gateway leading into Smithfield. Now at the gate stands a hand-
some and handsomely caparisoned horse with servants attending.
He whom we follow springs lightly into the saddle, and with slow but
steady pace, sitting his horse with much dignity, proceeds westward.
Coming after him are two runners, who carry a carpet and keep in
close attendance. The course taken is first into Holbom, which is
crossed, down to the Fleet, and, turning to the right, straight away
to St. James's Palace. Arrived there, the runners lay down the
carpet at the entrance, and afterwards assist the rider, their master,
to alight on it. Leaving his horse to their care, he enters the
Palace as one who knows his way to its most secret and sacred
recesses. The courtiers do him every honour, for his friend at Court
is the chief man there. Nevertheless, even he must wait a brief
period, in an ante-room, for the royal pleasure.

At last the courtier-in-waiting summons him to the presence, and
royal patient and royal physician meet Into this secrecy we must
not presume to intrude. The interview is not of long duration, but it
is clear that between sovereign and subject there is the most corduil
understanding, for the king, none less, moves with the physician out
of the audience-room and speaks to him as to a friend in whom he
is deeply interested, and to whom he offers his royal congratulations.

At the palace gate the physician remounts and proceeds back to
Smithfield, calling on one or more sick persons in his journey.
Arrived at home, a frugal midday meal prepares him for other and
equally important duties.

His ride in the afternoon takes him in a different direction, city-
wards. He rides into the heart of the city, making further
professional calls, and by-and-by alights at the office of a merchant,
where he seems entirely at home. He passes through the place of
business unchecked, and enters the private room of the owner, where
he receives from two city men, each of position, a right brotherly
greeting and best wishes for happy returns of the day. He calls
one of these by his Christian name, Eliab, the other Daniel ; and
they in turn, but with marked deference, as feeling favoured by

William Harvey. 459

the privil^e, call him William. They talk familiarly of family
matters, and when the visitor proceeds to leave them they ac-
company him to the door and stand beside him as he remounts,
and talk to him to the last, as they bid him a truly affectionate fare-
well. Afterwards many merchants of character call on them that
afternoon, for it has reached the city that their brother has been with
the king, and kings are kings with a vengeance in those days. A
royal toothache is an event then that thrills through the city ; and
a word from royalty, at third hand only, be it ever so short, is an
eventful event Brother EHab, when he reaches his private house at
Roehampton in the evening, has still his admiring listeners, and
brother Daniel, when he reaches his residence at the village of Lam-
beth, has the same. They have gathered that William will in a few
months, possibly, go abroad for a season, with the Duke of Lennox,
and this is court news from the fountain-head.

The rider on his part makes his way to Amen Comer, and once
more alights, this time at the famous Royal College of Physicians.
Here he is again seen to be at home, and indeed he is in a posi-
tion of great trust, for he holds, as treasurer, the sinews of war. He
is more than this, he is professor also, and there have gathered
together to meet him in the halls of the college, and to hear him dis-
course, many fellows and licentiates, the elects and censors, and the
president. The professor puts his velvet gown on his shoulders, and
following the richly-robed president. Dr. Argent, who is preceded by
his mace-bearer, with all due solemnity, he enters the lecture-room
to stand once more before an admiring auditory.

In delivering his lecture, which is on some subject relating to
anatomy, our honoured professor speaks with equal energy, pre-
ci3ion, and candour. He has no severe or contemptuous words for
antagonists ; no unruly passion ; little appeal to mere argument ;
great appeal to natural fact. He is most at home in demonstration,
and refers rarely to the short notes in his private desk-book. In the
course of his demonstration he uses six natural diagrams of the
nerves and blood-vessels of the human body. These parts have all
been carefully dissected out and laid, each in natural order, on a large
slab of wood, in which form they remain until the present hour. To
point out the parts to which he would direct attention, the professor
employs a whalebone rod about eighteen inches long, and tipped
at its end with a silver point. Rod still extant

The lecture concluded, the friendly fellows retire to their common
hall, banquet together, and offer their honoured colleague their
best wishes on so auspicious a day. Their friend enjoys these

46o The Genilematis Magazine.

simple feasts, and leaves a message, treasured by fellows to this very
hour, that such good friendship should ever be encouraged and
maintained.

The banquet of these grave yet hearty men and scholars is not
prolonged, and as the evening draws to its close, the physician
anatomist returns to his home. But his work is not finished. He
has a library of considerable value ; a rare collection of curiosities ;
a cabinet of precious manuscripts ; and arrangements in which some
kind of natural experimentation can at spare moments like these
be followed up. We may take a final glance at him ere he retires
for the night. No child breaks in on his studies, for he is childless,
and his wife is so inobtrusive that she distracts him little. He busies
himself in these quiet hours in arranging his literary work, or in
experiment ; and finally he takes up the work of another physician,
who is to him the perfection of authors. His Virgil is his vigil, and
all his soul wonders as once more he reads —

** Principio coclum ac terras camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum Lunx, Titaniaque astra
Spiritus intus alit ; totamque infiisa per artas
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.*'

Good night, philosopher ! We will leave you to go to your rest
Even your watchful eyes must sleep. Good night 1

FROM BIRTH TO FAME.

The man with whom we have so far communed as closely as the
living can, through history, commune with the dead, was passing, in
that first day of April 1629, through his fifty-second birthday.

He was bom on April i, 1578, and the first of April of this year
1878, the day on which our revived picture of him is published,
marks the tercentenary of his birth.

The name of the man was William Harvey. The grand life-
work of the man was the complete discovery of the circulation of the
blood.

At the time we have been led to make his acquaintance, Harvey
was in the throes of immortality. Hardly a year agone he had
published a work in which he had claimed to have demon-
strated the motion of the heart and blood through the body.
The work had had time to extend and become known, and
throughout the world of learning, at home and abroad, it had
spread the fame of its learned author. The time had not yet
come for cavil, for the work had hardly been comprehended in

William Harvey. 461

detail It stood for astonishment, in anticipation of criticism.
Sufficient of it had nevertheless been seen to insure for its writer that
he could never be forgotten. He had carved the name of William
Harvey into all languages that were written, and had sent it forth
into all days that were to come. In what d^[ree of dignity, honour,
and praise he had sent it forth might then be doubtful, but for good
or for bad it had been stamped in the mint of the learned, and had
been issued as accepted coin. We shall have to ask by-and-by
what the value of it was. Previous to this it were well to look at the
man from his youth, and see how and why he stepped into the place
he had won at fifty-one years of age. Our narrative on this point
shall be as brief as true brevity can permit

The lady who gave birth to William Harvey was, in her maiden
state, one Joan Halke. His father, Thomas Harvey, was a Kentish
yeoman, and his native village Folkestone, in Kent He was the
firstborn of his parents. He ran about for ten years, and then went
to the grammar school at Canterbury, where he remained till he was
made fit for Cambridge; and in May 1593 he was entered as a
student at Caius College, with physic before him as his profession.
What he learnt at Cambridge besides the classics is not known, but
in 1597 he obtained his degree of Bachelor of Arts, and left his
university. He now went to Padua, the more efficiently to learn
the science and art of physic, and he remained at his studies at this
famous school five years, occasionally visiting Venice. At Padua
he was the pupil of the anatomist, Fabricius of Aquapendente, a
most approved master. Five years were here passed. He took at
Padua his degree of Doctor in Medicine and Surgery. Thus entitled,
he returned to his native land, took up also his M.D. at Cambridge,
and, entering London, settled down to practice. In 1604 he was
admitted to the Royal College of Physicians, and in 1607 he was
elected a Fellow of that College.

It is clear that, in starting out in his professional career, Harvey
had fewer difficulties to meet than most men who have become
eminent in science. A man who could afford to spend five years
as a student in Padua, who could take up his honours, without any
other trouble than the mere preparation for the ordeal of exami-
nation, must surely have had means of an ample kind. His parents,
indeed, seem to have been persons of competency; and five of his
brothers, Thomas, Daniel, Eliab, Michael, and Matthew, being
merchants, carrying on trade with Turkey and the Levant, we have
fair evidence that he entered professional life with little anxiety
as to his future in a pecuniary point of view. We may presume,

4d2 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

further, that he had early in his career much personal influenccy-aiid
that he took position and practice more speedily than falls to the lot
of most Esculapians.

Sometime, and not many years, after his entrance into London,
Harvey married the daughter of Dr. Lancelot Browne. This, again,
shows prosperity and favour on his side, since Dr. Browne was a man
of consequence in his day. In 1609 ^^ applied for the office of phy-
sician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, then held by Dr. Wilkinson,
In this contest he had the assistance of letters of recommendation
from the king, James I., and, as his request was granted, he was
temporarily elected to do work for Dr. Wilkinson. Wilkinson died
the same year, and Harvey was promoted in his stead.

From letters relating to this election, it seems that John Harvey,
a younger brother of William, was one of the king's footmen, — an
office of honour in those times. This fact may account for the
royal influence exerted in behalf of William in his Bartholomew's
Hospital election, and for his introduction to court subsequently, as
a Court Physician.

In 1 61 5, Harvey was chosen to deliver the lectures on Anatomy
and Surgery at the Royal College of Physicians. These lectures had
been founded by Dr. Richard Caldwell. Caldwell, a Staffordshire
man, was bom in the year 15 13, and died in 1585. He was a
graduate of Oxford, and in 1570 was made President of the London
College of Physicians. His contributions to medical literature were
few. One translation of his, of little importance, remains ; it is
Horatio More's * Tables of Surgery.' His reputation consists in his
having founded the chair above named.

It is presumed that Harvey commenced his demonstrations of the
circulation of the blood in the first course of lectures ever delivered
by him at the Royal College, viz., in April 16 15. This may be so ;
the statement, however, is an historical hypothesis. It is at the same
time certain that, in succeeding courses, he took pains to illustrate his
labours on this subject more and more fully ; for in his preface to
the work on the motions of the heart and blood, he speaks of having
demonstrated the views it contains for nine years, in his anatomical
lectures at the College, and he appeals to the accomplished president
and other members as witnesses of the truth of his explanations.

By the year 1623 Harvey had so far risen in reputation that he
was chosen Physician Extraordinary to King James. Surely no other
English king ever had so extraordinary a physician. WTien James
died, Harvey continued to hold the same office to Charles, from
whom, as Dr. Willis observes he received many favours and much

William Httrvey. 4JSg

assistance^-I may say, sympathy. As well as to the king, he was
medical adviser to Lord Bacon, and others of the illustrious of the
tim,e ; but he was too scientific for the vulgar, and a simple truth-
speaker, so, as he gained the honours of science, he lost the character
of physician. Had he lived now, it were the same.

It was not until the year 1628 that the great work on the motion
of the heart and blood appeared. Its author had by this time
matured his views ; he was master of the subject, and in what he had
to say he could feel that every sentence was a demonstration. Per-
haps nothing could have indicated the clearness of his judgment
better than the pains he took not to rush into print before his designs
were complete, and his own mind could take in some of the fulness
of his own discoveries.

When the book at last came to light, it was a demonstration so
pure, so clear, so positive, that even now the man who shall have
learned the circulation from his boyhood shall find an inability to
describe it with equal precision and power. There is not a faltering
step at any point The argument is a pure specimen of practical
inductive reasoning ; and Dr. Willis wisely observes that " had
Lord Bacon written his * Novum Organum ' from Harvey's work as a
text, he could scarcely have expressed himself otherwise than he
has done, or given other rules for philosophizing than those which
he has laid down in his celebrated treatise."

THE HARVEIAN DISCOVERY.

That which was discovered by Harvey is known from his time
as the plan of the double circulation of the blood through the
human body : the curculation of the blood through the lungs from
the right to the left side of the heart, or the lesser circulation \
and the circulation of the blood from the left side of the heart over
the body back to the right side of the heart, or the greater circula-
tion. The courses of the circulation in these two directions he made
sd clear, that none but those who would not see could fail to discern.
Beyond this he completely expounded the mechanism of the heart,
showed the independence of the right and left sides, and indicated
the true motions of the heart by which the blood is received,
directed, and propelled. Much that was purely anatomical had been
discovered before the time of Harvey in respect to the circulatory
apparatus. Hippocrates had declared that the heart is a muscj
organ. Herophilus, who lived in the time of the first Ptolemy,^ ''had
distinguished that the pulmonary veins partake of the character bf the

464 TAe GmtletnaiCs Magazine.

arteries, and gave them the title of arterial veins. Galen had
assumed that the blood is moved from the heart, but he taught
that the two sides of the heart, which, as we now know, are separated
from each other by a thick impermeable muscular septum, are not
truly separated, but that the blood held in the two sides is admixed
through or within this septum, and that from the ventricles ' the
blood ascends to meet in the extreme parts, and return back to the
heart by the same channels, to meet once more and admix in the
cavities of the heart

These ideas respecting the circulation of the blood, false as they
were in some respects, were not without their uses. They suggested
movement of blood to and from the heart, and they defined the
order of vessels, veins and arteries, with a connecting centre to
them, the central heart

There was another anatomist, moreover, who a short time before
the birth of Harvey had most of all distinctly cleared the way for
him and his discoveries. I refer to Vesalius, the father of modem
anatomy. I have recently been studying afresh the labours of this
most remarkable man, and the wonder to my mind is that he should
have missed the discovery of the circulation. He disposed of the
Galenic view of the porous character of the septum of the ventricles.
His delineation of the valvular mechanism of the heart, of the larger
valves between the auricles and the ventricles, and of the smaller or
semilunar valves at the roots of the great vessels, of which I subjoin
fiuthful copies from his own original work, shows how well he under-
stood the valvular mechanism of the heart :

died, Dtliiiratifn -/at tmhrnln' mttiaKiim e/ Ikr itari—iifltr yrvlm

whom,

's delineation of the blood-vessels passing firom the right side

William Harvey. 465

oi the heart over the lungs, of which the thiid drawing is a correct
representation, proves how carefully he had traced out the course
of the pubnonary vessels into the lungs :

His delineation of the blood-vessels passing from the lungs into
the left side of the heart, carefully presented above in the fourth draw-
ing, indicates how definitely he had traced the course of the blood-
channels back from the lungs into the heart.

Lastly, his delineation of the arteries or out-going vessels of the
body from the heart, and of the accompanying and returning veins, a
true copy of which delineation is supplied on the next page, amply
declares how completely Vesalius had unravelled the anatomical
network of the circulatory canals, and had followed out their courses
from and to their centre.

After Vesalius came Harvey's own anatomical master, Fabricius of
Aquapendente, who discovered the existence of valves in the veins,
and showed that those valves were intended to prevent the blood
falling backwards, as it was making its way from the extremities
towards the heart.

It ought to be admitted with perfect candour, that to these ana-
tomists Harvey was indebted for his basic knowledge of the circula-
tion. He might have been indebted to some others, but to introduce
their names at this point would be to anticipate the question of the
originality of his discovery, for the consideration of which I reserve
a special chapter.
vou ccxLii. so. 1708. H H

466 The Gentlemans Magazine.

Dc iatalim ^ Vml and Arttriti—^fltr yittlaa.

William Harvey. 467

In these days of learning, it is very easy indeed to understand the
circulation of the blood. Eveiy well-informed schoolboy, looking at
the blue veins in his body, knows that they and all veins carry blood
to the right side of his heart. He can tell easily enough that the
blood reaching the heart by the veins enters into the little ear-shaped
cavity of the heart, called the right auricle. He can explain that this
auricle, contracting when it is full, drives the blood into the
right ventricle and that the blood cannot get back into the auricle
because three curtains, acting as valves, and opening into the ventricle,
bar the way backward. He can define that the right ventricle, when
it is filled with blood, contracts, and that, being prevented from
driving the blood back into the auricle, it drives it through a laige
blood vessel, the pulmonary artery, into the lungs. He can describe
how at the mouth of this blood-vessel three little half-moon-shaped
valves let the current of blood pass on to the lungs, but prevent by
their closure downwards any return into the ventricle. He can follow
the course of the blood over the lungs, trace it from them, by the
four returning pulmonary veins, into the little left auricle of the
heart He can show that this auricle when it contracts on its contents
drives its charge into the strong left ventricle beneath it He can
describe how the filled ventricle, contracting on its blood, is prevented
driving it back into the auricle, owing to the interposition of two large
curtain valves, which open into the ventricle and close the cavity from
the auricle above, during the ventricular contraction. He can describe
that the blood, under the force of the ventricular contraction, impels
its charge into a great out-going artery called the aorta, at the mouth
of which artery are placed three other half-moon-shaped valves to
prevent return of blood into the ventricle. And lastly, from the
aorta he can trace the blood over the whole body, pulse by pulse,
with every stroke of the heart, until it returns again in steady current
by the veins to the centre from which it started in its course, and
which is ready to receive it and propel it on in successive circulation.

So simple is all this now, that a schoolboy may describe it. It is
so easy, that at this day it becomes very difficult even to shadow
forth all the obstacles which stood in the way of the Harveian
discovery of the problem of the circulation. And yet the obstacles
were enormous. The doctrine of vital spirits, wrapt up in all the
mysterious rags of mythology, had to be torn down. Mechanical
arrangements, simplest of the simple, required an explanation, to
meet and supplant the subtle dogmas of tides and fluxes. A number
of holes which did not exist between the sides of the heart had,
notwithstanding Vesalius, still to be sealed up by man as well as by

II H 2

468 The GentlematCs Magazine.

nature. The pulse-beat had to be disconnected from the breathing
as its cause, and assigned to the heart. The so-called systole, or
driving-forth stroke of the heart, had to be turned into the diastole
or filling of the heart, and the so-called diastole into the systole. The
chorda tmdina, or fine threads, which hold down the larger valves, had
to be proved to be mechanical cords, not nerves. The simultaneous
action of the two auricles and of the two ventricles of the heart had to
be made clear ; the four motions distinct in point of place, the two
motions distinct in point of time. And, again, the existence of a
circuit of blood, from the left heart into the arteries, from the arteries
into the veins, from the veins into the right heart, from the right
heart into the lungs, from the lungs into the left heart, and so on and
on continually, had to be fully explained, to be seen first and after-
wards demonstrated. To grasp the completeness of the Harveian
exposition, in short, it must be read in its entirety: read as a
method, not less keenly than as a description. The beauty of it is that
it is all proved, as far as a man in his day could prove the fact. He
did not see dead quiescent anatomy only, but living moving anatomy.
The two auricles at the inverted base of the heart were not to him
mere receptacles in open communication with the veins from the
body, and the veins from the lungs, but contracting receptacles
filling with blood and sending the blood into the ventricles, filling
simultaneously and contracting simultaneously ; and, while contract-
ing, pushing their fluid contents into the relaxing ventricles beneath
them.

Again, those two larger cavities of the heart, the ventricles, with
the thick septum between them, were not to him mere pouches com-
municating with the auricles and receiving their blood. They were
filling and contracting parts also ; they filled as the auricles emptied ;
they filled simultaneously and contracted simultaneously, and they
filled the two circulations, — the lesser or pulmonic, the greater or
systemic, — simultaneously.

There are valves opening downwards from the mouths of the
auricles into the ventricles on each side, and there are valves opening
upwards from the mouths of the great vessels, and the function of
these valves, as described above, had to be demonstrated.

This was the work of William Harvey.

THE HARVEIAN CLAIM.

When the clamour with which the work of Harvey was received
had died away in great measure, his position was somewhat as fol-

William Harvey. 469

lows : — ^There was a general steady belief that he had made a great
discovery. There was a limited but sturdy belief that he had not.
There was a rumour that the man was a little touched in the upper
story. There was a confidence that he was a theorist, and that the
lives of the lieges were not safe in his professional hands. His
practice therefore dwindled

It is a grand feature in the character of Harvey, that he met his
objectors with the decision and calmness of a silent spectator. His
converse was with Nature, not men. He construed to men what
Nature opened to him, for their benefit, not for his own glorification.
So long as this communion with his divine mistress was perfect, what
to him was the prating of the ignorant ? He let them have their say,
therefore, knowing them wrong, and replied but to Riolan, and one or
two others whose obstinacy was most wonderful. He replied to these
even, not from himself, but from Nature. He did not say " I believe,"
but " I know." He did not whine out, " Listen to this argument,"
but said in a word, '^ Look at these facts, and if you choose to deny
the demonstrable, I have nothing further to say to you."

When the natiual law revealed by him was established beyond
controversy, a new phase occurred. The charge of plagiarism was
thrown in his teeth. He made no reply. No ! not a word. He could
trust to history for vindication, and wait. His rest in this respect has
been long, for the imputation has never yet been fairly committed to
solemn burial.

In defending Harvey from the charge of plagiarism, or in accusing
him of plagiarism, a little knowlege of history and of the meaning of
discovery is required. They who think that Harvey took up, in his
labours on the circulation, a subject de novo, and worked it out to its
ultimate position, err, in that they argue on an impossibility j for there
never yet was such a discoverer, and never can be. They who main-
tain that a man who projects a great principle is not a discoverer,
because the elements of the discovery are in his hands, err also,
because no man can work out a principle without details.

But let us be patient, and hear what has been said against Harvey
and against his claims to originality in respect to the discovery of the
circulation. The first story brought against him originated in his life-
time. Its fabricator was one Johannes Leonnicenus; its hero, Father
Paul, since made into a sort of a demi -saint, and, in his own way, a de-
cent sort of old priest, the historian of the Council of Trent. John Leon,
or Layon, or Lion, discovered, on his part, that Father Paul made the
discovery of the valves in the veins and of the whole circulation. There
is not a shadow of proof that Father Paul knew anything of anatomy ;

470 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

still, he made this discovery. But poor Father Paul — so says John
Leon — ^was not able to make known his research, because he lived
next door to the Inquisition, and because his colleagues already sus-
pected that if they could only get off the good man's hose, they
would find the first stage of the cloven-foot beneath. Thus fright-
fully placed, and open to the gravest suspicions, Father Paul was
mum — ^just sufficiently mum to save his orthodoxy and lose his
honours. For, alack-a-day ! — ^when the holy man's scientific heart
was overflowing with his immortal find, he communicated it, in the
dead silence of private friendship, to the anatomist Fabricius.
Fabricius himself, desiring no inquisitorial change of climate, kept
the secret long, hard, and fast. At length a pertinacious young
Englishman, named Harvey, visited Padua, and ingratiated himself
so far into the good graces of this master, that to him the &ct was
revealed, the father himself taking part in the disclosure. The
Englishman opened his eyes; read, marked, learned, and inwardly
eT; returned quickly to free England ; and, awarding to Fabri-
cius the discovery of valves in the veins, claimed to himself the greater
problem of the circulation, and generously saved the father from the
wheel by ignoring him altogether.

This is the Father-Paul story, the true reading of which is,
that a copy of Harvey's book, after its publication, fell into Father
Paul's hands ; that the father, interested in it, made notes from it of
the discovery ; that the notes were found among his writings after his
death ; and that those copies were cleverly transformed into the
history of an original discovery by the long-sighted Leon.

Another priestly author, who has been described as the discoverer
of the circulation and the anticipator of Harvey, is Nemesius, who
became converted to Christianity about the close of the fourth
century. Nemesius, after his conversion, was made Bishop of
Emissa, and wrote a book on the nature of man, which was repub-
lished at Oxford in English dress in the year 167 1. This book is
remarkable for its metaphysics rather than its physics ; but there is a
passage in it which has been supposed to contain the facts of the
circulation. The only passages which can possibly give rise to
sucli an opinion are : — ist, a sentence in which the author says that
the pulse-beat originates in the left ventricle of the heart, this being
dilated and contracted regularly : — 2nd, that during the dilatation
the ventricle draws the thin blood from the next veins, which blood
forms the food of the vital spirits : — 3rd, that during the contraction
it throws out whatever vapours it has through the whole body, which
vapours are expelled by the mouth and nose in expiration. We need

William Harvey. 471

not hesitate to throw over this assumed discovery. There is in it no
trace* of a circulation.

That immortal heretic of the sixteenth century, Michael Servetus,
is another writer to whom the discovery of the circulation has been
accredited. Without quoting in full a passage which has been copied
and recopied till it has become hackneyed, I am free to confess that
Servetus knew the pulmonic circulation, and I cannot quite agree
with the learned Willis in his mode of discussing Servetus. Dr. Willis,
the translator of the works of Harvey, argues that Servetus suggested
the course of the blood through the lungs as a mere h3rpothetical
proposal for getting over the difficulty of the solid or nearly solid
septum of the ventricles. I think Servetus saw the transmission
clearly enough, and argued it out, not on the point of the impossi-
bility of a solid mid-wall, but on the fact of the relative size of the
vessels of the right and lefl sides of the heart. Nay, he had know-
ledge of a change in the colour of the blood in the lungs, as a result
of the admixture of air and blood in those organs. It is therefore
true that Servetus knew the pulmonic course of the blood from the
right to the left side of the heart. But as we find him ignorant of
the continuous current in this course, and of a current from arteries
to veins, as well as of all true knowledge of the heart as a propelling
organ, we must season our admiration of him with the conviction
that the circulation of the blood would never have been understood
from his delineation.

Another assumed discoverer of the circulation has been brought
forward in these days by Mr. Joseph Sampson Gamgee. The dis-
coverer in this case is Carlo Ruini, a veterinary surgeon, whose work
on the Anatomy of the Horse was published in 1599. That this
claim may be fully understood, I subjoin a literal translation of Ruini's
description, on which Mr. Gamgee founds his advocacy. The passage
is from the Venetian edition of Ruini's work (1599), vol. i. lib. ii.
pp. 108-110:

** The office of these ventricles is: of the right one, to dispose the
blood, so that of it may be generated the spirits of life, and the
lungs be nourished j of the left, to receive the blood so disposed,
and convert a part of it into the spirits which give life, and send the
remainder, together with those spirits, through the arteries, to all parts
of the body. In one and in the other ventricle are two mouths or
openings ; through those of the right enters the blood of the great vein
or cava, and goes out by the arterial vein ; and through those of the
left ventricle the blood enters accompanied by the air prepared in the
hiDgs through the venal artery, which blood, all made spirituous and

472 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

most perfect in the left ventricle, goes (guided by the great artery) to
all parts of the body, the lungs excepted, to impart to them heat, which
gives life. Every one of these holes of the heart has at its mouth three
little curtains, called hostidi by the Greeks; some of them are turned
inwards, others outwards. At the mouth of the first hole which is
seen in the right ventricle, to which is conjoined the great vein or
cava, is a curtain or thin membrane, which completely surrounds the
hole, and, advancing somewhat towards the concavity'of the ventricle,
divides into three curtains, each of which finish, as in a point of a
triangle, a little above the middle of the ventricle, and from each of
these points arise some nen'ous threads which are inserted into the
sides of the ventricle towards its end. These curtains were there
placed by nature in order that, in opening when the heart widens,
they might allow the blood to enter from the great vein into the
right ventricle, and that when the heart retracts they might, by
shutting the first hole, prevent the same blood there entered through
the great vein from re-entering it, instead of going out through the
arterial vein. The curtain which is at the second hole of the same
right ventricle to which the arterial vein is attached is not made of a
simple curtain, but is divided into three very distinct ones, each of
which commences in form of half a circle from the trunk of the
arterial vein, growing considerably thicker from its commencement,
and widening out from the heart, and as it becomes thicker it forms
some tubercles, which are impressed in the highest part of the heart;
from these tubercles arise three curtains, each of which is in the shape
of a half-moon, without being attached to the heart or to any other part.
As these three curtains open, they let the blood pass out through the
arterial vein to the lungs, and when the heart widens prevent the
blood returning into the right ventricle, through the mouth of the open
arterial vein. Almost in the same manner as in the first hole of the
right ventricle, another curtain is placed at the commencement of
the first hole of the left ventricle, from which arises the venal artery
which is distributed to the lungs, but does not divide into three but
only into tvfo parts, which are very wide above, and end in a solid
point which descends considerably lower down than the points of the
curtains of the right ventricle, and are larger and stronger than these;
and one of them occupies the left side, the other the right of this
ventricle. Their office is, on opening when the heart widens, to
allow the blood and the spirits to enter the left ventricle from the
venal artery, and when the heart retracts to prevent the blood and
spirit again returning into the venal artery. To the three curtains of
the second hole of the right ventricle correspond the three which are

William Harvey. 473

placed at the mouth of the second hole of the left ventricle, to which
the great artery is attached; the curtains of the two sides are
altogether similar, except that the left ones are much larger and
stronger, as the great artery is also larger than the arterial vein.
When the heart retracts, these curtains opening allow the vital spurit
to pass out with the blood, which goes with impetus into the great
artery; and when the heart widens, they, by shutting the hole, prevent
the spirit and the blood re-entering the ventricle."

Such is the description of Carlo Ruini, and a wonderful descrip-
tion it is. The merits of Ruini are : — i. That he had a consum-
mate knowledge of the anatomy of the heart 2. That he had a
shrewd notion, derived evidently from a study of the mechanism of
the heart, of the course of the current of blood through the heart.
No more. If Servetus may be said to have known the pulmonic
circuit, Ruini may be said to have known the pulmonic and the
cardiac circuits. Here he stopped. Of the grand scheme of the two
circulations, with the heart as their centre, their connecting organ,
and their common forcing machine, and of the blood-stream
always going on — of the endless blood-chain, — of these things Ruini
knew no more than his fellows, nor would the circulation ever have
been comprehended if the physiology of the heart and blood had
remained where he left it.

In a sentence, Ruini gave a true description of the circulation
with this distinctive character, that his circulation is altogether a dead
thing, calling for animation to make it a perfected discovery.

Ruini dealt with, there remain three other claimants who have a
right to some notice: these are Fabricius, the master of Harvey;
Realdus Columbus ; and, Caesalpinus of Arezzo.

Fabricius has the credit of discovering the uses of the valves in
the veins, and to him Harvey accords the fullest credit Of his
claim as the discoverer of the whole problem of the circulation,
nothing affirmative can be declared from anything he has left
behind him in way of proof.

Realdus Columbus deserves more credit He knew that the
blood from the body passes by the two great veins, the inferior and
superior vence cava^ into the right auricle, thence into the right ven-
tricle, thence into the lungs : from the lungs into the left auride,
from the left auricle into the left ventricle, and from the left
ventricle, by the great aorta, over the body. He also argued, —
and the argument was of use to Harvey, — that the large quan-
tity of blood which is carried to the lungs by the pulmonary artery
could never be intended for the mere nourishment of two such small

474 ^^ Gentlemafis Magazine.

organs as the lungs. Columbus made an advance by which he
got very near to the truth ; but he did not discover the circulation
of the blood. He had no true conception of the heart as the pro-
pelling organ; he had no idea of the steady circuitous current,
unbroken and ever in motion. All honour nevertheless to him, for
his labours assisted Harvey.

The last man of the three above named, Caesalpinus of Arezzo,
is the one whom the modern Italians have delighted to honour as the
true discoverer of the circulation of the blood. They have recently
erected a monument to his memory, and on it have stamped a merit
which they would fain deny to the English Harvey. For my part, I
am second to no Italian in my deep and earnest admiration of the
great school of anatomy which Italy produced in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. But justice enforces that this claim for Caesal-
pinus shall not be permitted. He is indeed behind Columbus, and
far behind Ruini in the race of discovery.

Concerning the anatomy of the circulation Csesalpinus knew the
same as Ruini, the same as Columbus. To this he added the further
knowledge, that if a vein be compressed it fills and swells at the part
below the ligature, that is to say, at the part the other side of the
ligature from the heart. But whether so much value is to be attached
to the knowledge of that fact as is declared for it, may well be
doubted. It was a fact that had been known ever since the practice
of abstracting blood from a vein had been carried out, — a fact which
every barber surgeon demonstrated whenever he put on the fillet to
fill the vein that had to be punctured by the lancet It may certainly
be allowed to pass without attributing to it anything that carries the
claim of discovery of the circulation of the blood.

The staunch advocates of the claims of Caesalpinus would not,

probably, say much about this matter ot the filling of a vein. They

have a much stronger point of defence, in that their man made use

of the magic word " circulation." It is true he did use that word, and

he also used another word after Servetus, viz., " anastomosis," or the

opening of blood-vessels the one into the other : by the use of which

terms he might at first sight seem to have solved the whole problem.

That Caesalpinus missed the discovery altogether is clear as the

sun at noon, from his own works. He actually disputes the statement

of Hippocrates, that the heart is a muscle. He clings to the old

notion that the septum of the ventricles is porous. He ascribes the

cause of the swelling of the filleted or ligatured vein to an effort on

the part of the blood to get back to its centre, lest it should be cut

off and suffocated. He makes the motion of the blood like the

Euripus, a wave-like motion, to and fix>, as the ancients described

William Harvey. 475

it To these errors many more could be added. They are amply
sufficient to show that Csesalpinus had no conception of the motion
of the heart and blood, as that motion was recognised after the
Harveian announcement.

And now, I think I have touched on all claimants who are worthy
of notice. No ! there is one more. Our own Shakespeare has been
adduced as . a discoverer of the circulation. A speech of Brutus to
Portia, the speech of Warwick over the dead body of Gloucester,
beginning—

Oft have I seen a timely parted ghost ;

and one or two other passages, have led the Shakespearian idolaters
to put forward their idol. They might as well award him the
discovery of the stethoscope, because he makes Hamlet say —

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music.

I need not linger on this argument. It is no discredit to Shakespeare
to say he was not an anatomist; no dishonour to him to say he was
not omniscient; no falseness to him to declare he did not even assist
in the discovery of the circulation. What he knew on the subject
belonged to that mystical pre-scientific learning to which he was so
wedded. What he says is more Uke a reflex of the saying of
Nemesius of Emissa, than of any other writer : some prose passage
of that sort put into his exquisite verse to suit one of his passing ideals,
and having no nearer relation to the discovery of the circulation of
the blood than the beautiful mirage has to the city for which it is
mistaken.

Does the reader ask what, beyond all these men whom we have
seen, William Harvey accomplished? I answer him, Everything.
His work was not on the anatomical courses of the blood alone : it
was not on the circulation alone : it was on the motion of the
heart and blood : and in the application of that expression lies the
greatness of his discovery. Motion means life, and Harvey saw the
living motion. His predecessors had been anatomists. He was not
their inferior on that head, and he was what they were not, a physi-
ologist as well as an anatomist He first saw the motions of the differ-
ent parts of the heart and defined them. He first defined the arterial
pulsations, making them a part of ventricular action. He completed
the argument as to the uses of the valves of the curculatory apparatus
everywhere, and showed from them, as if to his mind they were
so many directing side-posts, the one course, and none other,
the blood must take in the circulatory channels. He replaced the
ideal of a wave-like motion of the blood by the demonstration of a
regular current, pulsating in the arterieSi steady in the veins. He

476 The Ge9Ulemafis Magazine.

sshowed that compression of a vein empties it on the heart ^de of
the compressed part, and fills it below, iiiithout return of the blood
into the arteries ; and he proved that compression of an artery empties
its corresponding veins throughout their whole course, so that the
current of blood is always in one direction.

Under the influence of his genius, I repeat, the hitherto death-
like circulation became a flowing river of life, so plainly depicted
that no hand now could take up pen and describe it better or more
completely than his hand described it

And this is the soul of genius, the perfection of originality : to
start from the knowledge of many smaller men, or of men less
fortunate : to master their details : to bring their details into form out
of void : to go to Nature for corroboration or contradiction of details :
and, from the whole study, to divinely recreate the created, and
thereby show to evetyone, gentie and simple, what he has never seen
before, but is obliged to see clearly when the light of truth illumines
the way.

FROM FAME TO DEATH.

For twenty-seven years after Harvey had attained his wide and
certain fame, he lived in this world, undergoing many vicissitudes. He
visited the Continent in 1630 with the Duke of Lennox, returning to
England in 163 1-2. In 1636 he revisited the Continent, this time
as one of the embassy of the Earl of Arundel. Reaching England
once more about Christmas 1636, afler an absence of nine months,
Harvey resumed his practice, but was much occupied in attendance on
the king, whose physician he was. He attended the ill-fated Charles
on his expeditions to Scotland before the outbreak of the revolu-
tion, was with him at the outbreak, and while on the memorable 23rd
of October the blundering Rupert was sacrificing the success of
the battle of Edgehill, near to Kineton in Warwickshire, Harvey was
resting under a fence in charge of the young princes, the sons of the
king. With the king he went to Oxford, and remained there some
years, replacing, by His Majesty's order, Nathaniel Brent, as Warden
of Merton College, and losing, meanwhile, by the plundering of his
to^Ti house, his goods and chattels, and, worse than all, many of his
anatomical papers, — a loss never made up, and never forgotten.

In 1646, when Oxford gave way to the Parliament, Harvey returned
to the metropolis, houseless and widowed by this time. Two of his
merchant brothers therefore received him at their homes alternately.
Sometimes he resided in the city, but his favourite haunt seems to
have been at the house of his brother at Combe, where he studied in
the '' caves " some newer secrets of Nature, which secrets, on the
solicitation of his friend Dr. Ent, he gave forth in his great work on

William Harvey. 477

generation. At the age of seventy-one, he once more visited Italy,
and with that journey ended his peregrinations out of England. The
last years of Harvey were still devoted to study, to his lectures at the
Royal College of Physicians, and to the development of that college,
to which he added a museum, opened by himself on February 2nd,
1653-4, a library, and all his natural curiosities, for, alas ! the great
fire of London to consume.

It was not until 1656, the seventy-eighth year of his age, that
William Harvey relinquished his professor's gown. He was breaking
up by this time, a martyr to gout, and wearied with the many cares
of a cliequered, anxious, and laborious life. On June 3rd, 1657, he was
seized with palsy of the tongue, and knew his end was near. His
nephews being sent for, he gave to one his watch, to another his
signet ring. He signed to Sambroke his apothecary, to let him blood
in the tongue, but to no avail, and " with easy passport," as the
evening drew nigh, his evening closed. The sun and William Harvey
went down together from the sight of men ; but both immortal.

A few miles from the quaint little market town of Saffron Walden,
in Essex, lies a small village called Hempstead. Eliab Harvey had
built a family vault there, and thither, followed for many miles from
the city by the fellows of the Royal College, the body of the great
anatomist was borne to be laid at rest In the open vault he was
placed " lapt in lead " — not buried, in the ordinary sense of the term ;
and there, " lapt in lead," what remains of his body still lies.

Twice in the past thirty years, I have visited the vault at Hemp-
stead, and viewed the receptacle that holds, like an Egyptian mummy-
case, the remains. In 1848 the leaden case was lying with several
others — there are over forty of them — near one of the open gratings of
the vault. There were many loose stones upon it, and a large hole
in the lead, which let in water. In 1859 Drs. Quain and Stewart,
who went to the vault by request of the fellows of the Royal College
of Physicians, found the remains in even a worse state, for the leaden
case was then almost full of dirty water. In 1868 I found the case
removed from its previous position, and lying apart in the vault,
which had been repaired. In the case there was still an opening,
but the water had either been removed or had escaped by evapora-
tion. I was able to throw a reflected light into this opening, but I
could see no remains, and I think that there is little lefl of what was
once the bodily form of our greatest English anatomist. I would
that what there may be, were safely placed in the mausoleum of the
illustrious,— the Abbey of Westminster. John Hunter and David
Livingstone were nobly companioned by William Harvey. Vale.

BENJAMIN W. RICHARDSON,

478

THE EARLY ITALIAN DRAMA.

WHEN the crusaders of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
returned from the Holy Land to Rome and other parts
of Italy and Europe, certain pilgrims (some of whom had been
crusaders) inaugurated what were called " Mystery Plays." These
plays consisted of songs, dialogues, and processions — the life and
death of Our Saviour, episodes in the lives of the saints, &c. — and
the pilgrims in question, and especially a sect called the " Flagellati,"
must be credited with the foundation of the Italian stage, as an ofif-
shoot of the Roman church. The " Flagellati" began their perform-
ances in the open air, and ended by demanding, and obtaining, large
theatres and amphitheatres, where, as in modern playhouses, the
public could be accommodated with seats.

Now, who and what were these " Flagellati," or Flagellated Ones,
who, in the Dark Ages, sowed the seeds of a new literature and a
new species of entertainment — theological offshoots which the priest-
hood and religious persons generally would, in the fulness of. time,
repudiate and condemn ? They were monks and penitents, and their
mission was to live purely in the great world in the midst of trial and
temptation, as hermits and friars live in cells and convents, out of the
reach of w^orldliness and depravity.

The " Flagellati " were members of a religious order founded in
Rome at the end of the 1 2th century, under the title of " Con-
fraternity del Gonfalone," or Brotherhood of Standard Bearers.
They dressed in sackcloth and they bore a standard. They went
from place to place with chants and prayers, announcing the kingdom
of Christ, and imploring forgiveness for their sins. They were
zealots and philosophers. With them the world was the ante-room
of heaven, and men and women were overgrown children who had
been wrongly brought up. These Flagellated Ones believed in pro-
gress ; they believed war to be a mistake ; tyranny and slavery were
in their opinion, maladies of human society. The world was out of
joint, and they, the Flagellati, were called upon to set it right Why
should Italy, and Europe generally, be decimated by civil strife in
the heyday of the Christian revival, that is to say, at the very time

The Early Italian Drama. 479

when ItatianSy and other Europeans, were girding on the sword of the
Crusades — a sacred and a symbolical sword, whose hilt, to rightly-
constituted eyes, formed the emblem of the Blessed Cross ? The
Plagellati were determined to root out war, and to teach soldiers how
to carry their swords in their arms, hilt upwards, and by preaching
and acting to remind Christians of the origin of Christianity, that is
to say, of the Crucifixion ; and of the centre of Christendom, that
is to say, of the Holy Sepulchre.

At the beginning of the 13th century, a Dominican friar, by name
Giovanni da Vicenza, associated himself with these Flagellati, and,
placing himself at the head of one of their largest sects, turned them,
so to speak, into soldiers of peace. He raised the standard of his
order in Vicenza and Verona, and it was owing to his influence
and that of the Flagellati who obeyed his instructions that the
Vicentini signed the treaty of peace in 1223. Sermons were delivered
and processions took place ; there was what to-day would be called
a theatrical entertainment. There was a time for laughter and a
time for prayer, and dancing and repentance stood side by side and
became friends ; it almost seemed as if the Italians were intent on
reviving the old Roman practice of combining amusement with
religion. But here is Giovanni ; here is the grand old figure of
Giovanni da Vicenza. There stands the great preacher who knew
no guile, whose life was one long martyrdom, because, being rich, he
became poor, and because, loathing poverty, he deprived himself of
the necessities of life. Dressed in sackcloth, pale and gaunt and
thin, like a man half-starved, but with the fire of genius in his eyes,
he preached a series of sermons to the assembled multitude which
brought strong men to their knees with sobs and tears, and made
women almost mad with piety, monks and soldiers both in town and
camp rending the air with shouts. In those days there was one
favourite expression of enthusiasm, or conviction, after a sermon ; it
was the utterance of the word " Hurrah !" — a sacred shout both at
home and abroad, and one of the war-cries of the soldiers of
Palestine.

For upwards of a century did the Flagellati hold their ground in
Italy after that great demonstration of Vicenza, and, when suppressed
by popes and kings, the innovators founded in due form the Sacred
Stage, that is to say, the national theatre for the performance of
religious plays. The last, and perhaps the greatest, leader of the
Flagellati was a Dominican monk named Venturino, of Bergamo,
who, AJ). 1334, enrolled under his standard 30,000 men, in robes of
penitence, with whom, as with an army, he marched on to Rome, to

48a The Gentlematis Magazine.

see the tomb of St. Peter. The pilgrims wore a white robe with
a black mantle thrown loosely over it : a red cross on one and a
white cross on the other, and over the cross a dove, the symbol of
peace, with the olive-sprig in its mouth. No swords were worn, only
a stick such as a shepherd or a tramp might use, and each pilgrim
wore around his waist a rope with seven large knots in it — knots
which served them in lieu of beads, while they were reciting the
prayers of the Rosary and the Litany of the Virgin Mary, the knotted
ropes being, however, chiefly intended for self-flagellation — whence
the name of the sect, the Flagellati. But this army of enthusiasts
caused so much commotion in towns and villages, and so much fear
in high places, that the leader was arrested like a malefactor and
sent to prison, and his army, breaking up into small and, politic-
ally speaking, unimportant bands, dispersed in various parts of Italy»
preaching and singing and doing good (and also, alas ! a considerable
amount of evil) without let or hindrance.

The first great Mystery Play of which we have any knowledge, so
far as Italy is concerned, was represented in the year 1244 at Prato
della Valle, a suburb of Padua. It was the drama of the Redemption,
the tragedy of the Crucifixion. People flocked to Padua from all parts
of Italy to see this performance. A young lady of acknowledged
beauty played the part of the Virgin Mary ; peasants played the part
of the Apostles, soldiers, &c. ; and monks had rdles allotted to them.
Nay, a man was found to play the part of Our Saviour — long fair hair,
parted in the middle, and a meek and goodly aspect being, it is said,
his principal characteristics. The next great spectacle of this kind
took place in the Friuli, about the year 1298, and, at the commence-
ment of the 14th century, a third and grander performance was given
at Cividale, in the north of Italy, amidst the applause of thousands
upon thousands of spectators. The denouement of the drama did not
end with the Crucifixion, for the Mystery Play, as originally per-
formed, was found to be incomplete. It was re-modelled on a
broader basis, and the new basis was made to include three episodes,
that is to say, three acts ; the first act dealing with the Atonement or
Crucifixion, the second with the Resurrection, and the third with the
Ascension into Heaven. Cividale was the envy and the wonder of
all the cities of Italy. Every town in the peninsula wanted Mystery
Plays, and Mystery Plays for a hundred years were one of the great
subjects of men's thoughts and one of the principal topics of con-
versation. For the time had not yet come for Mother Church to desert
her bantling ; priests and monks did not yet repudiate the worldly-
child that had been bom on the threshold of the sanctuary. The

The Early Italian Drama. 481

brat was allowed to live as a kind of semi-official underling of the
priesthood ; he was called Allegory, he was called Revival, he was
called Mystery Play. Priests and monks were quite willing to let the
people be educated by means of the theatre so long as the theatre
was in their own hands. Theatrical performances were semi-religious
ceremonies in the Middle Ages, as dancing in the days of ancient
Rome was a part of religious discipline. Rome had its Salii^ with their
sacred leaps and mummeries, in the temple of Mars; and Italy had
its Mystery Plays, performed outside the sanctuary, but not at enmity
with it. When civilisation increased, when the dramatic art slipped
out of the hands of the priesthood, theatres were denounced, and
people were warned against play-going much as they are warned now-
adays against heresy. But Mystery Plays siu^ved their founders
and continued to be in vogue till far into the 14th century.

The Mystery Play of Naples, a.d. 1402, was one of the most
remarkable specimens of this kind of drama. It combined religion
with pantomime, and reverence with blasphemy, to a very extra-
ordinary extent. It turned the story of the Redemption into a sensa-
tion play, and went to heaven for its dramatis persona. It took place
in the beginning of June.

Early on the morning of the first day of representation the streets
of Naples were crowded with people. A procession of knights and
archers, preceded by trumpeters, paraded the town : first the knights,
dressed in black velvet, and superbly mounted on steeds richly
caparisoned, and then the archers, quaintly dressed, followed by
officers of the court in full uniform, Serjeants and petty officers with
their badges of service, &c. Then came monks, counting their beads
and muttering prayers and litanies, and then priests, not belonging to
any sect, and finally the standard-bearers of the society of the
Flagellati. All the principal streets of Naples were decorated as for
a festival. Velvet cloth, and cloth of gold ; tapestry and flags and
ribbons hanging down from windows and from balconies (some
ornamented with sacred words and emblems, and others with em-
broidery), represented the acts of Our Saviour and the Apostles.
Cavaliers and grand dames filled the roads, and pages and damsels
of high birth disputed with the humbler class of citizens the right of
precedence and of standing-room. The city was turned into a stage,
and all the inhabitants in one way or another took part in the pro-
cession ; but the procession was only the prelude to the play. It
was the call-to-arms of the actors and actresses, who would occupy
a stage built purposely for them in the Piazza San Paolo.

This Mystery Play was to be performed in an amphitheatre. The
VOL. ccxLii. NO. 1768. 1 1

482 The Gentleman's Magazine.

amphitheatre contained nine rows, or tiers, of seats : the first tier for
the royal family and the ladies and gentlemen of the court, the
second tier for the aristocracy in general, the third tier for the better
class of citizens, and the other six tiers for the masses of the popula-
tion. The royal family entered in pomp and state, preceded by
heralds and trumpeters : first, King Ladislao, with his spouse, Queen
Mary of Cyprus, and then Princess Jane, sister of the queen.
These personages were followed by Delia Cena, the grand constable,
the Duke of Sessa, lord high admiral, Leone Orsini, lord chief justice,
and other court dignitaries, including the lord chamberlain, the chan-
cellor and the lieutenant of the bed-chamber, besides pages and
maids of honour and other persons connected with the palace.
When the king and queen had taken their seats, the prelude struck
up a weird and dismal air ; it was an appropriate symphony for the
scene that was to follow. The orchestra was composed of lutes,
cytherns, viols, and horns. The play was to be preceded by an allegory,
on which, so to speak, the actors were to base their conduct.

The Allegory was divided into three parts, or compartments, like
a pantomime or a burlesque-extravaganza. The first compartment
represented a golden seat, or throne, adorned with flowers and
surrounded by glory, on which was seated an old man in a white
tunic, having a long snowy white beard and a very venerable aspect
This was the Deity, or, to use the phraseology of the stage-directions
of that day, II Padre Eterno— the Eternal Father. A crown was on
the old man's head, like that of a count, and at his feet were children
and girls, very scantily dressed, representing angels. The wings
were almost the sum total of their costume. Further off were grown-
up women, very beautiful and statuesque, but not so meagrely attired,
who personified Truth, Mercy, and Justice. The second compart-
ment represented angels in various attitudes, with musical instru-
ments in their hands, with which, at a given moment, they performed
the hymn of praise : these were the orchestra, and the whole of this
compartment belonged to them. The third compartment had for
its central figure a matron, personifying the Earth, around whom
were scenes representing the temple of Solomon, the birth-place of
the Virgin Mar}-, the house of Pontius Pilate, the palace uf Herod,-
&c, and, to the extreme right of the scene, a scaffold in front of an
ominous-looking tower, on which were seated, as at a verandah,
a number of gorgeously-attired personages representing kings and
generals. In the foreground of the stage, almost on the spot now
occupied by the prompter's box, was a small mound with a lid to
ity like a trap-door, out of which emerged, as from the infernal

The Early Italian Drama. 483

regions, the demons and angiy spirits who were to take part in Ae
solemnity.

The Mystery Play commenced with a prologue, which was spoken
in Italian verse by a member of the Society of the Flagellati, who, in
a parenthesis of eloquent prose, reminded his audience of the awful
nature of the performance they were about to witness, and at the
same time called their attention to the fact that the play would be
divided into four acts, that is to say, into four days, each day con-
summating an act. This said and explained, the monk withdrew
with a polite bow, the audience applauding the speech, as speeches
and actors are applauded at secular theatres.

The first act of the Mystery brought eighty personages upon the
scene, including Our Saviour, John the Baptist, and the Virgin Mary.
John the Baptist was the first to appear; he soliloquised in the
desert Some of the eighty actors approached him ; and he preached
to them. Then came Our Saviour and the Virgin Mary, followed by
the Angel Gabriel Dialogues and recitations took place on a very
extended scale, and passages of Scripture were introduced with con-
siderable effect, no one in the audience feeling at all shocked at what
modern audiences would consider a want of reverence in the treat-
ment of religious subjects. St. John's method of preaching was
loudly applauded ; every one was struck with the appearance and
demeanour of the principal actors. No one, indeed, had any cause
to complain of coldness on the part of the spectators, least of all — as
may be supposed — the actor who undertook the principal rdU,

The second act introduced a hundred persons. Jesus drove the
demon " Astarotte" out of the body of the daughter of the "Cananeo,"
and after preaching and praying He raised Lazarus firom the dead.
He then entered Jerusalem on an ass, and hosannahs were sung.
The hosannahs, intermingled with dialogues and monologues, brought
the second day's proceedings to a slow end ; and, the day being
Thursday, and it being impossible to continue the drama on Friday,
a monk stepped forward in front of the stage to announce, amidst
breathless silence, that the third act would be performed on Sunday,
an announcement which was received with overwhelming applause.

The third act brought fewer personages on the scene than the
two first acts, but the scene was more sensational and more dramatic.
There were in all about seventy actors, the principal actors playing
the parts of the Redeemer and of Judas Iscariot. The Redeemer
walked with his disciples and delivered the Sermon on the Moimt
Devils came from the trap-door; and the Redeemer was tempted. The
audience applauded vehemently; but at the scene of the Last Suqqcc

112

484 The Gentleman's Magazine,

tears were shed, and groans and murmurs of discontent were heard
on all sides when Judas perpetrated his crime. These groans and
this discontent were indeed the best applause the actor could receive ;
they showed that Judas was playing his part well. But the culminat-
ing point was reached when the Redeemer, amidst the jeers of the
rabble and the insults of the soldiery, was handed over to Pontius
Pilate. The audience would scarcely listen to the actors, so greatly
were they overcome by conflicting emotions. The king and queen
wept aloud ; the ladies and gentlemen of the court broke into passionate
tears, and the whole amphitheatre resounded with cries and lamenta-
tions. It was as if a real execution, nay, a real massacre, were about
to take place. The audience exceeded all bounds of rationality and
decorum, and shouts of" Release him ! " " Release him ! " and " Down
with Pontius Pilate ! " interrupted the business of the stage. A monk
stepped forward and announced, most opportunely, that the day's
proceedings were terminated, and that the fourth, the final act would
be performed on the morrow.

The last act introduced a hundred actors. It had to do with the
historical part of the drama properly so called. The " King of the
Jews " was led out, and formally tried and condemned. Pontius
Pilate made a long speech, and the Saviour of mankind was taken to
execution in a procession which appears to have been highly sensa-
tional, but not historical. Monks and nuns took their places in the
ranks, and allusions were made, in dialogues, to events which belonged
to the 4th and 5th centuries. The Crucifixion scene brought the play
to an end, and the audience dispersed amidst tumultuous applause,
part of which was bestowed on the king and queen on their egress
from the theatre. Thus, after weeks of preparation, ended the great
Mystery Play of Naples, which was perhaps the greatest play of its
kind that has ever been produced on any stage.

But the dramatic art was passing out of the hands of the priest-
hood. Secular plays, which were to some extent equestrian specta-
cles, had been introduced at the end of the 14th century. The
equestrian element was a necessary consequence of those tilts and
tournaments which had begun to become fashionable in the middle of
the 1 2th century, and ended by becoming a mania in the 13th, as if
knights and noblemen and others who had not been to the Holy Land
were determined to show society that they, the home-keeping heroes,
could be as brave as the crusaders. Tilts and tournaments were ideal
crusades, as Mystery Plays were ideal redemptions. The two elements
were welded together, and out of tournaments and Mystery Plays
sprang the Secular Drama of Italy.

The Early Italian Drama. 485

One of the most important, though not the earliest, of the secular
plays was the " Aminta " of Torquato Tasso ; but it was put on the
stage as an opera so far as the choruses were concerned, the chorus
singing, instead of reciting, the poetry. Thus, between the second
and third acts, a bevy of gods and goddesses, elegantly and, it may be
added, indecently attired, descended from paste-board scenery and
tinsel clouds, and sang the lines beginning —

Divi noi siam che del sereno etemo, &c.

The deities were Apollo, the Three Graces, Love, Psyche, and the
Sylphs, and their song, the prelude to a dance, may be roughly
translated as follows : " We are gods who, among zephyrs and crystal
groves, lead perpetual dances where sunmier and winter are unknown;
and now, in this beautiful theatre of the world, we go round and round
together, and dance gaily a new and delightful measure." And then,
at the end of the play, the old god Pan stepped forward (by way of
epilogue) and half sang, half recited, after the style of the regular
operatic recitative, the lines beginning —

Itene, o meste figlie, o donne liete,

which were an invitation to the audience to go to bed. " Go home,"
said Pan, " go home, O sorrowful girls and merry women ; the time
has come for placid repose ! " It is a pity that Tasso has introduced
into this epilogue some lines of doubtful propriety. They are words
which Mrs. Grundy would not tolerate, and which few, if any, English
ladies would care to see translated.

But the success of" Aminta," great as it was, was eclipsed by that
of " Arianna," a poetical drama by Ottavio Rinuccini. Like
" Aminta," it opened with a prologue in verse. The prologue was
recited by Apollo, who was introduced to the spectators seated on a
cloud, lit up by the glory of blue lights. The curtain rose to
the sound of low music played behind the scenes, the cloud
descending gradually till it reached a rock, on which Apollo stood
erect. The cloud departed, and Apollo spoke and sang. He told
his hearers, with appropriate gestures, that he was the Lord of the
Golden Car, the " King of Permesso," and the Eternal Keeper of
the Lyre of Heaven. He explained why he came before the public
armed with a lute instead of a bow. He appeared as Keeper of the
Lyre and not as Lord of the Car, and he so appeared because he wa:,
about to sing the praises of Margaret of Savoy — that Margaret who,
in the year 1608, became the bride of Francesco Gonzaga, Prince
of Mantua, at whose behoof the play was produced. The play was
performed in Mantua town, and it had the honour of having a theatre

486 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

buQt expressly for it Six thousand persons obtained seats, including
the guests of the Royal Family, princes, ambassadors, and others.
But five or six thousand more had applied for admission ; the applica-
tions, made first of all in all due courtesy, ended in a street row
which threatened to become a riot, if not an insurrection. Rinuc-
cini's play was the rage of Italy, and Margaret of Savoy was the rage
of Mantua; the two combined constituted what in modem days
would be called a " hit."

After Apollo had spoken the lines above referred to, the curtain
rose on a weird and desolate scene by the sea-shore. It was a rock,
lit up by moonlight, with the waves beating against it ; and "Arianna,"
semi-nude, standing there alone, with clasped hands, wailed piteously
for the desertion of " Tesco." The scene, assisted by the music and
the poetry, melted the audience almost to tears. There were ladies
who wept abundantly. The music was by Monteverde. "\Vhere,
where is the troth you plighted me? " exclaimed the unhappy damsel;
"Are these the garlands you promised me to bind my hair ? Is this
the gold, are these the jewels I was to receive ? — I, who am left here
deserted to be devoured by wild beasts. Will you abandon here,
weeping in vain, and in vain imploring assistance, the wretched
Arianna who loved you and gave you glory and life ? " Had not
Bacchus, travelling in India, arrived in the desolate spot at this im-
portant juncture, the excitable audience of this theatre would have
despaired of the fate of " Arianna." But Bacchus came and saw — and
was enamoured — and, pitying the beauteous damsel, he vowed to
make her his wife. Who would not pity a damsel so unhappy and so
scantily attired ? Dialogues and soliloquies followed, and Bacchus
ended by winning the affections of " Arianna." At the end of the
play they both came forward crowned with flowers, and warriors and
shepherds danced and sang around them, and pledged their health in
wine. Finally, Jove, sitting in a pasteboard cloud, which opened to
the crash of thunder, shone resplendent in the midst of his lightnings,
and thus addressed the lovers: —

Dopo trionfi e palme,

Dopo sospiri e pianti,
Riposate felici, o candid' alme ;

Sovra le sfere erranti,
Sovra le stelle e il sole,
Se^o vi attende, o mia diletta prole.'

> After triumphs and laurels, after sighs and tears, repose happily, O candid
souls. Above the wandering spheres, above the stars and the sun, a place awaiti
yoa, O my beloved children.

Tlie Early Italian Drama. 487

The play, which threatened at the outset to be a tragedy, ended by
becoming a drama of the home-affections ; and the audience, in their
applause, thoroughly understood that they were approving of two
marriages. While ostensibly applauding Bacchus and Ariadne, they
were indirectly applauding the Prince of Mantua and his beautiful
bride. Nay, it was so arranged from the very commencement.
Ariadne was Margaret of Savoy, and Gonzaga — the generous Gonzaga
— was the god Bacchus.

The spectacular drama, with musical interludes and dances, went
on increasing in popularity till the end of the i6th century, and it
continued to exist independently of the theology from which it
sprang, preferring to attach itself like a parasite to the legends of the
old pagan religion, out of which so many so-called Christian legends
had emerged, albeit \nth new faces and new names, swelling thereby
the list of saints and martyrs in the mythology of the Roman Catholic
Church. But the Christian drama' had not yet spoken its last word ;
Mystery Plays were not altogether abandoned by stage directors.
Writers were found able and willing to pander to a bygone taste, and
to risk their name and fame on the revival of a school of art which
had been condemned by scholars and critics. Among these writers
was Giovanni Andreini, a Florentine, who, in 1578, published a play
on the creation and fall of man. The play was called " Adam ; " it
was considered the most extraordinary specimen of theological pan-
tomime that had ever been produced.

The dramatis personam of " Adam '* was something prodigious. It
included, as performed in various theatres in Italy, the Creator, Adam
and Eve, Lucifer, the Archangel Michael, Satan (distinct from Lucifer),
Volano, a malignant spirit, Death, Despair, Beelzebub (distinct from
Lucifer and Satan), a chorus of Seraphim, Hunger, the Flesh, Vain-
glory, the Serpent, the Seven Deadly Sins, Angels of the Air, Fire
and Water, and other spirits ^ la Mephistopheles, &c.

The first act brings upon the scene the Creator, under the pseu-
donym of the Eternal Father. He has just completed the work of
the Creation, and his right hand bears the thunderbolt with which he
had hurled from Heaven his foe Lucifer, and the troop of rebels who
had espoused the cause of the arch-fiend. The Padre Etemo leaves
his golden seat, followed and accompanied by boys and girls per-
sonifying angels, with white wings and a scarcity of clothing, who sing
songs of praise. He touches a clod of earth, and turns it (as in a
pantomime-scene) into a human being. This being is Adam, the first
man, who, the moment he appears on the stage, kneels down to adore
his Creator. There are songs and dialogues and recitatives among

488 The Gentleman! s Magazine.

and between the angels who enter at this juncture, and Adam falls
asleep to the sound of slow music, as in the play of the " Corsican
Brothers." Out of the mound of grass on which the full-dressed Adam
reclines, springs through a trap-door, a beautiful girl in diaphanous
robes ; it is Eve emerging from one of the ribs of Adam, as
Minerva sprang into life, armed and beautiful, from the forehead of
Jove. Andreini appears to have introduced this incident as a set-off
to the well-known Minerva scene, which had appeared with success
in a recent play ; it was a vindication of the rights of Mystery Plays
as opposed to those of secular dramas on pagan subjects. The act
ends with the benediction of Adam and Eve, and the apparition, in
the far distance, of the Prince of Evil, who, with seven fiends, hurls a
curse on the human race, the seven fiends being the Seven Deadly
Sins, or in Italian phraseology 1 Peccati Mortally fiends which, under
the names of Envy, Lust, Revenge, &c., have found a refuge in the
human breast from that day to this.

The second act of " Adam " introduces the Seri>ent at the very
moment that he is tempting the mother of mankind to eat the fruit of
the forbidden tree. Eve, at the instigation of Vain-Glory, tastes the
apple, and, finding it good to eat, runs away, laughing and coquettish,
to offer a piece to Adam. Adam, however, refuses to touch it, and
the curtain goes down on a very singular scene : Eve supplicating but
radiant ; Adam intensely wretched, but determined to do no wrong.
The Serpent and the Seven Deadly Sins glower over the stage, and a
sinister darkness, Hke that of a partial eclipse, falls upon the scene.

The third and last act introduces Adam in a state of doubt, Adam
yielding to the tears of Eve, and finally Adam vanquished. The
Padre Etemo comes upon the stage, accompanied by angels, and, after
reproving the sinners, drives them out of Eden, that is to say, turns
Eden into a desert by ciursing the soil. Hunger, Thirst, and Despair,
accompanied by Fatigue, surround the unhappy couple, and they are
presently informed that henceforth they must work in order to live,
and that the end of their career is death. Death is shown to them
enpassant — ^a grisly spectre at which they shudder ; but they are
cheered by the statement that labour will again convert the wilderness
into a garden, and that the grave, though a prison of corruption for
other created beings, will become a cradle for the souls of men, who,
through redemption, will inherit the kingdom of heaven. Goblins and
grinning monsters cross the stage, and all goes on grotesquely as in a
Christmas pantomime. The Padre Etemo disappears, and Adam and
Eve, tempted and tormented by the evil passions which have been
Jet \oo^t upon the earth, are about to suffer martyrdom, when suddenly.

The Early Italian Drama. 489

in a great blaze of light, St. Michael comes forward with his sword,
followed by angels (ballet girls and others), by whom, to the delight
of Adam and Eve, the demons are driven away. The play winds up
with a heavy speech delivered by the archangel Michael, and the
hero and heroine of the drama, after singing songs of praise, disap-
pear in the forest. So ends the drama of " Adam."

Andreini's play was good, but it exceeded the limits of propriety.
The public conscience was aroused by it, and after Andreini's time
society condemned and repudiated the practice of resorting to
Scripture for theatrical subjects. On this point the priesthood had
nothing to urge ; they were entirely agreed with the laity on the
matter of Mystery Plays. The priests wanted a monopoly of preaching,
and they were willing to bid farewell to the drama; actors and actresses
wanted a monoply of acting, and they were willing to abandon theology.
What could be fairer or more politic ? The 14th and 15th centuries
saw the birth and progress of the secular drama ; the i6th century saw
the death of the religious play after its revival. The house that had
taken centuries to build up was brought to completion, and the
scaffolding which had disfigured it so long — and which, to vulgar eyes,
appeared a portion of the building — was removed from sight The
theatre and the church became utterly independent institutions, and
those who wished to witness the solenmities of the Via Cruets^ or the
procession of Corpus Chrisii, went henceforth to the house of prayer
and not to the playhouse or the Italian Opera. It was a division of
interests, but it was also a purification of manners, and playgoers and
society at large were benefited by the change.

GEORGE ERIC MACKAY.

490 The Gentleman s Magazine.

THE ORIGIN OF NERVES.

ONE of the most characteristic features of the present age,
regarded from a scientific standpoint, is the marked desire to
account for the origin and causes of natural phenomena. The
hackneyed quotation from Virgil —

Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,

in resi)ect of its fitness, might well be adopted as a motto by the scien-
tific thought of our day and generation. Not content with investigating
facts, we look beyond the facts to their causes, and endeavour to show
how and why these causes have brought about the familiar results, and
how one cause becomes related to another in the great sequence of
nature. Unquestionably, the improvement of the means of research
must be credited with the chief merit of inspiring the search after the
" causes of things." So long as we are unable to peer very far beneath
the surface of nature, we are not likely to possess much incentive to
discover the hidden source of nature's actions. But when the eye is
unsatisfied ^Wth its own limited power of seeing, and calls to its aid
the microscope or telescope ; when the laboratory of the physiologist
becomes furnished with instruments capable of measuring tiie rate at
which the subtle thought-force travels along nerves ; when the
chemist and physicist boast of their ability to analyse by aid of the
spectroscope the far distant orbs of lieavcn, or to make far-off sound
audible — then we have reached an era when it becomes impossible
for mankind to rest content with the declaration that such things are,
and when the spirit of " das rastlose Ursachenthier " moves abroad in
search of the well-springs of knowledge. The cause-seeking
tendency of these latter days has been well illustrated in physical
science in two ways. Of these, the first is exemplified by the
endeavours of scientists to account for the origin of the varied
species of living beings, and for the causes in virtue of which the existing
order of living nature has been fashioned and evolved. Then, again,
the question of the origin of matter and of the universe itself has
largely engaged the attention of physicists and geologists. Although
Ae origin of living beings and of the world they inhabit was long ago
dedded according to the Mosaic interpretation, the spirit of scientific

The Origin of Nerves. 491

inquiry has found abundant cause to reject the idea of '' special
creation" and also that of the " six days" theory when applied to the
foundation and building of the universe. The higher knowledge of
to-day has issued its fiat against the pure assumption and dogmatic
assertion of yesterday; and now, taking nothing for granted, we " step
forth into the light of things," and accept Nature as our great teacher :
seeking, in the search after causes, not what is likely, nor what is pro-
bable, but what is true.

Amongst the multifarious phases and aspects which are included
in the general question of the manner in which living beings have
been produced, no study has received a greater impulse than that of
" embryology." This department of science is that which traces the
stages through which the young animal passes in development, from
its earliest appearance in the germ or egg until it has attained the
features of its parent, and until it has assumed the form or likeness
of the adult No branch of study presents a greater fascination to
the scientist; for in its pursuit he seems to peer further into the
causation of living nature than when engaged in any other depart-
ment of inquiry. It can be well understood how absorbing must be
the interest with which the wondrous process of building the frame
of a living being is watched, and how large a view one may obtain of
the powers and contrivance of Nature, as displayed in the fashioning
of a complicated body from apparently the very simplest of materials.
Some such thought, doubtless, stirred the great Harvey, one of the
first to study the development of animals, when he maintained in his
" Exercitations " that " in the generation of the chicken out of the
eggs, all things are set up and formed, with a most singular provi-
dence, divine wisdom, and an admirable and incomprehensible
artifice." The importance of the study of development has, how-
ever, been greatly increased of late years, through the growing force
of the idea that in the development of animals and plants we may
obtain a clue to their origin and manner of descent. Starting with
the idea — supported by well-nigh every consideration which natural
science can offer — that the living beings around us have been evolved
from pre-existing forms of life, it is held that in their development we
may see illustrated the various stages through which their ancestors
have passed, and through which their modem and existing forms and
structures have been produced. The development of a living being is
thus regarded as teaching us haw living nature has been evolved ; the
^^why^^ is a subject upon which the fullest research sheds no lighty
and regarding which even the boldness of speculation has as yet pro-
nounced no opinion. To use the words of Mr. Darwin himseli,

492 The Gentleman! s Magazine.

"Community in embryonic structure reveals community of descent;"
and again,** Embryology rises greatly in interest, when we look at the
embryo as a picture, more or less obscured, of the progenitor, either
in its adult or larval state, of all the members of the same great class."
Applying the principle that in development we find a clue to the
origin of the structures and organs of living beings, we pur|X>se to
investigate briefly the history and origin of that part of the animal
frame which is concerned with the maintenance of relations between
the organism and the outer world — the nervous system. We may
endeavour, in other words, to apply the foregoing principle to explain
the origin of nerves, and to set before us some reasonable ideas
concerning the conditions in living beings which have favoured,
inaugurated, and perfected the most complex part of our physical
belongings. In such a study we may perchance touch upon several
issues which lie very near to some weighty matters connected with
mind and brain; whilst in any case the subject itself is one of the
most attractive which can be presented to the thinking mind. A few
words concerning the functions of a nervous system, wherever found,
and in whatever degree of perfection it may exist, may form a suit-
able introduction to the topic which awaits our study. Shortly ex-
pressed, the function of nerves is that of bringing their possessor
into relationship with the outer world. This result is attained
through the especial property of ner\es, termed ** irritability " by
the physiologist — a term which, in unconscious sarcasm, might be —
and is — applied to indicate an excess of nerve-action in humanity
itself. Through the property of irritability, and of responding to
impressions made upon them by the outer world, nerves affect the
parts in which they are distributed ; whilst through their action on
these parts, they may in turn affect the entire body of their possessor.
But the simple observation of any common action in man and lower
animals will serve to show that there exists a wonderful sameness of
working, so to speak, in the nervous acts of high and low forms of
animal life. When a blow is aimed at the face, or when the hand of a
bystander is passed rapidly before our eyes, the result of these actions
in ourselves respectively consists in the withdrawal of the head and
in the closure of the eyes. If we endeavour to rightly comprehend
what is implied in these actions, we shall have laid a sure basis for
the further understanding of how nerves act in well-nigh every detail
of life. The blow or threat which comes from the bystander, repre-
sents an impression of the outer world made upon a special portion
of our nervous system — the sense and organ of sight. It is the
function of these organs to appreciate a certain kind of impulse or

The Origin of Nerves. 4^3

impression — the impression in the present case resulting from that dis-
turbance of the ether and light-rays which gives origin to the sense of
sight ; just as disturbance of another kind, producing sonorous vibra-
tions, results in the production of sound, and in its appreciation by
sense-organs specially adapted to receive such an impression.
Received by the organ of sight, the impression is conveyed to the
nearest " nerve-centre," represented in this case by a part of the brain.
Only when the impression has reached the brain do we " see " in the
true sense of the term. For the sense of sight, involving a knowledge
and appreciation of what is seen, is not resident in the eye, but in the
brain, as representing that part of the nervous system where the act
of" knowing" is performed. Thus an impulse is conveyed inwards
to the brain, and we may call this a "sensory" impression, since
it has been received by a sense-organ, and has moreover given rise
to a " sensation " — that of sight.

But the actions which follow the impression made upon the organ
of seeing do not end thus. Active exertion — the withdrawal of the head
and the closure of the eyelids — follows the sensation. How, then, is
this action related to the appreciation by eye and brain of the
threatened danger? Because, we may reply, the brain transmits
another and a different impulse or command to the muscles of the
head and neck, and to those of the eyelids; sets these muscles in action,
and produces movements destined to save the body from the act of
our assailant. There is thus illustrated the great principle of reflex
action^ with the discovery and enunciation of which the name of
Marshall Hall is so worthily associated. We note that an impression
which we have named " sensory " passed inwards through a " gateway
of knowledge" to the brain; and, conversely, we note that a second
impulse is sent outwards from the brain to the muscles of the neck
and eyelids, directing the movement of the former, and the closure of
the latter. This second impulse — which may simply consist of the
first or sensory one directed or " reflected " into a new channel and
modified by the brain — we term a " motor " impulse, because, as we
have seen, its office is that of producing motion in muscles. If, now,
we take a wide survey of the field of animal life, we shall find that
*• reflex " nerve-action forms the apparently universal rule wherever
bodily action follows upon the outward stimulation of the world. It
is immaterial whether the original impulse comes from the nervous
system or from the world ; in any case it is " reflected " from the
great nerve-centre to muscles, to a sense-organ, or to some other part
or tissue of the body. When we " will " to perform any bodily
action, the thought or idea generated in the brain passes outwards on

494 '^^ GetUlematis Magazine.

its ''motor" journey, and puts muscles or other oigans in movement or
in action ; and we are made aware that the act has been accomplished
only through a second or '^ sensory " impression which has been trans-
mitted or reflected to the brain. When we touch the tip of a snail's
tentacles or feelers, the feeler itself is rapidly withdrawn, and the
animal itself retreats within its shell Reflex nerve-action evidently
holds sway here, just as in man. For the sensory-impulse was trans-
mitted in the snail to the nearest nerve-centre in the animal's head,
and thence " reflected " to the muscles of the body as a " motor "
impulse, with the result of the animal's withdrawal into private life
for a longer or shorter period. No matter where or how we glance at
the acts of living beings, the same actions are to be witnessed. The
presence of ** consciousness " in higher animals, and its absence in
lower forms, does not in the least afliect the community of method
whereby each and all act in response to the stimuli of the outer
world. Entering the domain of the botanist, we may And feeling
and sensation not merely to be represented in the plant world, but,
in some cases, to approach very nearly indeed, if not to actually
eclipse in definiteness, the acts of many animals. When a sensitive
plant droops its leaf-stalks and huddles its leaflets together, on being
touched, in what respect, it may be asked, do its actions difler from
those of many lower animals, such as sea-anemones and the like,
which evince, in their daily life, acts but little elevated above the
quiet, vegetative existence of the plant? Or when the Venus* fly-
trap closes its treacherous leaf on an insect which has touched one of
its six sensitive hairs, wherein shall it be said that the act of the plant
difiers from that of the sea-anemone which seizes, by aid of its ten-
tacles, the unwary crab which has stumbled into a living pit-fall in
its meanderings? To these queries comparative physiology can
return no reply, save one, which admits that the actions of plant and
animal are alike " reflex " in nature ; and which affirms that, despite
the absence of demonstrable nerves in plants and lowest animals — for
both are nerveless — the acts of the lower forms of life are bound up
in a strange sequence with those which regulate the existence of
humanity itself.

Primarily, then, it may be asserted that there is a striking com-
munity and sameness of detail in the common nervous acts of
animals and plants. For between the essential nature of the irrita-
bility witnessed in the two groups of living beings there can be no
just distinction drawn ; and the conclusion that sensation, in some
degree or other, is an unvarying concomitant of life, is one which the
consideration of the phenomena of animal and plant-existence Ailty

i

The Origin of Nerves. 495

endorses. But this community of sensation may be more plainly
demonstrated if we take a comprehensive glance at the phenomena
of sensation and nerve-action as illustrated in an ascending scale,
and as we pass from lower to higher confines in each kingdom. One
of the most useful animals for purposes of zoological instruction is
the Amaba^ or " Proteus-Animalcule," a creature belonging to the
lowest grade of organization, and whose body may be accurately
described as consisting of a microscopic speck of jelly-like matter —
the protoplasm of the biologist. To watch an Amoeba moving across
the field of vision presented by the microscope, by slow contraction
of its jelly-like body, and to see it literally flowing from one shape
into another, is to behold one of the most common and yet most
perplexing sights which may meet the biologist's eye. Locked up
within this minute speck of protoplasm, in which none of the struc-
tures or organs belonging to animal life at large can be discerned,
are powers and properties which characterise the living animal, and
which elevate our Amoeba, simple as it is, far above all forms of
inorganic or lifeless matter. Our animalcule literally eats and
digests without possessing a digestive apparatus, and, as we may
note, " feels " in the absence of the faintest traces of a nervous
system. Watch a particle of food approach the Amoeba, for instance,
and you may observe that when the particle impinges against the soft
body of the animal, the protoplasm will be extended so as to engulf
the morsel, and the Amoeba may thus be seen to receive food simply
by surrounding the food particles with its soft elastic frame. Thus we
may learn from a simple observation, that the protoplasm of which
the Amoeba's body is composed is pre-eminently a contractile sub-
stance, and that it is moreover highly sensitive. In these two condi-
tions the art of feeling may be said to begin. The sensitiveness of
the body is the primary condition ; and the power of acting upon the
impressions received by the sensitive medium is the second essential
in the process. Here also, in reality, we have the beginnings ot
truly nervous acts. For there can be no doubt that the animalcule
" feels " the contact of the food-particle, and that the result of the
impression made upon its body is to produce movement and to
stimulate the contractile protoplasm to engulf the morsel. This
action appears essentially of the nature of " reflex action " after all,
and claims kindred with the simpler acts of higher existence.

If, now, we investigate the conditions of life in lower plant-
organisms, we shall find the great difference between most of these
forms of life and their lower animal neighbours to consist in the
development of a definite wall or envelope to their bodies, or rather

496 The Gefitlematts Magazine.

to the " cells " or minute structures of which the lower plants are
composed That the protoplasm of which the lower plants are com-
posed, is essentially similar in its physical characters to that seen in
the lower animals, is a chemically demonstrable fact And when
we look through the microscope at the cells of a low plant, such as
Chara^ we note the protoplasm or living matter of the cells to be in
a state of constant movement Any one who has beheld the move-
ments of the protoplasm in the cells of which the hairs of Tradescantia
are composed, will not readily forget the sight of the streams of pro-
toplasm which hurry hither and thither laden with granules or solid
particles, and which keep up a continual bustle \(ithin the miniature
world encompassed by the cell-wall. The cells of the stinging hairs
of the nettle afford an example of the same wondrous spectacle.
" The protoplasmic layer of the nettle hair," says Huxley, " is seen
to be in a condition of unceasing activit}\ Local contractions of the
whole thickness of its substance pass slowly and gradually from point
to point, and give rise to the appearance of progressive waves, just as
the bending of successive stalks of com by a breeze produces the
apparent billows of a corn-field." Thus the protoplasm of the plant-
cell is eminently active and contractile, and appears to be the seat
of energy as potent as that which animates and directs the acts of an
Amoeba. But why, it may be asked, considering the presence of
sensitive protoplasm in plant cells, do we not obtain the active
responses from the plant when stimulated, that we behold when the
animal protoplasm is irritated ? The answer is clear and apparent
Because the protoplasm of the plant is not continuous. It is
broken up into detached portions separated by cell-walls, which
present great, or it may be insuperable, barriers to the transmission of
impulses through the plant-tissues. Each plant-cell, as regards its
irritability, is in fact an isolated unit ; and even in those cases in
which the plant becomes highly sensitive — as in the case of the
Venus' Fly-trap, or in the hairs of the Sundew leaves — the cell-
walls appear to influence the rate of transmission of the impulse
which brings the irritability of the plants into action. Darwin*s
researches on " Insectivorous Plants " contain much suggestive
matter bearing on the present point The stimulus applied to the
leaf-hair of a sensitive plant can be seen to pass through the cells
of the hair, its passage being indicated by the successive movements
and contractions of the protoplasm of the cells; and Danf^-in remarks
that, in the case of the Sundew's hairs, the cell-walls appear to present
obstacles to the quick passage of the stimulus. This conclusion
is fuUy supported by the fact that a stimulus passes more rapidly in a
/ongitudinal than in a transveist dVc^Uoiim^^X^ q^\3cv.^ Sundew ;

Tlie Origin of Nerves. 497

and this for the reason that in the longitudinal pathway through the
leaf there are fewer cell-walls than in the other direction. Summing
up the question of plant-nervousness, therefore, we may hold that the
sensibility of plants is limited chiefly by the fact that their protoplasm
is even in the lowest plant organisms enclosed within cells, and that
the cell-walls appear to present partitions, which, in the great majority
of cases, act as effectual barriers to the quick transmission of im-
pulses. Certain plants, as we have seen, have surmounted the diffi-
culty in a very decided fashion ; but even in their case the sensitive-
ness is inferior to that of the animal, and their impulses are of slower
kind than those of their neighbours in the " rigiu animaiJ"

But if the special constitution and structure of the plant militates
against the development of nerves within the confines of the
vegetable world, the conditions of animal life present favourable
conditions, on the other hand, for the higher exercise of sensation.
There are no obstacles to the free passage of an impulse through the
Amoeba's body, and special tracts and pathways, named nerves, are
developed for the transmission of impulses in animals of by no means
a very advanced grade. Hence, the main question at issue is that of
accounting for the progressive development of distinct nerves and
definite nervous acts from the simple exhibitions of sensitiveness we
see in the Amoeba and its kindred. The problem of the acquirement
of sensitiveness by some plants, and even of the power — as exhibited
by the Venus' Fly-trap — of a selective discretion and choice of food, is
one which it is difficult even theoretically to investigate. We may
therefore more profitably devote our consideration to the origin of
nerves and nerve-actions as exhibited in the animal kingdom : the
theoretical pathway by which nerve-development has been reached
in animal life, if not clearly defined throughout its entire extent,
being yet sufficiently plainly marked to give promise of intellectual
gain from even a cursory pilgrimage made therein.

The Amoeba's life may be said, as regards its irritability, to be con-
cerned with the reception of external impressions of a simple character,
and with responding to these impressions by contractions and move-
ments of the protoplasm of its body. How the protoplasm contracts
or moves in obedience to the stimuli which play upon its outer parts
we do not know, any more than we can describe what takes place in
the nerve of a higher animal when an impulse travels through or
along its fibres. But there is every reason to believe that molecular
movements and activities of like kind which prevail amongst the
tissues of living beings at large, are concerned in some special phase
of their action with the production and transmission of nerve-force in

VOL. CCXLII. NO. 1768. K K

498 The Gentleman s Magazine.

man. And there similarly exist no grounds for the belief that the
molecular actions and forces which affect the protoplasm of nerve-
cells and nerve-fibres in man, are in any sense different from those
which affect the protoplasm of an Amoeba and produce movement in
the animalcule's frame. The difference, if it exist at all, is one not of
kind, but merely in degree. If now, we direct our attention to the
observation of animals of higher grade than the Amoeba, and com-
pare their acts with those of the animalcule, we may possibly be
enabled to explain more definitely the acts of the latter, and at the
same time to understand how an advance in the development of the
nervous system is made possible through very simple means.
Recent experiments conducted by Mr. G. J. Romanes on the
Medusidcty or Jelly-fishes, have in a laige measure aided our compre-
hension of the stage in the development of nerves which follows
close upon the primitive condition of the Amoeba, and have supple-
mented by demonstration the hypothetical influences regarding the
origin of nerves which we ow^e to Mr. Herbert Spencer.

With the Jelly-fishes, or Medusida^ few readers can be un-
acquainted. They form some of the most familiar as well as most
interesting tenants of the sea around our coasts in the summer
months. By aid of a tow-net we may capture the smaller species
in hundreds ; many of the so-called Medusae, however, being merely
the free-swimming and detached reproductive bodies of rooted and
fixed zoophytes. The larger species are equally well known to
seaside visitors, in the form of the graceful swimming-bells of clear
gelatinous matter which pulsate through the calm sea of summer —
the type of all that is fragile and ethereal in nature. From the middle
of the clear azure bell hangs a stalked body, corresponding to the
** clapper " or " tongue " thereof, and to which we may, in zoological
language, apply the term "polypite." This polypice is the most
characteristic part of the Medusa in the eyes of the systematic
naturalist At its free extremity the mouth is found, and this
aperture leads into a hollow body-cavity, which is in its turn
continued into the " canals " that radiate through the body of the
Jelly-fish and that are united by a circular vessel which runs round the
margin of the bell. Around the margin of the body we also find
tentacles or organs of touch, many or few, as the case may be. In
addition, we may observe certain structures known as " marginal
bodies," which appear in the form of spots of pigment named ocelli^
these being rudimentary eyes ; as well as certain little sacs or bags con-
taining limy panicles suspended in a clear fluid — these latter repre-
senting the rudiments and beginnings of organs of hearing. Thus the
Jelly-fish may be found to possess a higher degree of organisation than

The Origin of Nerves. 499

might at first sight be supposed. A closer examination of the ^' swim-
ming-bell " which constitutes the bulk of the body will reveal the
mechanism of its movements. The " polypite," or stalked mouth, and
the inner or concave surface of the swimming-bell are covered with a
tissue which differs from that comprising the body as a whole, in that
it is highly contractile. This contractile tissue may in fact be regarded
as representing the beginnings of muscle in the animal world ; and
through its agency the Medusa is able to move gracefully through
the yielding waters. When the layer of tissue just mentioned contracts,
the walls of the bell are pulled together ; the water contained within
the cavity of the bell being thus forcibly expelled, and by its reaction
on the surrounding fluid propels the Jelly-fish onwards. The subse-
quent relaxation and distension of the contractile layer and swimming-
bell permit a firesh inflow of water, preparatory to the next contraction
and succeeding expulsion of fluid. One observation regarding the
sensitiveness of the Medusa is worthy of remark, and that is, the special
localisation of its irritability in the margin of the bell. If we cut off
the rim of the bell with its tentacles and " marginal bodies," the
animal becomes completely paralysed ; whilst the detached and
separated rim will continue, under favourable circumstances, to move
and contract even for days after its severance from the body of
which it once formed part.

That the nervous acts of a Medusa are infinitely superior in
respect of their definite manner of working to those of the Amoeba
may be demonstrated by one or two very simple experiments. If, in
certain species of Medusae, such as TiaropsiSy we irritate any part ot
the swimming-bell, the central mouth, or polypite, will move over
towards the irritated point, and indicate accurately the exact seat of
the irritation. Now, such an observation seems to prove, without
any reasonable shadow of doubt^ that the impressions made upon
the body of the animal have been conveyed to the central poljrpite;
not irregularly or indefinitely, but in definite lines or tracts, which,
to use Spencer's term, we may name " lines of discharge." And that
these lines communicate with other lines or tracts, just as nerves
interlace in higher animals, appears to be equally clearly proved by
the results which follow the formation of a transverse or cross cut in
the body of the Jelly-fish. If such an incision be made, and if there-
after the body be irritated below the cut, the polypite, instead of
moving at once to indicate as before the irritated portion, will move
in an erratic and undetermined fashion. We have, in plain language,
cut the direct connection, or " line of discharge," between the irritated
point and the polypite, so that our stimulus has to travel by a nervou$

K K 2

jcx) The Gentleman's Magazine.

loop-line and reaches the polypite after all, it is true, but without
affording to that structure direct and definite information concerning
the irritated point. The result of the foregoing experiment also serves
to impress the idea that habit and use favour the development of
special lines of discharge in the Jelly-fishes. Tiaropsis is thus able
accurately to indicate the seat of irritation through certain of its nervous
lines only : these being the lines ordinarily used by the animal in
the acts of its life. The loop-lines through which the impulses travel
after the infliction of our incision fail to convey accurate information
regarding the impression, simply because the new nervous routes
have not been exercised to the same extent as the interrupted " lines
of discharge." It also appears that among the Jelly-fishes themselves,
there are many and varying degrees of perfection in the definiteness
of their sensations, and in their aptitude to respond to impressions
made upon them. In a common genus {Aureiia) of Jelly-fishes,
the irritability is not nearly so distinctly localised nor so definitely
transmitted as in the last- mentioned case of Tiaropsis, In the latter
instance, the object of the polypite being able to move so as accurately
to indicate the irritated point is that of stinging its prey, by means of
an offensive apparatus placed at the extremity of the mouth. So
that the definite acts of the animal have arisen in clear connection
with a purposive end — that of killing and seizing prey. But in other
species (e.g. Aurelia) the impulses travel in less definite fashion, if we
may judge from the results which follow stimulation. A portion of
the body of Aurelia^ a very common species of Jelly-fish, when cut
so as to form a mere elongated strip, which in its turn was intersected
or divided by numerous cuts, was still shown to transmit impressions,
thus proving that there was little selective choice by the impressions
of special lines or tracts along which to travel. But in Tiaropsis we
see evidence of a higher development of sensitiveness and nerve-
action in the accurate response of the central mouth to impressions
made upon the swimming-bell. Here the reception of impulses
may be regarded as having become specialised, and the influence of
use and habit may be credited with converting the at first ill-defined
" lines of discharge" into definite and accustomed tracts, along which
impulses would regularly and normally pass. In other Medusje
again, the lines of discharge may be traced as having become definite
nerve-tracts ; actual nerve-elements having been demonstrated lo
occur in Aurelia, When these higher Jelly-fishes — such as the
Sarsia—Qit stimulated, their actions are seen to be still more purpo-
sive and direct, and more quickly manifested, than in forms in which
the n.:ve-impulses travel along less definite pathwa}s. And in cori-
fomiity with tjie higher slructuie of iVvdi tvwvoms s^^l^m^ the task of

Tht Origin of Nerves. 501

destroying their irritability is easier than that of annihilating the sen-
sitiveness of their lower neighbours.

Have we, then, elucidated, through the consideration of the history
of the Jelly-fishes, any points which will assist us in framing a reason-
able conception of the origin of nerves? The Amoeba, let us
remember, represents a mass of sensitive protoplasm, through which
impulses passed in an indefinite manner, with the result of producing
irregular contractions of the animalcule's body. The nerve-power
has its beginning here, but nothing more. With a less changeable
and more definite shape of body, some parts of an animal of neces-
sity become more exposed than other jmrts to the outer world and to
impressions derived therefrom. And the influence of use and habit
can be well understood and appreciated, when it is alleged that these
exposed parts of the body will become more sensitive than the non-
exposed portions, and impressions will thus come to select, or to be
directed in, certain lines or paths in preference to others. These
stimulated parts will become the seat of molecular changes and
movements inducing the formation of definite contractile tissues
or muscles, whilst the lines along which the impulses have passed
will ultimately represent the primitive nerve-tracks or nerve-fibres
— such, indeed, as are seen in varying degrees of perfection in the
Jelly-fishes. Mr. Spencer's own comparison of the development
of nerve-tracts to the formation of water-channels is a perfectly just
simile. Constantly recurring molecular waves define the primitive
** lines of discharge " in living tissues, just as continuous currents of
water widen and deepen the shallow and ill-defined channel along
which the first waters of the river ran. Once established, nerve-
actions and impulses will continue to flow and to become better
defined ; and with the necessity and demand for sensory apparatus
of still higher kind, the same inevitable law of use and habit will
supply an increased and more perfect nervous system.

Such, briefly told, is the history of the evolution of nerves. If we
pass a little higher in the scale of animal life from the Jelly-fishes, we
find that nerve fibres and nerve-cells — the elements found in the
highest nervous systems — become distinctly developed ; although,
indeed, the beginnings of these elements are to be discerned in these
graceful organisms themselves. The arrangement of nerve- systems in
animals follows the inevitable law of necessity, in that their nerve-fibres
and cells are placed so as most perfectly to control and correlate
bodily actions with the impressions which are received from the outer
world. Organs of sense — specialised parts of the nervous system,
adapted to receive one kind of impression alone — may be regarded as
having arisen in obedience to the sam^ \acw ol >sa&^xA\a^^«sA

502 The Gentleman's Magazine.

through impressions or stimuli of special kind having been made upon
particular parts of the body. There is little need to pursue this
idea further, since the theory of nerve-origin lies literally in a nut-
shelly and derives its feasibility from the reasonableness of its asser-
tions. Given an animalcule with a sensitive body-substance ; admit
that its body becomes stable so as to present certain parts to the
outer world ; and that, through use and wont, impulses come to
travel in particular Unas from these parts, and so to produce
changes and contractions in its internal structure — and we have
outlined the essential details of the only scientific and consistent
theory which can account for the genesis of muscle and nerve in
living beings. The development of nen'es in the animal world at
large, however, bears a ver)- distinct relation to the development
of nerve-centres and sensory-organs in the highest of animals.
Can the development of the nervous system in higher animals be
said to throw any light upon the manner in which nerves and sense-
organs have originally arisen — naii.cly, through the contact of impulses
with certain outward parts of a living being, and through the subsequent
relationship which became established between these outward portions
and the inner structures of the organism ? We have already assigned
to the study of development a paramount place, as showing us the
manner of origin of the organs and parts of living beings. Let us
inquire if the development of the highest animals throws any light on
the source and beginnings of their nerves.

The egg or germ of a vertebrate animal exists as a small, or it may
be microscopic mass of protoplasm, exhibiting all the features of a
"cell." Man himself springs from such a body, which attains a dia-
meter not exceeding the one hundred and twentieth part of an inch.
When the ovum exhibits the process of development which results in
the production of a new bein^, its substance divides and subdivides
in a regular fashion into a mass of cells ; the egg being said, in
physiological language, to undergo the process of " segmentation." At
length the division of the germ ceases, and the " blastoderm " or
" germinal membrane " is formed. From this latter structure all the
parts of the young animal are formed, and the blastoderm itself
divides into three layers, respectively named — in the order in which
they occur from without inwards — the " epiblast," " mesoblast," and
" hypoblast." Now appears the first trace of the future animal, in
the shape of a furrow known as the " primitive groove," and which
consists of a longitudinal streak or depression in the epiblast, or
outer of the three layers already mentioned. AVhen the development
of the chick is studied stage by stage, all the changes first described
occur during the first twelve hours of incubation. During the first

The Origin of Nerves. ^ 503

day of the life of the chick, certain other and highly important changes
will occur. A second groove will soon grow backwards, widening as
it proceeds, and will well-nigh obliterate the first or " primitive groove;"
and in a few hours more — ^that is, towards the end of the first day —
the edges of this second groove will become more prominent, will
finally unite in the middle Hne, and will thus convert the groove into
a canaL This canal represents the tube found in the centre of the
future spinal cord, which, as everyone knows, is contained within the
spine itself. A further development of the front portion of the young
animal will produce the head-folds and skull, with its contained brain,
and the growth downwards of other parts of the embryo will similarly
produce the great bulk of the body with its contained organs.

Such is a brief sketch of the processes which occiur in the early
life-history of every vertebrate animal, man included. Let us now
glance for a moment at the part which each of the three layers of
the young animal plays in the formation of the various systems of
the body; since thereby we may understand how the nervous system
is formed. From the ** hypoblast " or undermost layer the general
lining membrane of the internal parts of the body, such as the
digestive system, is developed. The middle layer or " mesoblast" gives
origin to the tissues and organs of the body generally, except the
brain and spinal cord and the outer skin of the body, which are
formed from one and the same layer — the "epiblast." Thus we
arrive at the startling fact that the great nervous centres of man and
the higher animals are formed from the same layer of the young
being which gives origin to the skin or outer layer of the body. In
other words, our nervous centres are formed from an infolded portion
of what in the early condition was the outer layer of our frame. This
infolded part ultimately obtains, through the development of con-
necting nerves, a communication with the outer world, and thus
comes as the nervous system to regulate and control the entire
organism.

But the process of formation of the nervous system from an infolded
layer of the outer surface of the body, is equally clearly seen in the
development of the eye, ear, or nose, — those specialised parts of the
nervous system through which we obtain a defined knowledge of the
world around us. On the second and third day in the development of
the chick, the formation of the eye and ear proceeds apace. Both
organs are formed by an infolding of the outer or skin-layer, this fold
growing inwards to meet and to unite with an outgrowth from the brain.
It may be said that the ear-structures are more largely indebted for
formation to the skin-layer than are those of the eye. Be this as it
may, however, there remains the fact that the most important of our

504 The Gentleman's Magazine.

sensory organs — eye, ear, and nose — with the intricate structural rela-
tionships they evince in the adult animal, are not originally formed
within the body, but are developed from the outermost tissues of the
young animal, and are placed thereafter in connection with the brain,
which itself, as we have seen, was developed from the same outward
layer so distinctly to be discerned in the earliest stages of life. AVhat,
then, are the inferences concerning the origin of nerves which may
be reasonably drawn from the story which development not merely
tells, but substantiates by the plainest of evidence? Simply, that
our nervous centres and sense-organs, by means of which we not
merely feel, see, and hear, but through which we exercise the highest
powers of will, reason, and intelligence, are formed from a layer
which originally, and in antecedent states of existence, met the
rough and direct contact of the outer world. Through the scientific use
of the imagination we note that as time passes, and as development
proceeds, with its wondrous work of evolving and fashioning new forms
out of the old, the nervous system gradually advances in complexity.
From the condition of a soft contractile body, typified by the Amoeba,
and subject at each and every part of its surface to receive impulses, we
reach a stage wherein a stable shape of body will present certain points
for the reception of sensations in preference to other portions. Then,
as in the Medusa, a defined communication between the exterior and
interior is at last established, and nerve-force flows in established
pathways, which in their turn represent the nerves of the future.
Finally, as organisation advanced, and with the necessity for the
establishment of a clearer relationship with the world around, the
external layer of the body, which itself originally received the rude
shocks of the outer universe, and which was thus by habit impressed
with a facility for such reception, became infolded, and the nerve-
pathways were brought into relationship with the nerve-centres thus
formed. Then, also, special parts accustomed to receive impres-
sions of peculiar kind participated in the new era of development,
and became infolded, as the sense-organs, so as to communicate with
the great nerve-centres within. Purpose and design, as regulated by
necessity and use, were thus illustrated to the full ; and as the relation-
ship between the living being and the outer world became fully
established, we may then conceive of the dawn of intelligence, and
of the powers which successively mark the higher animal and the man.
Thus development teaches us through its marvellous story, first,
that the formation of man's nerve-centres is effected through the same
stages and by the same means as those of' all the members of the
great division of the animal world to which he belongs ; and secondly,
that the genesis of nerves is due pivmacnX^ \.o ^^ c^xiXa^ q>C i\v« world

The Origin of Nerves. 505

with sensitive parts of living beings, and to the effects of habit and
use in the further development of these parts to form nerves. It is not
given to science to trace the exact stages or processes through which
the powers of mind have become evolved. But once determining
that there is the closest of relationships between the structure and
formation of the human nervous-system and that of lower forms of
life — cells and fibres of the same nature entering universally into the
structure of nervous systems — ^we must logically assume that man's
mental powers are as strictly dependent on the physical characters and
qualities of his nervous system, as the acts of the Medusa are upon
the perfection of the primitive "lines of discharge" we are able to
trace in its frame. Physical change, produced by disease, for example,
makes sad havoc in the mental estate .of man, and may obliterate
entirely the intellectual existence of our species. Is it any the less a
reasonable theory to assume that on changes of like — that is, of
physical — kind, depend our thoughts and ideas; or that from habit and
use, and their effects on the brain-substance, new powers of mind
and new intellectual features may have arisen in the past, and are now
being continually evolved in the history of our race? These
declarations may possibly sound a little materialistic in some ears,
but there is certainly less materialism involved in the supposition that
we are the creatures of habit and circumstance acting upon our nervous
centres, than in theories of human life which begin their explanation
of man's mental and moral nature by assuming the inherited and
exceeding badness of the race. Whatever powers we attribute to
man must be shown to depend on the character of his nerve-centres,
and on the powers of these parts as modified by ignorance, super-
stition, or animalism, or as perfected, on the other hand, by the
process which in one word may be termed " education." The theory
of an originally depraved nature, which leaves no room for possible
good in man's mental constitution, in this view, has no logical standing
whatever ; since it begins by postulating the grossly materialistic view
that all human qualities and mental acts are vile. Bad and depraved
by nature — sodden with " original," that is '* natural sin " — we may
hopelessly inquire, " Why fight against nature, and why try to alter
the fiat of the inevitable ? " More cheering, because more true, is the
doctrine which the genesis of nerves impresses upon us — namely, that
from our ancestors we receive a natural heritage in which good and
evil certainly commingle ; but which is also susceptible, through the
effects of new habits and proper training, of repressing the baser
parts of our nature, and of evolving in our lives the " outward and
visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace."

5o6 The Genileman's Magazine.

TABLE TALK.

TO most of us — though there are some favoured exceptions —
Fate forbids the poetry of a second honeymoon : old age,
poverty, or the existence of a wife, puts it out of the question ; it is
wicked, in a general way, even to wish for it. Still, now and
then there are times, especially m the Lake District, when we are
enjoying " that most innocent of pleasures, the happiness of others " —
in the contemplation of the " Neogams,'' or newly married couples,
who patronise that locality — when it is permissible to indulge a fond
regret. Nothing, however, has so moved me in this tender way as a
certain advertisement in the usually prosaic column of Houses to
Let, in the Titnes of last week. It inspires in the romantic mind an
immediate desire to get married, at all risks, and to hurry the charmer
to the spot in question ; one's only doubt is whether one could
procure a Peri, on short notice, worthy of such a perfect Paradise.

Honeymoon Retreat (the advertisement is headed). Cottage Vicarage^
which, you will observe, at once removes the affair from the least
suspicion of impropriety. The sanction of the Church of England
awaits (in the word "Vicarage") the incoming tenant; moreover
(which shows a lasting attachment is contemplated), this bower is to
be let for April, May, and June. A honeymoon that extends over
three months is indeed a rarity ; but the fact is, such are the charms
of this sequestered dwelling, that, even if you took it for one month, you
couldn't tear yourself away from it under three. Lovely country ^ hill and
dale^ lafies of fefnSy carpeted with flowers, extensive views at every gate.
If Mr. Alfred Jingle had had the poetic faculty that distinguished Mr.
Snodgrass, he would have accomplished something in the above pic-
turesque and graphic style. " Imagination, with extensive view,"
mirrors me leaning over every gate with Jemima Jane, and sharing her
admiration of the scenery. That the rent of such a place is very reason-
abUy and the servant left on the premises respectable, are matters of
small moment: let us linger rather over the fact tiiat there are drawing
[not drawing-" room," by the bye : the grammar is deliciously like that
of " Alice in Wonderland "], dining, study, painted walls. The last is
guite a Pompeian touch, and makes one look for a bijou volcano in
the garden. There is nothing ot iVialVmd \ \i\3X^«^ «x^i)eratuiaA*^

Table Talk. 507

lawn^ parsnipSy spring flowers, and — alas, that I should have to write
it — an ample supply of leeks and onions. Good Heavens ! Think of
onions in the honeymoon ! If Jemima Jane and myself both liked
them, and they were only spring onions — ^but no : the mention of
those vegetables is a blot on an otherwise perfect picture. It may
increase the respectability of the residence, but who ever heard of a
Honeymoon Cottage smothered, like a boiled rabbit, in onions ! The
attractions of the place are, however, animal as well as vegetable. A
pet donkey y as gentle and wise as a big dog; donkey carriage; fowls and
ducks in full lay; last, not leasts a pet cat, I really must take that
place next month. The notion of driving about in that donkey
carriage with Jemima Jane, and then coming home to toy with the
cat, is too " fetching." Ducks in full lay is an expression I don't
quite understand, being a Londoner. If, however, it means in full
song (or ballad), it would be only in harmony vnih the whole sur-
roundings of the Retreat.

THE failure of Professor Smyth's prediction about the past
winter is one of those cases which are too commonly left
unnoticed. We hear of every case in which such predictions are
fulfilled, but of none in which they fail. Yet, logically, cases of failure
are of much greater weight than cases of fulfilment. A single case of
failure proves that the system on which the prediction was based is
unsound ; but a dozen cases of successful predictions do not abso-
lutely prove that the system of prediction is sound, though they may
render such a conclusion extremely probable. Yet we often hear a
single successful forecast quoted as proof demonstrative in favour of
the system of prediction ; while failures innumerable are overlooked.
Advantage has recently been taken of this peculiarity of men's nature,
to " note when they hit and never note when they fail." A person of
some standing, teacher at any rate of a branch of science at a colle-
giate institution (I purposely use the vaguest expressions available),
claims to have discovered a system of weather prediction, and adver-
tises his sixpenny almanac (in size a rather short pennyworth) on the
strength of one or two noteworthy storms which occurred on days
when he predicted cyclonic disturbance. But he has been predicting
storms for several years past, and the storms which he has predicted
have not occurred in at least three. cases out of four. Considering
that he claims as a fulfilment of a prediction the occurrence of a great
storm anywhere either on the day predicted for a cyclonic disturbance,
or on the day following or on the next day but one, and that he pre-
dicts some fifty storms per annum, thus covering at least 150 days,
the wonder is that he cannot daim many moi^ i»^S!X\&ssL\&.

5o8 The Gentletnans Alagazine.

THE person referred to in the last paragraph has done usefiil
service in announcing when high tides may be expected in the
Thames. He makes proviso always, and very properly, for the action
of winds in either increasing or diminishing the tidal wave If he
would have predicted what happened on the afternoon of March 8,
he could have made his reputation for ever, both as a tide calculator
(which any student of the Nautical Almanac, may easily be) and a
predicter of great gales. For on that occasion the action of the wind
exerted a most remarkable influence on the tidal wave. High tide
was due at London Bridge at about half-past four, and a very high
tide was expected. Already at three the tide was within a few inches
of the height when inundation of the southern banks begins, and
those who had assembled on the bridges and embankments expected
a destructive flood. At St PauFs WTiarf the tide at this hour was
flfteen inches above high-water mark, and might be expected to rise
two or three feet higher still. But just at this time the tide suddenly
fell four inches, and it remained at the same height for a full hour,
after which it began to fall steadily. No doubt the change was due
to the great gale which had been raging over the northern parts of
England from Thursday afternoon till past noon on Friday. The
north-north-west gale probably sent a considerable mass of water
southwards past the mouth of the Thames, and, fortunately for the
inhabitants of the Thames shores, this mass produced its effect con-
siderably before the time of high tide. The following depression,
combined as it would be with the effect of the rising tide, caused
the water to remain unchanged in level (after the flrst marked effects
of the depression had been produced) until the tidal wave had nearly
ceased to flow, when the continuing effect of the depression caused
the water to fall steadily for half an hour or so before the normal
time of high water. It is well that Londoners should be reminded
that, with the present construction of the embankments, wind and
water may so combine as to produce the most terribly destructive
flood. They would have worked together in such a way on March 8,
if the gale of March 7 had blown but five or six hours later.

AMONG the qualities which attend genius in its highest develop-
ment, and especially the poetic genius, commercial prudence
is more common than is generally supposed. I am inclined to
believe that the publishers who take charge of the interests of a
great poet, find the process occasionally, like that of the maintenance
of a white elephant, attended with more honour than profit I see
that a French publisher, who has failed, attributes his disaster to the
loss he incurred in pub\\s\img ceilaitL ^wcy^^ ol 1A.« V\c\.Qt Hugjo. I

Table Talk. 509

fancy instances might be furnished in this country in which, were it
not that to publish for a great man is a valuable advertisement, the
profits attending the process of so doing would scarcely justify
extreme eagerness for a continuance of such privileges. I have
heard an author express his admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte for
shooting a bookseller. That, after all, is a more summary process
than ruining him. Still, from the point of view of, the epicure, some-
thing may be said in favour of the latter proceeding. If 'tis not all that
can be desired, at least, as Mercutio says, " Tis enough, 'twill serve."

" I ■" LECTRIC Mirrors" are, it seems, about to supplement our
* ^ system of railway signalling. This is great news, and the
greater because most of us have not the least idea what it means. I
know that n^irrors can be seen a long way off, because I remember
getting into trouble from that very circumstance when at Eton. I was
not a brilliant boy, but one of my harmless anmsements was to
dazzle all that came within the focus of my looking-glass, as they
passed down the street. One very fine day I so blinded a respect-
able clergyman that he had to advance with both his hands before
his face. He was not in academicals, and therefore I thought there
could be no harm in it — that is, no danger to myself. When he
stopped at my Tutor's door and rang the bell, I perceived that it was
the Head Master; and I shall not easily forget that moment.

However, the use of the Electric Mirrors is not to dazzle the signal-
men, but to show them what is happening "all along the line." The
report on the matter says that " hundreds of miles of line " can be
thus exhibited, and the trains watched, "like pretty toys, ascending and
descending the inclines, and passing one another." If the mirrors are
to line the whole extent of railway, the apparatus will be rather expen-
sive, and, what is worse for passengers, there will be no such thing as
privacy. It will be no use for young couples on their honeymoon to
secure a carriage for themselves, if their billing and cooing is to be
reproduced on both sides of them like a double advertisement of
" How to spend a happy day." It would also stop whist-playing in
the train, as you would only have to look over your own shoulder to
see what your adversary had got in his hand. The invention, how-
ever, says the prospectus, " is one to delight the hearts of station-
masters all over the world ; " and indeed, without moving from their
chairs, they would certainly " see a good deal of what is going on."

NOW that all danger of an alarm is over, I may state that the
servant of Captain Bumaby, who died recently at Dover, died
of what was formerly known as the plague, caugVvl \xv Vi\& c;d.\£L'^'dx*^g!S£^^

5IO The Gentleman s Magazine.

The matter was not discussed at the time, but a full period of quaran-
tine has now elapsed, and there is no reason why the fact that the
plague was in England should not be known. Conditions of life
have changed in the last two centuries, and the treatment of disease
of most kinds is better understood. Alarmists need not, accordingly,
anticipate a visitation such as Defoe describes. The escape of Cap-
tain Bumaby from poison, which was described in the newspapers,
appears to have been a near thing. It was due to his having taken
an overdose.

•

MR. BRETT, the painter whose landscapes we all admire, has
been again at work among the planets. He told us a year
or so ago that globes nearly as large as the earth are rolling about in
the air of Jupiter, and a few months since that Venus is a sort of
glorified thermometer bulb, glassy as to her envelope, and metallic as
to her substance. He now takes the fiery Mars in hand. It app>ears
that the ruddy colour of the planet is due to the red heat of its
surface. If there are oceans, they are always " on the boil," and
the snows, of course, in which the Herschels and other deluded
astronomers have so long believed, cannot possibly be snows at all :
they can be nothing but great masses of cloud, caused by the con-
densation of steam thrown off from the boiling oceans of Mars.
Mr. Proctor wrote his " Myths and Marvels of Astronomy " too soon.
He should have waited till Mr. Brett had enriched the domain of
paradoxical astronomy. Astronomers do not seem to care to oppugn
Mr. Brett's startling theories. But they have not yet assaulted the
theory that the moon is a mighty green cheese. (On my honour, no
play on words was here intended. I trust I am above such weakness.)

THE one truth which our scientists deride is that contained in
Gray's well-known lines —

Where ignorance is bliss,
*Tis folly to be wise.

They will leave us in peace with no delusions, and even, it appears,
with no convictions. One of the latest of these uncompromising
votaries of truth. Professor Reese, of Philadelphia, has discovered
that the presence of poison in a corpse does not necessarily prove
that it has been administered during life. Two methods, according
his statements, will serve to bring about the presence of poison in
the tissues and organs of a dead body, and will produce appearances
not ensily to be distinrjuished from those resulting from swallowing
the same poison durini; life. Thi^ nist of these methods is, the
iiitroduction in the course o^ cmbtAww^, o^ V^^' ovwc otic desirous of

Table Talk, 511

exciting suspicion against an innocent person, of poison into a body;
the second, the contact of the body with poisonous eardi, such as that
of a cemetery in which the soil is arseniferous. I own to regarding
with some dismay the prospect of affording another chance of escape
to the administerers of poisons, who have abeady many chances in
their favour. Still, human nature, in some of its manifestations, is
pitiful enough for a man to be capable of putting poison into a dead
body for the sake of exciting suspicion against an enemy. A new vein
is opened out for our sensation novelists. Meanwhile our own toxi-
cologists are bound to give us some speedy utterances on the subject.

IT is a question of some interest whether the muscles regulating
the motion of the eyes are so related as to work simultane-
ously unless trained to work separately, or whether they are trained
to work together by unconscious practice during the first few months
of life. Helmholtz maintains that, though each eye has a quite
independent muscular mechanism, we have only leame4 to perform
those movements which are necessary for seeing a true point
distinctly and simply — that is, as one not two. This opinion has
recently been confirmed by observations on the eye-motions of
sleeping persons, newborn children, the blind, and also in cases of
drowsiness, intoxication, chloroformic sleep, and epileptic attacks.
In all such cases, according to the statements of MM. Raelhmann
and Witkowski, who conducted these observations, the eyes moved
independently of each other.

SCIENCE has not yet shown that two blacks make a white ; but
it seems to have shown that in some cases two deadly dangers
may make safety. Strychnine is among the most terrible poisons
known ; and though chloral hydrate does not produce such horrible
tortures, yet in due doses it as certainly causes death, — unless, at
least, its exhibition (pleasing word) has been preceded by strychnine
poisoning, in which case a poisonous dose of chloral hydrate seems to
be the correct thing. Dr. Holden relates the following experience
in illustration of this fact : "Wanting to banish some mice from a pantry,
I placed on the floor at night a slice of bread, spread over with butter,
in which I had mixed a threepenny packet of Battle's Vermin-killer,
which contains about a grain of strychnia. The following morning I
was roused by a servant telling me that a favourite Skye terrier was
lying dead. I found that the mice had dragged the slice of bread
underneath the locked door, and that the dog had thus got at it and
eaten a part equal to about one-sixth of a grain of strychnia." It lay on
its side perfectly rigid, an occasional tetanic syasia^oYvVj^^'Wiwi'^'^coX

512 The Getitlemans Magazine.

life was not quite extinct Fortunately the idea of curing the dog by
poisoning it afresh occurred to Dr. Holden. He knew that the least
quantity of chloral hydrate to kill a rabbit was twenty-one grains, and
the dog weighed about twice as much as a rabbit. So he injected under
the dog's skin forty-five grains of chloral in solution. In a quarter of
an hour the dog seemed to be dead, as the spasms had entirely ceased,
but being moved, it struggled to its feet, and shortly after staggered to
its usual comer by the parlour fire. It took some milk, and, except for
being quieter than usual, seemed nothing the worse for the ordeal it
had passed through.

THE age attained by George Cruikshank affords one more proof
that artistic labour, or indeed hard work of any kind, is
beneficial rather than the reverse. Men are killed more readily by
mental distress than by any other cause. The fierce anxieties that
beset in a period of trial a man engaged in commerce bring about
softening of the brain. This, however, is, I take it, a disease com-
paratively unknown among men of letters, artists, actors, and
members of the liberal ];rofessions, who have once got through the
troubled waters of early life. I have no statistics on the subject, but
I should be greatly astonished if many examples can be furnished of
men of fairly temperate habits who have killed themselves in any
service of literature, science, or art. Take our actors alone, and see
whether any other class can advance such instances as Mr. Webster,
Mr. Buckstone, Mr. Phelps, and Mr. Charles Mathews. Diplo-
matists are a long-lived class, and so are lawyers. I have heard the
theory advanced that the reason the Inns of Court wines are so fiery
is, that they may kill off all the weaklings who are compelled to take
them, and so benefit the Inn coffers, while they aid in the establish-
ment of a race of robust barristers fit to withstand the difficulties of
circuit life. Certainly Lincoln's Inn port is a fearful compound.
Yet I have known barristers who have learned to like it, and have
taken it daily and fed upon it, as the girl in " Monte Christo " fed
upon strychnine. It was not of Lincoln's Inn port, however, but of
its sherry, that a youth fi-esh from the university, and obviously not
intended for the woolsack, said after once tasting it, and being again
challenged, as is the custom of the Hall, " Thank you, no. I never
tike anything stronger than brandy." May not this stand wiih Lord
Derby's famous mot, " I prefer the gout "?

SVLVANUS URBAN.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

May 1878.

ROY'S WIFE,

by g. j. whyte-melville,.
Chapter XXII.

CIRCE.

THE Royston butcher, a prosperous person who generally owns a
trotter, has driven away from the back premises of the Grange
with a well-pleased smile. The baker also, a churchwarden and man
of mark in the parish, has shouldered his basket, and returned to his
ovens at peace with all mankind. One or two shopkeepers from the
neighbouring market-town have been paid their bills in full, finding,
much to their contentment, that the housekeeper is satisfied with
a smaller douceur than they were prepared to give. Mrs. Mopus,
they opine, is an excellent woman of business, methodical, clear-
headed : quite the lady in dress and manners, with a proper sense of
that live-and- let-live system which seems so advantageous to the
profits of their respective trades. Mr. Roy leaves everything to her
management: she imderstands economy thoroughly, and is not
above the duties of her place.

These would seem more onerous than might be supposed, in the
absence of the family, and consequent diminution of weekly expen-
diture. They confine Mrs. Mopus for hours together, as she sits
over her desk in the attitude of a child learning to write, trying steel
pens one afler another with a degree of care and precision that
appears superfluous for so easy a task as the adding-up a column of
figures in a book. "It's a difficult job," says she, stretching her
fingers, cramped with long-continued effort, ** but I have mastered it
at last. I don't think you would know one writing from the other
yourself, my fine madam, and I'm sure Mr. Roy wouldn't, even if he
VOL. ccxLii. NO. 1769. L L

514 ^^ Gentlematis Magazine.

should take it into his simple head to audit his own accounts, a thing
he has never done but twice since I've been with him. That man
was bom to be put upon. If I didn't make my profit of him, another
would ! "

Then she drew from a drawer a sheet of note-paper on which
were a few lines of directions for the repair of table linen, written in
Mrs. Ro/s clear running-hand, and compared it with her own imi-
tation. The latter was an exact counterpart of its original : and so
well had Mrs. Mopus succeeded in her dishonest undertaking, that
she had taught herself to falsify, without fear of detection, entries
and figures in the house-books, which Mrs. Roy, till the day of her
departure, had scrupulously kept with her own hand. She expected
to reap no small harvest from her ingenuity when her master came to
settle these ; and was enabled, therefore, to discharge the tradesmen's
bills with a liberality that astonished them, both on Mr. Ro/s account
and her own.

She had received a letter from him to say that he would be home
on the morrow, but only for a few hours, to look round the place,
pay bills, and leave her some money to go on with. Business in
town, he wrote, obliged him to return by the evening train ; and Mrs.
Mopus, keen-sighted enough when her own interests were concerned,
trembled lest this business should mean overtures of reconciliation
with his wife.

" Not if I know it ! " she muttered, shutting her desk with a
vicious snap. " It has been ' pull devil, pull baker,' ever since she
first came into our house, with her cool, commanding airs and mean,
prying ways. It will be strange if I can't pull hardest yet. I am up
to yoiu: tricks, my lady. I can see through you as if you was made
of glass ; and the day you walk in at the front door, I walk out at
the back I But that day will never come — don't think it ! Other
people can turn gentlemen round their fingers besides you ; and it*s
strange if Mr. Roy don't believe just whatever I please. Dear, dear I
if I had only been ten years younger, I could have made a fool of
him as well as any lady in the land ! "

He was making a fool of himself, at present, without even the
excuse of downright earnest for his extravagances. Resolving every
morning to break off his intimacy with Lady Jane, and calling on her
every afternoon, he was yet tortured by a hankering after the wife who
had left his house, while pride and indecision alike forbade his aiming
at a better understanding, and he scorned even to inquire whether
she was in London or not.

Hei ladyship, too, had b^ome captious and exacting. There is

Roy's Wife. 515

nothing a woman accepts so readily as a false position ; nothing that,
after she has tried it, irritates her so much. ^' What do I care for the
world's opinion, if I have only got you/** Though somewhat reck-
less, does not the sentiment seem noble, generous, self-sacrificing ?
How much less sweet is the same voice in a month or two, when it
protests, "You have no consideration — no proper feeling. One
cannot be too careful, when everybody is watching, and you have no
right to show me up ! "

What Lady Jane wanted, as she told herself, was that Mr. Roy
should put away his wife, and marry her out of hand. To talk of its
being impossible was all nonsense ! Did not people, we all knew,
get divorces every day ? This she was justified in expecting, and
with less than this she would not be satisfied. If Mr. Roy had
neither courage nor ability to take so decided a part, there was but
one alternative : she must give him up, brave the covert sneers of
her fiiends, who, while applauding her prudence, would infer that he
had got tired of her, and resolve never to see him again ! She did
not half like the notion. How dull her afternoons would be without
him ; and if she wanted to be taken to the play, she must be taken
by somebody else ! Her ladyship rather prided herself on constancy,
and was beginning to fancy, with admirable self-deception, that she
had been in love with Mr. Roy all her life.

These conflicting feelings, this consciousness of insincerity, or
rather what we may term half-heartedness, was bad for the tempers
of both. The one thought the other exacting, the other not only
thought, but said, she was ill-used. The gentleman grew silent, the
lady spiteful. On a certain evening, while shivering together in a
chilly cloak-room, they almost came to open rupture ; and though
the Latin poet tells us that lovers' quarrels are a renewal of love,
Cupid in London is exceedingly impatient of punishment. If you
whip this little unbreeched boy too smartly, he is apt to run away and
take refuge with somebody else !

The most permanent attachments are those of which the stream
glides smooth and silent Custom sits comfortably by the drawing-
room fire long after sentiment has been turned out of doors into the
street If I wanted a lady to care for me, she should hear of me
very mucli and see me very little ; for you must keep your hawk
hungry when you would have her stoop freely to the lure. I should
never come near her unless prepared to be agreeable ; and though
true as steel, of course, would not let her feel too certain of her
dominion while I was out of sight Above all, I should avoid such

LL3

5i6 The Genilemafis Moffmne.

scenes as the following, idiich were now enacted by Lady Jane and
her old admirer almost every day.

^ Where did you go last night when you left here? — straight
home ? "

''No. It was too earlyfor bed, and I went on to smoke a cigar
at my dub."

" Nowhere between ? "

" Well, I just looked in at Lady Pandora's ; but I don't think I
stayed five minutes."

" Lady Pandora ! That odious woman ! When yoM know I
detest her ! The only person in our own set that I positively refuse
to visit And it was miles out of your way. You must have had
some attraction ? "

'* A\liat attraction could I have ? She has asked me regularly for
every one of her Tuesdays, so I walked in, made my bow, and
walked out again. A\Tiy shouldn't I ? "

" Oh ! of course, I have no right to object, neither can it matter
to me^ one way or the other. I dare say you foimd it very pleasant.
Who was there ? "

" The Morning Post will tell you that All London, I should
think, except yourself. A thousand women, each with a train seven
feet long. There wasn't much standing-room."

^ Was the Sphinx one of them ? I don't care about the other
nine hundred and ninety-nine."

Now, the Sphinx— so called from her magnificent bust, classical
features, and exceeding tacitumit)- — was a young lady rccentiy arrived
in London from the United States.

For more than a year it had been the fashion to admire every-
thing American ; and the Sphinx found a series of triumphs waiting
for her in Belgravia that she ne>-er could have experienced in New
York. Lady Jane, with considerable ingenuit>- of self-torture, had
chosen to fancy that this lately-imported beaut>- wanted to captivate
Mr. Rov.

'' Of coivse she was," answered that gentleman rather ner\'Oiisly,
for, like the rest of his sex, he dreaded the commencement of a row.
" I def>' you to go anywhere without meeting the Sphinx — as brge as
life, in a new dress from Paris, just unpacked, worth ever so many
thousand dollars, and cut down to low- water mark at least ! ^

^ You can't turn it ofif like that ! You may as well admit that
you went to Lady Pandora's on purpose to meet her. Don't flatter
yourself I care. It's only of a piece with e\'erything else."

They were sitting, as usuia\, Vn Lad^ pane's boudoir : the visitor

Ray's Wife. 517

stretched bodOy in an easy chair, mentally laid out to be broken on
the wheel ; his hostess placed opposite, on a sofa, with her back to the
light, and some embroidery in her lap, that progressed but slowly,
stitch by stitch.

" lady Jane," said Mr. Roy, with a solemnity that seemed ludicrous
even to himself, " how often must I assure you that I care no more
for the Sphinx, as you call her, than I do for — for "

" Than you do for me ! Or for any of us ! " interrupted her
ladyship, with asperity. "That only makes it worse. That only
shows you have no feelings, no heart. I ought to have seen it long
ago, when you broke off with me at first ! "

This, from a lady by whom he had been outrageously jilted, was
" rather too good." It roused him to assert himself as he should have
done from the beginning.

" If you think that, Lady Jane," said he, rising as if about to leave,
" you have done a life's injustice to both of us. When we were
young I loved you so dearly that to lose you drove me out of Eng-
land and nearly broke my heart. I think you knew this as well as I
did. If you had been my wife — and it was your own choice that
you were not — I would have tried to make you happy. I see it would
be impossible to do so now. Perhaps it is my fault. Perhaps I am
changed. I have had my share of troubles, and I dare say they
have soured me. I may be incapable of that exaggerated devotion
which women seem to expect ; but I can only tell you, believe it or
not as you like, that to this day I go round any distance to pass the
old elm where you and I parted in Kensington Gardens all those "
years ago. I had heart and feelings then\ I knew it to my cost."

His voice shook, and there was a ring of truth in its tone. She
bent over her work to hide the tear that would steal over her nose
and fall on the embroidery in her lap.

" Sit down again," she murmured. " Are you quite sure you don't
care for the Sphinx — not the least little bit in the world ?"

"The Sphinx !" His tone must have carried conviction to the
most suspicious of rivals, it expressed so profound a contempt for
the suggestion, perhaps because of its extreme improbability ; the
young lady in question, who was only half his age, being at present
much sought after by the highest magnates in the land.

" If I could only believe it ! " sighed Lady Jane, smiling through
her tears, with an upward look that made her beauty more alluring
than ever. " You cannot understand. A woman's happiness is so
wholly dependent on the affection of the man she — the n^in shq-r-
1 won't b^ ^raid to say it— the man she lqve& V*

5i8 The Gentlematis Magazine.

Then down dropped her work on the carpet, and, hiding her face
in her hands, she burst out crying in good earnest

To use Lord Fitzowen's expression, " the coach was getting the
better of the horses ;" and it was time to stop now, if John Roy ever
meant to stop at all He wondered what made him think of Fitz at
such a moment The image of his lordship, which was somewhat
unwelcome, and the necessity of picking up the embroidery, afforded
an interval of reflection, and he resisted with laudable discretion his
first impulse to take Lady Jane in his arms, and console her as best
he might.

How she did, or did not, expect him to act, must be matter of
conjecture; for at this interesting juncture, the bump of a tray against
the door announced the arrival of a footman with tea. The lady, in
spite of her deeper agitation, recovered composure far more quickly
than the gentleman ; while the well-drilled servant, whose manners
and figure had recommended him to several first-rate situations, neither
betrayed nor indeed felt the slightest symptoms of surprise.

By the time a spider-table could be drawn from its comer, and
the tea-things arranged thereon, visitor and hostess had returned to
their senses, the status antewvcs re-established, and they were ready for
a fresh subject of dispute on which to fall out again.

" You dine here to-night, of course," said her ladyship, as the
footman left the room. " I have two or three men coming, and I
want you to be host Don't say you have a * previous engagement,'
or I will never speak to you again ! "

" If I had, I should throw it over ; and I will do my best to help
you with your men."

" You don't ask who they are ! Mr. Roy, I can't quite make you
out. I sometimes wonder, if other people paid me attention and
that kind of thing, whether you would mind it or not."

" Why should I mind it ? I can't expect you to shut yoiurself up
in a box ; and, of course, you must meet with admiration, wherever
you go."

'* I don't want their admiration ! I don't want people to think me
nice. At least, only one ! I wish I was as sure of somebody else.
What are you going to do to-morrow ? Will you take me to the
Aquarium in the afternoon ? "

" To-morrow I shall be out of town. I must go down to Ro3rston
Grange"

** To Royston Grange ! You never told me a word about it
Mr. Roy, that means you have heard something of your wife."

He laughed carelessly, bul irawxA «u \\\xjfc x^Mttdwless. " It

Roy's Wife. 519

means," he replied, '^ that a man with a house in the country must go
and look at it sometimes, if only to make sure that it hasn't run away.
There's a steward to see, and a butler, and some horses, to say nothing
of butcher and baker, and such small tradesmen, who are only to be
convinced I haven't fled the country by payment of their accounts.
Why, Lady Jane, how many weeks do you suppose it is since I have
seen my own home ? "

" I don't know. It seems like a dream. That day I met you, my
brocade velvet was quite new — the first time on — and I gave it to my
maid this morning. Yes ! it must be a good many weeks. I wish
they were to come over again. How long do you mean to stay away ?"

" Shall you miss me? "

'' Not the least in the world I I shall only watch the clock, and
every time it strikes, think there is another hour gone I I shall only
puzzle over Bradshaw, and learn by heart all the trains that can bring
you back. I shall only listen to every ring at the bell, every step on
the pavement, every cab in the street, till I see you again. That's
all ! Don't flatter yourself I shall miss you I "

" Then it's just possible I may not return till to-morrow night"

She gave him a bright look of gratitude and aflection. " How
nice ! I shall see you the day after. Come to luncheon. As early
as you can. Mr. Roy, I believe you do care for me a little, after alL"

Mr. Roy thought so too, wondering how this ill-fated, imtoward
entanglement was to end.

Chapter XXIII.

ARACHNE.

" Will you come into my parlour ? " said the spider to the fly.
On the present occasion Mrs. Mopus had determined to be the spider,
and settled in her own mind that Mr. Roy should enact the part of the
fly. Her web must be thin and impalpable as gossamer, but tough and
holding as the strongest rabbit-proof wire-netting that ever brought a
hunter on his nose. With a jealous temperament, covetous of money,
covetous of power, covetous of influence, she yet entertained a half-
contemptuous regard for her master, like that of a schoolmistress for
one of her stupid pupils ; as a creature to be pitied and taken care of,
but punished and coerced without scruple till it should do as it was bid.
He must come under no petticoat government but her own : she had
made her mind up on that point ; and, above all, she must ksfi.^ V&aefiL

520 7 he Gentlemafi s Magazine.

apart from his wife. So long as Mrs. Roy was banished, so long
would Mrs. Mopus rule the household, retaining all the emoluments
of office, and she would stick at nothing to fortify so desirable a
position, as events sufficiently proved.

Mr. Roy was as good as his word. Afler doing the honours of Lady
Jane's dinner-party in a constrained, uncomfortable manner, no less
embarrassing to the guests than compromising to the hostess, he
started next morning by an early train, arriving at his own place in
good time for luncheon. That meal he found prepared with exceed-
ing care. His favourite dishes were dressed to a nicety; his claret,
cool, not cold, had been nursed to the right temperature, and a nose^
gay of garden flowers, standing in the centre of the table, fresh and
fragrant, scented the whole room.

" I gathered them myself, sir," said Mrs. Mopus, " the first thing
this morning, while the dew was on. You was always used to flowers
with your meals, sir, in old times. It's well that somebody should
remember your likes and dislikes, Mr. Roy ; for I think you have
not had fair play, sir, with them that has been about you of late."

" Thank you, Mopus," answered her master, who was hungry after
his journey. " I'm sure you never forget anything. Yes, it's all very
nice, and the roses are beautiful, and — ^and — when I want you 111
ring."

So she left him to discuss his meal in solitude, rightly conjecturing
that when his appetite was satisfied he would send for her again.

After a cutlet and a glass of claret, Mr. Roy became more at ease;
The well-known carpet, the old furniture, the family pictures, the
freedom from restraint and general sense of comfort, above all the
country hush and quiet, so refreshing after the ceaseless roar of London
streets, made him feel that he was really at home. And presently,
when a soft breeze wafted its summer scents through the open window,
the force of association brought back to him his wife's image, with a
reality so vivid that he could almost fancy he heard her light step and
the rustle of her dress in the next room.

Why had he not been more patient, more forgiving? When she
left his house, it might be only because of wounded love and pride.
Why had he not taken more pains to trace, follow, and bring her back ?
Perhaps he had no rival in her affections, after all. Perhaps she was
at that very moment pining in her hiding-place, thinking of him,
wishing for him, longing only to be forgiven and to come home. If
this were so, he had done her cruel injustice, and ought to repair it
without loss of time. But again, why had she made no advances
towBx6s reconciliation? Why had she never so much as reminded

Roy's Wife. 521

him of her existence by an advertisement, an anonymous letter, a
message or token of any kind ? Would a guiltless woman be content
thus to remain subject to the gravest suspicions ? Above all, would a
guiltless woman leave a home like this — ^and he looked round him
vrith complacency — in a mere fit of unreasoning temper and caprice ?
He would give a great deal to find out the truth. Mopus, from
various hints she had dropped, seemed a likely person to afford such
information as he required. He would ring for Mopus, and satisfy
himself at once how much she did or did not profess to know.

His housekeeper answered the bell readily enough, arriving with
an armful of account-books, which she deposited on the table at his
elbow.

"Tve got the bills down-stairs," said she cheerfully, "and the
receipts, all correct. I hope you will run your eye over them, Mr.
Roy. It's a sad trouble, I'm afraid, sir, to you^ but it's a satisfaction

to /f/^."

He looked askance at the pile, as a dog looks at the spot where
he has been punished. " Presently, Mopus, presently," he replied.
"In the mean time, sit down. I have one or two questions I want to
ask."

" Now it's coming ! " she thought, and nerved herself to answer,
right or wrong, with a steadfiast regard to her own interests and nothing
else.

" In the first place," he resumed, emptying his glass, " do you
remember coming to my room before luncheon the day my— the
day Mrs. Roy left this house ? "

" I do, sir. It isn't likely as I should forget."

* Do you remember what you told me? "

" Every mortal word, Mr. Roy. It were the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth."

" Your suspicions seemed excited by the frequency of a certain
person's visits to Mrs. Roy, and the pleasure she took in his society.
Was that person Lord Fitzowen ? "

" Mr. Roy, it were."

" And your observation led you to believe that there was some
secret understanding between them, discreditable to both ? "

" I won't deny it, sir. The day as you come home so wet, and
his lordship stayed so longj I watched him and my mistress, when
they thought as nobody could see them, for the best part of an hour,
Mr. Roy ; I couldn't help it ! "

"From mere curiosity, or because you suspected something
mong ? "

522 The Gentleman s Magazine.

She knew that he put the question to gain time, as dreading further
revelations, for his lips were dry, and while he poured himself another
glass of wine the bottle shook in his hand

" Curiosity, sir ! You can't think so bad of me, I'm sure. Oh,
Mr, Roy, do you suppose that because I am a servant I have no
gratitude, no affection, no self-respect, nor knowledge of right and
wrong? Was I going to see you put upon, the best of masters, the
kindest of gentlemen, and hold my tongue? Curiosity ! says you. I
wonder at you, sir. I never had no curiosity, but I can tell you I see
some curious things I "

ITie suspense was intolerable. "\Vhat did yoM see ? " he exclaimed.
" Speak out, my good woman, in the devil's name, and have done
with it ! "

" Well, sir, I see your lady walk his lordship off into the library,
where there was no fire, and as little light as might be nigh
sunset on a winter's evening. It's not my place to take notice, sir,
but I couldn't be off noticing that They must have something very
particular to say, thinks I, if it can only be said in the dark. If you
will believe me, Mr. Roy, I was that upset I could hardly trust iny
own eyes ! "

" Why didn't you follow them ? It was your duty to me/"

*• I've done my duty by you, Mr, Roy, fair and square, ever since I
come into your house, but there's things that is in a servant's place and
things that is at4t of a servant's place. Mr. Roy, I hope I know mine.
No, sir. I ran up to my room, locked my door — there's Sophy up-
stairs can prove it if you ask her — and cried till it was time to put
the dessert out, because I felt so vexed."

He rose and paced the floor, muttering and gesticulating as if he
were alone. Mrs. Mopus, watching him carefully, resolved on giving
the poison time to work.

" I can't believe it ! " said he. " I won't believe it ! After all,
there is nothing tangible, no positive evidence, no actual proof I
shouldn't have a leg to stand on in a court of law. Oh ! what would I
not give to be quite sure one way or the other ! "

"Will you please cast your eye over the accounts?" continued
Mrs. Mopus, in a matter-of-fact, business-like tone, as wholly ignor-
ing all this by-play. " There's an overcharge of one-and-ninepence
in the ironmonger's bill, but I have placed it to your credit, sir, on the
next page ; and Sarah's wages is paid up to the day she left, and the
new maid begins on the 24th. I think you will find everything correct"

So Mrs. Mopus glided softly out of the room, rightly concluding
ihsLt she would be left utvdistaibed foi tlv^iv^xt hour at least.

Roy's Wife. 523

A good deal, she reflected, might be accomplished in an hour with
skill, courage, ingenuity, and, above all, a steady hand.

John Roy sat over his house-books vrithout moving a finger,
scarcely an eyelash, staring hard at the straight ruled columns, yet
taking little note of their homely details as to expenditure of pounds,
shillings, and pence.

He was back in the wet spring weather once more, brandishing
his billhook among the dripping laurels, cheerful, contented. Yes, he
was contented then, he told himself, with a happy home and a wife
he loved. After all, what mattered her little shortcomings in manner
and knowledge of the world? They only made her seem more
charming, more unsophisticated, more entirely his own ! When
Lord Fitzowen cantered up the park to pay his visit, Nelly had been
more precious than rubies, a treasure beyond price.

Then with that fatal evening rose the rankling doubt. Could
such gold be dross, such a diamond only paste, after all ? He had
been forbearing, he thought, and patient, had not judged hastily nor in
anger, had used his own faculties, calm and temperate, like a rational
being. Could he have arrived at any other conclusion but that his
wife was i^lse ? Good, faithful Mopus seemed to entertain no doubt,
and for these matters women had far quicker eyes than men. Well,
it simplified everything to be satisfied of her guilt There was a
heart left that could console even such a calamity as his ; a heart
that had ached for him through long years of separation, and that
wished no better than to make its home on his breast at last ! Could
he obtain actual proof of his wife's infidelity, he might do Lady Jane
justice, and ask her to marry him as soon as the Court of Probate
and Divorce would allow.

It was characteristic of the man, that when he came to this
determination he could so far abstract his mind from his grievances,
as to add up column after column in Mrs. Mopus's books with the
attention of a lawyer's clerk. The mistress, no doubt, would have
detected seven-and-sixpence charged for oil that ought to have cost
five shillings, half-a-crown for soap and candles instead of eighteen-
pence, and a concumption of cheese below-stairs that might have
supplied the countiy ; but master, in happy ignorance, passed swim-
mingly over all such trifles, congratulating himself on the accuracy
of his own arithmetic, which tallied with his housekeeper's to the
uttermost farthing.

" I will send you a cheque by to-morrow's post," said he, meeting
her in the passage. *' Don't mention it, sir ! *' answered Mrs. Mopus
in her blandest manner, but continuing to interpose her^csot^^VAadcv

524 The Gentleman s Magazine.

was tolerably substantial, between Mr. Roy and the hall^door. He
knew he had not done with her yet "\Vhat is it, Mopus?" he
asked, with less impatience than he would have shoi^n to any other
servant in his household, because of all she knew.

"There was one thing more, sir," said she, looking paler and
speaking quicker than usual. " Only one thing as I wanted to ask
about particular. But I wouldn't trouble you to-day, Mr. Roy, not
if you was likely to be soon here again."

" Soon here again, my good woman ! Certainly not. Do you
suppose I have nothing else to do but travel up and down our
hateful railway in trains that never keep their time ? Out with it
once for all, and have done ! I hope you won't see me again for six
months."

What a white face was that of which the features twitched so
uneasily and the eyes could not be brought to meet his own ! He
did not fail to notice her changed appearance ; and before she could
speak a word in reply, asked anxiously if she was ill.

'* I have not been quite myself, sir, for the last day or two,"
answered Mrs. Mopus ; " and it's such a pleasure to see you back in
your own home, Mr. Roy, that it has upset me a bit, that's all. What
I wanted to speak about was a jewel-case as your lady left on her
table unlocked. I should wish to give it over into your hands, sir,
just as it was when she went away."

" All right, Mopus. Let us go and have a look at it."

So they went up-stairs to poor Nelly's room, the husband hardening
himself at every step against a host of memories and associations
painfully connected with his wife.

Mrs. Mopus, pointing out a shallow, oblong box, obser\'ed that,
having found it unsecured, she had neither touched it herself, except
to dust, of course, nor suffered the maid to do so, till her master
should come home. " And now, sir," she added, " it's only fair for
you to open it this minute and see what it contains with your own eyes."

He complied languidly enough, as taking little interest in the
matter. There were but a few chains and bracelets of trifling value
coiled in their velvet resting-places, and he was wondering vaguely
what he should do vrith them, when Mrs. Mopus, who watched every
movement, called his attention to the tray on which these trinkets were
disposed, observing that there might be bank-notes or what-not, as
she expressed it, put away in the vacant space beneath. He lifted it,
accordingly, to find a sheet of letter-paper bearing his wife's monogram
(how well he remembered that morning in the library when they
/oveoted this hideous device betweevi th^ml^ inscribed with a few

Roy^i Wife. 525

Sentences written in her clear, fine running-hand 1 The first line
sent the blood to his head ; but that he caught the edge of the dressing*
table to steady himself, he must have staggered against the wall
With the British instinct, however, that forbids a man acknowledging
a hurt, and prompts him to get on his feet again directly he has been
knocked down, John Roy folded the paper, and coolly putting it in
his pocket, thanked his housekeeper for the care she had taken of hia
property, and desired her to lock the jewel-case away in one of her
store-closets, as he felt confident it would be even safer in her hands
than in his own.

While she curtsied her acknowledgments he passed out, muttering
something about the " stable," and that " he should see her again
before he went" But his voice was hoarse and indistinct, his fece drawn
and white, like that of a man who has sustained some mortal hurt

It was half-an-hour before he visited his horses ; an interval of time
which he spent pacing a walk skirted by thick Portugal laurels, that
screened it from observation of prying eyes, either in the house or
offices. During this half-hour he resolved on his future course. There
seemed no more room for doubt, no further plea for compunction or
delay. He had substantial proof in his pocket at last, and the woman
who had deceived him need be his wife no longer, by the laws of earth
or heaven.

It was a relief to see his way clear before him ; it was a satis-
faction to know that he could do a loving heart justice after all ; but
it was a torment and a puzzle to feel at this most untoward jimcture
that he could not resist instituting many comparisons between Nelly
and I-^dy Jane.

Chapter XXIV.
out of soundings.

'* Is Mr. Brail going to live with us altogether, Auntie?" asked Mrs,
John from the recesses of her glass-house, while she made out that
naval officer's frugal account under a date that showed how many
weeks he had been in the occupation of his bed-room. " He's a
credit and a comfort, I won't deny ; but don't you think, Auntie, he
ought not to waste his time in London ? And I fancy he's unhappyi
too, which seems so strange in a wdr/i."

Nelly's own experience led her to overrate the advanta^e^A Q^^3ev^

$26 The Gentleman* s Magazine.

other sex ; she did not understand how masculine spirits could be
affected by anything short of positive misfortune or ill-health.

" He won't wear out his welcome here in a hurry," answered Mrs.
Phipps, with a beaming smile. '* It's like old times to have both of
you back at once ; and if I could see otu look a little merrier, Nelly,
I wouldn't trouble about the other. However, he must be on the
move again soon, he says. He's not been down to visit those aunts
of his in the country yet, and he was never one to forget old friends.
But I don't think he takes so much pleasure in things as he used, and
I've seen him looking out of spirits sometimes myself, what I call
' down,' when I've met him going in and out I wonder what's the
matter with him."

" I can tell you, Aimtie — Mr. Brail is in love ! "

"Lor, Nelly ! Not with you^ my dear? — don't say it Well, I
should have thought he was the last to trouble about the women.
You surprise me, my dear ! And I remember him a slip of a lad in a
jacket and turn-over collars ! Are you sure, Nelly ? How can you
tell?"

The niece knew the symptoms. So, perhaps, did her aunt long
ago, though the good lady had forgotten such frivolities now.

** I'm certain of it," said the former. " Don't you see that he
wears kid gloves, and a flower in his button-hole? The flower I
think little of, but clean gloves mean they are very far gone. It's the
worst sign of all 1 "

" And you don't know who it can be, Nelly ! " asked Mrs. Phipps,
keenly interested. '' I should think as the best lady in the land would
never deny Mr. Brail, not unless she had given her heart to somebody
else, of course."

" Why, Auntie," laughed Nelly, " I believe you're in love with
himyoursel£ Whatapityyoudon't encourage him. He might live with
us for good and all, and give no more trouble making out his bill"

Mrs. Phipps, pleased to see her niece so cheerful, laughed heartily.
" If I was your age, Nelly," said she, " and he made bold to ask,
don't you be too sure I should say No ! Well, my dear, if the young
man must have an attachment, I can only pray it may be a happy one.
There's ups-and-downs in most things, specially in keeping an hotel ;
but of all uncertain business in the world, matrimony is the most risky.
Sometimes you make fifty per cent profit without so much as moving
in your chair, and sometimes you find you are broke before you can
turn round ! My dear, I'm not sure but that for us women it isn't
better let alone."

Nelly pondered. Heis had indt^ been a ruinous speculation,

Roy's Wife. 5^7

yet she could scarcely bring herself to wish she had never taken her
chance. It was something to have enjoyed that one fortnight of
happiness at Beachmouth, something to feel assured it had been
shared by the man she loved, to know that he could never again all his
life long see a strip of tawny sand, a sea-gull on the wing, or the white
curl of a wave, without thinking of the wife he misunderstood so
cruelly, though she prized his happiness far above her own.

" If s weary work, Aimtie," said she, with a sigh. " Sometimes I
wish I had never been bom, and then I hate myself for being so
imgrateful and so wicked. After all, there's a good time coming, if we
can only keep straight Everybody has reason to be thankful, and I
feel ashamed to feel so dismal and out-of-sorts just because I cant
make the world over again in my own way."

" Nonsense ! Nelly. You're too good for any of us. You're a
sight too good for him. But we won't speak of that, for I tell you it
gives me the cold creeps right down my back. Happily, we are not
all made alike — gentlemen especially. There's as much difference
in men as there is in your boots, my dear. Some will let the water
through the first time on, and others will last you, rough and smooth,
wet and dry, till they're worn into holes. If our Mr. Brail is not
sound leather, Nelly, I'll go about in my stocking-feet for the rest of
my life I "

Mrs. Phipps was no bad judge. The gallant lieutenant knew his
own mind, and was prepared to encounter any difficulties on the chance
of winning the girl he loved, just as he would have faced a battery, or
an ironclad, or the surf on a dangerous reef, with a quiet, cool resolu-
tion that was discouraged by no obstacles, while it never threw a
chance away. If the enemy were to baffle his attack, or the broken
water to swamp his boat, he would at least perish like a gentleman,
true to the death, and go down with all the honours of war I

But the pursuit of a young lady through fashionable circles, by
an admirer whose position affords him no prescriptive right ot
entrance, is up-hill work, involving much expenditure of time, much
exercise of ingenuity, much anxiety, heart-burning, and consumption
of that dirt which frank and generous natures eat with exceeding
difficulty and disgust. It is bad enough to undergo the daily tortiure
of uncertainty as to her engagements, — an uncertainty, as she cannot
be altogether a free agent, that is shared by herself, — to fret and fume
when she misses an appointment, or, keeping it, is monopolised by
a score of rivals, with all the odds of wind and tide, tonnage, and
weight of metal on their side ; but it is worse to feel at a disadvantage,
even when she has done her best to bridge over the gulf of an.

5^8 The Gentleman's Magazine.

irrational and offensive conventionalism, because of the illiberal firec
masonry that excludes outsiders from exchanging the passwords of
the craft ; and worst of all, to detect in her constrained manner, her
wandering attention, that she, too, admits certain deficiencies in her
adorer, and pays him so doubtful a compliment as to wish him other
than he is.

Though the world we live in, from increasing numbers, becomes
less artificial every day, there is yet room for improvement in our
manners, as regards that general courtesy which extends the same
privileges to all who have been favoured with the same invitation.
A true gentleman desires to place his companions on his own level,
and, following the example of the highest gentleman in the land,
raises his society without lowering himself, sharing with each the
interest or amusement of the hour, and, to use a familiar expression,
allowing nobody " to be left out in the cold."

'' I have been hunting you about like a dog that has lost its
master," whispered Brail, in a certain ball-room to which he had
obtained access at the cost of two afternoon teas attended from five
to seven, a box at the French Play, and a dinner to a young cub aged
sixteen at his club. '^ Will you give me a dance at once, or must I
be put on the black list, and wait till after supper? Miss Bruce, I
scarcely ever see you now."

Such whispers are usually answered out loud when anybody is
listening, whereas young ladies prefer to speak very low, if sure of
not being overheard.

"Do you know my chaperon?" was Hester's inconsequent
reply. " Lady Pandora, Mr. Brail."

" Who is he, my dear? and what? " asked her ladyship, who had
no compunction in treading on the tenderest of feet, and spoke in a
fine, sonorous voice through her nose. '* I never heard the man's
name before."

" A friend of papa's," answered Miss Bruce readily, and, passing
her arm through the sailor's, permitted him to lead her off to »
quadrille.

How his honest heart thrilled as he felt that hand lie so lightly on
his sleeve ! What would he have done could he have known, what I
know, that Hester had discovered him ten minutes ago, and kept this*
dance disengaged on purpose ? I think he would have gone down<
on his knees to her before the whole quadrille, taking his chance of
removal to a mad-house or a police-station then and there.

She was not going to confess how much she liked him for a partner^
did whispcii with a pretty little blush—*'' Lady Pandora take»

taj^^She

Roy's Wife. 529

me out, you know, when papa is engaged. She gives a ball of her
own on the 13th."

He had not served so short an apprenticeship but that he could
accept the hint, and turned his mind at once to the problem of how
he should get an invitation. On reflection, he determined he would
ask Lady Pandora to go down to supper, and ply her with cham-
pagne.

Miss Bruce did not fail to notice his abstraction, and expressed her
disapproval.

"Have you anything to tell me about your travels?" said she,
with a toss of her handsome little head. " You might have been no
farther than Putney, for all I have heard yet"

" Do you care to know ? " he asked, feeling exceedingly foolish,
and trying not to look too much in love. " Haven't you forgotten
all about ships and sailors in that long eighteen months ? "

" Why should you think I have so short a memory ? Is it out of
sight out of mind with you directly you get into blue water ? That is
what I ought to say, if I remember right Your vis-d-vis is dancing
alone. Why don't you attend to the figure ? "

So he was compelled to break off at this interesting juncture and
go cruising about, as he called it, over the well-planked floor. Before
he could bring- to again, Miss Bnice's mood had changed.

" I wonder you don't write a book," said she ; " an account of
your Arctic adventures. I am sure it would be very funny."

" Funny ! "

"Well, I mean very interesting. My cousin Frank wrote a nar-
rative of his voyage to the Scilly Islands. I didn't read it, but
everybody said it was capital."

" Everybody is interested in the Scilly Islands ; nobody would
buy a book about the North Pole."

" Nonsense ! It would bring you in loads of money. I will take
half-a-dozen copies myself"

" Why need you ? Don't you know that I should like nothing
better than to sit and spin yams to you from morning to night?
Don't you know "

" Don't you know that you are cavalier seul 1 Really, Mr. Brail,
I have danced with a great many inattentive partners, but you are
quite the most careless of all ! "

" You would make any partner inattentive. And it's just the
same when you are leagues and leagues away. Do you know, Miss
Bruce, one night when it was my middle watch, and I was thinkmg
of you ^"

VOL, ccxuL Kc 1769. uu

530 The GefUkmatis Magazine.

*^ What's a middle watch ? You can*t wear three watdies at a
time ! I never heard of more than two, and then only on Dick
Turpin or Claud DvLVBl—gmnd rond : give that lady your other
hand. Now make me a sea-bow, and take me back to Lady Pandora.
Perhaps she will ask you to her ball."

Surely this was encouragement enough. Surely he need not
have felt disappointed that he could make no more of the oppor-
tunities offered by their dance, and that the sentiments he would
fain have expressed were cut short by the exigencies of the figure.
Whether or no, his life had at least taught him at all times to improve
the occasion, and when Miss Bruce was carried off in the gyrations
of a waltz by a long-legged gentleman with a glass in his eye, Mr.
Brail did his best to ingratiate himself with the formidable lady who
had his treasure in charge.

This was a less difficult task than he expected, for the girl had
whispered to her chaperon that he was " the famous Mr. Brail, the
great Arctic explorer." And her ladyship, who dearly loved any-
thing in the shape of a celebrity, was prepared to afford him the more
homage that she had not the remotest idea where, or why, or how he
had earned his claim.

I

When a lady has become, I will not say too old, but too heavy to
dance, it is touching to observe how unselfishly she resigns that wild
excitement, those turbulent pastimes, for which the majesty of her
figure is now unfitted, and contents herself with the many pleasures
she has left Because obliged to sit on a chair against the wall, it
does not therefore follow that she has become wholly unattractive to
the simpler sex. While lighter limbs are bouncing and darting and
getting hot in the turmoil of the dancing-room, she may while away
many pleasant moments in the cooler atmosphere of gallery, conser-
vatory, or staircase, with that interchange of sentiment and opinion
which is just too earnest for small-talk, too conventional for flirtation.
Should it overleap the bounds of the latter, is it the less welcome?
Should it fall short of the former, is there not the unfailing resource
of the supper-rooms ? And can anything be more delightful than
a judicious combination of all three ? It is a closer race than we
might imagine at first sight, between the matron with her champagne-
glass, and the maiden with her teacup ; a trifling individual supe-
riority will balance the attraction either way, and taking mamma to
supper is in many instances a much lighter penance than young
ladies are apt to suppose.

Brail, as became his profession, was chivalrously courteous to all
iromeiiy inrespective of we\gl:it oi a^e. Ky& ^^mal nature and manly

Roy^s Wife. 53ir

«

bearing made an exceedingly favourable impression on Lady Pandora,
though I fear he did not return her good opinion, confiding subset
quently to Hester that she reminded him of the figure-head of a
ship.

Meanwhile, he plied her ladyship fireely i^dth refi-eshments and
information about the Arctic Circle, storing her mind with many
remarkable facts, to become still more remarkable as she reproduced
them in her crowded dinner-parties.

" That's an agreeable man, my dear," observed Lady Pandora to
her charge, while they drove home in the calm, clear morning. " How
polite he was about the carriage, and he got it in five minutes.
Sailors are always so ready. He liked my dress too, and thought
the trimming very pretty. Sailors always have such good taste: I
suppose because they see so much variety. I like him better than
the young whipper-snappers you generally dance with. What did you
tell me his name was?"

" Brail," answered the young lady, with rather a tender accent on
the simple monosyllable.

" Fm sure to forget it, my dear. Never mind. Send him a card
for the 13th. We shall have done the civil, at any rate, though I dare
say he won't come."

Miss Bruce was of a different opinion, and it is needless to say
that Collingwood Brail, Esq., Royal Navy, received his invitation in
due form.

Alas for Gog and Magog ! Their beloved nephew again put off
his visit ; but they comforted each other, good, simple souls, with
the conviction that he was detained for approbation of the Admiralty,
would be examined before both Houses of Parliament, and in all
probability sent for to Balmoral by the Queen.

How he looked forward to this particular festivity, and what a
disappointment it was after all ! In vain he arrived before the very
music, a solecism which would have been unpardonable in a lands-
man, and remained to the last, even till Gunter's merry-men began
to take away. Hester was engaged ten deep. He only danced with
her once, when she seemed colder than usual, silent, and even de-
pressed. Our nautical friend was quite taken aback. He could read,
nobody better, the signs of mischief brewing on the horizon ; the
stooping cloud, the rising sea, the tokens that warned him to shorten
sail and look out for squalls, but he had yet to leani how a woman's
fair face may be no certain index of her mind, and how the shadow
on her brow does not always mean displeasure at her heart. Greater
experience would have taught him that Hestefs ^<& dci<tt^ «sA

u Ma

532 The GefUlematis Magazine.

guarded tones augured suspicions of her own firmness, a mutiny, so
to speak, between decks, that must be kept down by the stem nde of
discipline and self-restraint He was winning, had he only known
it, hand over hand, while he believed himself drifting hopelessly to
leeward, a mere water-logged wreck that could never come into port
again.

He watched for a kind word, a kind look — but the girl's eyes,
though htfelt them on him more than once, were always averted ere
they met his own, and the few words she vouchsafed would have been
considered, from other hps, intolerably commonplace and inane!
Too loyal to revenge himself by embarking on a series of flirtations,
too dispirited to attack in force boldly and at once, which would have
ensured victor)', he was content to stand mute in a door^'ay, and
watch her figure as it floated by, >i*ith the humble fidelity of a dog,
and something of the creature's wistful expression, half surprised, half
reproachful, when it has been punished without cause.

How the kind face haunted Hester that night, or, I should say,
that morning, while she laid her weary head against the pillow !
She was dreaming of it at ten when her maid woke her with coflee,
and looked for it that afternoon in a score of places, actually bidding
the coachman drive down Whitehall, past the Admiralty, on the vague
chance that Mr. Brail might be going in or out.

That night she went to the French Play ; no Mr. Brail ! He
was not much of a linguist, but would have attended a comedy in
Sanscrit had he known Miss Bruce was to be amongst the audience !
Next day she visited the Botanic, and even the Zoological Gardens,
with the some result. *' Those dear white bears," as she called them,
nearly made her burst out cr>ing. At the end of a week, she had
decided she was the most miserable girl in the world, and must give
up all hope of ever seeing him again ; but before a fortnight elapsed
came the inevitable reaction, certain as the backwater from an in-
flowing tide. She told herself she loved him dearly. There was
nothing to be ashamed of, and, come high, come low, she would
marry no man on earth but Colling^ood BraiL

Ray's Wife. 533

Chapter XXV.

STANDING OFF-AND-ON.

The lieutenant, too, was having what he called ''a roughish time of
it." He took himself seriously to task for his own self-conceit, and
came to the conclusion that it was madness for a man in his position
to aim at such a prize as Miss Bruce. He had too much respect for
her to conclude that she was only amusing herself at his expense, and
indeed knew his own value too well to encourage a suspicion so un-
complimentary to both. What he did think was, that she had begun
to care for him a little, and, feeling such an attachment would not be
for her future welfare, had resolved to stop while there was yet time.
If this was the case, how ought he to act ? Our friend had been
brought up in a school that lays great stress on duty, making it,
indeed, the first of all earthly considerations, and Brail's duty, he told
himself, was to secure Hester's happiness at any cost. Could it be
ensured by his absence, he would not hesitate to get afloat again
were he oflfered the worst berth in the worst ship that carried the royal
ensign, and he wandered more than once down to the Admiralty with
the intention of applying for immediate employment on the farthest
possible station from home. But he paused when he reflected that,
with his claims, there was little chance of such a request being denied ;
and if Hester should change her mind in the mean time, should really
want him back when he couldn't come, the position would be even
more disheartening than at present With all his courage and self-
denial, to sacrifice her, as well as himself, seemed beyond his strength.
It was not for lack of consideration that he arrived at no definite
conclusion. Hours and days were passed in debating the one subject
that engrossed his thoughts as he walked on foot through the parks,
squares, and principal thoroughfares of the West- end, perhaps in the
vague hope of an accidental meeting, arguing the point again and
again, with a different result at every turn.

Sometimes a waft of the southern breeze, a wave of lilacs overhead,
the voice of children playing in a garden,' would change the whole
aspect of the future, and he would tell himself that even in this life
there were higher and happier aims than the giving of dinners, the
keeping of carriages, or the holding one's own in general society, with
something very like the effect — rotatory, but not progressive — of a
squirrel in its cage. Then he would paint for himself a little cabinet
picture of a snug villa, a trim lawn, perhaps a nurse with a perambu-
lator, and Hester's figure in the foreground, as he had once seen her^

534 2^4^ Gentkmatis Magazine.

rigged for a garden-party in a white chip bonnet, trimmed with foiget-
me-nots, and blue ribbons About her dress.

Oh ! if she were only a penniless beauty like so many of the others !
If Sir Hector would but invest his all in an explosive speculation
and be ruined ! Gladly would he take them b6th to his happy Kttle
home, and share with them, oh ! how freely, the modest pittance of a
lieutenant's half-pay !

Having persuaded himself that such a romance was possible, he
would walk on with a clearer brow and lighter tread, till his dream was
dispelled by some commonplace incident that tumbled him down to
the realms of reality once more — such as the giving of a shilling that
he wanted for a cab to a crossing-sweeper, or the denying himself a
cigar because of a washing-bill on his dressing.table, and that his
month's pay was ebbing fast in the daily necessities of London life.
Those kid gloves, from which Nelly drew such alarming conclusions,
formed no inconsiderable item of weekly expenditure ; but I think he
would rather have gone without his dinner than abated one article of
personal adornment, so long as there was the remotest likelihood of
meeting Miss Bruce.

And this was a man who could shin up the rigging as deftly, or
pull as strong an oar in the gig, as any able seaman under his
command I

But in these walks abroad, that which dispirited him most was
one continually recurring disappointment. London carriage-horses,
particularly bays with good action, are very much alike. It requires
a practised eye to distinguish brass harness and dark liveries, one set
from another ; while all ladies in summer dress, bowling quickly
through the air, resemble garden flowers stirred by a breeze. Ten,
twenty times in an afternoon would he be startled by the approach of
Sipme well-hung barouche that he fondly hoped bore Sir Hector Bruce's
crest on its panels, his daughter within; and as often would the
smile of welcome freeze round his lips, the hand snatching at his
hat fall awkwardly to his side.

But oh I the scorn with which contemptuous beauties, well known
to others, unknown to him, ignored while they detected the abortive
homage thus checked ere it could be offered at their shrine ! No man
can long tread London pavement without observing, shall I not say
admiring, the inscrutable demeanour of these high-bom, high-bred
ladies —

** Who in Corinthian mirrors their own proud smiles behold,
And breathe of Capuan odours, and shine in Spanish gold ; ''

t{ie eager look^ the pretty bend, the flattering greeting to tho9e.

Roy's Wife. 535

gentlemen who have the honour of their acquaintance, as contrasted
with the cold, cruel indifference bestowed on all the world beside ;
the haughty bearing, the implied disgust, and the abstracted glance
beneath half-dosed lids, that seems to say, '' It does not matter the
least, but I wonder you presume to be alive."

Mr. Brail, who felt on such occasions that he was by no means
'^ the right man in the right place," would then .blame himself severely
for "humbugging about," as he called it, when he ought to be
shouting his orders from Her Majesty^s quarter-deck in a monkey-
jacket, with three feet of ship's telescope under his arm.

But going to the Lev^e, as in duty bound, being presented by the
captain, and kindly welcomed home from an arduous service in a few
cordial words by the best judge of manly merits in the kingdom, to
whom he made his bow, Brail began to rise again in his own esteem.
It would not hurt a man much, he thought, who felt that he had
done his duty to his country, and who found the value of his
services heartily acknowledged by his Prince, to be ignored by a few
fine ladies. When he backed out of that presence-chamber, through
which he had passed with more trepidation than he would have felt
under the fire of a harbour-battery, he could not but reflect that he
was somebody after all. Officers of high standing in both services,
covered with medals and decorations earned in that deadly peril
which proves the genuine steel, greeted him as one of themselves. A
colonel of the Guards, with an empty sleeve, put out his remaining
hand ; a vice-admiral of the red, bravest among the brave, noted for
his hilarity of spirits at the most critical moments, patted him kindly
on the back ; while a dashing hussar, maimed, shattered, tanned to
the bronze of his own Victoria Cross, asked him to dinner that very
day. He stood among the men who make history, and he was one of
them. Cabinet ministers desired his acquaintance ; the most afiable
of bishops greeted him with a benignity that seemed tantamount to a
blessing ; while the handsome Sailor-prince vouched for him with
professional cordiality, observing that "he was not only a smart
officer on deck, but as good a fellow and pleasant a messmate as ever
broke a biscuit below."

It would have been a proud day for Gog and Magog could they
have witnessed their nephew's triumph. It was a proud day for Mrs.
Fhipps when she received to luncheon in her own parlour this hand*
some young sailor fresh from his presentation, in the uniform he kept
on at her particular desire, looking, as she declared, with a redundancy
of aspirates on which she laid the lightest possible stress, '^ Happy,
handsome, and hearty, and a hero every indi ! "

536 The Gentleman's Magazine.

Nelly was summoned from her book-keeping to hear the whole
account of the Lev^e ; waiters lingered and loitered unrebuked ;
housemaids pervaded the passage to catch the gleam of his epaulettes ;
the dirty face of a charwoman peeped above the kitchen stairs ;
and the work of the whole establishment came to a stand-still in
honour of Mr. Brairs late appearance at St James's Palace in appro-
priate costume.

But all this brought him no nearer to Miss Bruce. The veterans
were not in her set ; she was little acquainted with differences of rank,
military or naval ; and it seemed unlikely that she would so much as
read the list of presentations in the Morning Post next day. Our
gallant lieutenant could not but reflect with a sigh how willingly he
would exchange this bushel of glory for a grain of love or hope.
Men who allow themselves to become unhappy about the other sex
have various ways of betraying their discomfort. Some take to cards,
some to drinky a few abjure the society of their natural enemies,
scrupulously avoiding a petticoat, as a bird avoids a scarecrow ; but
the majority incline to seek solace in such gentle company as reminds
them, notimpleasantly, of her who has done all the mischief; and, on
some strange principle of homoeopathy, derive considerable benefit
from the soothing smiles and kindly glances women are always ready
to bestow on real objects of compassion. About this time Brail
began much to affect the quiet conversation of Mrs. John, to pervade
the entrance-hall in which stood her glass case ; nay, even on
occasion to invade that sanctuary and mend the pens or hold the
ruler while she posted her books. Though she tolerated rather than
encouraged these intrusions, there sprang up between the two a firm
and lasting friendship, originating in interests and experiences
common to both ; none the less staunch and consoling that such
interests and experiences were less akin to pleasure than to pain.

Each had a grief of the same nature, a wound in the affections
that required the salve of sympathy and commiseration. That of the
man was a mere scratch, of the woman a deep and deadly hurt. Of
course, the latter bore her pangs in silence, while the former cried
aloud for help.

It was not long before Brail confided to Mrs. John, as he had
learned to call her, the whole story of his attachment ; and Nelly, in
the pitiful kindness of her nature, could not conceal from him that
she had made the acquaintance of Miss Bruce during the previous
winter, that she highly appreciated her charms, both of body and
mind, and that her intuitive tact as a woman had led her to detect
some symptoms of a lurking preference in Hester's manner and

Roy's Wife. 537

conversation, though she had been ^regiously mistaken as to the
object By degrees it came out that they both knew Lord Fitz-
owen, Brail having met that young nobleman more than once in the
maze of London society; and Nelly was sorely tempted to give
the sailor her entire confidence, in hope that she might learn some-
thing definite about Mr. Roy.

She checked herself in time; nor, indeed, was Brail disposed to
take much interest in any matters but his own. To find someone
who knew Miss Bruce, who admired her, who understood her, who
had a suspicion that she liked him, and who would listen while he
talked about her, was such a piece of good fortune as could not be
too much appreciated and enjoyed. He missed no opportunity of
visiting Mrs. John in her sanctum, and attended her on her affairs,
so that even Auntie lost patience^ declaring, almost with ill-humour,
" You two seem never to be apart. I'm sure whatever you've got to
say to each other must have been said over and over again 1 "

Chapter XXVL
counsel's opinion.

John Rov returned to London with his freedom, he firmly believed,
in his pocket. On that sheet of note-paper his wife had inscribed in
her own hand such expressions as were tantamount to an avowal of
guilt, as would surely be held conclusive in a court of law. He
dreaded the exposure, he winced from the shame, he even pitied the
culprit ; but while he sat in the train, reading this document over and
over again, his heart grew harder with every perusal, prompting him
to carry out his merciless intention to the bitter end

" This," he thought, " comes of not marrying a lady I Why, she
cannot even express herself in good English ; and though I ought to
have expected it, there is a vulgar tone about the whole production,
not much less offensive than its actual depravity ! No doubt Fitzowen's
rank constituted the attraction — she could not resist the glitter of his
coronet — she was glad to take me because I was a gentleman. She has
deserted the gentleman for a lord ; damn me, she'd throw him over
for a duke ! Cest ce que <f est que lafemme / I ought to have known
better from the first ! I ought never to have believed in one of
them. And yet they cannot all be so bad. There must be some^
surely, who are to be trusted when one's back is turned, and who
mean what they say ! "

53^ ^^ GentUmatis Magazine.

Is it not so with the rest of us? We holloa loudly when we are
hurt, but we lose no time in applying plasterto the wound ''Women
are all alike I " cries the indignant husband, the despairing lover.
" Women are so different ! " reasons the former with a second-band
consolation, the latter with a brand-new fancy; while the (^nic lau^is
at both, and agrees with neither. " So far from women being alike,"
says he, '* they are not the same for two hours together. So fax from
being different, their noblest sentiments, their most pitiful weaknesses,
their best and worst qualities, xure common to the whole sex." And

the unse man My friend, there is no wise man where women

are concerned, neither in fact nor fiction ! Was not Merlin made a
fool of in romance, and Solomon in history? Vivien is no less real
than the Shunamite, and both are of all degrees, all nations, and all
times.

Let us peep over John Ro/s shoulder while he reads his wife's
letter once again.

''My very dear Lord, — I will look for you as usual on
Tuesday, and expect as you will not disappoint me like you did last
time. Mr. Roy is sure to be out a-hunting, so no doubt but the
coast will be clear, and nobody will notice if you come right up to
the front door and ring the bell — that is better than the garden-way ;
for servants have such sharp eyes, and always suspect something. I
write because you said you was not sure you would come ; but if you
fail, I shall begin to think you do not care for me as I feel to care for
you, my dear. I may be interrupted at any moment ; so no more at
present from your loving sweetheart, — Elinor Roy."

No date — women are very vague about dates — ^but her name —
oh ! unutterable disgrace, his name, signed in full. Every stroke of
the well-known autograph correct to a hair— the very flourish with
which she loved to adorn it, finished off to a scratch ! There could
be no mistake as to the whole meaning and intention of this shame-
less production. It had obviously been written at leisure, and kept
back for a convenient opportunity to be posted unobserved. Tuesday!
Yes, he remembered how he intended to hunt on that vety Tuesday
when he came to an open ruptiu-e with his wife, but changed his
mind on the previous Sunday because of lame horses in the stable.
It was clear enough. The letter had not, therefore, been sent, and
in the hurry of departure she forgot to destroy it No doubt
there had been many such exchanged, and this one left little im*.
pression on her mind. How could such a woman write that dear,
£1121, Italian hand? How could she look so guileless, so fond, so-

* *

Ro^'s m/e. ^ ^39

.handsome ? He felt he must have loved her dearly once tt> hate fa^
so bitterly- now I But this was no time for rememl»ance or regret
He 'Would act for himself, and carry, the whole business through with-
out compunction or remorse.

He did not 'take Lady Jane to the Aquarium, but wrote instead
so affectionate a note that it caused her very heart to glow with a
sense of satisfaction and triumph. While she put it away in some safer
hiding-place than the bosom of a dress changed three times a day,
Mr. Roy was driving into Lincoln's Inn for a personal interview with
that unening adviser, that unimpeachable authority, that unques-
tionable institution, the family solicitor.

I suppose nobody ever crossed the threshold of his ** own man-
of-business ** without a painful consciousness of mental inferiority ;
less the result of professional inexperience, of pitiful ignorance
concerning the wonderful ways of the law, than of a strange sense
that he has been suddenly shifted, as it were, to the stage side of the
footlights, and begins to see eveiything in life from an entirely novel
point of view.

That which appeared an hour ago as clear as the sun at noon,
seems now to require corroboration by a mass of evidence. The
statement, prepared with so much thought and study, that carried con-
viction in evety sentence, is found to be loose, garbled, incapable
of holding water, and in some respects tending to furnish argu-
ments for the other side. Facts are no longer stubborn, except in
the one sense that they stubbornly elude substantiation, and the liti-
gant is surprised to find how much he has been in the habit of taking
things for granted that have no legal existence till fortified by actual
proof. He doubts his own senses, memory, and reasoning powers,
and, vaguely conscious of a benumbing imbecility, approaches the
shrine of his oracle with as little self-dependence as the most igno-
rant of savages asking help from his god.

A clerk in the outer office — pale, inky, but of self-important
demeanour, as being brimful of law — took the clients name to his
employer, and returned with " Mr. Sharpe's compliments ; he was
engaged at present, but would see Mr. Roy in a quarter of an hour."
There was nothing for it but to wait in the office, and make the most
of yesterday's TimeSy as perused in an uncomfortable attitude on a
shiny high-backed chair.

** Mr. Sharpe will see you now, sir," said the clerk, when the stated
time had expired, ushering out an old lady in black, smelling of
peppermint and dissolved in tears. " This way, sir. Allow me,
ma'am^ if you please," to the lady, who was fumbling helplessly at

540 The Gentleman's Magazine.

the door-handle ; and John Roy found himself hxAj conumtted to
make his statement under the critical observation of Mr. Sharpe.

'< Take a seat, sir. A fine day, sir ; warm, but seasonaUe for
the time of year," were the reassuring words of that gentleman, as he
scanned his client from under a pair of bushy eyebrows that gave
character to a countenance in other respects commonplace enough.
''We have not met for a considerable time, Mr. Roy, and I hope
I see you weD."

His client's mouth was dry, and his answer wholly unintelligible.

Mr. Sharpe, fitting the tips of his fingers together with the utmost
nicety, afforded no more assistance, but waited for the other to
begin.

It was no easy job. "Mr. Sharpe," he stammered, "I have
come to consult you professionally — professionally — you understand ;
of course in the strictest confidence, entirely between ourselves, and
to go no farther."

Mr. Sharpe bowed. He was used to these preliminaries, accepting
them with mild contempt.

" My business," continued John Roy, sadly discomposed, "is of a
very disagreeable kind."

" Nothing remarkable in ihai^ sir ! " returned his solicitor. " If
business were not usually disagreeable, we lawyers would have nothing
to do."

" The fact is, Mr. Sharpe, that I— that I — I have reason to be
much dissatisfied with my wife."

" Nothing remarkable in that, sir ! " repeated his adviser. " For-
give me for saying so, it is a commune malum, for which there is no
remedy at common law. May I ask, sir, is the lady residing at
present under your roof? "

" Not the least ! That is what I came to talk about She has
left her home for several weeks, and I have no means of ascertaining
where she is."

Mr. Sharpe grew more attentive, but waited for his client to
go on.

" I have reason to believe she came to London," resumed the
visitor, " and perhaps I might be able to trace her movements, if I
chose to take the trouble ; but having quitted my house at her own
caprice, she shall not re-enter it with my consent I mean to state
my case fairly, and ask your assistance to set me free."

" One word, Mr. Roy. Is there no prospect of reconciliation ?
Ladies are apt to be hasty — inconsiderate, and repent when it is too

Roy's Wife. 541

late. I should be willing to mediate between you, not professionally
you understand, but as a private friend."

*' It is no question of anything of the kind/' replied the other in
great heat and excitement ^' Matters are so bad, that I am justified,
morally, and, I believe, legally, in cutting myself adrift from a woman
who has dishonoured me."

*'That b a grave accusation," replied Mr. Sharpe with some
solemnity. '' May I ask, sir, if you have any proofs ? "

" Judge for yoiurself ! " returned the other, placing Nelly's letter
on the table, '' If that is not proof, I don't know what they require.
Ill have a divorce, Mr. Sharpe, as sure as you sit there, if it costs me
ten thousand pounds."

The lawyer perused it attentively, twice over, took a sheet of paper,
made a memorandum or two, and returned the important document
to its owner without a word.

" Well ? " asked the latter, expecting, no doubt, an outbreak of
virtuous indignation.

** That letter, sir, is compromising, very compromising, no doubt,"
admitted the solicitor. " PrimA facie, it argues a degree of intimacy
with the person to whom it is addressed that a husband would be
justified in disallowing. I cannot, however, advise you, Mr. Roy,
that this, and this alone, should be held proof sufficient to justify the
taking of our case into coiut. I assume you have consulted me
with a view to ulterior proceedings. May I ask how you purpose to
act?"

*' That is what I want >'^« to tell me, I mean to have a divorce I
How am I to set about it ? "

The lawyer pondered. " In matters of so delicate a nature," said
he, " direct proof is of course difficult to obtain. At the same time,
the presumptive evidence must be very conclusive, not a link must be
wanting in the chain ; there must be motive, intention, opportunity,
and the injured party must come for redress with clean hands, or it
is my duty to advise you that the court will not grant a rule."

" Do you mean they won't give me a divorce ? Then, all I can
say is, that the laws of this country are a fallacy, and its justice a
sham I "

" I do not go so far as that, my good sir. I only point out to
you certain ^•'^ ' * ^must be prepared to encounter, certain

conditio access. This letter carries with it a large

amount of induv,^ ■. I have seldom seen so much in so few

lines, and its very shortiiuw j argues a probability that it is one of many
others similar in character ; for a correspondence oC tlm iA!oax.^*^ %x

542: The GentUmafis Magazine.

all limited in opportunity, is usually exceedingly diffuse. I assume;
of course, that there is no difficulty in proving your wife's hand-
writing?'*

^'None whatever. Besides, my housekeeper found the letter
hidden away in Mrs. Roy's jewel-case."

" What is your housekeeper's name ? "

** Mopus — Mrs. Mopus. She has been with me for years. I can
trust her. I have trusted her with untold gold."

" Before your marriage ? "

" Before and after. Nobody in the world can have my interest
more at heart"

Mr. Sharpe made another memorandum, and continued his
questions in Uie same low, equable tone.

"Your wife left her home on the 13th?"

"On the 13th."

"Alone, do I understand? and without your consent?"

" She never asked it. I remonstrated with her on the frequency
of a certain person's visits, and she went off in a huff. My carriage
and servants took her to the station, where she dismissed them, and
I have heard nothing of her since."

"Till you obtained possession of this letter? How did it fall
into your hands ? "

"Very simply. I went home lately to pay bills and i^tiges.
Hearing from my housekeeper that a jewel-case had been left in Mrs.
Roy's room unlocked, I went to examine its contents. By mere
accident I lifted the tray, and found that letter concealed beneath."

" Had you any previous suspicions of your wife? Had you occasion
to reason with her, or to express your disapproval of her conduct, at
any time before the difference that led to her sudden departure ? "

Mr. Roy now entered into a long and rambling statement,
detailing many matters already narrated, and on which it is unneces-
sary to dwell, the more so that Mr. Sharpe, though closely attentive,
seemed to think them of little importance, and never put pen to
paper once during the recital. When his client finished, however, he
rose as if to conclude the interview, observing in the matter-of-course
tone he had preserved throughout —

" There appear at least sufficient grounds for farther inquir>'. I
presume you would wish me to submit the case to counsel, and take
the best opinion I can get ? "

"Go to the sharpest fellow out]! I don't care what it costs.
And let me know as soon as you can, for this suspense is more than
I can bear 1 "

Roy's Wife. 54j

Then Mr. Roy seized his hat and made his escape, driving straight
oflf to visit Lady Jane, that he might give her a detailed account of
his proceedings, and be soothed by the sympathy that he felt he had
a right to expect, that she was now more than ever willing to afford.
Both seemed to believe the chief obstacle to their union was removed,
and to consider the expected counsel's opinion almost tantamount
to a license from Doctors' Commons for immediate wedlock. After
considerable delay, it arrived in due course — sound, practical, sensible,
and carefully expressed, balancing pros and cons, the chances for and
against, with a nicety and exactitude that left the matter at precisely
the same degree of uncertainty as before.

(To be continued.)

544 ^^ GmUematis Magazine.

GEORGE CRUIKSHANK:

IT is no more my intention to attempt in this place to write a
biography, even of the briefest nature, of George Cruikshank, or to
enter into an exhaustive examination and criticism of his astonishing
Art Work, than it is to attempt the life of Rafaelle or of Lionardo. I
lack equally the time, the capacity, and the inclination to adventure
upon such an undertaking. That which I had to say about George's
career and labours was said hastily and slightly, but I hope honestly
and lovingly, in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, the morning after his
death. I did not see a proof of the article (which I have never read
in print), and it is possibly replete ^ith errors both of omission and
commission — with blunders both of a clerical and a literal kind.
But should it contain any facts or any observations which any present
or future biographers may esteem of the slightest value as supple-
mentary to the information which they possess or may acquire con-
cerning my dear old friend, all I can say is that the biographical
gentlemen are heartily welcome to the whole or to as much of the
three columns which I penned in the Daily Telegraph as ever the)'
choose to appropriate. I shall feel indeed flattered by the act of
appropriation ; and I may be likewise permitted to point out that
concurrently with the publication of my necrological notice, there
appeared in the Daily News an admirably graphic and appreciative
essay on the great artist who is dead. Also was there published in
the Times a leading article (written, I hope, by Mr. Tom Taylor), in
which full, eloquent, and generous justice was done to the brightness
of George's artistic merits and to the excellence of his personal
character ; and equally sympathetic notices of him appeared in Punch
and in many of the weekly newspapers and periodicals. I have seen,
again, an excellent resumh of George's career, both as an artist and
a man, originally delivered in the form of a lecture by Mr. Walter G.
Hamilton, and published in pamphlet form after the humourist's death.
Mr. Hamilton has stated a number of comparatively little-kno^^n cir-
cumstances connected with the Cruikshank family, and his agreeable
pamphlet will under any aspect amply repay perusal. For the rest,
bicgTaphers of a more ambitious oidtt ^nll not b« lacking. My friend

George Cruikshank. 545

Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, who is himself not only a gifted man of letters
but also an artist of no mean attainments, is busy/ 1 understand, on
a work to be entitled " George Cruikshank, Artist and Temperance
Advocate ; " and finally, the estimable widow of my revered friend has
undertaken the task of revising and editing a life of her husband of
which the greater portion was written by George himself. The appear-
ance of so valuable an autobiography will not of course militate against
the continuance to the exhaustive stage of criticism on George's artistic
work ; but that criticism in a fully comprehensive sense will scarcely
be possible yet awhile. The existing generation of caricaturists and
illustrative draughtsmen must pass away before we can fitly decide
upon the place to be assigned to an artist who was in a certain sense
the grandsire of the present race of ^phic humourists, but who was
assuredly a great deal more than a caricaturist and an illustrator of
books.

It has not been without reflection, nor is it, I hope, without
reason, that I have appended to this paper the supplementary title
of " A Life Memory." This have I done, because I cannot remember
any time in my life (after nursery days, of course) when I was not
familiar with the name of George Cruikshank, and when I was not
accustomed to dwell with love and admiration on his name and on
his works — and I so loved and admired him long before I knew
him personally. My individual knowledge of, and friendship with,
him, extend over five-and-thirty years. The vast majority of
young children are, to my thinking, very deep thinkers : meditating
obviously in various ways, and according to their different capacities.
Thus your embryo Pascal will mentally bisect angles and erect
perpendiculars on given straight lines ere ever he has seen a copy of
Euclid. Your incipient Chatterton playing truant from the abhorred
charity school, and moping in his garret at home or lying in a
meadow behind St. Mary RedclifTe, " in a kind of trance," as his
biographers record, may be cudgelling his brains to devise sham
genealogies, afterwards to be matiured to flatter the vanity of con-
ceited Bristol pewterers who fancy that their ancestors came over
with the Conqueror, or he may be lisping rudely metrical fragments
afterwards to be welded into that consummate mediaeval forgery,
** Ye Romaunte of ye Cnyghte." These are your marvellous boys ;
and there are girls as marvellous in intellectual precocity. I need
cite no historical instances.' Just note one little passage in Chaac-
Lamb's exquisite little tale of " Rosamund Gray," and you will r*®®^

* It was on the tip of my tongue to mention the Byzantine Empress EZ?^
sumamed Macrimbelitissa, who at the age of six years, being asked what ^^
VOL. ccxLii. xo, 1769. N ^

546 The Gentlematis Magazine.

(if you area man : the women will need no prompting) at a thorough
comprehension of the meditative girl. "Rosamund's mind was
pensive and reflective rather than what passes usually for clear ox acute.
From a child she was remarkably shy and thoughtful : — this was
taken for stupidity and want of feeling ; and the child has been
sometimes whipped for being a stubborn thing ^^ (the italics are
Charles's, not mine) " when her little heart was ahnost bursting with
affection. So much for what you may be pleased to term the more
refined organisations — the * superior minds.'" Having only one solitary
mind of my own (unless Dr. Wigan was right in his theory of the
dual brain), I can only recognise the superior minds of other
people. Whether there arc any intellects inferior to mine own I do
not and cannot know. I can oqly adhere to my position that most
children Think, and that very deeply indeed. We cannot divine the
thoughts of that little dusky-faced, tow-headed country urchin in a
smock frock, who is set in a field to scare the crows away ; — who
was set, I should say : the local School Boards have doubtless
deprived him of his bird-frightening occupation, and its consequent
shillings which enabled his mother the widow-woman to get a bit of
meat now and then for himself and his callow brothers and sisters.
The young hawbuck may be thinking about the thrashing he got for
letting three marbles fall on the pavement of the church last Sunday
in the very midst of the Second Lesson. He may be thinking that
Heaven is a very nice place, where there is nothing to do but to sit
astride on a five-barred gate, and eat crisp, brown, warm pancake
edges, whistling and swinging one's legs between whiles. Or he may
be thinking on and scanning and studying and inwardly tabulating
and figuring the birds of the air and the flowers of the field and all
the creeping and gliding and crawling things around him. He may
be young Cobbett, young Audubon, young Thoreau, young Francis
of Assisi. How do I know ? I can strip him of his smock frock and
his shirt ; but I cannot take off" the lids of his heart, and look into
his Mind. Were I to interrogate him as to his thoughts, he might
become as terrified as the birds that he is appointed to alarm.
Nervousness might prompt him to answer simply " Dunno." Inarti-
culate confusion might beget anger and lead him to fling a turf-sod
at my head. Your own thoughts should be quite sufiicient for you ;

and you had best meddle as little as may be with those of other folk.
Mr.

CUm^S of (perhaps they offered hcra besant for her thoughts), replied that she
^^_nking of the gods and goddesses of Olympus. Second thoughts arc best ;
*/^ ^' reflection I decide to let Kudoxia, surnamed Macrimbclitissa, alone.
'^^^P^hsLt I always exercised similax xtlictivct I

George Crmkshank. 547

Be this as it may, I know that, so soon as I began to think,
George Cruikshank was, next to my Mother, the most prominent
person in my mind, and that he was my hero. Ahnost any child has
a hero or heroine — secretly, persistently, passionately cherished. I
forget Macaula/s ; but I think that Mrs. Gaskell has told us in her
life of Charlotte Bronte that the hero of the authoress of " Jane Eyre,"
when a child, was the Marquis of Douro (the existing Duke of Wel-
lington), to whom she used to pen pages after pages of microscopically
crabbed handwriting never to be forwarded to the idol, and the com-
position of which was due to Heaven only knows what mysterious
psychological yearning (or aberration, perchance) of affinity. I wonder
what the noble Marquis would, have thought had he been told that a
weird little girl-child, a parson's daughter down in Yorkshire, had set
up a paper altar and was pouring out libations of ink to him continually.
Charlotte's sisters, I fancy, shared in the Douro-worship, but not to the
extent to which it was carried by Jane Eyre herself. Mycultus of George
Cruikshank took not a scribbling but a graphic turn. I could draw
before I could write, and before I could read; and before I was taught
my pothooks and hangers I fell blind, and was sighdess for two long
and profitable years. I say profitable; for during those dark twenty-four
months I learned, thanks to a loving sister who was always reading to me
and telling me stories, the greater part of that which was long afterwards
to be useful to me as a journalist Books being for the time inaccessible
for reference, I garnered up, systematically, albeit unconsciously, in
holes and comers, and improvised chambers, and shelves, and nests
of drawers within me, the stories and anecdotes, the facts and figures
repeated by the dear voice Outside, and so at last I came to have
what is called a memory ; that is to say, the mindfulness of a number
of things all classified and ticketed and put away and ready at a
mdmenf s notice for production, precisely as is the case with the
bundles and parcels at a pawnbroker's. My mother must have had
a good stock of George's works by her (and indeed I have often
heard her say that my father, whom I never saw, entertained great
admiration for the artist) ; but in any case I know that about the year
1836, when the "Sketches by Boz" appeared, I was sedulously
copying in pen and ink George Cruikshank's wonderful etchings to
Charles Dickens's earliest work.* I have the copies — vile niggling

' By pure accident, but still by an accident worth recording, my family had some-
thing to do with the ushering into the world of the •• Sketches by Boz." The book
was one of the earliest ventures of the late Mr. John Macronc, a young Manxman,
who had been in partnership as a bookseUer with Mr. Cochrane, in Waterloo Place
(C. published a number of works iUustrated in George's best s>V^\&V ^si^^^^:^ "aS^sx-

N N 2

548 The Gentlema/ris Magazine.

scrawls they are — by me now, packed in a little album, of the plates
illustrating the '' Streets by Morning" (you remember the Saloop,
stall, the marvellous view of Seven Dials, and the inimitable figure
of the policeman leaning against a post in the distance ?) I copied,
also, the Greenwich Fair scene, with the madcap holiday-makers
dancing at the Crown and Anchor booth, and again I tried to imitate
in pen and ink the plate of " Public Dinners," in which George has
introduced among the stewards his own portrait and that of Charles
Dickens. But the sketches were soon to be followed by that glorious
serial " Oliver Twist," in copying every one of the illustrations to which
I positively revelled. I am sure that I tried my hand on " Fagin in
the Condemned Cell," and "Sikes Attempting to Destroy his Dog,"
twenty times. I was never tired of portraying the Artful Dodger,
and was always able to discover fresh beauties in Mr. Bumble. I
think that I could draw all those immortal people now, with my eyes

wards set up for himself in St. James's Square. A maiden aunt of mine, long since
deceased, lent John Macronc five himdred pounds to start him withal. He meditated
great things. Among others I have seen advertised on the fly-leaf of one of his books
a projected work to be called •• The Lions of Ix)ndon," to be written by Mr. Harri-
son Ainsworth and illustrated by George Cruikshank. It never saw the light, any
more than did that ' ' Life of Talleyrand, " by William M akepeace Thackeray, likewiM:
announced for publication by Messrs. Chapman and Hall. On the other hand, the
London idea seems to have lingered in Mr. Ainsworth's mind, since, in 1845, 1^^ began
the issue in monthly numbers of a mysterious, and indeed supernatural romance, en-
titled '*fievelations of London," which was embellished with superb etchings on
steel, not by George, but by '*Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). Ihe mysterious
romance hung fire and came to an incomplete end, like the story of the bear the
fiddle. As for poor John Macrone, he died prematurely; and for thebenefit of his wife
and children Dickens, Robert Bell, <* Phiz," George himself, and other well-known
authors and artists, got up among them, by <* voluntary contributions," a work in
three volumes caUed the " Pic-Nic Papers," — a benevolent idea, clearly founded on
the famous " Livre des Cent et Un," produced about 1830 by the foremost writers
of France to aid the widow of the esteemed bookseller Ladvocat. In 1850, 1 suc-
ceeded to the modest heritage bequeathed to myself and brothers by my maiden aunt
(I very soon spent my portion, first in establishing a periodical called — Heaven save
the mark ! — the " Conservative Magazine," of which one number was published and
of which eleven copies were sold ; and the remainder in trying an infiUlible system,
based on mathematical certainties demonstrated by Descartes, Leibnitz, and Tjiplace,
for breaking the bank at a game called roulette, and at a place called Hombouig
von der Hohe) : and I remember, when we received our ultimate cheques fimn the
esteemed solicitors of our kinswoman deceased, being shown a capacious tin box, in
which, I was told, was lying perdu poor John Macrone*s bond. Perdu^ indeed !
Does it slumber still in the tin box in the antique legal offices hard by Old Cavendish
Street, or are the dossiers of defunct clients periodically cleared out and scattered ?
In that case some tobacconist may, even now, be mixing snufT on the valuable
parchment, or the precious vellum may have been long since cut up to skin a war*
rfmm or for the more ignoUt cad oC iiakiB% Uilon' measorei*

George Cruikshank. 549

shut Every touch of the Cruikshankian etching needle I slavishly
followed ; but it was the slavishness, I hope, of a faithful dog, not that
of a cowering ser£ I did not know that the dotted lines frequently
made use of by George in his flesh tints and in relief to the dark lines
in his foreground were produced by a mechanical implement called a
roiilette ; so with the pen's point I stippled in the lines, dot for dot
I did not know that the gradations of tone and depth in the colour
were due to successive " bitings " and rebitings of the plates, but I
traced with Indian ink, lampblack, sepia, vinegar, gum, and what not,
fluids of varying intensity and thickness, to express the different
shades between deep dark and tender greys. Those processes led to
carpets and table-cloths being daubed and stained, and to my being
scolded and cuffed for my " nasty, dirty messing." It was all the
fault of George Cruikshank. I " played at him," I drew imaginary
portraits, I thought-out imaginary biographies of him ; and when I
went to bed, I dreamt about him.^ During this period I was
gradually learning to read and to write. My sister was the most
patient and the most loving of instructresses; but George had
unwittingly a vast deal to do with my schooling, so far as the two of
the Rs were concerned. I copied up-stroke for up-stroke and down-
stroke for down-stroke, curve for curve and bar for bar, the in-
scriptions over the shops and taverns in his etchings, and the legends
in the memorable little cramped characters which, with a balloon-like
surrounding line, issue from the mouths of the personages in his
caricatures. In letter-writing George Cruikshank's hand was a
vigorous careless sprawl ; while on copper and steel his caligraphy
was, as all the world knows, singularly neat and symmetrical. And
remember, it was all etched backwards. This fact, when first im-
parted to me by a gentleman who smilingly sympathised with me in
my Cruikshankian labours, was to me a bright revelation. The
wonderful man who could write backwards ! I immediately set to
work to try writing in reverse, and not only then, but for many years
afterwards, I doggedly exercised myself in this useful craft Useful to
me it certainly was, for, as a very young man, I was once literally saved
from impending starvation by a commission to draw a map of London

' That renowned master of English art, Sir John Gilbert, wrote to me not
long ago that, as a boy, he had copied hundreds of etchings and wood-drawings by
George Cruikskank. But then George was not our only English Rubens* only love.
He copied Se3rmour, Harvey, Clennell, Stothard, Smirke, Browne, Corbould,
StephanofT : all the book-iUustrators of his childhood, in fact These early efforts,
quite apart from the natural genius with which Sir John Gilbert was endowed, and
the severer studies upon which he entered in the studio of George Lance, may
not, however, have been without use to him as a dcaugjtvtsmaxk m «&«l'*s«u:^

550 The GentkmatCs Magazine.

on wood And I drew it, — every street, square, lane, and alley havmg
been, of course, pencilled the reverse way, — and rejoiced in un-
accustomed food and raiment. That I owe again, clearly, although
indirectly, to dear old George Cruikshank. The only drawback to
the advantage which I derived from his having been virtually the
only writing-master from whom I ever received instruction lies in the
circumstance that what my friends have been good enough to call a
" copper-plate hand " has always been draum and not written, " Cur-
sive English " in a caligraphic sense has always puzzled me as sorely
as Mr. Gladstone confessed that he was puzzled by Signor Negro-
pontes' "cursive Greek." How I envy, the people who can "dash off**
a letter ! How jealous I am when in the club writing-room I hear
the quill pens galloping over the paper ! Meanwhile I am painfully
forming and digging in the letters, very possibly swaying my head and
protruding the tip of my tongue in unison with the movements of my
pen, as servant maids are said to do when they attempt epistolary
labour. Many thousands of pages of "copy" have I thus had to cover,
with no one but myself can tell how much toil and anguish. It is
all the fault of George Cruikshank.

Twas in 1838-9, you will remember, that the late Mr. Richard
Bentley (he was discriminating enough to publish my first book, the
" Journey Due North," and to pay me generously for it, and I con-
sequently hold his memory in much esteem) brought out " Jack
Sheppard," written by Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, illustrated by Geoi^e.
Needless to say that my pen and my graduated ink-pots were in
immediate requisition for copying purposes. But this fresh task of
imitation did not last long. I had not got farther than the etching
of " Jack Sheppard Carving his Name on the Beam " when I was
sent in a hurry to school in France. I think that my old friend
Edmund Yates must have somewhere or another a little flat book
which I gave him containing my pen and ink imitation of Jack in
his shirtsleeves, mounted on the three-legged stool on the carpen-
ter's bench, and hacking out his name on the joist while his master,
Mr. Wood, watches him angrily from behind a screen of planks.
There is a wonderful wealth of technical detail in George's etching,
which is, to my mind, in its every detail essentially Hogarthian.
There used to be floating about among artists and men of letters a
belief that the carpenter's shop in Wych Street (on the left-hand
side, going towards St Clement's) was standing a dozen years ago,
and that the name of Jack Sheppard could still be traced on a
blackened timber in the garret of the house. I remember meeting
George about five years ago m Diux^ Laji^) and making him point out

George Cruikshank. 551

to me many places of antiquarian interest in the neighbourhood (he
was a walking Directory in low-life London, and was one of the few
men who could tell you anything definite about Great Swallow
Street, the site of the present Regent Street); but I was unable to
extract any information from him respecting the carpenter's house
in Wych Street, and the name on the beam. He knew as well as
I did, and better, that at the Black Lion ale-house in Drury Lane,
Sheppard (the historical Jack I mean, not the mythical one) first
met Elizabeth Lyons, otherwise Edgeworth Bess, the bona roba who
exercised a singularly powerful influence over him throughout his career;
that his first burglary was committed at Mr. Baines*s, a piece-broker,
in White Horse Yard; that it was firom St. Giles's round-house that
he carried off Edgeworth Bess in triumph (knocking down the beadle
and literally out-running the constable); that it was into the house
of Mrs. Cook, a linen-draper in Clare Market, that Jack was as-
sisted by the Amazonian Elizabeth ; and that it was at a tavern in
Maypole Alley, Clare Market {on revient toujours d ses premttres
amours ; and the pitcher goes often to the well but gets broken at
last), that, having put himself in funds by breaking into a pawn-
broker's shop in Drury Lane, Sheppard indulged in his last revel,
sent for his mother (whom Mr. Ainsworth kills and buries, so senti-
mentally, prior to her son's execution), treated her to brandy, and then
getting mad drunk wandered about from tippling-shop to tippling-
shop until, being recognised by a law-abiding potman at a public-
house in Wych Street itself, he was denounced to a constable and
conveyed to Newgate, not to leave it any more save for Tyburn. All
these cariluoghi^ George and I could cover, as it were, with a pocket-
handkerchief ; but touching the carpenter's shop and the name on
the beam, he could or would say nothing more than that there were
a great many things in Mr. Ainsworth's romance of Jack Sheppard
which did not meet with his (George's) approval. And then he shook
his good old head in the oracular manner so distinctive of him, and
departed, waving his celebrated gingham umbrella (it was not quite as
large as Mrs. Gamp's, but it might have belonged to that lady's husband;
you remember, the person with the wooden leg, of whose remains
Mrs. G. disposed for the benefit of Science ?) and looking as though
with that humble implement (little David had but a sling and a
stone) he could confront the great Goliath of Beer and Gin himself,
and slay the giant in full view of a Philistine host of Licensed
Victuallers. I never knew a man who made such effective exits as
did George Cruikshank ; and it is (as all actors know) an extremely
difficult thing to quit the stage with kclat. When Geor^<& lo^ ^^s^

552 The Gentleman's Magazine.

with a flourish of the umbTella, or a snapping of the fingers (or
sometimes with a few steps of a hornpipe or the Highland fling),
he never failed to extort from you a round of mental applause, and
you felt yourself saying, watching his rapidly departing form (for he
was as active at eighty-one, ay, and at eighty-five, as a County Court
bailiff), ^' God bless the dear old boy ! how well he looks, and what
spirits he has."

I was abroad at school a long time, and my pen and ink pastimes
were suspended to give place to that rigid and systematic course of
instruction in practical geometry which forms the basis of all teaching
of drawing in France. The knowledge of lines and their properties

" -is- insisted upon before even the most elementary study of solid forms
is permitted. George Cruikshank, however, had not ceased to be
my artistic idol, although I own that I met with some formidable
French rivals to him in the shape of the lithographed works of the
broad and vigorous Charlet, the versatile Victor Adam, the subtle
hmnourist Granville, the powerful Raffet, the passionately grotesque
Daumier (the Gillray of France), and the graceful, witty, and philo-
sophic Gavami. Lithographs, on the other hand, were scarcely
susceptible of being copied in pen and ink, and I was fit for nothing
else. But on my holidays and " days out " I found a second home
in the house of an English family living in the Pare Monceaux.
They took in " Bentley's Miscellany " regularly, and I was thus
enabled to follow George consecutively through the striking episodes
of Jack Sheppard's career until his final removal from the world at
Tyburn Tree. The tiny etchings representing the different episodes
of the escape from Newgate — the scenes in the "Red Room,"
the " Castle," the " Chapel," the " Leads of the Turners* house," and
so forth, T^-ith the procession of the cart and the criminal surrounded
by soldiers and constables up Holbom Hill — the rest and attempt at
rescue at the Great Turnstile ; the quaflling of St Giles's Bowl, and
the final scene at the place of execution — ^are to my mind supremely
excellent examples of George's genius and capacity. In conception
they too are Hogarthian. In saying this I would entreat you to bear in
mind that from first to last you will find no attempt on my part to
assert that George Cruikshank ever equalled William Hogarth : Geoige
was no more Hogarth's compeer in the grander qualities of art than
Teniers and Gerard Douw were the compeers of the terrific Rembrandt;
and Hogarth, like Rembrandt, had the power on occasion to terrify ;
witness the " Faustus " of the former, " The Death o( the Countess "
in the " Marriage k la Mode " of the last-named master. There are
iievertheJess in George Cruikshank, both spiritually and technically

considered, fi'equent phases very sltcoxv^'j «a^<5&^N^^Tv^x^VYDM^a50M^

Geai^ge Cruikshatik. 553

of Hogarth, but of a sympathy with him so intense as to amount to
a temporary affinity to his genius. As to the manner in which these
surprising little pictures to "Jack Sheppard " are drawn and etched,
they surpass in beauty and skilfulness the most elaborate productions
of a similar nature of Jacques Callot and Stefannino Delia Bella :
draughtsmen both renowned in their day for the microscopic delineation
of great crowds in active movement George had otherwise little in
common with the superb Florentine, the limner of pomps and triumphs,
carrousels and ballets for the kings and princes of his age ; but there
were a great many points of contact between George Cruikshank and
Callot The blunt, rugged, almost brutal philosophy of the " Botde " is
closely akin to the downright literalness of theLorrainer's" Misbresdela
Guerre." Callot had met the horrors of war face to face just as Geoige
had personally seen and made himself familiar with the horrors of
drunkenness; and both artists proceeded to preach their sermon and
to point their moral in their own honest and unmistakable fashion.
Neither reveals anything that is positively new, but both tell you an
immense amount of what is undeniably true. It may be that, recall-
ing the scenes in the drama of the " Bottle," or the episodes full of fire,
famine, and slaughter in the " Misbres de la Guerre," you will feel
inclined to think that I spoke too hastily in denying that Geoige
Cruikshank possessed to any marked extent the power of terrifying.
But I adhere to the opinion which I have formed. The " Bottle" is
intensely melodramatic, but it is not purely tragic It contains no
surprises. It shocks and pains, but it fails to astonish or to appal
You know what is coming. You can tell as well as the artist can
what sottishness must lead to. In the incident of the drunkard
battering his wife's brains out with the very engine and implement
of their common misery, the Bottle itself, there is another of those
Hogarthian touches which I am always glad to recognise in George ;
but in the concluding scene the artist has, I conceive, been false to
himself and to the stem requirements of the tragic art The sot has
been tried for the murder of his wife, but he has been acquitted on
the ground of insanity. He is to be " detained during Her Majesty's
pleasure," that is to say, he is locked up in Bedlam, whither his son
and daughter come to visit him. The boy has grown up to be a
thief and the sister a harlot ; and both, to judge from their attire and
their mien, seem to be doing remarkably well. The spectacle of
their father reduced to the condition of a drivelling idiot has not, it
would appear, the slightest effect upon them as an example to warn
them from evil courses. They go away, and in the series which is a
sequel, and a greatly inferior one, to the " Botde," they follow the
paternal "lead " with the ultioiate resuit|eas\V7iot«MJ^\>l^^ts^!^^

554 ^^ Gentlematis Magazine.

that the girl flings herself over Waterloo Bridge and that the boj is
transported and dies on board a convict hulk. This is melodrama
— ^very stirring melodrama, but it is not real tragedy. In the '^ Bottle "
the drunken assassin should have been hanged. In the actual drama
of life he would have inevitably swung. In such cases the plea of
insanity is scarcely ever admitted, and intoxication is judicially held
to be rather an aggravation than a palliation of the act committed.
It has, moreover, been argued, not very philosophically, but still with
some show of common sense, that it is in the highest degree
expedient to hang men who have murdered while imder the
influence of strong drink ; for the reason that a drunken murderer,
whose sentence has been commuted and who is sent to Bedlam
(it is Broadmoor now), is apt, under the careful treatment and
with the nourishing diet of the asylum, not only to get physically
hale and strong, but recover his senses agaifiy and the country is
thereby saddled with the maintenance of a hearty man, who is
honest, sensible, and industrious enough, so long as the gin which
sets his brain on fire is kept from him. The prospect of such a
contingency, in the case of the maniac who is gibbering by the
caged-in fireplace in the last scene in the " Bottle," suggests a
dilemma which is well-nigh ludicrous ; and one reason why the boy
thief and the girl courtesan look so unconcerned may be, that they
may be thinking that the " governor," who has cheated the gallows
and is now comfortably housed and abundantly i(t6^ (there was
neither comfort nor food in the drunkard's home), has not made
such a very bad thing of it after all The inference is as absurd as
though iEschylus had relegated Clytemnestra to a refuge for female
penitents, or as though Shakespeare had permitted Macbeth to sneak
away from Scotland under the name of Mr. Smith, and die peacefully
in his bed at Claremont, highly respected as a " Monarch retired
from business." But the son of Euphorion and the Bard of all Time
knew better. They knew that there is no compromising with Nemesis,
and that the Eumenides are not accustomed to accept ten shillings in
the pound. In tragedy, the crooked road must have but one goal.
Hogarth saw, felt, insisted upon that cardinal fact in the " Rake's
Progress," in the " Harlot's Progress," in the " Marriage h. la Mode."
These are tragedies as awful as the Greek's, at the first representation
of which, according to the scholiast, many women swooned, and
children even died through fear at the sight of the horrible things
done. In the " Rake's Progress," a madhouse, not a scaffold, was
plainly the natural termination to the spendthrift's career. It was as
phinly and as inevitably &ting that poor frail Kate Hackabout

George Cruikshank. 555

should die as she did, of phthisis and geneva. In the '' Marriage k la
Mode " the requirements of tragedy are more exigent and more
dreadful ; and they are all unhesitatingly and uncompromisingly
fulfilled. Whither can tend these nuptials, based, not on love and
honour, but on pride and avarice ? What is to be the end of this
wretched union between a rake-hell young lord and a silly, vicious
young woman ? Does Counsellor Silvertongue come to my Lady's
assemblies for nothing ? The questions are all answered in two
terrific scenes : — the room at the bagnio, where the guilty woman,
repentant too late, kneels at the feet of her profligate husband, who has
been stabbed (in an informal kind of duel, it must be granted) by
the silver-tongued counsellor, who leaps from the window and escapes
for a time, but is soon caught and hanged as a murderer. It is the
sight of his last dying speech and confession, brought in by a
blundering servant, that gives the finishing stroke to the wretched
countess, who has come home — " home ! " — to the house of her miserly
old father. As she dies — dies with a terrific realism that a Croizette
or an Irving might strive vainly to approach — the skinflint alderman
is slyly drawing the gold wedding-ring off his daughter's stiffening
finger ; and the nurse holds up to her for a last kiss her sickly child, its
little ricketty limbs supported by irons. Mark, too, that the child is
a girl. The ancient peerage of which in the First Scene my lord was
so pompously proud is, in the male line, extinct There will be no
more transmitters of that foolish handsome face, which we saw in
Scene the Second jaded and haggard with profligacy and dissipation,
as its owner lounges on his chair, knocked up, dead beat, " pounded,"
with his hose ungartered, his vest open, and the sly little terrier
sniflling at the woman's cap he has thrust into his pocket unwittingly
in the midst of an orgie at the Rose, or the Key in Chandos Street.
It is the same face that you see, with a leer of cynical profligacy on
it, in the quack doctor's Laboratory in Scene the Fourth ; it is the same
face, agonised, despairing, moribund, that, with -^schylean awfulness,
comes upon you in Scene the Fifth — the face of the man who has
been mortally stabbed, whose legs give way, whose arms fall inert,
and on whose convulsed lineaments plays the crimson glow of the
bagnio fire, dreadfully contrasting with the black shadows of death.
You must not tell me, rising from this supreme work, that George
Cruikshank's " Bottle " is a Tragedy in the strictest sense of the term.
A real tragedy, rpayySia, is a song, a chant, an epic, " a dramatic
poem, representing some signal action performed by illustrious
persons, and having a fatal issue." '

' '* Tragedy is an imitation of a grove and perfect actioa cotxtaSaaaas^Ss&'^tn^RSt

556 The GentUmatCs Magazine.

The *' Bottle" was published in 1848, when George Cniikshank
was in his fifly-sixth year.^ If I am not mistaken, he had become
by that time a teetotaller pour de bofty but for many years previously
he had been an ardent combatant with the pencil and etching needle
of the Demon of Strong Drink. Without being by any means an
abstainer, he had already done good service as a temperance
advocate. That he had not altogether forsworn the use of
fermented liquors so late as the year 1842 (when he was fifty
years of age) seems tolerably clear from the fact that his name is
not to be found among the persons of note (the penultimate Lord
Stanhope among the number) who took the pledge when Father
Mathew visited London in 1842. George was not at any time given
to hiding his light under a bushel; and if in 1842 he had determined
to be an abstainer in practice as well as in theory, it is tolerably cer-
tain that he would have made the world acquainted with his resolu-

magnitude, in a style sweetened partly by voice alone and partly by voice accom«
panied by song ; an action, I say, exhibited not (like heroic poetry) in the form of
narration, but which by fear and pity effects the purgation of the passions." —
Aristotle, " De Arte Poetica." There should be splendour and light, and even a
little mirth here and there, to relieve the gloom of a genuine tragedy. Thus the feast
in Shelley's '*Cenci,'' the masquerade in ** Romeo and Juliet," the banquet in
*' Macbeth," the toilette and musical assembly scene in ** Marriage ^ la Mode.*'

' While I most fully recognise the wholesome moral inculcated by the "Bottle,'*
I cannot disguise my distaste for it as an artistic production. The scene of the
murder in the naked, poverty-stricken room, is forcible; biit otherwise the
successive tableaux give you the notion of vignettes originally executed on a
very small scale, and which had been enlarged by some mechanical process.
The generally unsatisfactory as])ect of the work was aggravated by the fact that
the execution of the plates had been brought about by a (then) new process
called Glyptography. In projecting the "Bottle" George reasonably antici-
pated (and his forecast was justified by the event) that many thousand copies of
the work would be sold. Now, an etched copper plate will not 3rield more than
a couple of thousand full and clear impressions. The " Bottle " was to be sold
for a shilling, and therefore steel was out of the question. The publisher may
have shrunk from the costliness of having George's drawings engraved on wood,
although that was manifestly the best process that could have been chosen (wit-
ness the magnificent series called "The Bible," the drawings for which were made
by John Gilbert and engraved on wood by Gilks). Eventually glyptography was
fixed upon as a tnazo termine for the " Bottle." The process is an electro-metal-
lurgic one ; the principle of the invention (Palmer's) consisting in depositing copper
in the grooves or lines laid bare by an etching needle or a graver through a layer
of varnish on a plate of copper. The whole is ultimately cohered with a sheet of
electrically deposited copper, and a counterpart in relief having been thus pro*
duced, it can be printed like a wood block at an ordinary press or machine. The
lines, however, are apt "to come up ragged ; " and it is not possible to obtain in
glyptography more than the two positive hues, black and white. Intermediate
grtySf which alone can give coloux to & ^AaXie^ axe not ^tocnrable inaglyptogimph,
which is consequently tame, monotonoos^ aM dAS^m>^.

George Cruikshank. 557

tion by putting in an appearance when the enthusiastic Irish Apostle
of Temperance gathered half London round him on Hampstead
Heath, and cleared two hundred pounds a day (the money was
strictly devoted to the purposes of the cause) by the sale of tempe-
rance medals.

Between the period when I left George illustrating ** Jack Sheppard "
and the year when he startled society by the publication of the
** Bottle," he had done an immensity of good work. There were the
yearly " Comic Almanacs," to begin with, published by the late worthy
Mr. David Bogue, of Fleet Street; the plates of which were executed
(still on copper) by George, while the letter-press was written in
successive years by different " eminent hands " — ^Thackeray and
Henry Mayhew among the number. In "Bentley's Miscellany,"
likewise, George was contributing delightfully racy chalcographic
embellishments to the incomparable " Ingoldsby Legends." Ere the
"Legends," however, came to a conclusion, the artist (who was
nothing if not pugnacious) managed to quarrel with Mr. Bentley.
He was under contract to supply a certain number of etched copper-
plates to the New Burlington Street firm ; but when the misunder-
standing of which I speak took place, he began, although he kept
to his contract, to " scamp " his work and to show himself artistically
at his worst. This is particularly apparent in the " Lay of St.
Cuthbert," which is poor and bald in drawing and colour. " A Lay
of St. Nicholas " is in his good old mellow manner : Diabolus,
horns, hoofs, tail, and all, is glorious; but the " Merchant of
Venice " is weak and pallid. George seems to have been himself
aware of the fact, for the etching is devoid of his well-known
signature. Equally anon)mious is the " I^egend of St. Medard "
(with a "machine-ruled sky," and a scandalously slurred distance);
and also the " Dead Drummer," which, although a splendidly forcible
effect of light and shade, is poorly drawn, and etched without heart
or spirit This etching is not wholly unsigned. There is a kind of
ghost of " George Cruikshank " scratched into the herbage of the fore-
ground. The plain truth is that George's heart and spirit were at
this time not with " Bentley's Miscellany," but with " Ainsworth's
Magazine;" only the letter of his bond with the former did not
permit him to be off with the old love before he was on with the
new. Of course his connection with a rival periodical was to
some extent resented in New Burlington Street. "Father Prout"
(the Rev. Francis Mahony, the wittiest pedant, the most pedantic
wit, and the oddest fish I ever met with) was retained to write a

558 The GentUtnaiis Magazine.

pungent poetical ''skit " upon Mr. Harrison Ainsworth and his new
venture. The Father was veiy hard upon the pictorial embdlish-
ments to Ainsworth's. I remember that he wrote of them these two
lines —

And though such illustrations were at best but rude and scratchy,
(Ilis Guido was a roan of straw, the Cruikshanks his Caracci).

Only one Cruikshank, George, was to my knowledge and belief
ever employed on "Bentley;" but the thrust "served," as Mercutio
observed ; for George's later contributions had certainly been rade
and scratchy enough in all conscience.

The immediate successor to "Jack Sheppard" as an Ains-
worthian romance, illustrated by Geoige Cruikshank, was "Guy
Fawkes," a bitterly bad novel, and the etchings to which, although
uniformly clever and workmanlike, show no traces of the genius which
shone so highly in " Jack " and " Oliver." It is not possible that
there should be more than two types, historical or unhistorical, of
Guy. He must be either the gloomy, half-crazy, brave, bad fanatic
who was so deservedly close to death in Old Palace Yard, or he
must be the grotesque monster who is burnt by the roughs every
Fifth of November. Mr. Ainsworth, whose literary character (in
private life he is a most estimable gentleman) always presented a
queer combination of the Bmvo of Venice and a Burlington Arcade
hair-dresser, had to invent a third Guido Vaux, a kind of sulphu-
reous fine gentleman, a brimstone Bayard, a " Fatal Goffredo " of
the slow match and the powder barrel. He was ready for conscience
sake to assist in blowing up King, Lords, and Commons ; bat
otherwise he was, according to Mr. Ainsworth, a high-minded gentle-
man, a knight without fear and without reproach, cdballeresco in su
caballcrosidad. He is made to behave in the novel in the most senti-
mental style; he has a lackadaisical love for a distinguished Roman
Catholic lady. Miss Viviana RadclifTe ; and, in fine, he is more mons-
trous and more ridiculous than any straw-stuffed Guy with a pipe in his
mouth and his thumbs stuck out the wrong way that ever was consigned
to a Lewes or a Guildford bonfire. George Cruikshank, who, artistic-
ally, had felt, and lived, and acted Jack Sheppard, Blueskin, and
Jonathan Wild, Mr. Marvell the hangman. Poll Maggot, and Edge-
worth Bess — ^i^'ho had positively, in a graphic, albeit not in a
literary sense, invented Sikes and Fagin, Charley Bates, and the
Artful Dodger* — could make nothing of the lifeless //«x/n?;/x provided

* The types of all these criminal characters — to their very counterparts, with
Nancy and Mr. Bumble to boot, may be traced in many of George's etchings and
wood diawings published between 182$ and 18^. The truth is, that he had

George Cruikshank. 559

for him by Mr. Ainsworth. The house on which he was to build had
no foundation in probability or fitness ; and the edifice is consequently
a tottering kind of structure, shored up only by the technical excellence
of the etching. Much of the action of this irritating romance takes
place in London. It is the London of Aggas's map— the London of
Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, of Bacon and Raleigh, and it is really
exasperating to think what a grand opportunity for a display of
George's capacity was herein thrown away. How superlatively
delightful would have been a series of little etchings i la Sheppard,
illustrative of London life in the streets and on the river in the
reign of James I. For this deplorable omission, however, the plates
to the "Tower of, London" (in many respects George's noblest
work) were afterwards to make partial amends. I say partial ; for,
through the very nature of his subject, George was rarely suffered to
pass the Tower Moat, and was cribbed, cabined, and confined
behind the West Bastion and the Brass Mount.

It has not failed to strike me, many and many a time in my life
memory of George Cruikshank, that until he had fully reached middle
age the world troubled itself very little about his individuality, and, while
laughingly applauding his work from the very outset of his career,
allowed him to turn the corner of forty years without evincing the
slightest curiosity to know what manner of man he was. Indeed, I
cannot help thinking that in many quarters there existed a vague
pocoairante notion that " Crookshanks " — into which George's sur-
name was constantly corrupted — was as much a myth as a man, and
was a level of generic qualification which any anonymous caricaturist
was warranted in assuming. One reason for this vagueness of im-
pression in the popular mind may be ascribed to the fact that George
had a brother named Robert ; and that both worked for a long
period, if not actually in partnership, at least in parallel grooves.
Very often have I had offered to me for sale etchings and woodcuts
as the work of Robert or " Bob " Cruikshank which were unmistak-
ably the work of George. As the son and grandson of the late Mr.
Robert Cruikshank are alive, I do not intend to say anything more
about him here, save that there is a river in Macedon and a river
in Monmouth, and that George's was the Macedonian stream. About
1822, however, a writer in Blackwood's Magazine had discovered that
there was a George and a superior Cruikshank ; and in an early number
of Maga I find a very complimentary notice of him, in which, oddly
enough (at that time he was thirty), he is advised to husband his energies

acquired by that time a visual acquaintance of more than a quarter of a century's
standing with the criminal classes.

560 The Gentlematis Magazine.

and not work so hard, remembering how short is life, and how liable
is vitality to be impaired by excessive toil. For fifty-five years
longer was Geoige destined to work hard. Scattered up and down
the -'Noctes,'' too, between 1820 and 1830, 1 find numerous firiendly
allusions to the artist and his works on the part of Christopher North
(Professor Wilson), Odoherty (Maginn), and the " Shepherd " (Hogg);
but, on the whole, one rises fi-om the pages of Maga with the im-
pression that the '' Melanexylites " looked upon George as a kind of
pictorial Pierce Egan, a Tom Spring with a turn for drawing — a
bruising, gig-driving, badger-baiting, rat-matching, dog-and-duck-
hunting pet of the " Fancy," Corinthian firom the soles of his top-
boots to the crown of his curly-brimmed white hat, who spent all his
"mornings at Bow Street," and many of his nights in St. Giles's
roundhouse ; who was always ready to knock down a " Charley,"
wrench off a knocker, or ride one of Mr. Cross's rhinoceroses from
Exeter Change (as the sedate John Kemble is said once to have
done) round Covent Garden Market for a frolic at five o'clock on a
summer's morning. An analogous idea of the individual man
George Cruikshank is instilled in the brief notice (it is evidently
by Maginn) appended to the outline caricature portrait of Geoige
by "Alfred Croquis" (the late Daniel Maclise, R.A.), which
appears as No. 30 in the " Portrait Gallery " of Fraser^s Afaga-
zine — a gallery which may be called the " Vanity Fair Album " of
the period. "There," says the writer of the notice in question,
"we have the sketcher sketched; and, as is fit, he is sketched
sketching. There is George Cruikshank — the George Cruikshank,
seated on the head of a barrel, catching inspiration from the scenes
presented to him in a pot-house, and consigning the ideas of the
moment to immortality on' the crown of his hat We wish that he
would send us the result of his easy labours. ... Of George
Cruikshank the history is short" (He had been constantly before the
public for twenty years.) " He stands so often and too well in tlie
eyes of the world to render it necessary that we should say much
about him, and we confess that of his earlier annals we know little or
nothing^ This avowal is so much sheer carelessness on the part of
Maginn, or whoever else was the writer of the notice, which is other-
wise very flattering to G. C. For George Cruikshank was by this time
personally and intimately known to almost every publisher in
London. Maginn had a wide acquaintance among booksellers, and
had he taken the trouble to go down to Fleet Street or the Row
he would very soon have learned that George was at this time a
lithe, well set-up, broad-shouldered little fellow, strong and tenacious

George Crutkskank. 561

as a bulldog and nimble as a squirrel, with a hawk nose, a broad
forehead, noticeable grey eyes, and black hair and whiskers ; that he
dressed habitually in a blue swallow-tail coat, a buff waistcoat, grey
pantaloons, and hessian boots with tassels ; that he was not averse
from using his fists in an up-and-down tussle ; that he danced horn-
pipes, and jigs, and reels to perfection ; that he was married, and
lived in Myddelton Terrace, Pentonville ; that he worked desperately
hard, and had so been working since he was a boy, when his only
playthings had been copperplates, and ground " dabbers," and bor-
dering wax ;* and that he was an enthusiastic admirer of the Royal

' Mooldiog the wall of bordering wax round a plate before the acid is poured on
for etching is as amusing as making a mud pie. The composition called bordering
wax is softened in warm water until it is thoroughly ductile ; it is then pulled out
into straps about six inches long, one inch broad, and a quarter of an inch thick,
and the outer edge is then hastily pressed down before it cools along the
margin of the plate ; while the thumb of the left hand is passed along the inner
edge with a strong pressure so as to squeeze the wax close down to the metal. The
soft straps are '* tailed " on to each other until the wall of circumvallation is com-
pleted, leaving a spout at one comer to carry off the acid. In the year 1852
Henry Aiken (the well-known painter of racing and coaching scenes) and the pre-
sent writer were engaged in etching and aquatinting on steel a panoramic repre-
sentation of the procession at the funeral of the great Duke of Wellington — a work
executed for the well-known firm of Ackcrmann and Co., in the Strand (the pre-
mises are now those of Mr. Eugene Rimmcl, the perfumer, and on the site of his
factory at the bottom of Beaufort Buildings was Beaufort House, the printing
offices of Messrs. Whiting, where William Hazlitt finished his Life of Napoleon).
A score of plates, ** imperial" size, were requisite for the panorama, which con-
tained thousands of figures, and the mere manual labour of laying the grounds,
smoking the plates, and fastening down the bordering wax was the reverse of
light. I delight to remember the times when my good old friend, the late
Adolphus Ackermann, one of the partners in the firm, used to run round from his
ledgers and cash books in the Strand counting-house into our workshop in the
Buildings, and help us at the task of ground- laying and wall-building.
He would tuck up his shirt-sleeves and go to work, pulling out inter-
minable straps from a mighty rolling-pin of softened wax, with a will. *'IVe
laid hundreds of miles of it," he would say to us triumphantly when he had
turned a comer deftly or fashioned a very successful spout. ** When we were
boys, my govemor " (old Rudolf Ackermann, father of Annuals and books of
the fashions, and foster-parent to the art of lithography in this country) '*used to
allow us, as a great treat, to go to old Mr. Rowlandson*s, in Southampton Street,
and help him to border his plates. " Rowlandson was the famous caricaturist and
contemporary of Gillray ; and on the shoulders of the twain just one little shred of
the mantle of Hogarth had descended. Rowlandson, in his later years, was in the
constant employ of the house of Ackermann ; but I do not remember George Cruik-
shank having done anything for that firm. Touching wall-building, I have been given
to understand that the young gentlemen etchers of the present day are too high and
mighty to manipulate the homely and somewhat oppressively -smelling bordering wax.
Either they *' put out " their plates to be bitten-in for them, or they strongly varnish
the backs and margins of their coppers and then immerse them in a galvanised India
YOU ccxLii. Na 1769. 0 0

562 The GmtlematCs Magazine.

Navy and its Jack Tars. (Did you ever see George's illustratioiis to
Charles Dib^'s songs ? I declare that G. C. was the only artist
who ever gave the world a definite and sufficing notion of the shape
and fit of those immortal trousers which the heroine of Wapping
Old Stairs washed for her Thomas when the 'tween decks of one of
His Majesty's line-of-battle ships was converted for a whole fortnight
into an Annida's garden.) The Fraserian writer might have learned
likewise that George hated the French in general, and the Emperor
Napoleon I. in particular, with an intensity of animosity which might
have won applause from Dr. Johnson ; that in politics he was an odd
combination of an extreme Radical and a violent Tory (the Tory
predominated); and that, although his services were in constant
demand in the publishing world, he was, as a rule, very poorly paid
I have heard that for an illustrative etching on a plate octavo size he
never received more than twenty-five pounds, and had been paid as
low as ten pounds, and that he had oflen drawn a charming little
vignette on wood for a guinea. By the " Bottle" he must have realised
a large sum of money; still, I very much question whether, even
when he was at his noontide of capacity and celebrity, his average
income, taking the bad years with the good, exceeded six hundred
pounds a year. And be it remembered that, although George knew
every nook and comer of the city of Babylon-Prague, he would not
be called a Bohemian. From his youth upwards he had been a
householder and " kept up an appearance," as the saying is. In
these times an artist (I don't say a Millais, a Frith, or a Tadema,
but a sound, practical, hard-working painter or draughtsman), who had
made his way among publishers and his name with the public, would
think himself very ill rewarded if he did not earn from a thousand to
fifteen hundred pounds a year.

The prodigious fame which ail-deservedly had greeted the author
of " Oliver Twist/' and the pleasant notoriety which had been the
lot of the writer of " Jack Sheppard," a novel which criticism would
wholly refuse to tolerate nowadays, but which took the taste of the

rubber bath full of diluted aquafortis. George Cruikshank was bred in a sterner school.
When the meridian of his career was past he allowed a trusted assistant to bite in his
plates for him, but in his early days the main <fflr//z/r^ was entirely his own ; and not
less reverently attentive than the Hero of old listened to the sage who told '*the fairy
tales of science and the long result of Time," have I and Watts Phillips (George's
pupil) sat smoking our pipes (long ** churchwarden" pipes, I am ashamed to say,
Madam), and listened to the brave old man telling how plates were best polished,
or oil- or whiting-rubbed, or roughened with emery powder ; how the burnisher, the
scraper, the dry-point, and even the glazier's diamond should be used on copper,
and how to conduct the crocial process of the opus mallei^ or ** hammering-up *
a portion of a plate which bad been too deeply bitten in.

George Crutkskank. 563

town forty years ago, seems to have awakened George Cruikshank to
the conviction that the time had come for the world to know some-
thing about the personal y!ii/r et gates of the writer who had picto-
riaUy immortalised Fagin's nose and beard, Noah Claypole's bandy
l^Sy the Dodger's battered hat, Sikes's bulldog, Sheppard's cropped
head, Blueskin's ruffianly visage, and every stone and iron bar of the
old gaol of Newgate. So, with the co-operation of the late Mr. David
Bogue, the publisher : his shop was in Fleet Street (next the Punch
office eastward, St Bride's Passage l)ring between), G. C. started, in
1841, the shilling serial called '' George Cruikshank's Omnibus." The
wood-engraved frontispiece representing in dexterous perspective the
interior of an omnibus full of passengers was in itself alone worth the
shilling. But the first number contained likewise a marvellously etched
conspectus by George of the World as it Rolls, crowded with minute
figures, and a niunber of highly comic sketches drawn on wood, to
which was attached something approaching an autobiographical
risumk of George's career. His own portrait in a variety of aspects
and attitudes, drawn by his own pencil, was capital. Whether the
accompanying letter-press was from George's pen, "revised and
settled," as the lawyers say, by Thackeray or by Laman Blanchard or
by both (G. C.'s own literary style being as hazy, and grammatically
as "weak at the knees," as the march of his pencil and etching
needle was strong and clear and sure), I have not been able to ascer-
tain. The article displays, throughout, much diverting and good-
humoured self-consciousness, which is never, however, fulsome or
offensive. An egotist George certainly was — in the sense that Mon-
taigne, and Howel, and " Anatomy " Burton were egotists — but he
was the very reverse of a selfish man. Throughout his long and
laborious life he was continually sacrificing himself for others. Vain,
too— pardonably vain — it must be candidly admitted that he con-
sistently showed himself to be ; but he was not a conceited man.
Lest I should be accused of stumbling into a paradox, I will briefly
define that which appears to me to be the distinction between
tolerable vanity and tolerable conceit The pardonably vain man
knows his own worth and strength, what he has done, what he means
(D.V.) to do ; and he cannot help telling the world now and again
of those wishes. But he knows that there are a great many folks as
good and better than he, and he admires them and does them loving
justice. The unbearably conceited man thinks himself to be just the
cleverest and wisest creature on the face of the whole earth, and rc-
fiises to admit the existence of talent or sagacity in any other
human being. It is a good thing, I take i^ for a nobleman to

002

564 I' he Gentleman! s Magazine.

remind himself now and again that he is a peer of the realm ; but at
the same time he might likewise bear in mind that there are other
members of the House of Lords in addition to himself.

The " Omnibus" which started so gaily was not on the whole, I
am afraid, a very successful venture. If the first number contained
slightly too much of George, there was scarcely enough of him in the
succeeding instalments ; and one month his admirers were bitterly
disappointed to find, in lieu of a whole-page etching of some droll sub-
ject by this favourite humourist, a full-length portrait of Miss Adelaide
Kemble as Norma. For the rest, the " Omnibus " afforded George
ample opportimity to display his mirth-provoking powers in " Nobody
and the New Police Act," "The Strange Cat," and that inimitable scene
supposed to take place in a boarding-school for young ladies,
with the motto, "Oh ! Goodness Gracious : here's a great Blackbeetle! "
The blackbeetle — or rather beadle, for the insect is a sable repre-
sentation in miniature of Mr. Bumble himself, cocked hat, parochial
staff of office and all — is slowly crawling over the carpet to the
horror and affright of the young ladies, who are jumping on chairs
and sofas and gathering up their skirts to avoid contact with the
abhorred but harmless little creature. Why this prejudice against
blackbeetles ? I am not ashamed to say that I like beetles, and that
in their cockroach form on board ship, in the West Indies, I have
found them quite agreeable companions.

While George Cruikshank's "Omnibus" was taking up, and (alack !)
also setting down subscribers, the fire in the Tower of London took
place. The great Armouries (hideous piles of brick, erected by Sir
Christopher Wren for William III.) were utterly consumed ; hundreds
of thousands of stands of arms were consumed ; and the regalia in
the Martin Tower had a very narrow escape. George was, I think, on
terms of intimacy with Mr. Swift, the then keeper of the Jewel-house,
and he seems to have been present at the fire ; at all events, there
appeared in the " Omnibus " some very striking little etched vignettes,
showing how Mr. Swift, assisted by a posse of stout warders, broke
down with pickaxes and sledge-hammers the bars of the great iron
cage enclosing the regalia, and conveyed the crowns and sceptres to
a place of safety. Soon afler this the " Omnibus " ceased running.
Apart from its artistic merits, which were many, its literary contents
were varied and brilliant Specially to be remembered in the letter-
press was Thackera/s "King of Brentford's Testament," and a number
of very beautiful httle poems by poor Laman Blanchard. Finally, the
*' Omnibus " should be noted as the closing point of an important
Stage of Geoige Cruikshank's career. It was the last piece of

George Cruikshank. 565

important work executed by him on copper; and his enforced
abandonment of chalcography for chalypsography (enforced by the
larger number of impressions which a steel plate will yield) is to be re-
gretted from the circumstance that when executing elaborate etchings
on steel he ceased to a great extent to bite in his plates with his own
hands ; and that, moreover, many of the skies, and much of his
closely cross-hatched architectural and foreground work, was now
" machine-ruled," instead of being free-handed. Some of the later
plates to the " Tower of London " seem to be (the figures apart)
almost wholly " machined." Look in particular at " Jane Imploring
Mary to spare her Husband's life ;" " Elizabeth confronted with Wyatt
in the Torture-chamber ; " the sky and distant buildings in the " Fate
of Nightgall ; " and " The Night before the Execution ; " the last being
at least three parts of machine work to one of free-handed needling,
A good deal of this mechanical labour was " put out " and performed
by Robert Cruikshank.

The great success of the " Tower of London," which, in addition
to the etchings, was graced by a host of delightful little vignettes
drawn on wood by George in his best and mellowest manner,
naturally led to the publication of " Windsor Castle," another of Mr.
Ainsworth's unwieldy and sensationally melodramatic romances. The
literary portion of " Windsor Castle " was additionally marred by the
introduction of a supernatural personage, our old friend Heme the
Hunter, about the clumsiest fiend ever introduced on the stage of
letters since Ben Jonson's dunderheaded demon in " The Devil is an
Ass." The conversations of Heme with King Henry VIII. and the
Earl of Surrey are inexpressibly ludicrous ; but Heme wears even a
more comical guise when George represents him as mounted on the
celebrated Cmikshankian horse, an animal which certainly deserves
a place in a Museum of Extraordinary Quadrupeds, between the
historic steed on which Mr. Millais made Sir Isambras cross the
ford and the celebrated camel evolved by the German artist out
of his internal consciousness. George could draw the ordinary
nag of real life well enough : witness the memorable " Deaf
Postilion " in " Three, Courses and a Dessert," the inimitable post-
boy in "Humphrey Clinker," and the graphically weedy "screw"
in "Protestant Bill;" but when he essayed to portray a charger,
or a hunter, or a lad/s hack, or even a pair of carriage horses,
the result was the most grotesque of failures. The noble animal
has, I apprehend, forty-four " points," technically speaking, and
from the muzzle to the spavin-place, from the crest to the withers,
from the root of the dock to the fetlock^ George was wrong Iq

566 The Gentlematis Magazine.

m

them all. His fiery steed bore an equal resemblance to a Suffolk
punch with the head of a griffin and the legs of an antelope, and that
traditionary cockhorse on which the lady was supposed to ride to
Banbury Cross, with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
" Windsor Castle " contained, nevertheless, some astonishingly fine
work in small figures, and in effects of light and shade. No less
than three artists co-operated in the illustrations to the romance.
George was of course fadlc princeps as an etcher, but the small
vignettes were drawn on wood, not by him, but by a very skilfiil and
graceful draughtsman, the late W. Alfred Delamotte ; and foinr or five
of the etchings in the earlier portion of the book were specially
commissioned from Paris and were the production of the famous
Frenchman, Tony Johannot, the illustrator of Moli^re, of " Don
Quixote," of " Manon Lescaut," of the " Nouvelle Heloise," and of
a host of French classics. In the plates which he contributed to
"Windsor Castle," M. Johannot showed himself to be an accomplished
master of form and chiaroscuro and a very graceful manipulator of
the etching needle ; but he was evidently imperfectly acquainted
with the processes of " biting in " and " stopping out," and the
tone of his etchings, delicate and symmetrical as they were, was too
imiformly grey. In his foregrounds he seems to have made frequent
use of the dry-point ; but the effect which he produced by this
means, although charming in the earlier plates, soon disappeared
under the action of the rolling press, or remained visible only in the
form of a series of unmeaning scratches. The faintest of Tony
Johannof s illustrations to " Windsor Cistle " is the " Banquet in St
George's Hall." The most forcible is the " Meeting in the Cloisters
of St George's Chapel."

At this point I designedly leave George Cruikshank as an etcher.
In the outset of this paper I remarked tliat I had not the remotest
intention of writing a biography, however slight, of him — that is a
task which will be undertaken by far abler hands than mine ; nor
does it enter within the compass of my design to compile a catalogue
raisonnk of his works. Tliat must be a labour of time and patience,
and one, moreover, that must be subject to continuous additions and
emendations, for I doubt whether the most enthusiastic admirer of the
artist or the most assiduous collector of his prints is completely cog-
nizant of all the things he did ; and I very much question whether
George in the last years of his life had a complete cognizance of flie
full extent of his work himself. I remember while in Mexico in 1864
disentombing fi-om a dusty cupboard in the country house of my dear
deceased fiiend Don Eustaqio Barron, a book odled, I think, ^< life

George Cruikshank. 567

in Paris/' written about 1822, and containing at least forty coloured
etchings by George Cruikshank. Don Eustaqio gave me the book,
and on bringing it home to Europe I showed it to George, who at
first professed his utter ignorance of the entire performance. Slowly
and dimly, however, the remembrance came back to him, but in
ultimately recalling the circumstances under which the work had been
done — he specially remembered that he had been very inadequately
paid by the publisher of " Life in Paris " — he mentioned the curious
fact that he had never himself been in Paris in his life.

It remains for me only to conclude this Life Memory by briefly
narrating how it was that I first came to know George Cruikshank
personally. It was early in the year 1843. I had just left school, and
my mother was somewhat perplexed to know what to do with a ra.w,
headstrong, moody, and ill-conditioned lad, whose main qualifications
for active life were an imperfect acquaintance with three or four
languages and a capacity for drawing grotesque figures with pen and
ink. Stay : I had a considerable practical knowledge of cookery,
acquired fi'om my mother, who, like most West Indians, was an
amateur cordon bleu ; and it is only a pity that she had not money
enough to apprentice me to the head cAef at the Crown and Anchor
or the Thatched House Tavern. As it was, at the age of fifteen, I
was little more than ah embarrassing incumbrance. It suddenly
occurred to me that I might earn a livelihood as an artist Among
our intimate friends was a then celebrated oboe player named Grattan
Cooke, the son of that esteemed British maestro^ the late T. P. Cooke.
Grattan knew nearly all the famous artists of the day ; and he gave me
three letters of introduction: one to good old Mr. Riviere, the drawing
master (the father of the renowned cantatrice and traveller, Madame
Anna Bishop) ; another to Edwin Landseer, and a third to George
Cruikshank. Edwin Landseer I did not succeed in seeing. He was
away, I think, in Scotland ; and it was not until nearly twenty years
afterwards that, meeting him — then become Sir Edwin — at dinner, I
told him how I had missed him. Good old Mr. Riviere, who
was busy "touching up" a multitude of pencil and water-colour
drawings, emanating I fancy from boarding schools for young ladies
— and the time of year was close on the Midsummer holidays —
looked over my pen-and-ink scratches; but his criticism, on the
whole, was not much more encouraging than that which Sir Joshua
was always ready to pass on the productions of juvenile aspirants in
art It amounted to " pretty, pretty, pretty," and little else. And
then I went — in a somewhat dejected mood, I must admit — ^to Geoxge
Cruikshank, who lived at the time in Amwell Street, Pentonville HilL

568 George Cruikskank.

He must then have been about fifty years of age, and, his short stature
excepted, was a strikingly handsome man. I can see him now, in a
shawl-pattern dressing gown, and with the little spaniel which he has
introduced in the meerschaum-smoking reverie in the " Table Book "
basking on the hearth-rug. He received me with great kindness, and
kept me with him more than two hours minutely examining my
drawings, pointing out their defects, showing (with a little curved
gold pencil) how the faults might be remedied, but giving me words
of bright comfort and hope. I went away trembling all over with
surprise, and gratitude, and joy; but I was yet lingering on the
doorstep, when he opened the door and called me back into the
passage. These were his " more last words." " It's a very precarious
profession," quoth he, " and if you mean to do anything you'll have
to work much harder than ever the coalheavers do, down Durham
Yard." It was my fate, not so many years afterwards, to discover
that art was not my vocation, but I adopted in its stead a profession
quite as precarious and involving perhaps quite as much hard work
as that accomplished by the coalheaving gentlemen who used to wear
red plush breeches and fantail hats.

My life for a long period following the year 1843 was a very
wandering and uncertain one ; and I have been in a great many
more places and have picked up crusts in a great many more ways
than the majority of my friends are aware of During fifteen years I
saw scarcely anything of George Cruikshank; but in the year i860,
when I was writing some papers about Hogarth in the ComhUl
Magazine^ George came, spontaneously, to see me, beaming, of
course, and with both his hands out. Eighteen years have elapsed
since then; and to the day, almost, of his death our intercourse
never ceased to be of the most affectionate and cordial nature.
Watts Phillips and myself (Watts had been his favourite pupil) he
always addressed as "his boys;" and we never dreamt, although
he was old enough to be our grandfather, of calling him anything else
but " George." I had secretly loved and admired him in my childhood
long before I knew him ; and in the maturity of my age, when scarcely
a week passed without my seeing him, I loved him with my whole
heart. To me he will ever be, next to William Hogarth, the brightest
of English pictorial satirists and humourists and the best of men. No
insinuations of his shortcomings or his frailties (who is without some?)
will ever remove his image from the niche in which I placed it, long
years ago ; and I should have been miserably wretched to the end of my
days had I not been suffered to see my dear old friend laid peacefully
iQ his ^ve and to be onq of the bearers of the pall at his burial

GfiORGS AUGUSTUS SALA,

5^9

THE TRANSIT OF MERCURY

ON MAY d.

ON May 6th, one of those astronomical events will occur which
depend on three members of the solar system being for a
while nearly in a straight line. There are so many of these bodies,
and their movements are so varied, that in reality it very often
happens that three of them get nearly into a straight line. But most
of these occurrences have no special interest for us. It is only when the
earth herself is one of the three bodies that as a rule a phenomenon
well worth observing takes place. There are exceptions to this rule
as when astronomers watch an eclipse of one of Jupiter's moons ; for
when such an event happens, the sun, Jupiter, and that moon are the
three bodies which fall for the moment into line. When we watch
Jupiter hiding one of his moons, however, or one of his moons
entering on Jupiter's face, it is the earth, Jupiter, and that moon
which fell into line. When our own moon is eclipsed, the moon,
earth, and sun are in line. When the sun is edipsed, the earth,
moon, and sun are in line. And when the transit of one of the
planets Venus or Mercury occurs, it is the earth, that planet, and the
sun, which are for the time nearly in line. But it is not every case
even of this kind which has any special interest For if the earth,
the sun, and Mercury (for example) are nearly in a straight line, but
the planet beyond the sun, the occurrence is not worth watching ;
and the like if the earth, the sun, and Venus are in line. As for
the other planets, when any one of them comes nearly into line with
the earth and the sun, no interest whatever attaches to the phe-
nomenon, whether the earth lies between the sun and such planet,
or the sun between the planet and the earth. When, however, two
planets on the same side of the earth come nearly into line with the
earth, we have the pretty phenomenon of a visible conjunction of two
planets, if at the same time the sun is on the other side of the earth
from that on which lie the two planets. When, as very seldom
happens, the sun is so placed on the other side that the two planets,
the earth, and the sun, are all four nearly on a line, the phenomena
are still more striking, because then the two planets shine with their
fiiUest splei)4our Qn a n^dai^bt sky. Qr, a^q, if t^ree plan^t§ (w^U

5 7o The Gentleman* s Magazine.

illuminated) are all nearly on a line with the earth, we have the still
more interesting phenomenon of three planets nearly in conjunction. It
will show how seldom such phenomena as this occur, to mention that
there is as yet no recorded case in the history of astronomy of three
planets being visible at the same time on a space as small as that
covered by the moon's disc. And if there were aught of truth in
the fancy of some old astronomers that at some remote time all the
planets and the sun were in a straight line, and were then simul-
taneously started on their courses, it may be shown that they would
not again fall into that position in a million times as many millions
of years as the earth had lasted seconds according to the simple faith
of those old astronomers.

Transits of Mercury are neither so infrequent as to possess, like
transits of Venus, very great interest, nor so frequent, on the other
hand, as to be among those common astronomical events with whose
phenomena all astronomers and nearly all well-educated persons
might be expected to be familiar. A little consideration will show
on what their recurrence depends. I do not think that the
readers of this magazine need turn in despair from the few con-
siderations into which I propose now to enter, on this special point
I believe, indeed, that, in many cases of the kind, it is not any
inherent difficulty in the subject dealt with, but the use of technical
terms only, which renders explanations of this kind unacceptable.

Mercury goes round the sun once in a little less than 88 days,
while, as we all know, the earth goes round the sun once in 365 J^
days, — Mercury traversing an inner circuit, his distance from the sun
being only about 36,000,000 miles, while the earth's is about
92,500,000 miles. If the three bodies, the sun. Mercury, and the
earth, were in a line, in that order^ Mercury going round at his rapid
rate would complete a circuit while the earth was traversing rather
less than a quarter of her circuit round the sun. So that in these
88 days Mercury would have gained more than three-quarters of a
circuit. He would gain another quarter in about a third of the time,
that is, in about 29 days ; but as he has not quite another quarter to
gain, he comes into line with the sun and the earth (in the order, sun.
Mercury, earth), as at first, in about 28 more days, making close on
116 days in all. Thus, on the average (for Mercury has a rather
eccentric path, and travels with a rather wide variation of rate), the
two planets come together nearly in a line on the same side of the
sun at intervals of rather less than 116 days, or rather oftener than
three times a] year. Mercury is then said (technically but con-

The Transit of Mercury on May 6. 571

veniently) to be in inferior conjunction with the sun. So that, if
Mercury travelled in the same plane as the earth, we should see him
thrice a year or more pass right athwart the centre of the sun's face.
But the plane in which he travels is inclined to that in which the
earth travels, the line in which the two planes cut each other passing
from the point crossed by the earth on about November 8 or 9,
through the sun, to the point crossed by the earth on about May 6
or 7. Accordingly, when the two planets are in the same direc-
tion from the sun (or Mercury in inferior conjunction) at any other
time in the year except these two (or within a day or two of
November 8 and May 6), Mercury, though he crosses the sun's
place on the sky, passes either above or below the solar disc, not
athwart its centre or any part of it

We see, then, that for a transit of Mercury to occur, the date
must be near one of these two, May 6 and November 8, and
Mercury in inferior conjunction. Suppose this to happen, as it will
on May 6. Then rather less than four months later Mercury
again passes between the earth and the sun, but at quite the wrong
time of year for a transit ; and the same is the case when he next
passes that way, rather less than eight months after May 6. The
third passage of the kind would give a transit if, instead of three
times about 116 days, or about 347 days, exactly a full year
had passed from the transit of May 6. For in that case the passage
of Mercury between the earth and the sun would occur at the right
time of year. But the difference of about 18 days is more than
enough to prevent a transit from occurring. In fact Mercury passes
between the earth and sun on April 17, 1879, which is too far from
the critical date May 6. In 1880 the corresponding passage occurs
about 18 days earlier sdll. All this while, too, no passage of
Mercury between the earth and sun occurs anywhere near November
8-9 ; for, roughly, the next passages after May 6 occur four months
after and eight months after May, or are as far as possible from occurring
at a date six months removed. So for a while there are no transits.
Yet it is easy to see that the backward movement of the dates, for
each of the three passages of the year, will cause a transit to occur
before long. The dates step backward by about 18 days each year^
and in thus stepping backward must before long step either on to or
very close to the two critical parts of the year. May 6-7 and
November 8-9. The dates which step backward from May 6 are
s^e enough for a long succession of years. Those which step
backward from the next passage of Mercury between earth and sun
(September lo, 1878) have also a long clear range before them till

572 The Gentlematis Magazine.

they come near the critical May dates, and as a matter of &cty when
they do get there they will step clear over the critical part of the
month. But the dates which step backward, year by year, from the
inferior conjunction of Mercury on December 26 next, have not far to
go before they come near the critical November dates, and as a matter
of fact they do not step clear over those dates, but right among them.
Thus their first step back is to December 10, 1879 ; their next, to
November 23, 1880, and their third, to November 7, 1881, well
within the November transit period; and therefore a transit will occur.

But enough of considerations of this sort. Let it suffice to note
that the next transit of Mercury will occur on the date just named,
November 7, 188 1, the next thereafter on May 10, 1891, the next on
November 10, 1894 ; and so forth. The intervals beween successive
transits, from that of 1802 to the end of the present century, have
been as follows in years, 13, 7, 9^, 3^, 9^, 3^, 13, 7, 9^, 3^, 9^, 3J,
and it will be noticed that the latter half of the series repeats the
numbers of the former half. The series does not, however, go on
continuously through these six numbers, 13, 7, 9J^, 3^, 9^, 3^, for
ever and ever, though for the next century or two it will do so.

But now, it may perhaps be asked, what special interest exists in
the transits of the small planet Mercury? Supposing he does every
now and then come between the earth and the sun in such sort as to
be seen in the form of a small black spot crossing the sun's face,
does science gain in any way from the observation of such events?
It is known that when Venus crosses the sim's face astronomers are
enabled to obtain a fresh measurement of the sun's distance ; and
though the measurements obtained in this way seem to laboiu: under
the disadvantage of differing widely from each other, it is to be
inferred that the astronomer finds some advantage in obtaining them.
But Mercury cannot, it appears, be used in this way. What advan-
tage can there be, then (it is asked), in observing transits of this planet ?

There is one scientific result of considerable value which is
gained by such observations, though it is not a result on whose
utility I could advantageously descant in these pages, — the motions
of Mercury can be more exactly noted by timing him on these
occasions than by any other form of observation. Passing over that
point, however, the importance of which can only be rightly appre-
ciated by the mathematician, let us see what else the observer of a
transit of Mercury may hope to recognise.

When Mercury was first observed in transit, the chief interest of
the observation probably arose firom the evidence which it afiforded
in £ivour of the Cppemican theory. Not, indeed, that the Ftol^

The Transit of Mercury on May 6. 573

tnaic theoiy would have been overthrown by the mere recognition
of the &ct that Mercury can pass between the earth and the sun ;
for he might have so done, even if the earth had been the chief
centre of his movements. But, in reality, it was essential to full faith
in the older system that the planets should, one and all, be regarded
as self-luminous bodies — celestial orbs, as distinguished from bodies
terrestrial, dull, and opaque. To see Mercury as a black spot on
the sun's face was to see him as, according to the true Ptolemaic
faith, he cotild not be, as a body, namely, having no lustre save what
it owes to the illumining sun.

Probably it was the recognition of this fact which gave to the
earliest observations of Mercury and Venus upon the sun's face their
special charm — a charm which even the most enthusiastic modem
astronomer is unable fully to realise. Thus when Crabtree, at the
invitation of Horrocks, saw Venus on the sun's face on December 4
(November 24, Old Style), 1639, he was for a while so lost in
ecstasy as to be unable to take due record of the planet's position.
" Rapt in contemplation," says Horrocks (in an account more fully
given in my treatise on the transits of Venus,) " my most esteemed
friend William Crabtree, a person who has few superiorsin mathe-
matical learning," " stood for some time motionless, scarcely trusting
his own senses, through excess of joy ; for we astronomers have, as
it were, a womanish disposition, and are over-joyed with trifles, and
such small matters as scarcely make an impression upon others ; a
susceptibility which those who will may deride with impunity, even in
my own presence ; and if it gratify them, I too will join in the
merriment. One thing I request : let no severe Cato be seriously
oflfended with our follies ; for, to speak poetically, what young man
on earth would not, like ourselves, fondly admire Venus (emblem of
love) in conjunction with the sun (emblem of nd[its\ puichritudincm
divitiis conjundam.

Gassendi had described, in like playful vein, his earlier observation
of a transit of Mercury. It may be remarked in passing, however,
that Gassendi in 163 1, like Horrocks and Crabtree in 1639, had one
reason for delight which is wanting to the modem astronomer. They
were far from being sure on what day, even, the transit would happen,
or if it would happen in the day hours (of their observatory) at all.
The astronomer who prepares to watch the transit of Mercury on
May 6 next will know, thanks to the Superintendent of our Nautical
Almanac, the tme time within a minute or so when Mercury will
first appear on the sun's face. This contrasts strangely with Gassendi's
position. Kepler had announced that Merciuy would aoss the^sun's

5 74 ^^^ Gentlematis Magazine.

^ face probably on November 7 (October 28, Old Style), 1631. But so
far was Gassendi from expecting the exact fulfilment of the prediction,
that he began to watch on November 5. On that day the weather
was unfavourable ; and on the 6th also clouds covered the sky nearly
the whole day. The morning of the 7th was also cloudy. Shortly
before eight the sun broke for a few minutes through the clouds ; but
it was still too misty for Gassendi to determine whether there was any
small black disc on the face of the sun. It was not till about nine on
the 7th that he could examine the sun's disc closely enough to assure
himself whether Mercury was there or not.

But before we note the result of this scrutiny, let us consider how
Gassendi was observing the sun. Our modem astronomer has his
powerful equatorial, steadily driven by clockwork, so as to keep the
observed object always in view, without hand-guidance. When ob-
serving the sun, his eyes are protected either by darkening glasses or
by one or other of several ingenious devices for reducing the bril-
liancy of the sun's light. When the time draws near on May 6 for
transit to begin, the astronomer can set his telescope on the sun, can
set his clockwork going, and can commence his watch within a few
seconds of the appointed time. How was it with Gassendi? We have
seen how he had waited for more than two days in uncertainty when
the transit might begin ; and if it had not occurred on the 7th, he
was prepared to continue his watch until evening on November 9.
But what instrumental adjuncts had he ? To begin with, he had no
telescope at all. Though Mercury in transit is utterly invisible to the
keenest eyesight, Gassendi was prepared to observe the transit with-
out a telescope. His only instrumental appliances were a white
screen on which a circle was traced, and a shutter with a small hole
in it, through which the sun's light was allowed to fall upon the
screen, placed at such a distance that the solar image thus formed
just coincided with the circle, no light being admitted into the room
except through the small hole in the shutter. These were all his
arrangements in the room in which he was himself observing. He had
an assistant in another room above him, armed with one of the large
quadrants then in vogue for taking altitudes of the sun. This
assistant was to observe the sun's height when Gassendi gave a signal
by stamping on the room of the floor beneath — a method of commu-
nication somewhat inferior to the telegraphic signalling adopted nowa-
days in large observatories. Even if the assistant attended, a stamp
on the floor [of I a room below him might easily have escaped his
notice ; and we shall see presently that the assistant did not attend.
Towards nine the sun became clear, and the image of the sun

The Transit of Mercury on May d. 575

formed on the screen was as well defined as by Gassendi's arrangement
it could well be made. Upon it a small black spot could be seen. But
the qx)t was by no means laige enough to be the planet Mercury, whose
diameter had been estimated by astronomers at about 7,000 miles (or
rather, they estimated the apparent diameter at what would correspond
to about 7,000 miles according to our present estimate of the scale of
planetary distances). Gassendi was familiar with the existence of
spots on the sun, which Fabricius, Galileo, and Scheiner had dis-
covered twenty -one years earlier. He concluded that one of these
had formed since the day before, when no such spot had been visible.
Soon after nine he had another view of the sun, and it seemed to him
that the spot had moved much more quickly than an ordinary sun spot
would have moved in the time. In fact, a simspot takes twelve or
thirteen days crossing the sun's visible hemisphere, and this spot
seemed travelling at such a rate that it would complete the transit in
a few hours at most Gassendi began to suspect that the spot, small
though it was, must be Mercury in transit He endeavoured, how-
ever, to recall his earlier determination of the spot's position, con-
ceiving that he must have made some mistake, especially as the
hour assigned by Kepler for the transit had not yet come. But pre-
sently the sun again broke through the clouds, and now the spot had
so manifestly moved away from its former position that no doubt
could remain. The phenomenon, so long waited for, was in progress,
— a transit of Mercury was, for the first time, witnessed by human eyes.
Gassendi stamped loudly on the floor, expecting that his assistant
would immediately take the sun's altitude. But the assistant made
no sign. He was perhaps tired of watching ; or possibly a friend
had called in and the two were strolling away firom the house of the
anxious astronomer, whose hopes very likely seemed fanciful enough
to others. Poor Gassendi had to watch Mercury passing steadily
onwards to the place where it was to leave the solar disc, without
any means of timing the stages of the planet's progress, but hoping
his assistant would return before Mercury had passed quite off the
sun's face. Every minute that he was thus kept waiting iuvolved a
distinct loss to the astronomy of our own time; for it may truly be
said that really exact observations of the motions of Mercury began
on the day of Gassendi's transit Astronomers consider that their
science suffered appreciably through Horrocks's absence from his
telescope at the critical moment when the transit of Venus on
December 4, 1639, was beginning; but at least Horrocks had the
excuse that he was engaged (the day being Sunday) in attendance at
church. Gassendi's assistant had no such excuse; for November 7,

576 The Gentleman's Magazine.

1631, was a Friday. Fortunately, this Gallio came back before
Mercury had passed off the sun's face; and he effected some time-
observations, giving a starting-point whence the motions of Mercmy
might thereafter be reckoned, though we may be sure the time was
not nearly so accurately determined as it would have^been if the
careless fellow had been at his post from the beginning*

As already mentioned, Gassendi's account of his observations»
addressed to his friend Professor Shickhard, of the University of
Tubingen, is as fanciful as Horrocks's description of the ecstasy of
Crabtree during the transit of Venus in 1639. "The crafty god,"
writes Gassendi, " had sought to deceive astronomers by passing
over the sun a little earlier than was expected, and had drawn a veil
of dark clouds over the earth in order to make his escape more
effectual But Apollo, acquainted with his knavish tricks from his
infancy, would not allow him to pass altogether unnoticed. To be
brief, I have been more fortunate than those hunters after Mercuiy
who sought the cunning god in the sun. I found him out, and saw
him where no one else had ever seen him."

I have said that Gassendi at first considered the black spot too
small to be Mercury. Yet the spot, as he measured it, was a great
deal too large for Mercury. Of course, the image formed on his
screen was but a blurred and imperfect picture of Mercury in transit.
Indeed, it is somewhat surprising that he should have seen Mercury
at all by so unsatisfactory a method.

The next transit of Mercury observed by astronomers occurred
on November 3, 1651. It was only seen by Shakerley, a young
Englishman, who, finding it would be visible in Asia, went to
Surat in India for the express purpose of seeing it In Wing's
'* Astronomia Britannica " this gentleman appears under the strange
and scarcely English-sounding name of Schakerlaus.

The third observed transit of Mercury occurred on May 3, i66r,
and was the first which was ever seen by more than one astronomer.
Huyghens, Hevelius, Street, and Mercatorwitnessed the phenomenon.
Huyghens observed it at Long Acre, with a telescope of excellent
workmanship. May 3, 1661, was the day of the coronation of
Charles II., but Huyghens was not diverted from the study of Mer-
cury by the rejoicings of the London citizens at the coronation of
that exemplary prince. Hevelius, who observed the transit at
Dantzic, was surprised to find how small Mercury really is. He
found its disc to be scarcely half as large in diameter as Gassendi
had estimated it.

The fourth transit of Mercuty — at least, the fourth which is

TIu Transit of Mercury oft May 6. 577

recorded as having been observed by astronomers-^was that of
November 7, 1677. It was witnessed by Halley at St Helena, and
is interesting as having suggested to him the idea of that special
method of observing transits of Venus for the determination of the
sun's distance, whereof we heard so much during the three or four
years preceding the last transit of the Planet of Love. His account
of the matter, written in 1716, runs as follows : — "About forty years
ago, while at the island of St Helena, I was attending to the con-
stellations which revolve around the South Pole ; it happened that I
observed, with all possible care, Mercury passing over the sun's disc;
and succeeding beyond my expectations, I obtained accurately, by
means of an excellent telescope, the moment when Mercury, in his
immersion, appeared to touch the inner edge of the sun ; and also
the moment of his touching the edge at emerging, whence I found the
interval of time to be — " but it matters little what he found the interval
of time to be — " without an error of one single second of time. For
a thread of solar light, intercepted between the dark body of the
planet and the bright edge of the sun, appeared, however fine, to meet
the eye ; and as it struck the eye, the denticle made on the sun's
edge at Mercury's entrance was seen to vanish, and also that made
at his emerging seemed to begin in an instant." Then he explains
how and why this observation suggested to him the idea of using
observations of the same kind, but on the nearer planet Venus, to
determine the sun's distance. It has been claimed for Gregory, the
mathematician, that he preceded Halley in making this suggestion ;
but on insufficient grounds ; for what Gregory really suggested was
altogether different, and had, indeed, no value whatever, as Sir
Edmund Beckett has pointed out in the two last editions of his fine
work, " Astronomy without Mathematics."

So far we have considered only such interest as transits of Mer-
cury derive from the evidence they afford of the accuracy of
astronomers' calculations of this planet's movements. At the present
time this accuracy has reached so great a degree of perfection that
astronomers would be dissatisfied if Mercury failed to make his
transit stages within a few seconds of the predicted time. Probably
the last occasion when any special gratification was derived by an
astronomer firora Mercury's close fulfilment of predictions respecting
his motions, was the transit of November 8th, 1802, when the veteran
Lalande, after forty years' labour in perfecting the tables of planetary
motions, had an opportunity of testing their accuracy, or at least the
accuracy of those special tables which related to Mercury. He was
seventy years old when he witnessed the transit, *' a sight," he says^

VOL, ccxLii. NO. 1769. p p

578 The Gent lemaiis Magazine.

" which I was the more anxious to view, as I can never see another."
We are glad, therefore, to learn that the transit was well seen by the
aged astronomer. " The weather was exceedingly favourable," he
says, " and astronomers enjoyed in the completest manner the sight
of this curious phenomenon."

But now we must consider the peculiarities of appearance pre-
sented by the planet Mercury when passing athwart the face of the
sun. For though the circumstances are not then altogether the most
favourable for studying the physical condition of the planet, yet
some phenomena may then be looked for which could not possibly
be presented at any other time.

Gassendi had noted in 1631 that the planet seemed to be
surrounded by a ring of ruddy light; but Gassendi's method of
observing the transit was too unsatisfactory to allow of our placing
much reliance upon any such peculiarities. The single fact that the
planet as seen by him seemed to have a diameter half as great again
as the true diameter, is sufficient to show that he could not possibly
have detected any of the delicate phenomena which might arise from
the existence of an atmosphere round Mercury.

Plantade seems to have been the first to clearly recognise the
fact that during transit the disc of Mercury appears to be surrounded
by a luminous ring. In 1799 ^^ astronomers Schroter and Harding
observed the ring, which they describe as a nebulous ring of a dark
tinge approaching to a violet colour. The same appearance was
noted by Dr. Moll of Utrecht during the transit of 1832. Dr. Grant,
in his " History of Physical Astronomy," remarks that " many
persons, on the other hand, who have observed the transit just men-
tioned did not perceive any indications of a ring around the planet,
nor have the observations of more recent transits of the planet
served to confirm the existence of such a phenomenon. It is, there-
fore," he considers, " very probably a spurious appearance depending
upon some optical cause." It could readily be understood that
observers less closely attentive than those above named might fail to
detect a phenomenon which is probably of some delicacy, whether
optical or real. And so far as later observations have been con-
cerned, it is certain that some of the most skilful observers of modem
times, using telescopes of the best constmction, have recognised the
appearance of a bright ring round Mercury in transit, to say nothing
for the moment of corresponding observations in the case of Venus
under conditions apparently precluding the possibility of any merely
optical explanation.

During the transit of Mercury on November 5, 1868, Mr. Huggins,

The Transit of Mercury on May 6. 579

the eminent astronomical spectroscopist, made the following observa-
tions : First, to show that the atmospheric conditions were favourable
he notes that, though " the sun's edge was a little tremulous from
atmospheric agitation, the solar surface was so well defined that the
bright granules of which it is composed could be distinctly seen.
The planet appeared as a well-defined round black spot. Whilst
carefully examining the immediate neighbourhood of the spot for the
possible detection of a satellite, I perceived that the planet was
surrounded by an aureola of light a little brighter than the sun's disc
The breadth of the luminous annulus was about one-third of the
planet's apparent diameter. The aureola did not fade off at the
outer margin, but remained of about the same brightness throughout,
with a defined boundary. The aureola was not sensibly coloured,
and was only to be distinguished from the solar surface by a very
small increase of brilliancy."

Let us consider attentively the relations here presented, because
if the observed phenomena were in truth objective, not merely sub-
jective, they are pregnant with significance.

Mercury has a diameter of about 3,000 miles, but the disc of
Mercury hides a circular space on the sun having a diameter o about
4,300 miles, because Mercury is nearer than the sun to us in the
proportion of about 7 to 10. So that the aureole's apparent breadth
corresponded to a breadth of 1,430 miles or so at the sun's distance,
or to rather more than i-6ooth part of the sun's breadth. Of course
the envelope (if the ring indicated the existence of an envelope)
surrounded Mercury, and to estimate its true thickness we have to
consider its apparent thickness as 1,000 miles, not 1,430; but my
object just now is to consider what relation the apparent breadth of
the ring bore to the solar features, because in that way one can judge
what room there was for probable error of estimation. Every
observer of the sun knows that a breadth of 1,430 miles on the sun's
globe is a very insignificant quantity indeed, even in a telescope of
considerable power, I find from observations made at Greenwich
upon the same transit that at the end (a more favourable time for
observing the phenomena than when Huggins first saw the aureola —
for the transit ended at nine o'clock — two hours only after sunrise)
there were marked signs of distortion of the disc of Mercury as seen
by two observers at Greenwich. These eflfects were due partly to what
is called irradiation — the apparent expansion of a bright object seen
on a dark ground, accompanied by the corresponding contraction of
a dark body seen upon a bright ground — and partly to optical pecu-
liarities arising from the nature of the instrument employed. One is

p p 2

580 TJie Gentleman s Magazitie.

a physiological phenomenon, the other an optical one ; but neither is
subjective, for of course Mercury does not really change in shape as
he enters on the sun's face or emerges from it at the time of transit
Now, when we inquire to what degree these subjective phenomena
affected Mercury, as seen at Greenwich at a time more favourable
for observation than when Mr. Huggins first noticed the bright
aureola of light, we find reason for believing that no small portion of
the apparent breadth of the aureole must have been due to optical
illusion, and that the entire breadth might have been. For they saw
Mercury when emerging from the sun's disc apparently connected
by a dark ligament with the edge of the sun, the length of this
ligament being equal to half Merciuys true diameter.' The ligament
had no real existence. We must attribute one-half of its length to the
encroachment of the sun's light on the dark background outside the
solar disc, the other half to the encroachment of the same light on
the dark disc of Mercury. Wherefore we infer that the dark disc of
Mercury was encroached upon or reduced by one-fourth of the true
diameter of the planet. This would have made the encroachment
equal to one-third of the diameter which remained, the part remain-
ing being, of course, three- fourths of the true diameter, while the part
cut off was one fourth. This would precisely correspond with the
aureola seen by Huggins as to breadth, though, of course, we should
find no explanation in this way of the slightly superior brightness of
the aureola as compared with the surface of the sun on which it was
seen projected. The just inference would seem to be that, while
there was a true aureola of light superior in brightness to the solar
disc, the breadth of this true aureola was very small indeed; since
of the ring between its outer edge and the black body of the
planet the greater part, or very nearly all, must have been due to
that encroachment of sunlight upon the disc of Mercury of which I
have already spoken.

But it may be well to consider an objection which has probably
occurred to the reader : The telescope used by Huggins may have
shown much less of the encroachment described than those which
showed the phenomenon so markedly at Greenwich, — it may have
shown no more of this peculiarity than was shown by the great

* Thb is not a mere random guess. It results from a careful examination of
the Greenwich views which I made in 1869 for a different purpose altogether.
With the great Greenwich equatorial there was very little distortion ; and the
above estimate of the length of the dark ligament, made from the views with the
other telescopes, also brought the observed times of egress with these telescopes
into accord with the time as noted with the great equatorial.

The Transit of Mercury on May 6. 581

Greenwich equatorial. And if the phenomenon depends in any
degree ^on personal peculiarities, it may well be that Mr. Huggins's
long experience in observation may have saved him from being
misled in this way at all. But, in the first place, this is not a case
where experience would affect the result No telescopist has seen so
many transits of inferior planets that he could be regarded as a
practised transit observer ; and I believe Mr. Huggins observed
a transit on November 5th, 1868, for the first time. In the second
place, we have plain evidence that his observation of the transit
was affected in the way described, for he has recorded what he saw
when Mercury was emerging from the sun's face. (Oddly enough,
what he says on this point has been mistakenly regarded as applying
to a bright spot which he had seemed to see on the planet's black
disc The mistake is natural in one sense, because in the paragraph
immediately preceding he had spoken of this bright spot simply as
" the spot " ; but in the rest of the article he means Mercury itself
when he speaks of " the spot," and most certainly he does so in
what follows) : — "The following appearance was noticed almost
immediately after the planet disc came up to the sun's limb (edge).
The spot appeared distorted, spreading out to fill up partly the
bright cusps of the sun's surface between the planet's disc and the
sun's limb." (That is, the corners of light between the planet and
the sun were partly cut off.) " This appearance increased as the
planet went off the sun, until, when the disc of the planet had passed
by about one-third of its diameter, it presented the form represented
in the diagram " (the comer spaces l^^ing altogether cut off), " thus
entirely obliterating the cusps of li^ht which would otherwise have
been seen between the planet and the sun's edge." The aureola and
bright spot just mentioned, and presently to be considered more at
length, would seem to have remained as the planet thus passed off
the sun's edge, for Mr. Huggins remarks that the aureola and the
bright spot are not repeated in the figiure of the planet on the sun's
edge, which seems to imply that strictly speaking they should have
been repeated, but that, to save time or cost of engraving, he had
left them out Certainly this remark disposes of the absurd interpre-
tation which has been put on the description of the planet's emergence,
as though the bright spot had changed in shape, filled up the cusps
between the planet and sun, and so forth; for if the bright spot
could have done anything so ridiculous, the diagram would not have
left the strange behaviour of this spot altogether unnoted.

Wc see, then, that the planet Mercury, as viewed in transit on this
occasion by Huggins, was largely affected by the optical encroach-

582 TIic Gentleniafis Magazine.

ment of the sun's light upon the black disc of the planet. Yet,
already mentioned, we can in no sense dismiss Muggins's bright
aureola on this account The breadth of the aureola we must reject;
the existence of the aureola, or rather of the finest possible thread of
light around the planet's disc, we must admit. The mere fact that
the sun's surface outside the aureola appeared relatively dark would
compel us to this belief. But Dr. Huggins noted more. He saw the
aureola most plainly when a darkening glass of considerable depth of
tint was used. As he truly remarks, " This is scarcely what could
have been expected on the supposition that the aureola is merely an
optical or ocular phenomenon ; for the conditions when the sun was
darkened were favourable for the discrimination by the eye of the
existence of a small difference of illumination ; but they were in
the same degree unfavourable for a mere optical effect produced by
contrast." It is abundantly clear that, to an eye affected by none of
the ordinary defects of vision in such cases, an aureola of bright
light would have been seen around Mercury. But it is equally clear
that the aureola would have been exceedingly narrow.

Now, how is an aureola of light like this to be explained ? We
know quite certainly that, so far as the absorptive action of an
atmosphere round Mercury would be concerned, the sun's light
would be reduced, not increased. It might appear to those un-
familiar with optical cases, perhaps, that the solar rays passing
directly through such an atmosphere might be strengthened by
others passing through after reflection or refraction. That^ however,
is altogether impossible, though it would not be possible to explain
here why it is so; suffice it to say that any atmosphere or other
envelope which allows light to pass through along one course to
the eye must of necessity prevent light which has followed another
course from reaching the eye (^finally) from the same direction.

Yet the peculiarity is quite readily explained ; though, strangely
enough, Mr. Huggins himself overlooks the true explanation, and
(dealing probably somewhat lightly with the matter) reasons in-
correctly about the aureola. He says, " If Mercury be surrounded
by a transparent atmosphere, the solar rays would be bent in on all
sides, and would cross in front of the planet, but would then proceed
in directions far too much removed from the line joining the sun,
Mercury, and the earth, to be received by the telescope. Such an
atmosphere, in consequence of its power of turning aside the solar
beams incident upon it, should appear darker than the solar
surface." A somewhat similar error was made by Mr. Russell,
Government astronomer in Australia, in dealing with the aureola of

TJie Transit of Mercury on May 6. 58

>%

light seen round Venus in transit (Strangely enough, it is made also
by Newcomb in his "Popular Astronomy," published since the
preceding lines were written.) The nature of the mistake may
readily be illustrated by a well-known terrestrial phenomenon.
When the sun is setting, our atmosphere, by its bending power on
the solar rays, causes the sun to appear to be in a different position
from that which he really occupies. The rays which come directly
from the sun towards the observer are bent and sent off in a different
direction, not reaching the observer. It would, however, be a mistake
to infer that therefore the sun will not be seen. He will be seen,
but by rays which started in a different direction, falling upon that
part of our atmosphere which was rightly placed to bend them
towards the observer. So the part of the sun immediately behind
Mercury, which part, were Mercury not 'there, would send its rays
directly to the telescope, is not seen, even where only the atmo-
sphere of Mercury lies in the way, for that atmosphere (as Huggins
correctly enough points out) will deflect the solar rays so that they
will not reach the telescope of the observer, but pass far away from
the earth. But rays from other parts of the sun, falling on such
parts of the atmosphere of Mercury as are suitably placed, will be
deflected towards the observer ; and if those parts of the sun are
brighter than the part on which Mercury is projected as on a back-
ground, then the atmosphere of Mercury will seem filled with a light
brighter than that of the solar background. As, when Huggins saw
the aureola, Mercury was near the edge of the sun, where the light is
measurably less than near the centre, we perceive that the sun-light
from at least the greater part of the aureola round Mercury would be
greater than that from the sun's disc. I think it very probable, that if
Huggins had made a careful estimate of the brightness of the aureola
in different parts, he would have found the parts lying towards the
centre of the sun's disc perceptibly less bright than the parts towards
the edge. The latter only would send light to the observer from the
brighter parts of the sun's face.

There can be no question whatever that the aureola of light round
Mercury in transit, is caused by an atmosphere which surrounds
the planet. Nor is it at all unlikely that in time astronomers may
succeed in determining the extent and density of this atmosphere, and
the exact nature of the gases and vapours of which it consists. In
fact, the spectroscopist Vogel seems satisfactorily to have demonstrated
the existence of the vapour of water in the atmosphere of Mercury.

Very different, and altogether less satisfactory, is the phenomenon
of the bright spot to which passing reference has already been made.

582 TIic GefitUmafis Magazine.

ment of the sun's light upon the black disc of the planet. Yet, as
already mentioned, we can in no sense dismiss Huggins's bright
aureola on this account. The breadth of the aureola we must reject;
the existence of the aureola, or rather of the finest possible thread of
light around the planet's disc, we must admit. The mere fact that
the sun's surface outside the aureola appeared relatively dark would
compel us to this belief. But Dr. Huggins noted more. He saw the
aureola most plainly when a darkening glass of considerable depth of
tint was used. As he truly remarks, " This is scarcely what could
have been expected on the supposition that the aureola is merely an
optical or ocular phenomenon ; for the conditions when the sun was
darkened were favourable for the discrimination by the eye of the
existence of a small difference of illumination ; but they were in
the same degree unfavourable for a mere optical effect produced by
contrast." It is abundantly clear that, to an eye affected by none of
the ordinary defects of vision in such cases, an aureola of bright
light would have been seen around Mercury. But it is equally clear
that the aureola would have been exceedingly narrow.

Now, how is an aureola of light like this to be explained ? We
know quite certainly that, so far as the absorptive action of an
atmosphere round Mercury would be concerned, the sun's light
would be reduced, not increased. It might appear to those un-
familiar with optical cases, perhaps, that the solar rays passing
directly through such an atmosphere might be strengthened by
others passing through after reflection or refraction. That, however,
is altogether impossible, though it would not be possible to explain
here why it is so; suffice it to say that any atmosphere or other
envelope which allows light to pass through along one course to
the eye must of necessity prevent light which has followed another
course from reaching the eye {finally) from the same direction.

Yet the peculiarity is quite readily explained ; though, strangely
enough, Mr. Huggins himself overlooks the true explanation, and
(dealing probably somewhat lightly with the matter) reasons in-
correctly about the aureola. He says, " If Mercury be surrounded
by a transparent atmosphere, the solar rays would be bent in on all
sides, and would cross in front of the planet, but would then proceed
in directions far too much removed from the line joining the sun.
Mercury, and the earth, to be received by the telescope. Such an
atmosphere, in consequence of its power of turning aside the solar
beams incident upon it, should appear darker than the solar
surface." A somewhat similar error was made by Mr. Russell,
Government astronomer in Australia, in dealing with the aureola of

TJie Transit of Mercury on May 6. 58

>%

light seen round Venus in transit. (Strangely enough, it is made also
by Newcomb in his "Popular Astronomy," published since the
preceding lines were written.) The nature of the mistake may
readily be illustrated by a well-known terrestrial phenomenon.
When the sun is setting, our atmosphere, by its bending power on
the solar rays, causes the sun to appear to be in a different position
from that which he really occupies. The rays which come directly
from the sun towards the observer are bent and sent off in a different
direction, not reaching the observer. It would, however, be a mistake
to infer that therefore the sun will not be seen. He will be seen,
but by rays which started in a different direction, falling upon that
part of our atmosphere which was rightly placed to bend them
towards the observer. So the part of the sun immediately behind
Mercury, which part, were Mercury not [there, would send its rays
directly to the telescope, is not seen, even where only the atmo-
sphere of Mercury lies in the way, for that atmosphere (as Huggins
correctly enough points out) will deflect the solar rays so that they
will not reach the telescope of the observer, but pass far away from
the earth. But rays from other parts of the sun, falling on such
parts of the atmosphere of Mercury as are suitably placed, will be
deflected towards the observer ; and if those parts of the sun are
brighter than the part on which Mercury is projected as on a back-
ground, then the atmosphere of Mercury will seem filled with a light
brighter than that of the solar background. As, when Huggins saw
the aureola, Mercury was near the edge of the sun, where the light is
measurably less than near the centre, we perceive that the sun-light
from at least the greater part of the aureola round Mercury would be
greater than that from the sun's disc. I think it very probable, that if
Huggins had made a careful estimate of the brightness of the aureola
in different parts, he would have found the parts lying towards the
centre of the sun's disc perceptibly less bright than the parts towards
the edge. The latter only would send light to the observer from the
brighter parts of the sun's face.

There can be no question whatever that the aureola of light round
Mercury in transit, is caused by an atmosphere which surrounds
the planet. Nor is it at all unlikely that in time astronomers may
succeed in determining the extent and density of this atmosphere, and
the exact nature of the gases and vapours of which it consists. In
fact, the spectroscopist Vogel seems satisfactorily to have demonstrated
the existence of the vapour of water in the atmosphere of Mercury.

Very different, and altogether less satisfactory, is the phenomenon
of the bright spot to which passing reference has already been made.

584 The Gentleman s Magazine.

This perplexing phenomenon was first noticed by Wurzelbau at
Erfurt, during the transit of November 3, 1697. He describes the
appearance as that of a greyish white spot on the dark body of the
planet During the transit of May 7, 1799, two small spots of a
greyish colour were seen on the disc of Mercury, by the observers
Schroter and Harding. These astronomers assert also that, during
the progress of the transit, the spots moved on the disc as though
carried round by the planet's rotation, — the rate and direction of
this motion corresponding with the rotation they determined later
by direct observation of Mercury. In the transit of November 9,
1802, Fritsch and others saw a greyish spot. In the transit of May
5, 1832, Moll of Utrecht saw a grey spot, and Gruithuisen thought
he saw one. Harding, on the other hand, saw two.

Huggins gives the following account of the bright point of light
as seen by him during the transit of November 5, 1868 : —

" I noticed a point of light nearly in the centre of the planet. This spot of
light had no sensible diameter with the powers employed, but appeared as a
Inminoos point. The phenomenon was distinctly visible as long as the transit
continued. The whole aperture of the telescope (eight inches) was in use, with a
prismatic solar eye-piece, and powers of 120 and 220 diameters. A sliding wedge
of neutral-tint glass allowed the apparent brightness of the sun to be rapidly
varied, but, with all parts of the wedge brought before the eye the phenomenon
described above continued to be visible. I watched carefully the bright point upon
the planet as Mercury was passing off the sun, to ascertain if this luminous spot
could be seen after the planet had become invisible. I kept it steadily in view
until the part of the planetary disc, where the point of light was situated,
reached the sun*s limb. / then ceased to see it. This observation must be regarded
as negative merely, and not as proving the invisibility of the luminous point when
the'planet had passed off the sun, for so small a point of light might be easily
overlooked when the form of the planet was no longer visible to serve as a guide
to the eye. It may be well to state that at the time of making these observations
the appearances described by Schrotei, Moll, and others, which I had not read for
some years, were absent from my memory. I was not looking for these appear-
ances, and it was some little time before I would believe in their reality.''

The first question to be determined is whether the point of light
seen on the disc of Mercury is an objective reality or merely an
optical phenomenon.

Those who object to d priori reasoning may perhaps not find any
great force in the argument that, if Mercury is a planet in the least
degree resembling our own earth, no such phenomenon as the bright
point ought to be seen as I^ercury transits the sun's disc. It is con-
sidered by many a sufficient answer in such a case to say that the
phenomenon has been seen, and that therefore the question whether
it should be seen or not is disposed of. But the question really is
whether the phenomenon has in truth been seen ; and until that

The Transit of Mercury on May 6. 585

point has been determined, the h priori argument remains of weight,
or rather it is of weight in determining this point.

Now, until the cgntrary has been proved, we must assume Mer-
cury to be a world like our earth. When he is in transit we are
looking at that hemisphere of his globe where night is in progress.
Light on that side would mean some sort of illumination on that half
of his globe, and if seen centrally on his disc, or nearly so, it would
mean an illumination in that part of Mercury where not only is night
in progress, but where it is midnight, and midnight also of the
deepest sort so far as the sun's light is concerned. At that part ot
Mercury, in fact, where the light seemed to be seen, the sun of the
Mercurials would be situated directly opposite the zenith or point
overhead. Mercurials there would see the earth overhead, on their
midnight sky, and there would be no twilight whatever, the sim being
vertically under their feet, or directly opposite their Antipodes.

But again, let it be noticed what manner of light must illuminate
this midnight region of Mercury to enable the terrestrial observer to
sec a point of light there when Mercury is in transit Wc have seen
that Huggins used the ordinary measures for protecting the eye
during solar observation. It is well known that these are so effective
as to reduce almost to blackness the dark parts of spots, and to
absolute (apparent) blackness the nucleus which careful observation
has detected in the darkest part of each large spot. Yet, in reality,
that nucleus even shines with intense lustre. Langley, of Pittsburg,
has seen it shining, when alone in a minute field of view, with the
lustre of an exceedingly light violet-tinted star. But an even more
convincing experiment shows that the lustre of an object which
shows any degree of light under such circumstances must be intense
indeed. The electric light and the lime light, though almost un-
endurably bright when viewed alone, appear absolutely black when
projected on the solar disc. " Greyness under these circumstances,"
as I remarked in an article written shortly before the transit of 1868
(see " Comhill Magazine " for November 1868), "would signify an
absolutely unbearable intensity of illumination, if Mercury could be
viewed directly without darkening glasses or any of the other arrange-
ments which astronomers are compelled to make use of in viewing
the sun."

Now, on i priori grounds, it certainly is a strong argument against
the objective reality of the bright light, regarded as a Mercurial illumi-
nation, that such a view of its nature would require us to believe that
over many square miles of the surface of Mercury (and always near
that special region which has the sun vertically below or in its nadir)

586 The Gentleman s Magazine.

an illumination far exceeding in intrinsic intensity the light of the
oxyhydrogen lamp was maintained or in progress during the continu-
ance of those transits in which this greyish spot of light was seen.
In other words, many square miles of the surface or of the atmosphere
of Mercury must then have been glovving with an intensity of lustre
far exceeding that with which the lime used in the oxyhydrogen
lantern glows when at its brightest I venture to say this is antece-
dently improbable.

Another explanation has been advanced recently by one who
believes' in the " glorified thermometer-bulb " theory of Venus, and
would extend the theory to Mercury. When Mercury is in transit he
is so placed that if his surface were mirror-like there would be seen
on his globe, as in a convex mirror, an image of our own earth, which
is, in fact, suspended at the moment before Mercury with its fully
illuminated face turned towards that imagined mirror. In fact, the
clever painter to whom the stupendous theory in question is due,
exhorts observers of the transit of Venus in 1882 to look specially
for the image of our earth mirrored in the disc of Venus. " At the
next transit it would be worth while for some one with a good tele-
scope and a Dawes diaphragm " (a contrivance for greatly reducing
the field of view) " to look at the centre of Venus's disc for the
reflected image of the earth. If the envelope of the planet has great
refractive power, I think it not improbable that it might be seen as a
minute nebulous speck of light." What is sauce for the great goose
Venus should b.e sauce also for the small gander Mercury. Might
not, then, the small spot of light have been the reflected image of our
earth?

Such ideas, however, are, unfortunately for their authors, open to
numerical tests. We can tell precisely how bright an image of the
earth seen in this way would be if Venus really were a sort of mighty
thermometer-bulb. We can compare this brightness with that of known
stars, and we can infer what probability there is that the pointlike
image of the earth would be seen. I find that, assuming the most
favourable conditions, and that tlie reflective quality of the surface of
Venus is equal to that of the best speculum metal, the image of our
earth in the disc of Venus would be equal in brightness to a star so
faint as to require a telescope a little larger than the largest yet made
by man to render it barely visible on the darkest and clearest night.
What chance there would be that even such a telescope, or a tele-
scope ten times as powerful, would show the image of the earth in
Venus when Venus is actually on the sun^s face, I leave the reader to
imagine. Only the astronomer can tell how utterly hopeless such a

TJie Transit of Mercury on May 6. 587

telescopic feat would be. And as yet such a telescope is as imaginary
as the mirror surface of Venus. That the bright spot on the disc of
Mercury could have been an image of the earth is of course still more
incredible, if aught can be more incredible than what is utterly im-
possible. For the image seen in Mercury would be many times
fainter ; and we know that the bright spot was not seen with the aid
of a Dawes diaphragm, but actually through the darkest part of a
neutral-tint wedge (so-called), used to reduce the brightness of a
solar image already greatly reduced in lustre by the use of a prismatic
solar eye-piece.

Considering that, unless we assume Mercury to be in a condition
utterly unlike that of our o^vn planet, or of any other known planet,
we cannot regard the spot of bright light as an objective reality ;
we may fairly consider that it is an optical illusion of some sort. It
may be due to some instrumental peculiarity like that which has on
divers occasions caused astronomers to imagine that Venus has a
satellite and that certain bright stars have a faint companion. Or it
may belong to a different order of optical peculiarities, as Professor
Powell formerly suggested. But it is antecedently so utterly un-
likely that the phenomenon can be real, that we are to all intents
and purposes compelled to regard it as an optical phenomenon only.
The explanation is supported, however, and very strongly supported,
by direct evidence. For if the spot were real it should always be
seen, whereas only a few observers have ever noticed it. It should
always, when seen, present at any given time the same appearance to
different observers. But we have seen that sometimes one spot has
been seen by one observer, when another has seen two, and others
none at all. And lastly, notwithstanding Mr. Mugginses caution as to
the evidence he obtained when Mercury was passing off the sun's
face during the transit of November 1868, I cannot but think that
evidence was in reality decisive as to the optical nature of the
phenomenon. When Mercury was but half off the sun's face,
Huggins had ample means of determining where the spot should have
been visible if real ; yet we have seen that at this time it had vanished
from view ; nor could he see it afterwards, though, until the planet was
entirely off the sun's face, he knew exactly where to look for it.
That a spot which had attracted his attention (not then directed to
the point) when he first observed Mercury that morning, under less
favourable conditions, should not be discernible, even when he
looked for it, at the later epoch, is in reality proof positive that it
had greatly faded in brightness. This is precisely what we should
expect in an optical phenomenon of the kind, as Mercury passed off

588 The Gentlematis Magazine.

the bright background of the sun, and is precisely the reverse of
what we should expect if the spot were a real region of intensely
bright illumination on the surface or on the atmosphere of Mer-
cury.

But I have already written more on this subject than I had in-
tended, or perhaps than its interest to non-astronomical readers may
seem to warrant. I hope, however, that, in these days of cheap yet
serviceable telescopes, many who do not care for the routine work
of astronomy, may yet take pleasure in observing the interesting
phenomena presented during a transit of Mercury — in seeing, in fact,
a mighty globe, having a surface as large as Europe, Asia, and Africa
together, reduced by immensity of distance to a mere black dot
upon the glowing surface of our sun.

RICHARD A. PROCTOR.

TROJA FUIT.

SUGGESTED BY THE HISSARLIK REMAINS.

STRANGE relics these of a race long since dust :
Quaint cups once brimming with the grape's sweet juice

Drained amidst laughter and with jests profuse
And passionate vows of lasting love and trust ;
Gauds that once glittered, spite their present rust,

In the ears of maidens fair as could be seen.

Sprightly voiced maidens of soul-gladdening mien.
Now, a mere part of earth's strange-kneaded crust ;
Swords too and spear-heads that once dealt out death ;

Ay, and the charms they wore for fear of ill ;
Even the idols unto whom they knelt
And cried, when anguished, with wild frantic breath.
If haply their gods' hearts for ruth might melt.

O race long dust, we see, we hear you still !

J. W. HALES.

589

RESTORATION COMEDY AND
MR. IRVINGS LAST PARTS.

IF any observer who had watched the stage in England a dozen
years ago, and had watched it again to-day, were asked what
two great changes had come over it in the interval, he would say
that Mr. Irving had arisen and that we had imported the Palais
RoyaL Our dramatic imports have always been considerable, but
they have varied in kind ; and, a dozen years since, the melodrama
of the Porte St Martin and the Ambigu had distinctly the advantage
over the boisterous comedy of the Palais Royal and the Vari^t^s.
At that period the adopted melodrama shared with the melodrama
of home growth — with " Peep o' Day " and the " Colleen Bawn " — the
favour of the public ; and the public, not over-critical nor over-nice,
threw itself with fervour into the scenes that were enacted, held its
breath or wept sympathetically over Mr. Falconer and Mr. Fechter.
We have come upon a period when the public considers itself more
conscious of art, and when certainly it is more given to analysis.
The "Bells" is not a three hours' excitement, but a psychological
study. We have come likewise upon a period when the public has
grown in the knowledge of good and evil. The sensational leap and
the brilliant fencing-match yield in interest to the Divorce Court ;
and the theatre, which reflected a dozen years ago a life of impossible
romance, reflects to-day the life of an impossible demi-monde. So it
is that, while our serious hours of play-going belong to Mr. Irving,
our lighter are delivered over to the Criterion.

Twice only, within the last year, has there seemed a fitting
moment for speaking of " Pink Dominos " — the last commercially
successfiil importation from the haunts of the unrecognised. The first
moment was when the piece was produced, and immediate, if hasty,
record had to be made of it. The second, perhaps, is now, when
the countenance which might have been withheld has undeniably
been given, when more than three hundred audiences have filled the
play-house — when the bourgeois has gaped at broad allusions, and
even Society has been a little surprised (since these things sound sa

5 go The Gentleman's Magazine.

much more civil in French), and all vulgar Bohemia has surged, I sup-
pose, into the theatre — jockey and betting man, gambler and bagman
on the loose, the idlest product of Manchester ; wealth and the last
wielder of a tooth -pick from Aldershot — these, I suppose, have
surged into the theatre to see in some shabby reflection of the life
they lead that which purports to be a reflection of the life of the
world.

The moral of " Pink Dominos " is eminently popular, for it is
that of the English or French popular play-wright and not of the
master of poetic fiction : it is the moral of the superficial joker and
not of the brooder on life : it is the result, not of the knowledge of
men, but of the acquaintance with the stray half-hours of men. I
am only surprised that Mr. Albery has preached it instead of Mr.
Gilbert, for, after all, it is far less in keeping with the " Two Roses "
than with the chain of dramas, cheaply cynical, which began with
" Pygmalion and Galatea," and ended — or has it not ended ? — with
the piece at the Haymarket you forget the name of In private life
Mr. Gilbert may have a child-like confidence in every virtue under
the sun, and in the sweetest propensities of Humanity ; but, in public,
knowingly or unknowingly, he has assumed the rdlc of the good-
tempered sceptic. We are all as bad as we can be, and we are all
of us hypocritical. That is the truth urged courteously by Mr.
Gilbert in a dozen comedies, and that is the truth thrown at us in
" Pink Dominos." It is a welcome theory for us all. Qui ^ excuse^
^accuse ; but whoso excuses others, excuses himself

But Mr. Gilbert would never have been chargeable — one hardly
thinks that Mr. Albery is personally chargeable — with the great
and fatal artistic fault of " Pink Dominos " at the Criterion.
That fault, as we shall see, perhaps, a little further on, is that the
moral of our universal depravity is insisted upon throughout the
course of scenes quite as pathetic as comic. That is the artistic mis-
take. You might have carried your wild jest successfully enough,
along its three acts, had you admitted that the world you pictured
was a world you did not believe in. A rattling comedy, and acted
au piedlev'e — the personages such as exist in a two hours' extravaganza
— that would not have been amiss. You touch a little upon for-
bidden ground — well and good. You show us your debauched
visitors, your thieving serving-men, at Cremorne. Well and good.
You are perhaps a little indecent. Well and good ; for if you are, at
least it is plain and above-board. You are a Rowlandson or a
Gillray at all events, and not a Laurence Sterne. But it is in the
presentation of such characters as those acted by Miss Fanny Josephs

Restoratmi Comedy and Mr. Irving' s Ldst Parts. 591

and Miss Eastlake that there exists the offence, and the offence there
exists not so much in the tolerance of one particular evil — if evil we
are agreed to name it — as in the representation by the one actress
of a cynicism which you call experience, and on the other of a suffer-
ing which you call a green simplicity.

The truth is, critics have been too severe upon such faults as they
have found in " Pink Dominos." Spades have been called spades
long enough in our best literature for us to have no need to wince if
they are called spades once more. Merriment itself, in our best
literature, has been associated with coarseness — minds the most
refined have not been the last to recognise that wit may be a little
vulgar and not the less piquant. And the theatre itself is not
destined for the nursery. The mistake of " Pink Dominos " is not
in its breadth, but in its cynicism ; the gentleman who gloats over the
photographs of " actresses " which adorn the drawing-room of a lady
is an obvious exaggeration, which passes and is forgotten ; but the
lady herself, who with icy propriety preaches to a simpler-minded
woman, struck down by the disclosure, that there is no faith of any
sort left in the world, and that goodness is only greenness — that is
the fatal mistake, and the mistake impossible to any serious artist
in literature or the theatre. The mistake is thoroughly English — it
can hardly have been French.

There are twelve persons of the drama in " Pink Dominos," and
how many honest people do you think there are among them ? Two
at the most, and one of the two is utterly disagreeable, and the other
is represented as entirely silly. Well, the deepest observer of the
world not having yet come to the conclusion that ten persons out of
twelve are not to be trusted for a moment, it is plain that the action
that passes between these personages at the Criterion must not
I)retend to be a copy of any that passes off the stage of a theatre.
Out of a thieves' den, out of a convict-prison, there is no substantial
likeness existing to the action and conditions of action that obtain in
" Pink Dominos." You have plainly a misrepresentation, if you take
it seriously — a burlesque, if you will; a just permissible exaggeration, if
you take it in jest. Suppose it then to be jest, and let us, with all
the willingness in the world, make believe that it is a good one. We
will grant the lewd Tartufe of the photograph album, and the hypo-
critical youth who flirts with Rebecca. We will grant the demure
Rebecca who hurries to Cremorne ; the head waiter who lies over
every bill and puts his fingers into every savoury dish. We may
grant even a little more, and the thing may remain burlesque, or may
become even one of those comedies which are without a touch of

592 The Gentleman s MagazUu.

serious interest ; its action lighter than that of the Manage de
Figaro ; its persiflage more wordy and whimsical than Marivaux. But
the two women — ^the wives of London and Manchester — niake the
comedy impossible, bring us back to actual life from the regions of
burlesque ; and the moment we are brought back to actual life, the
tone must be altered, and that which we had accepted as extrax'a-
£anza we must reject as reality.

Lady WagstafF— I said there were two honest people, but the
authors probably would make a third in Lady Wagstaff — she is the
most degraded of the set : her own character a thing of thin veneer
and tawdry gimcrack as repulsive as the furniture of a Brighton terrace
amongst which the scenic management of the Criterion has chosen
to put her. It is nothing that she believes in her husband's infidelity;
Imt it is everything that she disbelieves in everyone's truth. What
may be her own virtues ? Sympathy at least is not amongst them,
for the experiments she performs on her more simple-minded sistei —
on the serious young heroine, Mrs. Greythorne, of Manchester — she
performs much in the spirit in which the most callous student of the
Rue de M^icis would perform an act of vivisection. Mrs. Grey-
thorne is to be enlightened as to the principles of men, and it is the
acrid Lady Wagstaff, whose own character is a compound of tl;e
cheapest cynicism and the iciest selfishness, who is to accomplish this
enlightenment. The formal and even politeness, the cliilly and
rigid tenucy of the actress, Miss Fanny Josephs, do nothing to make
the character less disagreeable, or less destructive of that harmony in
burlesque treatment which is the only chance for the artistic success
of the play. The thing becomes a discord.

And Miss Eastlake as Mrs. Greythorne? Miss Eastlake, by the
very excellence of her gifts and the sincerity of her art, adds to the
painfulness, instead of to the cheerfulness, of the general impression.
She has one of the most pathetic voices, one of the most expressive
faces, and some of the truest gestures in London. It is almost a
mistake in art to use these, and to use them so well, when their effect
can only be to give to the situations through which the 'actress is
passing that air of reality which the situations, in order tliat we may
endure them, should be wholly without. The caddish baronet and
the snobbish manufacturer belong, not very conclusively, to the world
they affect to be a part of — cool and clever as Mr. Wyndham un-
doubtedly is — but Mrs. Greythorne looks all, and more than all, that
she professes to be when she is represented by Miss Eastlake. The
lime will come, no doubt, when the pathetic expression and gracious
charm which are Miss Eastlake*s so much, will find for themselves

Restoration Comedy and Mr. Irving s Last Parts. 593

some more appropriate opportunity of exhibition than any they obtain
in '' Pink Dominos " — ^a play ingenious in unhealthy suggestion and
rich in variety of offence.

It could hardly have occurred to anyone to expect failure from Mr.
Irving in the " Lyons Mail." All the success the piece afforded scope
for he was sure of, to begin with ; and those who saw him in it, and who
were held a little enchained by what is, after all, the rare interest of
successful melodrama, complained of nothing but that they had seen
before every phase of his talent which that exhibited Whatever
there was of violent had been forestalled in " The Bells ; " whatever
of glad and lightsome devilry, in Jingle; whatever of airy, in
" The Belle's Stratagem ; " whatever of chivalrous, in Philip — not
to speak of the Shakespearian impersonations, each one of which,
whether success or failure, had contained so much, and so much that
was new, interesting, and suggestive. But that is one of the inevit-
able disadvantages of an actor who for a stretch of years has occu-
pied the continuous attention of the public in many parts: the
expressions of the ^oice, of the face, the very gestures of head and
hand, have, after all, a limit ; and the repeated expression which must
needs be used is none the less true and fitting, because, to an
audience that has followed every performance of the actor, it is more
or less familiar. An actor, as he adds to the number of his successes,
adds to the number of his difficulties ; and this is so more especially
if his aim be high ; for while the actor who aims at melodrama alone
may be safe in the interest of the situations it offers, and while tbt
actor who is purely a comic actor need fear no grudging of the ac
customed laughter when he presents for the thousandth time just the
accustomed face, the artist who aims to represent individual character,
lighted, too, sometimes by romance or poetry, has much against hiro
when treasures of novelty in invention and expression are no longer
at his command. But in the " Lyons Mail," Mr. Irving himself, con-
tentedly, one supposes, and for the time wisely, fell back upon such
protection as is undoubtedly afforded by the strong interest of melo-
drama; and, with an actor whom even those who decline to reckon
him poetical or exalted confess to be skilled in the resources of his
craft — with such an actor failure was impossible. In "Louis the
Eleventh," Mr. Irving entered again into the region of experiment,
and his success in the experiment is a matter to be warmly debated.

The piece itself has at many times been over-praised. Claiming
to be poetical, and a study of character, it voluntarily abandons the
interest of well-knit story and strong situation ; and yet its poetical

vol. CCXLII. NO. 1769. Q Q

594 ^^ Gentleman's Magazine.

touches could be counted on the fingers, and its study of chaiacter
reveals nothing that was profoundly hidden. Sir Giles Overreach is
a study of character, and a better one than Louis XL, and one, too,
lighted up by more of grim hiunour than ever Mr. Irving can let
forth on the adaptation of Delavigne. Yet it is deemed impossible
to fill a theatre for many nights with any representation of Sir Giles
Overreach. It is clear, therefore, that if an actor can even hxAy
satisfy a really difficult audience in this part of Louis, his gifts and
acquirements must be beyond our denying. Now, Mr. Irving has
already satisfied many audiences. He has done much with the part
He has bestowed on it great study, much cleverness, an infinity
of resource. He has brought to it many of the stage qualities
without which it must needs be a failure ; but to say that is by no
means to say that the impression produced has been wholly
satisfactory. To my own mind, it is in the first act in which
he appears — that is, the second of the play — that Mr. [Irving is
most thoroughly admirable. His entry promises all that any
performance of the part can give. Possibly the greatest living
master of the art of " making>up " — the most painstaking and careful
inventor of all helpful tricks of stage disguise — Mr. Irving in " Louis
the Eleventh" has surpassed himself in this particular. It is
certainly Louis. Nor is it with any fairness or clearness of
judgment to be charged against the actor that his representation is
incompatible with our imagination of the King of France, when he
was capable — when he was master of all his means. The words of
the play expressly record that, from the very beginning of the action
of the piece, Louis is marked for death : his death is waited for :
and Mr. Irving, instead of being chargeable with the fault of anti-
cipating the period of utter decay, is to be commended for the
gradations he has known how to indicate — the passage from death
certainly coming to death certainly come. Nor, again, is it greatly to be
urged against Mr. Irving that the whole performance is one monotonous
record of suffering and evil. The play leaves to the actor little choice
in the matter. The Louis of Mr. Boucicault*s version of Delavigne
is seen only at the very weary end of life : no glimpse of the great
and active politician, but a man fertile only in pettiest and meanest
expedients : to the last revengeful, and even at the first a coward.
Mr. Irving has varied the picture as best he could, according to his
lights. The confidential friendliness of his chat with the peasants in
the throne-room, for instance, is a vivid illustration of recorded
character — a monarch to whom men of noble nature were perma-
nently strangers, but at home with the intriguer and at home with

Restoration Comedy attd Mr. Irving' s Last Parts. 595

the boor. Full, too, of bitter humour is the scene with the peasants
at their merry-making. There is a touch of comedy wherever comedy
can be. Variety is carefully aimed at And all that can be urged
against this is, that it is gained sometimes at the cost of probability.

No one is more skilled than Mr. Irving in the art of effective
surprises — of sudden transitions of mood and voice ; and an audience
need not be very intelligent to appreciate the display of this art But
Mr. Irving's rapid transitions from resolute villany to abject fear, and
abject fear to piety, and piety to villany again, however permissible
in the earlier acts of " Louis the Eleventh," become unnatural in the
later. The bed-chamber scene finds the King in the last weakness.
He is quite incapable of changes of voice as marked and sudden as
the actor makes them. The slowly-ebbing life has left him fictitious
strength enough, perhaps, to be irritable, but too numbed and torpid,
too lowered, to be violent The swift changes which were right in
the earlier scenes, become merely theatrically effective in these later.

Again, Mr. Irving — who, for a man of exceptional endowments, is
sometimes strangely uncertain to perceive rare opportunities for pathetic
and serious effect — is not only, in the opinion of many, a little lacking
throughout in the signs of that kingliness which at moments at least
must have been Jx)uis*s, but is, in my own judgment, irritatingly
unmindful of the one legitimate opportunity for securing the passing
sympathy which even Mephistopheles himself could hardly be con-
tinually without. Mr. Boucicault, who is not a poet, who is not a
discoverer, missed the point in his translation, or gave merely a hint
of it ; which hint it might have remained for the skilled actor at the
Lyceum to catch sight of— to enlarge upon. The king has watched
with relief the rustic merry-making, and turns to it again in his
thoughts, and Casimir Delavigne has put into his mouth words
suggested Very likely by lines of Shakespeare very familiar to us :

Apres la danse, au fond dc sa chaumiire,
Le plus pauvre d'cntre eux va rentrer en chantant :
Ah ! I'heureiix mistTable ! un doux sommeil I'attend ;
II va dorrnir ; et moi —

Here there is an opportunity for breaking for a moment the long
chain of hypocrisy one hates and suffering one cannot care for.
There is one true cry — of complaint common to all and appealing to
all — and the actor has somehow missed it

Probably nothing on the stage is tru6r than the death-scene of
the fifth act Unfortunately, truth is not the only quality to be
demanded of Art, whose purpose is not alone to hold the mirror up
to nature, but to give men a noble pleasure. The condition limits

QQ2

596 TJie Gentlemans Magazine.

the scope of Art very much less than it is possible for the over-
dainty, the over-sensitive, or the one-sided enthusiast to believe.
The sorrows of Lear give men a noble pleasure — and the death of
Colonel Newcome, and the death of Sydney Carton. The death of
Louis the .Eleventh, as the actor has represented it — and one ought to
state expressly that in so representing it he has gone not beyond what
may be sanctioned by text and by tradition — the death of Louis the
Eleventh is not a thing I should see twice for pleasure at all. I
have never relished the art of Ribera any more than the art of Bega
and Brouwer. We owe too many recreating hours — evenings of
vivid interest — to Mr. Irving, to bear hardly upon him even in thought
for his adoption of a realism to some of us at least profoundly dis-
agreeable ; but the impression he produces from the moment at
which he staggers on to the stage, green with death — studied I know
not with what terrible accuracy — to the moment when, after the last
weak grasp of coveted crown and the last gasp for coveted life, he
reels on the floor — that impression, at all events, is >vithout pleasure,
let alone " noble pleasure." A somewhat restrained eflect at last
might, I think, have closed a somewhat more sympathetic portraiture
— a portraiture which, if it did not take into account — and it might
legitimately decline to take into account — the I/)uis of great politics,
and the Louis of " Quentin Durward," should still perhaps have
remembered the stray poetry of Delavigne, lost in the ignoble
prcsiness of Boucicault, and that much profounder, because uncon-
scious, touch of poetical suggestion made in these words of the
contemporary chronicler : " I have known him and been his servant
in the flower of his age and in the time of his greatest prosperity ;
but never did I see him without uneasiness and care. Of all amuse-
ments he loved only the chase, and hawking in its season ; and in
this he had almost as much uneasiness as pleasure, for he rode hard
and arose early and sometimes pursued far, and recked of no
weather \ §o that he was wont to return very weary and well nigh
ever in wrath with some. I think that from his childhood unto his
death he had no ceasing of labour and of trouble." It may be that the
suggestion is compatible with some touch of greater dignity than Mr.
Irving has given to his most studied and most skilful portrait of
Louis the Eleventh.

FREDERICK WEDMORE.

597

LORD NORTHINGTON.

MOST of us, no doubt, remember the names of Lord Hardwicke
and Lord Thurlow, as occupants of the Woolsack in the
last century. Their fame has not passed away with them, but
remains to our day ; partly because their judgments are quoted with
respect and reverence by the legal profession ; and partly also, it
must be owned, because their titles still survive in the persons of
their descendants and representatives, and the roll of the House of
Peers in 1878 would not be complete without a Lord Thurlow and
a Lord Hardwicke.

But in the interval between those two learned lawyers there sat
upon the Woolsack a man whose name is comparatively forgotten by
the world, though he was scarcely inferior to either of them in ability,
and had almost as marked an individuality of character as Thurlow,
of whom it used to be said that no man could be half as wise as he
looked. I refer to Robert Henley, Earl of Northington.

Descended from the Henleys, of Henley, in Somersetshire, he had
for his great-grandfather Sir Robert Henley, Master of the Court of
Queen's Bench, who being successful in his career at the Bar, be-
came late in life the owner of the magnificent estate of The Grange,
near Alresford, Hampshire, originally built by Inigo Jones, and also
of a fine town mansion, on the south side of I-.incoln's Inn Fields, on
the site now covered by the Royal College of Surgeons. His grand-
father, and his father, Anthony Henley, were successively Members of
Parliament; and the name of the latter frequently occurs in the memoirs
of correspondence of the reign of Queen Anne as one of the most
polite and accomplished men of his age. Leaving Oxford^ and settling
down in London, he was admitted to the society of all the first wits
of the time, and became the friend and companion of the Earls of
Dorset and Sunderland, as well as of Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, and
Burnet. He was equally acceptable as a politician at the Court of
King William at Kensington, and also at Wills' and Tom's coffee-
houses as a wit. He was the patron of Garth, who dedicated to him
his " Dispensary ; " and he became a frequent contributor to the
periodical literature of his day, including the "Medley" and the

598 Tlie Gentlentatis Magazine.

"Tatler." As a member of the Lower House he was a zealous
asserter of the principles of liberty, and he became an object of
hatred to the Tory party on account of having moved the address to
Queen Anne in favour of Bishop Hoadley's promotion.

By his marriage with one of the family of Bertie, Earl of Lindsey
and afterwards Duke of Ancaster, one of his immediate neighbours in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mr. Henley obtained a fortune of ;£^3o,ooo ;
and his wife bore him two sons, the younger of whom is the subject
of this sketch. His elder brother died young, but not till he
had secured for himself much notoriety by his dissipation and wit,
his frolics and profusion, both in town and in country circles ; and
especially by a " most humorous but insolent reply to his consti-
tuents, who had desired him to oppose Sir Robert Walix)le*s famous
excise scheme." He married a daughter of the noble house of
Berkeley, but passed to his grave childless. The other son of
Anthony the elder, and brother of Anthony the younger, was Robert
Henley, who was born about the year 1708, and was educated at
Westminster, where he was the schoolfellow of the great Lord Mans-
field, though somewhat his junior in age, and also of Bishop Newton.
He was afterwards entered at St. John's College, Oxford, whence he
was elected to a Fellowship at All Souls. Having left Oxford, he
was called to the Bar, and became a Bencher of the Inner Temple.
His family connections led him to choose the Western Circuit, and
he became in due course Recorder of Bath, and its representative in
Parliament. In the gay society which gathered in that city to "drink
the waters," he met his future wife, a Miss Huband, who had been
for a long time wheeled about in a chair, but was aften^'ards able to
hang up her crutches and walk, thanks to the goddess of the waters
or the little god of love. The newly-married couple, not being blessed
with wealth, (for the elder Henley was still living and held the purse-
strings rather tightly,) on coming to London, took up their abode
in Great James Street, Bedford Row, which then commanded a view
across the fields near the Foundling towards Hampstead and High-
gate. In Parliament he was a frequent debater, and an active sup-
porter of the politics of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and of the
"Leicester House party." On the Prince's death in 1 751, he ad-
hered to the Princess, and so laid the foundation of his subsequent
success in life : for he was made Solicitor and Attomey General to the
Heir Apparent— a post which he subsequently exchanged for the
Attorney-Generalship of England, on the formation of the Ministry
headed by Lord Bute and the elder Pitt ; and shortly afterwards, for
iht Great Seal, thanks to the strong friendship of " the great com-

Lard NortfdngUm. 599

moner." In 1757, accordingly, he was sworn into office, not, how-
ever, exactly as Lord High Chancellor, but as " Lord Keeper of the
Great Seal," — in consequence of the personal dislike and opposition
of the King.

His friendship with the Leicester House party so far rendered
him distasteful to George IL that he was kept for three years without
the Peerage which is usually attached to the Woolsack ; and he
probably would have remained a Commoner till the next reign, but
for the accident of the trial of Lord Ferrers for murder, when it was
thought that the first law officer of the Crown ought to preside.
Accordingly in March 1760, he was created a Peer by the name,
style, and title of " Lord Henley, of The Grange, in the County of
Southampton."

It is generally said that the newly made Peer did not show to
advantage on this occasion. Such, at all events, was the opinion of
the old Court gossip, Horace Walpole, who writes with his usual
spleen and sneer. " The judge and the criminal were far superior to
those you have seen.* As for the Lord Steward,^ he neither had any
dignity, nor affected any. Nay, he held it all so cheap that he said
at his own table the other day, " I will not send for Garrick to learn
to act a part." But whether this charge be true or not, he sentenced
Lord Ferrers to be hung in a speech at once grave, simple, digni-
fied, and appropriate. Curiously enough it was again his lot to
preside as Lord High Steward in the House of Lords in 1765, when
the " wicked " Lord Byron was tried by his Peers for ha\ing killed
his neighbour, Mr. Chaworth, in a duel in Pall Mall.

The accession of George III., as might be expected, brought with
it to Lord Henley the long-delayed reward, for he gave up the Great
Seal as Lord Keeper only to receive it back as Lord High Chancellor,
being at the same time raised to the higher dignity of Earl of North-
ington. Not long afterwards he was made Lord-Lieutenant of Hamp-
shire, and resided mostly at his seat in that county, the Grange,
from the time of his retirement from public life down to the end
of his days, though he varied his existence by occasional visits to
Bath.

He continued to sit upon the Woolsack during the three
successive ministries of Lord Bute, George Grenville, and Lord
Rockingham. On the accession of the Duke of Grafton and Mr.
Pitt to place and power, he resigned the Great Seal, but continued for

' The allusion is to the Rebel Lords who were tried for the Scottish Rising in

1745.

' Walpole clearly meant the Lord Chancellor.

6oo The Gentleman's Magazine.

a year to hold a seat in the administration as President of the Coun-
cil. This dignity, however, he resigned in 1767, on account of the
constant attacks of his old enemy, the gout, which embittered the
five last years of his life. He died in January 1772.

I am sorry to say that, unless Horace Walpole and other writers
of contemporary anecdote indulge in gross scandal and lies, Lord
Northington, in spite of his great talents and high position, must have
been a most inveterate toper. In fact, in his love of the bottle he
could not have been siupassed either by Lord Thurlow or by any of
those choice wits who used to gather in the upper room of the Devil
Tavern in Fleet Street, and quaff the midnight bowl in honour of
Bacchus, looking up to the lines of Ben Jonson inscribed over the
mantelpiece in letters of gold.

Truth itself doth flow in wine.

Wine it is the milk of Venus,

And the poet's horse accounted :

Ply it, and you all are mounted.

'l*is the true Phoebean liquor,

Cheers the brains, makes wit the quicker.

Pays all debts, cures all diseases,

And at once three senses pleases.

I will give one or two examples of Lord Northington in his cups.

If we may believe Horace Walpole, the Lord Chancellor was
drunk, or at all events had been drinking freely, one evening, when a
smart gentleman, with a staff of civic office in his hand, arrived to
tell him that he had been chosen Governor of St Bartholomew's
Hospital, and began in a set speech to allude to his health and

abilities. " By G ! " cried out the Chancellor, " it's a lie ; I

have neither health nor abilities ; my bad health has destroyed my
abilities, if I ever had any."

Again in 1766, while holding office as Lord President of the
Council, he went to stay at Bath, where he entered extensively into
fashionable society, though he voted it a " horrid bore," even if he
did not use a coarser expression. Horace Walpole at all events,
writing to Lady Suffolk, says: ** The Dowager Chancellor is here. . . .
My Lord President goes to the balls ; but I believe he had rather
be at the ale-house." So well indeed was his Lordship's proclivity
in this dixection known, that on Lord Cower being appointed
to the Presidency of the Council, one of the wits of the day remarked,
<' Lord Granville had the post, and now Lord Northington has it : it
is a drunken place by prescription."

Lord Northington. 60 1

It must be remembered, however, in forming an estimate of Lord
Northington, that toping was the " order of the day " in his time,
and that '' as drunk as a lord '' was a saying as true as it was terse.
But those times have passed away, and now-a-days, perhaps, it would
be more correct to say, " as drunk as a working man."

There is current in the profession an amusing anecdote re-
specting the acceptance of the Great Seal by Lord Northington.
The Seal had been offered to Chief Justice Willes, but had been
declined by him for reasons in part personal and in part political,
for it was offered without a peerage. Immediately afterwards
Henley called on him at his villa, where he found him walking in
his garden, highly indignant at the meanness of the offer. After
entering into his grievances in some detail, Willes concluded by
asking whether any man of spirit under such circumstances could
have accepted the Great Seal, adding, " Could you, Mr. Attorney-
General, have done so?" Being thus appealed to point blank,
Henley gravely told the Chief Justice that it was too late to discuss
the question, as he had called on him for the purpose of telling him
that he had just accepted the Seal for himself, and that he had
accepted it on the same terms which Willes had rejected with scorn.

Though the name of Lord Northington is almost forgotten upon
the Woolsack, he was much respected in his official character by so
good a judge and so high an authority as Lord Eldon, who calls him
" a great lawyer," and expresses his admiration for his firmness in
delivering his opinion. By an accident, unfortunate for his fame,
the proceedings in the Court of Chancery, whilst he presided over it,
were most inefficiently reported; so that his Lordship must be added
to the long list of those who have been obliged to sleep in the shade
of long night carait quia rate sacro. His grandson, Robert, Lord
Henley, however, was able to repair this defect to some extent,
by gleaning some of his decisions from sundry manuscript collections
in the hands of legal friends, and publishing them in two volumes.
These show that, whatever he may have been in private life and
over the bottle, on the bench he showed judicial talents of the
highest order. " He was gifted by nature," observes his grandson,
" with an understanding at once vigorous and acute, and he brought
with him to the bench a profound acquaintance with both the
science and the practice of the law. He was remarkable for the
great energy and decision of his mind, and for the happy capacity of
relieving an intricate case from all minor and extraneous circum«
stances, whilst he grappled with and overcame its weightiest difficulties.
His judgments also are conspicuous for their clear, simple, and

6o2 The Gmtlematis Magazine.

manly style." .It must be owned that his only judgment which is
couched in terms intelligible to non-professional readers — ^his
sentence on Lord Ferrers — fully bears out this praise.

He was succeeded by his only son, Robert, who became second
Earl, and is known to the readers of history as the inend of Charles
James Fox and the patron of Windham. He was made Lord-
Lieutenant of Ireland by the CoaHtion Ministry of 1 783, and also
received the green riband of the Order of the Thistle. He died at
Paris in 1786, in his fortieth year ; but as he left no son, his titles
became extinct. He is spoken of by Horace Walpole as a " decent,
good sort of man," and as being " at one time intended by the
Ministry (1782) for a diplomatic employment abroad." The Barony
of Henley, however, was revived — though only as an Irish peerage
— in favour of his son-in-law, Sir Morton Eden, who had married
his youngest daughter. Lady Elizabeth, the only one of Lord
Northington*s children who had a family, though they all found
husbands. His son, the present Lord Henley, therefore, is the last
Lord Northington's maternal grandson, and representative of his
name.

EDWARD WALFORD.

6o3

STANLEY'S MARCH ACROSS

AFRICA.

THE discoverer of Livingstone has added to his laurels by the
solution of some of the most remarkable problems of African
geography, and the settlement of many points on which incomplete
exploration had up to this time left the scientific world in doubt He
has traced the feeders of the grand old " river of Egypt " from a
more southerly point than had been hitherto done, demonstrated the
unity of the Victoria Nyanza, added to our information of the lacus-
trine region, and, greatest feat of all, proved the Lualaba of Living-
stone to be the upper course of the mighty Kongo, and not of the
Nile. To accomplish these services the intrepid traveller had to
pass through many grave dangers and "hairbreadth escapes," the
narration of which cannot but be attended with the greatest interest.
Commissioned by the proprietors of the Z>aily Telegraph and the New
York Herald to traverse and explore equatorial Africa, his instruc-
tions were "to complete the discoveries of Captain J. Hanning
Speke, and Captain (now Colonel) Grant, of the sources of the Nile;
to circumnavigate Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika, and by the
exploration of the latter lake to complete the discoveries of Captains
Burton and Speke ; and lastly to complete the discoveries of Dr.
Livingstone."

Taking with him three young Englishmen — Francis and Edward
Pocock and Fred. Barker — Mr. Henry M. Stanley set sail from
England on the 15th August, 1874, and on the 21st of the following
month reached Zanzibar. Before proceeding on his transcontinental
journey, Stanley undertook a short preliminary expedition to explore
the Rufiji River, which he ascended to a distance of 120 miles in a
yawl drawing 5 feet of water. He thinks the river might be navigated
by a light draught steamer to a distance of about 200 miles inland.
By the middle of October Stanley was again at Zanzibar, preparing
for his journey into the interior. He was provided with a large
pontoon named the Livingstone. This craft was made of caoutchouc,
inflatable, and weighed 300 lbs.: being made in sections, it was

6o4 The Gentlemaiis Magazine.

divided into portable loads of 60 lbs. each, requiring but five men
to carry the whole. In addition to this, he took a boat named the
Lady Aiice^ for the circumnavigation of lakes and long river voyages.
This vessel, built of best Spanish cedar, in water-tight compartments,
was 40 feet long by 6 feet beam, and was of sufficient capacity to
carry twenty-five men with a month's provisions, though drawing
but 12 inches of water loaded. For convenience of land transport
it was divided into five sections of 120 lbs. each. About 350 Wan-
guana (natives of Zanzibar) were selected and enlisted in his service,
forty-seven of the number being men who had marched with Living-
stone on his last journey. With this force he crossed over to the
mainland at Bagamoyo, and after the usual difficulties incident to the
getting into order so large a force, he commenced his journey into
the interior on November 17. His force now numbered 347 men,
besides women and children. Leaving somewhat to the south the
ordinary track, Stanley journeyed from Kikoka in a W.N.W. direction
to Mpwapwa, a village in Usagara, where he arrived on December 12,
after an unprecedentedly successful march. In the journey from the
coast the party had suffered less sickness, less trouble, and altogether
had had more good fortune than any previous expedition. Travers-
ing this distance had occupied them only twenty-six days ; on the
expedition in search of Livingstone the same march had taken
Stanley fifty-seven days, and it occupied Lieut. Cameron's party
some three or four months. Up to this half-way point to Unyan-
yembe Stanley had only paid away three bales of cloth out of the
seventy-two he had brought with him.

Leaving Mpwapwa the party crossed northern Ugogo with the
usrai experience of blackmail and robbery. Some of the tribes,
how ever, were more amicably disposed. Broad and bleak plains,
where food was scarce and cloth vanished fast, gave way to hilly
districts where provisions were abundant, the people civil, and the
chitfs kind. During this part of the journey it was subject to
furic. us storms of rain, and sometimes it seemed as if nature and
man conspired together against it. Men died from fatigue and
famine, many were left behind ill, and many deserted. Promises of
reward, kindness, threats, punishments, all were without effect For
the three white men, however, Stanley has nothing but praise.
*' Though suffering from fever and dysentery, insulted by natives,
marching under the heat and equatorial rainstorms, they at all
times proved themselves of noble, manly natures, stout-hearted, brave,
and, better than all, true Christians. Unrepining they bore their
hard fate and worse fare ; resignedly they endured their arduous
troul^Ies, cheerfully perfoTmed xWvt ^Wox.Xwidwvvi'i"

Stanleys March Across Africa, 605

On the last day of the year 1874 the western frontier of Ugogo
was reached, and after a rest of two days they struck due north,
along an almost level plain, which some said extended as far as the
Nyanza. They also learned that they were skirting the western
extremity of the dreaded Wahumba or Masai. Two days' progress
brought them to the confines of Usandawi, a country famous for
elephants; but here their route inclined north-west, and they entered
Ukimbu, or Uyanzi, at its north-eastern extremity. Stanley had
hired guides in Ugogo to take them as far as Iramba, but at
Muhalala, in Ukimbu, they deserted. Fresh guides were then
engaged, but after one day*s march farther they also disappeared,
leaving the expedition on the edge of a wide wilderness without a
single pioneer. Having heard the guides say the previous day
that three days' march would bring them to Urimi, Stanley
determined to continue the journey without them, but on the
morning of the second day the narrow, ill-defined track which they
had followed became lost in a labyrinth of elephant and rhinoceros
trails. Scouts were despatched in all directions to find the vanished
road, but they were all unsuccessful, and the compass had to be
resorted to. The next day brought them into a dense jungle of
acacia and euphorbia, through which they had literally to push their
way by scrambling and crawling along the ground under natural
tunnels of embracing shrubbery, cutting the convolvuli and creepers,
thrusting aside stout thorny bushes, and, by various detours, taking
advantage of every slight opening the jungle afforded. In addition
to this obstacle to their progress, they began to experience a want
of food, and on arriving on the fifth day at the small village of
Uveriveri, were unable to obtain any there. The men were suffering
much from hunger and fatigue, so, ordering a halt, Stanley despatched
twenty of the strongest to Suna, twenty-nine miles north-west from
Uveriveri, to purchase food. Then, to afford some relief to the
famishing men, he took from his medical stores 5 lb. of Scotch
oatmeal and three tins of Revalenta Arabica, and, in a sheet iron trunk,
made of these gruel to feed over 220 men. After forty-eight hours the
men sent to Suna returned with grain. The report of the purveyors, and
the welcome food, animated the men and made them eager to start
for Suna, which they did the same afternoon, though not before some
deaths had occurred from the privation and fatigue. Passing from
this jungle they passed over a broad plain to the district of Suna in
Urimi. The natives here were " remarkable for their manly beauty,
noble proportions, and utter nakedness. Neither man nor boy
wore either cloth or skins; the women bearing children alone boasted

6o6 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

of goat-skins." They were a very suspicious people, and great tact
and patience were required to induce them to trade. They owned
no chief, but respected the injunctions of their elders, with whom
Stanley had to treat for leave to pass through their land.

In consequence of Edward Pocock being seized with typhoid
fever, and many of the expedition being ill, a halt of four days was
made here, but the covert hostility of the inhabitants decided Stanley
to press onward. At Chiwyu, but a short distance from Suna,
Edward Pocock, who had been carried in a hammock, breathed his
last His loss was greatly deplored by all connected with the
Expedition, and Stanley speaks in the highest terms of his imcom-
plaining devotedness and earnestness. At the spot where he died
the party crossed the watershed where the infant rivers commence to
flow Nileward.

On the 2ist January, 1875, ^^y entered Ituru (Speke's Utatura?)
a district in Northern Urimi, and encamped at the village of Vinyata,
where Stanley discovered the river which received all the streams
passed since leaving Suna. It is called Leewumbu, and flows in a
westerly direction. In the rainy season it is a deep and formidable
river, and even in the dry season it is a considerable stream, some
20 feet in width, and about 2 feet in depth. With the Waturu they
effected some trade, but on the third day they were surprised by the
war-cry resounding from village to village of the Leewumbu valley.
Imagining that the warriors of Ituru were summoned to contend
with some marauding neighbour, the travellers pursued their various
occupations, some of the men going to fetch water, others wandering
off" to cut wood or purchase food, when suddenly a hundred natives
appeared before the camp in full war costume. The number rapidly
augmented, and Stanley despatched a young man who knew their lan-
guage to ascertain their intention. The reply was that one of the party
had stolen some milk and butter from a small village, and payment
for it in clotii was demanded. A (juantity of cloth vastly out of
proportion to the value of the stolen articles was paid, at which the
elders expressed their satisfaction, and withdrew. The warriors, how-
ever, continued to manifest a hostile disposition, and hurried about
the valley, gesticulating violently ; and it was not long before they
commenced to attack the camp with a flight of arrows. Sending^
some of his men forward to engage the enemy, Stanley hurriedly
prepared his defences; he then had the bugle sounded for the
skirmishers to return, and found that fifteen of the attacking party had
been killed. They were not molested further that day. but next morn-
ing the enemy appeared in much greater force. Acting on the offensive,

Stanly's March Across Africa. 607

Stanley sent out four detachments of his men, with orders to seize
all cattle and bum the villages, and then meet at some high rocks
iivt miles away. With their superior arms these were generally
successful, and in the evening the soldiers returned, bringing with
them cattle and grain. The losses are stated at twenty-one of Stanley's
men and thirty-five Waturu. On the third day Stanley despatched sixty
good men, with instructions "to proceed to the extreme length of the
valley, and destroy what had been left on the previous day." Drivii^
the natives out of a large village, they loaded themselves with grain
and set the village on fire. It was soon evident the savages had had
enough of war, and the soldiers returned without molestation through
the now silent and blackened valley. The severity of the measures
adopted by Stanley seems to have been totally unnecessary, and the
bloodshed and destruction of property are proceedings which the
circumstances do not seem to justify. It is difficult, of course, for
anyone who was not present to appreciate the position, but it may
be fairly assumed, that with the superior weapons of the travellers,
defensive measiures, >vith an occasional sally to meet the attacking
natives, would have been ample to insure their safety.

By daybreak on the following day Stanley had quitted his camp,
and, with provisions sufficient for six days, continued his march. His
force, however, was sadly diminished. Of the three hundred and odd
men who had left the coast with him, but 194 remained : in less
than three months he had lost by dysentery, famine, heart-disease
and war, over 120 men. Crossing the Leewumbu the travellers
entered Iramba, where the frightened natives mistook them for the
dreaded Mirambo and his robbers, and some patience and suave
language were required to save them from the doom that e\'erywhere
theatens this notorious chieftain. Passing northwards, they traversed
the whole length of Usukuma, through the districts af Mombiti,
Usiha, Mondo, Sengercma, Mar}^, and Usmaow, and at noon on the
25th of February, reached the shore of the Victoria Nyanza. From
Ugogo to the lake, their route, which was to the east of that taken by
Speke in 1858, was entirely over new ground. From Muanza 0
the frontier of Usandawi (35 miles) is a level plain having an altitude
of 2,800 feet. At the latter place an ascent leads to a wide plateau
from 3,800 feet to 4,500 feet high, which embraces all Uyanzi,
Unyanyembe, Usukuma, Urimi, and Iramba. The highest point
indicated by the aneroids between Muanza and the Nyanza (300
miles) was 5,100 feet. As far as Urimi the land is covered with a
thick jungle, relieved occasionally by the giant euphorbia. The soil
is very scanty, and, farther north, the rocks of granite, gneiss, and

6o8 The Gentleman's Magazine.

porphyry stand out in all their bareness. Amongst these primeval
fragments the streams and rivulets unite to form the Leewumbu
which, flowing onward with increasing volume, empties itself into the
Victoria Nyanza, and thus forms the most southerly feeder of the
Nile. Somewhat to the east of its course is the Luwamberri plain,
named after a river that traverses it in a northerly direction and
joins the Leewumbu. This plain is about 40 miles in width, and has
an altitude of 3,775 feet above the sea, and during the rainy season
is converted into a wide lake. It is but a few feet below the Victoria
of which Stanley supposes it to have been in former times an arm.
The Leewumbu River, after a course of 170 miles, becomes known in
Usukuma as the Monangah River, and after another run of 100
miles is converted into the Shimeeyu, under which name it enters the
Nyanza a short distance east of Kagehyi, the village at which Stanley
struck the lake. The total length of the river is about 350 miles.'

Kagehyi Stanley places in S. lat. 2° 31' and E. long. 33° 13',
a few miles to the east of Muanza, visited by Speke in 1858. It is
situated in the district of Uchambi in Usukuma, and is one of the
principal ports resorted to by slave-traders. There the entrapped
victims are collected from Sima, Magu, Ukerewe, Ururi, and
Ugeyeya, by Sungoro, agent of Mse Saba, who was constructing in
Ukerewe a dhow of twenty or thirty tons burden, with which to
prosecute more actively his nefarious traffic. Thence the slaves arc
taken, vii Unyanyembe, to the coast Stanley's expedition now
consisted of three whites and 166 Wanguana soldiers and carriers,
twenty-eight having died since leaving Ituru thirty days before.
Dysentery had carried off many victims, against which the free use of
medical stores proved of little avail. The distance of 720 miles from
the coast had been accomplished in the very short time of 103 days.
Stanley now proceeded to ascertain the elevation of the lake by
reading his two aneroids and determining the boiling point From
the latter Captain George, Curator of the Royal Geographical
Society, calculates the altitude to be 3,808 feet, which does not differ
materially from the result obtained in the same manner by Captain
Speke (3,740 feet). The aneroid observations ranged from 3,550
to 3,675 feet These cannot be considered satisfactory, however, and
the elevation of about 3,800 feet may now be conclusively taken as
the correct one.

The sections of the Lady Alice were soon put together, and

> Daily Telegraph (October 15, 1875). This Stanley afterwards shortens
{Telegraphy March 29, 1877) to 290 miles.

Stanley's March Across Africa. 609

Stanley, with a picked crew of eleven men and a guide, started on
the circumnavigation of the lake, leaving Francis Pocock and
Frederick Barker in charge of the camp. He took with him only
an artificial horizon, sextant chronometer, two aneroids, boiling-
point apparatus, sounding-line, some guns, ammunition, and pro-
visions, wishing to keep the boat as light as possible. He followed
to the eastward the south coast, and soon came to where, with
a majestic flood, the Shimeeyu issues into the lake, in £. long.
33° 33'> S. lat. 2° 35': at its mouth it is a mile wide, but a short
distance up the channel contracts to 400 yards. In E. long.
33° 45' 45" he reached the extreme end of a large gulf, to which he
gave the name of the discoverer of the Nyanza (Speke), and then,
turning west, rounded the Island of Ukerewe. Speke, on his map,
showed two islands, Ukerewe and Maziti. The latter of these
Stanley found to be a promontory, though appearing from Kagehyi
to be an island. The gulf formed by Ukerewe and Majita (Speke's
Maziti) is 65 miles long and 25 miles wide. North of Ukerewe
lies an island, 18 miles by 12 miles, called Ukara, which gives its
name with some natives to that part of the lake. This accounts
for the Ukara Sea of Livingstone's map. The coast-line of Uniri
is remarkably indented with bays and creeks, which extend far
inland. The country is a level plain, and is noted for its wealth of
cattle and fine -pastoral lands. At Ugeyeya, "the land of so many
fables and wonders, the El Dorado of ivory seekers, and the source
of wealth for slave hunters," bold and mountainous shores form a
strong contrast to the plains of Ururi. Mountains rise to a height of
3,000 feet abruptly from the lake, and at their foot the Lady Alia
seemed to crawl along like a tiny insect. The coast is also crooked
and irregular, requiring patient and laborious rowing to investigate
its many bends and curves. The inhabitants are a timid and
suspicious race, much vexed by their neighbours the Waruri on the
south and the Masai (Wamasui in Daily Telegraphy October 18,
1875). Far to the east, beyond the Nyanza, for twenty-five days'
march, the country was reported to be one continuous plain, low
hills occasionally relieving the surface — a scrubby land, though well
adapted for pasture and cattle, of which the natives possess vast
herds. Baringo, the most northerly district of Ugeyeya, extending
over 15 miles of latitude, gives its name to the bay which forms the
north-east extremity of the Nyanza (the Bahr Ngo of Livingstone).
Its coast is also remarkable for deep indentations ^nd noble bays,
some of which are almost entirely closed by land, and might well be
called lakes by the uncultivated or vague Wanguana. North of

VOL. CCXLII. NO. 1769. R R

6io The Gentleman s Magazine.

Baringo the land is again distinguished by lofty hills, cones, and
plateaux, which sink eastwards into plains ; and here a new country
commences — Unyara — the language of whose people is totally
distinct from that of Usukuma and approaches to that of Uganda
and Usoga. In E. long. 34° 35' and N. lat. 33' 43" Stanley reached
the extreme north-eastern point of the lake. This comer of it is
almost entirely closed in by the shores of Ugana and of two islands,
Chaga and Usuguru. On referring to Stanley's map in the JDaily
Telegraph (November 16, 1875) we ^^^^ ^^^ o'^c of those numerous
errors characterising the maps sent home by him, which he seems
to have drawn without any regard to the positions he had deter-
mined. These errors will doubtless be corrected in the map or maps
by which his book will be accompanied.

At Usoga Stanley met with the first hostile demonstration, which
was checked by the exhibition of superior weapons. Large islands
line this part of the coast, the principal being Uvuma, an indepen-
dent country. At Uvuma the explorers experienced treachery and
hostility on the part of the natives. Being induced by show of
friendship to approach the shore, a mass of natives hidden behind
the trees suddenly attacked them with a shower of large stones, several
of which struck the boat; but, with a parting shot, which struck down
one of the foremost of them, the Lady Alice steered away. Between
the islands of Uvuma and Bugeyeya they met a fleet of laige canoes,
which approached with offers of trade. As they began to lay sur-
reptitious hands on everything Stanley warned them away with his
gun, and shot one man dead who had stolen some beads and
mockingly held them up to view. His companions naturally resented
this high-handed proceeding and prepared to launch their spears,
but Stanley's repeating rifle soon laid three of them dead ; and as the
others retreated, he, with his elephant rifle, smashed their canoes,
leaving them struggling in confusion in the water. This heavy
retribution for the thieving propensities of the savages completed,
the travellers continued on their way. Next morning they entered
the Napoleon Channel, which separates Usoga from Uganda, and
soon heard the sound of the waters rushing over the Ripon Falls to
form the Nile. This point had been visited by Speke in 1862.
Coasting Uganda, they secured guides at Kriva, who volunteered to
conduct them to King Mtesa's capital. At Beyal they were
welcomed by a fleet of canoes sent by Mtesa, and on April 4 they
landed at Usavara amid a concourse of 2,000 people, who saluted
them with a deafening volley of musketr}' and waving of flags.
Bounteous provisions were brought to them, and in the afternoon

Stanly's March Across Africa. 6ii

•

Stanley had an audience with the king at his camp. This potentate
Stanley speaks very favourably of. He describes him as an en-
lightened ruler, and of amiable, graceful, and friendly manner. He,
and the whole of his court, professed Islam, and he had 300 wives.
His conversation showed a vast amount of curiosity and great
intelligence. On the fourth day after Stanley's arrival the king and
all his court returned to his capital, Ulagalla or Uragara. Stanley
gives to Mtesa imperial dignit>', claiming the allegiance of Karagwe,
Unyoro, Usoga, and Usui. The population of Uganda Stanley
estimates at 2,000,000. Mtesa was fond of imitating Europeans,
and had advanced gready since Speke and Grant visited him. The
Arab costume was adopted by the king and chiefs. The palace was
a huge and lofty structure, well built of grass and cane; tall trunks of
trees supporting the roof, which was covered inside with cloth
sheeting. Broad highways had been prepared in the neighbourhood
of the capital Five days after their arrival here another white man
appeared at Ulagalla in the person of Colonel Linant de Bellefonds,*
of the Egyptian service, who had been despatched by Gordon Pasha
to Mtesa to make a treaty of commerce between him and the
Egyptian Government. The two white men, thus singularly met
together, were soon fast friends. Stanley places Ulagalla in E. long.
32'' 49' 45" and N. lat. 0° 32'.

In his journey thus far he had examined the whole of the S.E.,
E., and N.E. shores of the Victoria Nyanza, had penetrated into
every bay, inlet, and creek that indent its shores, and had taken
thirty-seven observations. He thus proved the correctness of Speke's
theory that the Victoria was one lake, and found Speke's outline of
it very approximate. The greatest depth yet ascertained was
275 feet. Stanley makes a difference of 14 miles in the latitude of
the north coast as compared with Speke, though he found the longi-
tude the same; but examination will probably show that the results
of his observations will require modification. In conversation with
Mtesa, Stanley seems to have shaken the king's faith in Mohamme-
danism, and so far to have converted him to Christianity that he
determined, until better informed, to observe the Christian Sabbath
as well as the Moslem, and caused the ten commandments of Moses
to be wTitten on a board in Arabic for his perusal, as well as the
" Lord's Prayer" and the Christian injunction, " Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself." Stanley advocated the establishment of a
mission at Ulagalla, and indeed stated in his letter that Mtesa him-
self was desirous of the presence of the white Christian teachers.
1 See GetOkmatis Ma^amm^ toL ccxll, p. 305. (August 1877.)

K 9 2

6i2 The Gentleman's Magazine.

The suggestion has been since taken up and carried out hj the
Church Missionary Society, and the party sent by it reached the
capital of Uganda on July x last, and was most kindly received by
tbe king.

Stanley made arrangements with King Mtesa, by which the latter
agreed to lend thirty canoes and some 500 men to convey the expe-
dition from Usukuma to the Katonga River, and then started from
Murchison Bay on April 17. Alarmed at the aspect of the weather,
the two chiefs of the escorting canoes soon abandoned him and
returned to Uganda. Stanley, however, proceeded on his way, and
approached Bambireh, a large and populous island, with the object
of purchasing food. He had by this time run very short of pro-
visions, but instead of obtaining any here, the natives greeted him
with their war cry. Hunger was pressing, so in the hope of over-
coming their hostility, Stanley carefully drew near to the shore,
taking the precaution at the same time to get his guns ready. As
he drew near the behaviour of the natives changed, and they
exchanged the usual friendly greetings. No sooner, however, had
the keel of the boat grounded than the natives rushed towards it
in a body, and dragged it up, high and dry, with all on board. Their
aspect then again changed, and they indulged in hostile demonstra«
tions, without, however, doing any injury ; and, by the orders of the
chief, the travellers' oars were seized. Taking advantage of an
opportunity when the natives had retired to a short distance to con-
sult as to their booty, Stanley shouted to his men to push the boat
into the water. With one desperate effort the eleven men shot it far
into the lake, the impetus they had given to it causing it to drag
them all into deep water. With a furious howl of disappointment
and baffled rage the savages rushed to their canoes ; but whilst they
were deciding what to do, Stanley called his guns into requisition
with fatal effect One bullet, he afterwards learned, killed the chief,
and, according to his own account, he killed and wounded fourteen
of the islanders. Whilst he was thus employed, his crew succeeded
in getting into the boat ; and, in default of oars, using the seats and
footboards as paddles, brought the boat out of the cove. At sunset
the next day a fierce gale arose, and kept them in fear and peril the
whole night. At daybreak they found they had drifted to within six
miles of the large island of Mysomeh. They had not a morsel of
food in the boat ; with the exception of a little ground coffee they
had tasted nothing for forty-eight hours. A gentle breeze setting in
from the west carried them to a small island, on which they were
rewarded with an abundance of green bananas and other fruit ; and

Stanly's March Across Africa. 613

two fat ducks were shot To this island, which bore evidence o
having been formerly inhabited, Stanley gave the name of Refuge
Island After a day's rest here, they proceeded on their way, and
at Wiro or Wiru, in Ukerewe, purchased meat, potatoes, milk, honey,
bananas, eggs, and poultry. On May 5 they were back again at
Kagehyi, after an absence of fifty-seven days, during which about
1,000 miles of lake shore had been surveyed. Their companions,
who had b^un to give up hope of seeing them again, greeted them
with great joy, but had to impart the sad news that Frederick Barker
had succumbed to the climate twelve days before.

Stanley now waited the arrival of Magassawith his fleet, but at the
end of nine days he had not made his appearance. As Rwoma, king
of Southern Uzinza or Miveri, would not allow him to pass through
his territory, Stanley obtained from Lukongeh, king of Ukerewe, by
strategy, twenty-three canoes, and, embarking two-thirds of his men
and property (June 19), in two days arrived safely at Refuge Island;
leaving fifty soldiers encamped there he returned to Usukuma fw
the remainder. From the king of Itawagumba and his father, Kijaju,
sultan of all the islands from Ukerewe to Ihangiro, he bought three
more canoes in place of some that had been wrecked, and obtained
a guide to take them to Uganda. Halting at Mahyiga Island,
Stanley committed an act of barbarity which, according to his own
showing, is entirely without justification. He first despatched a
message to the natives of Bambireh Island, demanding the surrender
of their king and the two chiefs under him, and offering on those
terms to make peace. The natives treated the message with con-
tempt, but with the aid of the people of Iroba (obtained by putting
the king and three of his chiefs in chains), the king of Bambireh was
brought to him. The son of Antari, king of Ihangiro, on the main-
land, to whom Bambireh was tributary, and two chiefs who came to
treat with Stanley, were also detained as hostages for the appearance
of the two chiefs of Bambireh. In the meantime, seven laige canoes
from Mtesa, on the way to Usukuma, appeared at Iroba in charge of
Sabadu, from whom Stanley learned that Magassa, the ''Grand
Admiral," had returned to Mtesa with the boat's oars and the news
that Stanley and his men were dead. Stanley persuaded Sabadu
to send some of his men to Bambireh to endeavour to procure food :
their advent was resisted by the natives, who killed one of the party
and wounded eight For these demonstrations of hostility Stanley
thought fit to take a terrible revenge on the inhabitants of Bambireh.
Accordingly he embarked 280 men (fifty with muskets and 230 spear-
men) in eighteen canoes, and steered for the shore of the offending

6 14 The GefUlemaris Magazine.

island By pretending to disembark, the savages were induced to
run from the hills to meet them, and at a distance of less than loo
yards from the shore, Stanley formed the canoes into line of battle,
with the English and American flags waving as ensigns. Then a
volley, fired at a group of about fifty, brought down several killed
and wounded. Bringing the canoes close to the beach, as if about
to land, the natives approached with elevated spears to repulse
them. Then, at close quarters, another volley was fired into their
midst, with such disastrous effect as to compel them at once to
beat a retreat. Forty-two were counted dead on the field, and over
loo were seen to retire wounded, while there was no fatality on
Stanley's side. Considering the " work of chastisement " was con-
summated, Stanley now made for his camp, and the next morning,
more canoes having arrived from Uganda, embarked the entire
expedition.

The perpetration of this wanton massacre casts a slur upon the
conduct of the expedition, which otherwise so much redounds to the
credit of the indomitable leader. For this wilftil and unnecessary
act of revenge no plausible defence can be, or indeed has been,
urged ; and when it became known in England it produced a painful
impression on many who have at heart the welfare of the inhabitants
of the African continent. Attention was called to the matter in Par-
liament, but, from the character of the expedition, the Government
was unable to do more than to send a remonstrance through Dr. Kirk
to Stanley for using the English flag to countenance his proceedings.
This despatch did not reach the hands of Stanley whilst he was in
the interior of the continent. Stanley's evasive attempts, since his
return to England, to answer the charges made against him have
been utterly insufficient to justify his conduct, and his uncalled-for
and untrue aspersions on the motives of those gentlemen who have
felt it necessary to rebuke such accompaniments of travel for geogra-
phical discovery, show his consciousness of the weakness of his case.
Had such bloodshed been perpetrated in a civilised country, the
proceeding would have been characterised as a criminal offence.
Stanley, however, seems to hold the lives of the African natives in
very light estimation. Other travellers have accomplished great
journeys without such acts of barbarity : Livingstone never killed a
man in his life ; Cameron traversed the continent without bloodshed,
and Stanley's inability to treat the natives in a similar peaceable and
friendly manner shows his unfitness to act as an African explorer and
pioneer of civilisation. It should be kept in mind, in the considera-
tion of this affair, that the suspicious and seemingly treacherous

Stanley's March Across Africa. 615

conduct on the part of the natives is not without some justification.
As before mentioned, the inhabitants of the shores of the Nyanza
were subject to the depredations of "the unscrupulous Arab slave-
traders, who were, even while Stanley was at the lake, building a dhow
for the purpose of facilitating their accursed traffic. What more
natural than that at the unusual sight of a boat in command of a white
man they should mistake the party for some of their kidnapping
enemies, and that they should seek to punish them for the wrongs to
which they had been subjected? There is no doubt that now their
hate of the white men has been intensified, and the next travellers
who venture into their vicinity will doubtless have cause to regret
the " chastisement " inflicted on them by Stanley. To similar pro-
ceedings to this in the South Seas may be attributed the untimely
deaths of Bishop Patteson, Commodore Goodenough and other good
men. It does not add to the lustre of geographical research that an
irresponsible newspaper correspondent should so take it upon himself
to " make war " upon the people whom he professed to wish to bring
into contact with civilisation and the gospel.

Five days after leaving Bambireh, Stanley landed and encamped
at Dumo, Uganda, two days* march north of the Kagera River, and two
south of the Katonga. This camp he had selected as a convenient
point from which to start for the Albert Nyanza. He obtained from
Mtesa 2,200 choice spearmen under "General" Samboozi, with
which to pierce through the hostile country of Unyoro, in which
Kaba Rega was then bidding defiance to the Egyptian expedition.
He reached the frontier of Unyoro on the ist of January, and
put his force in battle-array. The people fled before them, leaving
in their haste their provisions behind them. On January 9, the ex-
peditionary force camped at Mount Kabuga (5,500 feet above the
sea), to the east of which the Katonga takes its rise. West of the
camp, the Rusango River " boomed hoarse thunder from its many
cataracts and rapids, as it rushed westward to Lake Albert" From
one of the spurs of Kabuga, a passing glimpse was obtained of Gam-
baragara, a mountain which attains an altitude of between 13,000 and
1 5,000 feet above the ocean. It is frequently capped with snow. This
mountain is inhabited by a peculiar light-complexioned people, of
whom Spcke had heard, but some of whom Stanley saw. They are
handsomely formed, and some of the women are very beautiful.
Their hair is " kinky," and inclined to brown in colour; but for their
negroid hair, they might be mistaken for Europeans or some light-
coloured Asiatics. Their features are regular, lips thin ; but their
noses^ though well-shaped, are somewhat thick at the point The

6i6 The Gentleman's Magazine.

origin of this singular and interesting race is unknown : King Mtesa
informed Stanley that it had for many centuries inhabited Mount
Gambaragara, the land at the base having been given to it by the
first king of Unyoro. Colonel Grant supposes them to be a type of
fiur-skinned Wahuma. The mountain appears to be an extinct
volcano, with a crystal-clear lake, about 500 yards in length, at the
top. Following the south bank of the Rusango River, ten hours' swift
marching enabled the travellers to cross an uninhabited tract of
Ankori, and emerge again in Unyoro, in the district of Kitagwenda,
which was well populated and cultivated. On January 9, when about
three miles from the lake, Stanley sent a message to the chief of
Kitagwenda, to assure him of their peaceful intentions, and to offer
to pay him for whatever they might consume. Receiving no answer,
he sent part of his force to seek a locality for a fenced post, and to
borrow some canoes. He descended to the lake, made observations
for latitude and longitude, took altitudes, &c., and endeavoured to
make arrangements for crossing the lake. The people of Unyoro
were naturally hostile on seeing an armed force enter their territory.
Preferring not to risk an encounter with them, and being unable to
induce Samboozi to move down to the lake, Stanley resolved to return,
and try to discover some other country where the expedition could
camp in safety, while he explored the lake in the Lady Alice. On
the 13th, they set out in order of battle : 500 spearmen in front, 500
for the rear-guard, and 1,000 spearmen and the expedition in the
centre, and without any noteworthy incident, re-entered Uganda on
the 1 8th. Stanley visited the lake about two months before it was
circumnavigated by Signor Gessi (vide Gentleman's MagazinCy
vol. ccxli., p. 205) ; and it is difficult to reconcile his description
of the large deep gulf and the promontory of Usongora with
Gcssi*s delineation of the lake.* Stanley places his camp in E.
long. 31° 24' 30" by observation, and N. lat. o® 25' by account
The plateau descends from a height of 1,100 feet above the lake
somewhat suddenly to its edge. Where Stanley camped, a large
gulf, to which he gave the name Beatrice Gulf, runs south-west
some 30 miles from a point 10 geographical miles north of Unyam-
paka, and is half shut in by the great promontory of Usongora. Uson-
gora is a great salt-field, whence all the surrounding countries obtain
their salt In the vicinity of Mount Gambaragara, the travellers came

> As Colonel Mason in his subsequent exploration of the Albert describes it as
tmaller than at first supposed, and places its S. extremity in S. lat. i^ 10", it is
most probable that Stanley did not see that lake at all, but another smaller one
totheioath.

Stanleys March Across Africa. 617

across several underground dwellings, hollowed out in the earth, and
big enough to contain 200 or 300 men. llie entrance was only
about 3 feet in diameter.

In the hope of reaching the Albert Nyanza from the south,
Stanley proceeded to Karagwe, on a road parallel to, and west of that
of Speke; but he here found that there was no means of passing through
the countries of Mpororo, Ruanda, and Urori, where the inhabitants
were opposed to any intercourse with strangers. He then obtained
guides and escort from Rumanika, the " gentle " King of Karagwe
to explore the frontier as far north as Mpororo, and south to Ugufu,
a distance of 80 geographical miles. The Lady Alice was launched
on Speke's Lake Windermere, and with six of Rumanika's canoes,
manned by Wanyambu (natives of Karagwe), Stanley followed the
upper course of the Kagera River. Speke seems to have been in
error in naming this river the Kitangule. From its mouth to Urundi
it is known to the natives as the Kagera. It flows near Kitangule.
Speke showed two tributaries — the Luchuro and the Inghezi. Luc-
huro or Lukaro, according to Stanley, means " higher up," but is no
name of any stream. In coming south, Stanley had sounded the
Kagera at Kitangule, and found 14 fathoms of water, or a depth of
84 feet, the river being here 120 yards wide. At Lake Windermere
it had an average depth of 40 feet. Sounding the river above, he
found 52 feet of water in a river 50 yards wide. Three days up the
river he came to another lake about 9 miles long and i mile in width.
At the south end of this lake, after working through two miles of
papyrus, they came to the island of Unyamubi, a mile and a-half in
length. The whole of this portion of the course of the Kagera as
far as the frontier of Mpororo (80 miles) spreads out into a series of
expanses of water, from 5 to 14 miles in width, called by the natives
** Rwerus " or lakes, separated by fields of papyrus. To the lagoon-
like channels connecting these and the reed-covered water, the
natives give the name of *' Inghezi." Speke's Lake Windermere is
one of these rwerus^ and is 9 miles in length, and from i to 3 in width.
It should be borne in mind that Stanley was travelling during the rainy
season, and all these swamps and lagoons are probably the flooding
of a river which, in the dry season, presents a very different appear-
ance. At the point where Ankori faces Karagwe the lake contracts,
the water becomes a tumultuous, noisy river, creates whirlpools, and
dashes itself madly into foam and spray against opposing rocks, till
it finally rolls over a wall of rock 10 or 12 feet deep with a tremen-
dous uproar, on which account the natives call it Morongo, or the
Noisy Falls. Stanley next visited the hot springs of Mlagata, which

6i8 The Gentleman's Magazine,

are renowned throughout the neighbouring countries for their healing
properties. Here the vegetation was very prolific, and numbers of
diseased persons, males and females, were seen lying promiscuously
in the hot pools, half asleep. The hottest water issued in streams
fix)m the base of a rocky hill at a temperature of 129° Fahrenheit;
four springs bubbled upward from the ground through a depth of dark
muddy sediment, and had a temperature of 110°. After an imsuc-
cessfiil attempt to reach Speke's Lake Akanyara, which Stanley
heard was connected with Lake Kivu by a marsh, we find Stanley,
on April 24, at Ubagwe, in Western Unyamwesi, fifteen days' journey
from Ujiji, on his way to the Tanganyika, to explore that lake in his
boat, intending from Uzige to strike north to the Albert, and if
unable to pass that way, to travel north by a circuitous westerly
course, to effect the exploration of the Albert. He arrived at Kawelc,
Ujiji, May 27, and leaving Frank Pocock in charge, on June 11
started on his voyage of circumnavigation of the Tanganyika. Fol-
lowing stage by stage the course taken by Cameron, he marked
each of his camps, and employed the same guides. Where Cameron
cut across deep inlets Stanley diverged from his track, and completed
what he had there left undone. Stanley gives some interesting par-
ticulars with regard to the supposed origin of the lake. The
Wajiji (immigrants long since from Urindi) have two curious legends
respecting it.

After coasting the whole of the southern portion of the Tan-
ganyika, Stanley reached, in S. lat. 5° 49' 30", 14 geographical
miles south of Kasenge Island, the Lukuga River, discovered by
Lieut Cameron two years before, and described by him as the outlet
of the lake. Of this river Cameron was unable to make more than
a superficial exploration, and only proceeded about four or five miles
between its banks. He found the current to be one and a half knots
an hour from the lake, and the neighbouring chief told him that
his people travelled fi-equently for more than a month along its banks,
imtil it fell into a larger river, the Lualaba. (Cameron's " Across
Afiica," L 305.) In company with Kawe-Nyange, the chief who
had accompanied Cameron along the stream, Stanley entered the
river, which he foimd to have a breadth of from 90 to 450 yards of
open water. From bank to bank there was a uniform width of from
400 to 600 yards, but the sheltered bends, undisturbed by the mon-
soon winds, nourished dense growths of papyrus. After sailing three
miles before the south-east wind they halted at a place which the chief
pointed out as the utmost limit reached by Cameron — a small bend
among the papyrus plants, a few hundred yards north-west from

Stanly s March Across Africa. 619

Lumba. Here the limit of open water was reachedi and an ap-
parently impenetrable mass of papyrus grew from bank to bank.
Pushing their way through about 20 yards of this vegetation they
were stopped by mud banks, black as pitch, inclosing slime and
puddles seething with animal life. He then returned to the open
water, and endeavoured to ascertain by experiment the direction of
the current. From a disc of wood one foot in diameter he suspended
by a cord, at a distance of 5 feet, an earthenware pot, and this he
placed in the water, tying a ball of cotton to it to measure the dis-
tance of its movement. With a strong monsoon wind blowing, the disc
floated in one hour 822 feet from south-east to north-west. The wind
having dropped a second trial was made, and in nineteen and a half
minutes the disc floated from north-west to south-east — that is, towards
the lake — 159 feet. The next day, with fifteen men, accompanied by
the chief and ten of his people, Stanley started afoot north-westward
At Elwani Village, where the road from Monyis to Unguvwa and
Luwelezi crossed the Lukuga, the party was augmented by two of
the villagers. Here the Kibamiba, a small sluggish stream with a
south-easterly trend, joined the Lukuga ; and the bed of the Lukuga
was a swamp with occasional shallow hollows of water. A little
farther the water was found to be flowing indisputably westward.
At the Kiganja Range this stream becomes known as the Luindi or
Luimbi, and was said to flow into the Lualaba. From his investiga-
tion and inquiries, Stanley came to the conclusion that the Lukuga
and the Luindi were two streams rising in the same swamp or
" Mitwansi," the one flowing into the lake and the other towards
Rua. He, however, supposes that the channel will soon become an
effluent from the lake, as the latter is rising and encroaching on the
land. It is remarkable, that if up to the present time the Tanganyika
has had no outflow, its waters are quite sweet, though Captain Burton
states that the natives " complain that its water does not satisfy thirst,"
and " it appears to corrode metal and leather with exceptional
power." Further and more complete investigation is yet wanting
before this matter of the outlet can be considered as finally set
at rest.

From the Lukuga Stanley continued the exploration of the lake
along the coasts of Ugubba, Goma, Kavunvweh, Karamba, Ubwari,
Masansi — all ground previously unvisited by any white man. Thus
he came to the point where Livingstone and he left off in 1871,
thence to Ujiji, after having examined every river mouth, bay, and
creek, in a voyage of 800 miles. His examination of the north end
of the lake showed that Ubwari, which Burton and Speke on their

620 The GentlematCs Magazine.

voyage from Ujiji to Uvira had sketched as an island, is in reality a
peninsula, over 30 miles in length, joined to the mainland by an
isthmus 7 miles in width, with an altitude in its centre of about
200 feet above the lake. To the gulf formed by this peninsula,
Stanley has given the name Burton Gulf, in honour of the discoverer
of the Tanganyika, as Speke Gulf distinguishes a somewhat similar
formation in the south-eastern comer of the Victoria Nyanza. From
Ujiji Stanley journeyed, via Bambarre and the Luama River, to
Nyangwe, which place was reached in the unprecedentedly short time
of forty days, inclusive of halts, from Ujiji (350 English miles), or
twenty-eight marches from the Tanganyika.

Ujiji is one of the chief markets of the slave trade, where the
poor natives are collected after being captured in the regions to the
west of the Tanganyika. Stanley draws a sad picture of the con-
dition of these victims. " The objects of traffic, as they are landed
at the shore of Ujiji, are generally in a terrible condition, reduced by
hunger to ebony skeletons — attenuated weaklings, unable to sustain
their large angular heads. Their voices have quite lost the manly
ring — they are mere whines and moans of desperately sick folk.
Scarcely one is able to stand upright ; the back represents an un-
strung bow, with something of the serrated appearance of a crocodile's
chine. Every part of their frames shows the havoc of hunger, which
has made them lean, wretched, and infirm creatures." These living
skeletons have been marched from Marungu to Ugubha ; thence to
Ujiji they were crowded in canoes. They are the profitable result
of a systematic war waged upon all districts in the populous coimtry
of Marungu by Wanyamwezi banditti, supported, directly and in-
directly, by the Arabs. These Wanyamwezi, armed with guns
purchased at Unyanyembe and Bagamoyo, band themselves together
with the object of enslaving tribes and peoples which are unable to
resist them, and in Marungu, where every small village is independent
and generally at variance >vith its neighbour, they have every facility
for their fell work. Stanley lays a heavy charge against the Seyjid
of Zanzibar, in making him and his subordinates responsible for this
devastating traffic, in spite of the treaties recently concluded between
him and the British Government. Said bin Salim, the governor of
Unyanyembe, an officer in the employ of the Sc)7id, he believes to
be one of the principal slave traders in Africa. Whilst reprobating
the conduct of the Arabs of Zanzibar, Stanley does not attach blame
to Seyyid Burgash personally, and credits him with doing his best to
suppress the traffic. But his power over his subjects is insufficient
to cope successfully with the evil. Many of the slaves are captured in

Stanly's March Across Africa. 621

Manywema or Manyema, as Stanley variously spells the name
(Livingstone's Manyuema), where raids are periodically made upon
the unprotected villages, the men shot and afterwards cut to pieces and
exposed on trees, to strike terror into villages not yet attacked, while
the women and children are driven off in gangs to Ujiji. Eight
years ago the plain between Nyangwe and Mana Mamba was thickly
populated and covered with villages, gardens, and fields, with
goats, pigs, and bananas in abundance ; it was at Stanley's visit " an
uninhabited district — mostly. The country was only redeemed from
utter depopulation by a small inhabited district, at intervals of six
hours' march, the people of which seemed to be ever on the qui vive
against attack." Livingstone arrived in Manyuema when this
systematic depopulation was only in its commencement, and
observed and noted its first symptoms. The influence of England
at Zanzibar ought to be exerted to the utmost to put a stop to this
terrible state of affairs.

Stanley reached Nyangwe sixteen months after Cameron's depar-
ture for the south, and then learned definitely that Cameron had
abandoned the project of following the Lualaba. He now prepared
to launch out into the unknown region, from which Livingstone and
Cameron had both unsuccessfully turned back, a region regarded
with intense superstition by the Africans, and peopled in their stories
with terribly vicious dwarfs, striped like zebras, who deal certain
death with poisoned arrows, who are nomads, and live on elephants.
According" *to them, a boundless and trackless forest covered the
land away to the north, and the great river Lualaba rolled on into the
far north, possibly, the Arabs and their slaves suggested, even to the
salt sea. Frightful tales were told about the savage character of the
inhabitants of this forest, and their cannibalism, the ferocity of a
tribe of dwarfs, the leopards and snakes that infest the bush, &c.
As had been the case with both his predecessors, Stanley was unable
to obtain canoes at Nyangwe, and the Arabs there, pretending to be
very solicitous about his safety, said they could not think of permit-
ting his departure. In proof of the warlike character of the natives
down the river, he was told that although expeditions — one number-
ing 290 guns — had been sent against them, all had been compelled
to turn back much reduced in numbers, with woful tales of fighting,
besieging, and suffering from want of food. Undaunted by these
tales, Stanley was determined to follow the river, feeling confident
that it would bring him out on the west coast of the continent. To
provide against warlike opposition, therefore, he here recruited his
force to 140 rifles and muskets and seventy spears, and engaged

622 The Gentleman s Magazine.

an Arab chief and 140 followers to escort them sixty camps alcmg
the river banks. Taking with him ample supplies for six months, he left
Nyangwe November 5, in a northerly direction, intending occasionally
to strike the Lualaba. The reports of the natives as to the boundless
forest seemed to be verified when for three weeks they travelled
through the dense gloomy thickets of Uzimba and Southern Uregga ;
and the Arabs soon became disheartened and wished to return. To
obviate such a disaster as this would probably prove, Stanley pro-
posed to strike for the river, cross it, and try the left bank. This
they did in S. lat 3** 35' 17", forty-one geographical miles north of
Nyangwe, and continued their journey along the left bank, through
N.E. Ukusu. On reaching the river the Lady Alice was launched
for the first time on the Lualaba, and *' here the resolution never to
abandon the Lualaba until it revealed its destination was made."
Trouble soon arose with the inhabitants, though the number of the
expedition prevented it from being attacked. The force was divided
into two parts, one moving forward by land, and the other by water.
Some days' marching brought them to the first of the cataracts — ^the
falls of Ukassa — ^which had proved so fatal to previous adventurers.
These were passed without loss, the empty canoes being allowed to
float over the falls and picked up below. On December 6 they
arrived at Usongora Meno, an extensive country, occupied by a
powerful tribe. The natives manned fourteen large canoes, and, with
fierce demonstrations prepared to prevent the passage of the Lady
Alice and the six canoes of the expedition. Explanations of their
peaceful intentions and willingness to pay their way, were replied to
by a shower of arrows. A successful charge was made against the
obstructive force, and a way cleared through. The land party was
also attacked in the bush, and several were wounded. In addition
to these misfortunes small-pox made its appearance amongst the
Arabs, and within two or three days carried off eighteen, and many
suffered from dysentery and ulcers. In this condition they arrived at
VinyaNjara, 125 geographical miles north of Nyang^ve, when they were
attacked by the natives. Plunging >vith desperate energy into the
bush, they in a short time cleared the skirts of the camp, and at once
set to work to cut do\\Ti the bush for a distance of 200 yards, and
make the place defensible. The next day the travellers took posses-
sion of the village, and turned the dwellings into hospitals for the
sick and wounded. An intermittent firing was kept up for three
days, until the land division appeared, when things became more
peaceful. Here the Arabs came to the determination to proceed no
/arther, and parted from the travellers On December 28 Stanley

Stanleys March Across Africa. 623

mustered the expedition ; 146 men and women answered their
names, and with this reduced force he pushed onward.

On January 4 (1877) they came to the first of a series of cata-
racts or falls, in S. lat. o** 32' 36" below the confluence of the
Lumami and the Lualaba. The natives here proved very trouble-
some, and considerably impeded the passage of the falls. For the
ensuing twenty-four days they had fearful work, constructing camps
by night along the line marked out during the day, cutting roads
from above to below each fall, dragging their heavy canoes through
the woods, while the most active of the young men — the boats' crew
— repulsed the savages and foraged for food. On January 27 they
had passed in this desperate way forty-two geographical miles by six
falls, and to effect it had dragged their canoes a distance of thirteen
miles by land, over roads which they had cut through the forest
\Vhen they had cleared the last fall (o** 14' 52" N. lat) they halted
two days for rest, which all very much needed. In the passage of
these falls they lost five men. Hitherto the river had had a trend
to the N.N.E., and it occurred to Stanley that probably after all
Livingstone's belief that it was connected with the Albert Nyanza and
the Nile would be verified. Here, however, high spurs from the
Uregga Hills bristle across its path, and turn it from its course, and
at the equator it changes to a north-westerly direction. Afler passing
this series of rapids they entered upon different scenes. The river
gradually widened from its usual breadth of 1,500 to 2,000 yards to
two or three miles. It then began to receive grander affluents, and
soon assumed a lacustrine breadth of from four to ten miles. Islands
also were so numerous that only once a day were they able to obtain
a glimpse of the opposite bank. The first day they entered this
region they were attacked three times by three separate tribes ; the
second day they maintained a running fight for almost the entire
twelve hours, at the end of which they suddenly came (in N. lat
o°46') to the second greatest affluent of the Lualaba — at its mouth
2,000 yards wide — running from a little N. of E. As they crossed
over from the current of the Lualaba to that of this magnificent
affluent, the Aruwimi, they were astonished to see* a fleet of fifty-
four canoes advancing in full war array to receive them. Four of
Stanley's canoes, in a desperate fright, became panic-stricken, and
began to pull fast down stream ; but they were soon brought back.
Dropping their stone anchors, a close line was formed, and prepara-
tions made to receive the attack. Fast and furious the native flotilla
swept towards them. Their canoes were of enormous size, one con-
taining eighty paddlers ; a platform at the bow, for the best warriors,

624 TJie Gentleman's Magazine.

held ten men ; in the stem, eight steersmen with 10 feet paddles
guided the great war-vessel ; while the chiefs pranced up and down a
planking that ran from stem to stem. About twenty other canoes
approached to about three-fourths of the size of this one, and the
occupants of the fifty-four canoes Stanley estimates at 1,500 or 2,000.
As the largest boat shot past them the first spear was launched.
There was no time for palaver ; the enemy undoubtedly meant war,
so Stanley waited no longer, but gave the order to fire. Instantly
they were surrounded by the formidable canoes, and for ten minutes
or so clouds of spears hurtled and hissed about them. The natives
then gave way, and lifting anchors, a charge was made upon them
with fatal result. As they retreated they were followed to the shore
and chased on land into ten or twelve of their villages. Then
Stanley sounded the recall. An abundance of food was secured,
and a large quantity of ivory collected. Only one man had been
lost on Stanley's side in the fight ; though in the several collisions
with the natives he had, since leaving Nyangwe, lost sixteen men.

To obviate these continual encounters with the natives, Stanley
decided to abandon the mainland and pass down the river between the
numerous islands ; he would thus probably pass unnoticed many afflu-
ents, but the great river itself was the main thing, to which the discovery
of affluents was subordinate. In this way then they glided down for
five day without trouble, further than anxiety for food. Driven at last by
pressing hunger to risk a collision with the natives, they approached
the shore in N. lat. 1° 40' and E. long. 23°, and were received by the
natives in a friendly spirit. " That day, after twenty-six fights on the
great river, was hailed as the beginning of happy days." In reply to
his inquiries as to the name of the river the chief told Stanley that it
was called Ikuta Ya Kongo. Here then, 900 miles below Nyangwe,
but still about 850 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, was convincing
evidence that the Lualaba and the Kongo were one river. Three
days were spent at this village in buying food, after which a day's
mn brought the expedition to Urangi, a populous country', where
their experience of the natives was less favourable. Numerous
peculations were submitted to, and on the second day 100 canoes
were manned with fighting men, and an attack made on them. After
a fight of some hours* duration, the savages abandoned the attack, and
the travellers steered for the islands again. On Febmary 14 they lost
the island channels, and were borne by the current towards the right
bank, inhabited by the Mangala or Mangara (N. lat. i ° 1 6' 50", E. long.
2 1 °). Here they were attacked by sixty-three canoes, and for two hours
they had to contend desperately against savages armed with muskets.

Stanly's March Across Africa. 625

In the end, however, breechloaders, double-barrelled elephant rifles,
and sniders prevailed, and after a battle lasting from noon till near
sunset, the travellers passed on down the river and camped on an
island. Soon after the battle with the Mangala Stanley discovered the
greatest affluent of the Kongo, the Ikelemba, which he identifies with
the Kasai, Kassye, or Kasabi. It is nearly as important as the main
river itself. The peculiar colour of its waters, which is like that of
tea, does not commingle with the silvery ripples of the main stream
until after a distance of 130 miles below the confluence. It is the
union of these two rivers which gives its light-brown colour to the
Lower Kongo. For four days they clung to the island channels^ and
then at Ikengo found a friendly trading people, with whom they stayed
three days. A little west of E. long. 18** the mouth of the Ibari
Nkutu or Kwango, about 500 yards wide, was passed. Six miles below
its confluence with the main stream, they had their thirty-second and last
fight, being attacked on land by a hidden foe whilst collecting fuel.

Their days of battle were now over, but still months of toil
awaited them in the passage of the lower series of cataracts. A little
west of E. long. 1 7° the river became straitened by close-meeting
uprising banks of naked cliffs, or steep slopes of mountains fringed
with tall woods, and the calm current of the water changed to a
boisterous rush. For five months were the intrepid travellers engaged
in working their way past this long series of falls for a distance of
180 miles. In these 180 miles the river has a fall of 585 feet,
ascertained by boiling point. Whilst Frank Pocock had to superin-
tend the men as they carried the goods, and to distribute each day's
rations, Stanley undertook the duty of leading the way over the rapids
and selecting the best paths for hauling the boat and canoes overland.
At Mowa Falls, the thirty-fifth of the series, Pocock became disabled,
ulcers forming on both his feet. He was therefore, with twenty-five
Wanguana who were ill, placed on the sick list The next two falls, the
Massesse and Masassa, were small ones, and Stanley resolved to
attempt their passage in the boat : he and his crew, however, in doing
so, narrowly escaped being drawn into the whirlpool below the Mowa
Falls, and it was only by the most desperate exertion that they
saved themselves from certain death. The attempt was therefore
given up, and Stanley hurried off overland to superintend the
transmission of the goods, leaving the supervision of the passage ot
the canoes over the falls in the hands of Manwa Sera, his chief
captain. Frank Pocock was left behind, but being anxious to get to
camp he insisted on getting into one of the canoes ; and in spite of
the advice and remonstrances of the man in charge, persuaded Km
VOL. ccxLii. NO. 1769. s s

626 TJic Gentlemafis Magazine.

to shoot the ^1. They did so, but in an instant the canoe was o>ver-
turned in a fearful whirlpool, and out of the eleven men that went down
but eight came out alive. Among the three who perished was Frank
Pocock, whose injudicious conduct had cost him his life. As he rose
to the surface, Manwa Sera sprang after him, but another whirlpool
immediately drew them down, and presently only the chief emerged,
faint and exhausted. Thus did Stanley lose the last of his English
assistants, who after traveUing thousands of miles with him, {>erished
within 200 miles of the end of their journey. This sad event occurred
on June 3. There were still many cataracts to be passed, though
day by day the natives cheered them by saying that they had but one
or two more before them. At last they came to the Isangila or
Sangalla Falls. Hearing that there were still five more to be p^assed,
after five months' toil and the loss of sixteen men, Stanley had the
boat and canoes drawn high upon the rocks above the cataract, and,
set out to accomplish the rest of the distance to the coast by land.
He also sent messengers in advance to Boma or Emboma to pray for
relief from any European who might be there, as they were suffering
greatly from want of food. Fortunately the messengers soon returned
loaded with provisions, and revived by their good fortune, they pushed
on to Boma, which they reached on August 8. The party was by
this time reduced to 115, and these were in a fearful condition from
toil, privation, and disease. In the journey of nearly 1,800 miles from
Nyang\ve one Englishman and thirty-four Wanguana had perished. In
the lower series of cataracts they had passed seventy-four separate falk,
fift}'-seven only of which were important, and his losses at these
Stanley attributes in some degree, though with seeming injustice, to
errors in Captain Tuckey's map. From Boma a passage was
given them on a steamer down to Kabinda, where he met the
Portuguese exploring expedition under Major Serpa Pinto, then
preparing to pierce Africa from the west coast. Here sixty men were
laid up suffering severely from scurvy, others from dropsy, dysentery,
&c. One young fellow just lived to reach the ocean ; another went
mad for joy, took to the bush and was lost ; and Stanley himself was
prostrated with weakness. After a few days* rest, the Portuguese gun-
boat Tainega conveyed them to Loanda.

After bringing his men successfully thus far, Stanley was not going
to abandon them to find their way back to Zanzibar as they best
could. Although his instructions seem to have been to hasten back
to England, he preferred first to see them in safety to their island
home. He accordingly took advantage of the offer of a passage in
H.M.S. Industry to the Ca\ve of Good Hope, and thence Commodore

Stanleys March Across Africa. 627

Sullivan, with the assent of the Home Government, provided them
with a passage in the same ship to Zanzibar. Here they arrived in
November last, and, after a journey of 12,000 miles (79O00 across the
continent and 5,000 from the mouth of the Kongo roimd the Cape
to Zanzibar) the faithful Wanguana were restored in perfect health,
robust, bright, and happy, to their wondering friends and relatives.
This kind and thoughtful act, by which he has doubly endeared
himself to those who accompanied him throughout his tremendous
journey, accomplished, Stanley felt himself at liberty to return to
England, which he did, being f§ted and honoured at many of the
Continental towns on his way.

There can be no doubt as to the vastness and immense value of
the additions to our geographical knowledge accomplished in the
three years Stanley was marching across the continent By his
voyage down the Lualaba he has made us acquainted \vith an
immense region, which the great facility of water communication
cannot fail soon to open to the benefits of trade and civilisation. He
has proved that the Lualaba of Dr. Livingstone and the Kongo are
one river, thus confirming a theory already generally held by
geographers. Even so long as twenty years ago, Sir Roderick
Murchison suggested that the river which his friend Livingstone so
fondly hoped to be the upper course of the Nile was identical with
the Kongo, and that the Kongo drained Lake Tanganyika. This
mighty river is now shown to have a navigable course of over 1,000
miles, which, with the affluents, may probably be extended to 3,000
miles of splendid waterway. The total length of the Kongo is about
2,900 miles, somewhat less than that of the Nile, though its volume
and navigability vastly exceed that river, and the region drained by
it is estimated at 860,000 square miles. It takes its rise, as the
Chambezi, in the high plateau between the Tanganyika and Lake
Nyassa, and is the principal feeder of Lake Bangweolo or Bemba,
a large body of shallow water about 8,400 miles in extent. Issuing
from Bangweolo, it is known under the name of Luapula, and after a
course of nearly 200 miles empties into Lake Mweru. Leaving
Lake Mweru it obtains the name of Lualaba from the natives of Rua.
In northemRua it receives an important affluent called the Kamalondo,
or Kamarondo. Flowing in a north-west direction it has at Nyangwe
a breadth of about 1,400 yards (increased during the rainy season to
about two miles), and a volume of 1 24,000 cubic feet per second,
its altitude above the ocean here being about 1,450 feet It has
flowed thus far about 1,100 miles. Continuing to the north-west and
then to the north, it receives several large streams. After passing the

SS2

628 Tlie GentUpnatis Magazifie.

equator its course again changes to the north-west, and it is joined
by the largest but one of its tributaries — ^the Aruwimi. This river
Stanley suggests to be the Welle of Schweinfurth. This theory, how-
ever, cannot, with our present information, be considered as
established, and, indeed. Dr. Schweinfurth himself, in a recent letter
to the Exploratorey gives several reasons for doubting the connection
of the Welle with the Aruwimi and the Kongo. Dr. Petermann,
however, arrives at the conclusion that the Aruwimi and the Welle
are identical. It is possible that the water sighted by Stanley to
the west of Unyoro is a lake distinct from the Albert Nyanza, and
that this gives rise to the Amwimi. This, however, is one of the
many problems that yet remain to be solved. After the junctioa
with the Aruwimi the Kongo reaches nearly to 2° N laL, and then
turning to the south-west, joins the previously known portion of its
course at the Yellala Falls. At its mouth its volume was estimated by
Tuckey at 1,800,000 cubic feet per second ; but this figure is
probably too large. The numerous cataracts in the lower portion
of the river form a great impediment to the navigation, though, once
these are passed, there is an open course extending half way across
the continent. Along these interrupted parts practicable roads
should be constructed for portages, as in the case of the falls of the
Shire River, and then steamers might easily be conveyed in sections
to the river above. The natives along this portion of the river are
well disposed for trade, and of articles for trade there is an abundant
variety. Ivory is so plentiful that it is made use of for the com-
monest purposes ; and the entire plain is distinguished for its groves
of the oil palm. Almost everything that Africa produces is to be
found in the great basin of the Kongo — cotton, india-rubber, ground
nuts, sesamum, copal (red and white), &c. To obtain advantage of
this immense wealth a company should be formed somewhat on the
scale of the East India Company, though much may be accomplished
by individual traders. Stanley boldly advocates the extension of
EngUsh sovereignty over the Kongo basin, as this country b the
most likely to develop commerce and spread civilisation effectually
and honourably. The Kongo may be considered to be the highway
to Central Africa, and the future of that continent will doubtless
depend greatly upon the power which obtains ascendency on that
river and its affluents.

FREDERICK A. EDWARDS.

629

TABLE TALK.

FEW things are more conducive to quietude of life and length
of days than the possession of a hobby, supposing always
it is not, like the breeding or running of racehorses or the like, of too
exciting a nature. Where it takes the shape of collecting objects of
interest or ciuiosity it forms one of the most agreeable occupations
that a man whose life is not wholly occupied in the pursuit of wealth
can adopt. If exercised with a moderate amount of intelligence it
is likely to prove a source of profit. The recent sale of the library of
Mr. Dew Smith, at which books fetched prices previously tmheard
of, shows that when a collection is made with judgment the invest-
ment will prove largely remunerative. A man need not wait long,
indeed, to find his purchases rise in value. First editions of Byron
and Shelley brought, at the sale mentioned, prices that comparatively
few years ago would have been thought excessive for early Shake-
speares. For the benefit of young collectors of books I give a piece
of information, the importance of which it is impossible to over-
estimate. Pay little heed to second-rate copies, the value of which
fluctuates with changing fashions; but when you come upon a first-
rate copy of any rarity, secure it — it is certain to rise steadily in value.
If a library is kno^vn to contain works of this description, it attracts,
when it is sold, a class of buyers altogether unlike those who flock
to the sale of more ordinary works, and the prices obtained are
immensely increased. Meantime, as one of the chief difiliculties of
young collectors is to know what they can obtain at a low price with
a reasonable hope of seeing it advance, let me ofler them what is
technically called a " tip." There is probably no safer investment
than buying the masterpieces of modern china. Some of the works
of Messrs. Minton and other manufacturers are admirable in art.
In the course of comparatively few years these things are sure to rise
enormously in value. Another class of purchases that may be
recommended is that of works firom our pictorial exhibitions in black
and white. These have attracted as yet no attention at all propor-
tionate to their worth.

630 TJu Gmtlctnans Magazine.

A DICTIONARY of Political Terminology or Glossology— /'loi
ou r autre se dit — is certainly among the wants of the age.
What with the new doctrine heati possidentis j and the old one uti
possidetis^ the status ^ud (which Continental diplomatists, in defiance of
Priscian, persist in calling /e statu quS) ; what with the squabbles
respecting the difference existing between a Conference and a Con-
gress, and Lord Beaconsfield's grave declaration that there is no
difference between them at all ; what with the continual mutations
of political nomenclature in France and the United States, and the
most recent additions to our own political vocabulary, in the shape
of Russophils, Turcophils, Sclavophobes, and Jingoes (a " Jingo " is
our old friend 'Arry in a faded fez or Mr. Sloggins, late of Millbank,
waving a dirty white handkerchief with a crescent daubed thereupon
in red ochre, attached to the end of a penny cane, and who haimts
Hyde Park on Sunday afternoons for the purpose of evincing his
sympathies for the " galliant Hosmanli " by trampling the plants and
flowers under foot and throwing turf-sods and dead cats at people in
tall hats), we are getting, in the way of political definitions, into a sad
state of error and confusion, which a dictionary such as that of
which I would suggest the compilation might to some extent
remedy. It should not be forgotten, again, that the public memory
is very short, and that a new generation is growing up to whom,
when they attain years of discretion, a number of terms, more or
less familiar to middle-aged politicians of the present epoch, may be
as perplexing as that " cursive Greek " which, we learn from the
Gladstone-Negroponte correspondence, so puzzled the great English
scholiast on Homer. I will just cite a few of these terms:
Dwellers in the Cave (Adullamites), Compound Householders,
Copperheads, Knownothings, Miscegeriarians, Carpet-baggers, Roor-
backs, Mason and Dixie's Line, Lobbyers, Inflation (this group is
American), Ruralists, Chauvinists, Doctrinaires, Irreconcilables,
Ultramontanes (the original meaning of which has been altogether
changed), Gouvemement de Combat, The last group is French.
There is the locution, too, of " Her Majesty's Opposition." Very
few people are aware of the reason why the political party who are
systematically hostile to the administration should be qualified vir-
tually as an appanage of the Crown. This is the reason. When
George Canning was Premier in 1827 a section of the Whig party
agreed to give a general support to the Government if the Prime
Minister would undertake not to oppose the Catholic claims. It was
through disgust at this arrangement that Lord Eldon resigned ; but
the Whigs continued to support Canning, and solemnly proclaimed

Table Talk. 631

themselves to be " His Majesty's Opposition," in contradistinction to
the opposition that was radical.

TOUCHING Congresses versus Conferences, why should not
our old friend the Diet have a hearing? What is a Diet?
The (not quite infallible and certainly not exhaustive) Haydn, in
his " Dictionary of Dates," mentions only the Diets of the defunct
German Empire, citing those of Wurzburg, Nuremberg, Worms,
Spires, Augsburg, Ratisbon, and Frankfort. In the most modem
etymological dictionaries, Diet is derived from the Latin dies^ and
defined as a legislative or administrative assembly sitting from day
to day. Thus a Parliamentary committee taking evidence de die in
diem would be virtually a Diet. But in the " Annales Politiques " of
the celebrated Abbd de St. Pierre (that "magnificent political
dreamer," as Cardinal Fleury called him) there was made nearly a
hundred and fifty years ago a remarkable proposal to establish a
permanent Diet of Princes for the purpose of securing perpetual
peace among the nations. The Abba's classification of the different
States of Europe and their relative rank in the year 1737 is very
curious. Here is the list : —

1. The King of France. {Cela va sans dire. Monsieur PAbbe),

2. The Emperor of Austria. (Eh, what ?)

3. The King of Spain. (Save the mark !)

4. The King of Portugal. (Where is Portugal ?)

5. T/i€ King of England, (Cool.)

6. The States of Holland.

7. The King of Denmark.

8. The King of Sweden.

9. The King of Poland.

10. The Empress of Russia. (It was the Czarina Elizabeth, and

she was not of much account)

11. The Pope.

12. The King of Prussia, (Prince Bismarck : please copy.)

13. The Elector of Bavaria.

14. The Elector Palatine.

15. The Switzer.

16. Ecclesiastical Electorates.

17. The Republic of Venice.

18. The King of Naples.

19. T/ie King of Sardinia,

The Turk is left altogether out of the calculation, as inter Christiafiosnon
ftominandum^ I presume. The Abba's scheme, oddly enough, is taken

632 The GentlematCs Magazine.

m

quite au sSrifux in an article in Blackwood published in October 1819.
" The * reverie,'" observes the orthodox Tory writer, "appears now-a-
days much less visionary than it did in 1737. In truth the Congressa
of Vienna, Paris, and Aix-la-Chapelle, in which the four great Powerst
Austria, England, Prussia, and Russia." France being admitted
latterly to the Conference : (observe that Conference and Congress
are here treated as convertible terms), " vftxc Diets on M. de St Pierre's
principle. And it will be well for mankind if a continuaSian of the
same system shall lead to the happy result which the philanthropic
Abbk contemplated^ of a general and lasting Peace, Why should it not t
Why should a shot be fired in Europe when Austria^ En^and^ France^
Holland, Prussia, Russia, and Spain form a tribunal to 'mediate
between Powers who may have a difference and a united force to pumsk
any country which should dare to commit aggression on another,** These
are wise and humane sentiments, and from a Tory of the Tories, toa
Mais nous avons changt tout cda, I, Sylvanus Urban, propose to go
into Congress forthwith with the Editors of all the other magazines.
Boy, bring me my Woolwich Infant, my Beaconsfield bag foil of White-
head torpedoes, my blunderbuss, my six-shooter, my Andrea Fenara,
my sword-stick, my armour-plated Ulster, and my Beaconsfield bag
full of explosive bullets. I want Peace, and don't forget my keg of
petroleum.

THE Rosebery-Rothschild wedding has made matrimony a
more popular topic of conversation than ever. After dinner,
the other night, " curious marriages " were under discussion at a
house where some great travellers were present, and it was hoped
that they would favour the company with some of their experience in
that line. One I knew had had to pursue his bride upon an ostrich
over Afric's sands ; and another to feed his with blubber in strips, in
the neighbourhood of the Pole ; but on this occasion they were deaf
to all entreaties. I have noticed that one traveller will seldom open
his mouth — to any interesting extent, at least — in the presence of
another; for which, doubtless, they have their reasons. "It is a
pity," whispered a great navigator to me, the other day, when another
great navigator was venturing upon an experience, " that a man who
has really done great things should tell such very strange adventures,
because they throw discredit on even what he has done." Upon
this occasion an old gentleman, who had passed his life between
Cheltenham and London, beat all the explorers by relating to us the
nuptials of Miss Biffin, which took place, not so faraway, indeed, but
so long ago, that the details were beyond the reach of criticism.

Table Talk. 633

This lady was conspicuous in her time for the absence of her limbs,
but for all that attended the Cheltenham assemblies. One night
she was forgotten by her friends and left in the ballroom, with
the lights out. Alarmed by her cries, the head-waiter rushed into
the room and inquired who was there. From the dark depths of
the assembly-room a female voice replied, " It is I. I want to go
home."

" Then step this way, ma'am ; you can surely see the door."

" Alas ! I have no legs."

The waiter was a kindly man, and ventured into the darkness.
" If you will hold out your hand, ma'am, I will pick you up and carry
you out"

" Alas ! I have neither hands nor arms."

On which the waiter fled, under the impression that it was the
Devil.

Our old gentleman saw, or said he saw, this lady married (she
was married, poor creature, to a vile adventurer, who ran through her
money and left her to starve), and described the circumstances.
"But where did the husband put the ring?" asked one of the
audience : a man that is never satisfied with what is sufficient for
other people, and who has no respect for age.

Our old gentleman remained silent, delving in the ruins of his
memory for this immaterial circimistance.

Then a chivalrous young fellow stepped in : " I seem to remember
reading some account of how a hole was drilled through the lady's
nose, sir, after the fashion of African brides ; but perhaps I am mis-
taken."

" No, no, you are quite right," exclaimed the old gentleman
rapturously. " You have recalled the detail to my recollection : the
wedding ring was put through her nose."

The most striking marriage of modem times took place just
after the overthrow of the Commune in Paris. It was a double one,
and each bridegroom had, for his best men, two gensdarmes, and each
lady, for her bridesmaids, two female prison-warders. The happy
pairs parted at the church door, to meet again in the convict settle-
ment of New Caledonia. The men were " lifers," and would have
been debarred the solace of matrimony for ever but for the circum-
stance that their sweethearts possessed certain secrets of great value
to the police. A bargain was struck with the State, by which the
two pairs of lovers were thus made happy, at the expense of the
criminal classes. It is, therefore, possible, it seems, to combine a
love-match with <' a marriage of convenience."

634 ^'^ GeftiUfnatis Magazine.

MONSTROUS cuttlefish have been captured of late, and
monstrous creatures of more kinds than one have been
seen at sea. We have also learned of the former existence of land
animals more than a hundred feet in length ; for has not Professor
Marsh of Yale College discovered their skeletons in the far West?
It now appears that a monstrous underground creature existSL
"After carefully considering the different accounts given of the
Minhocao " writes a scientific contemporar}', " one can hardly refuse
to believe that some such animal really exists, though not quite so
large as the countryfolk would have us believe." According to them,
— that is, to the country folk of Itajahy, in Southern Brazil, — the
Minhocao is a sort of worm, five yards broad and some fifty yards
long, covered with bones as with a coat of armour, uprooting mighty
pine trees as if they were blades of grass, diverting the courses of
streams into fresh channels, and turning dry land into bottomless
morass. The most probable explanation of the various accounts of
actual visits of this creature to the upper world, is that it is a relic
of the race of gigantic armadillos which were abundant in Southern
Brazil in past geological ages.

IN reading of the appointment of Mr. Bayard Taylor to succeed
Mr. Bancroft, the historian, as the American Minister in Berlin,
I feel that some compensation for the absence of a tided and landed
aristocracy is obtained by the United States in the power accorded it
of rewarding those who have obtained distinction in letters. It is
not long since the same country sent Mr. James Russell Lowell to
Madrid. We have not yet learned to look upon dramatists and
essayists as fitting representatives abroad. If the old definition of an
ambassador, as a man sent abroad to lie for his country, has any
accuracy, it may be that a compliment is intended to men of letters
in holding them aloof firom such occupations. The more modest
dignity of consul has been awarded in modern times to men like
Hannay, Lever, Captain Burton, and C. W. Goodwin. I doa't
know that any of our ambassadors, except Mr. I^yard, has any
special claim to distinction outside that accorded him by his own
order, unless it be a distinction to be esteemed the most economic,
not to say penurious, of men, as was recently the case with the English
ambassador in a neighbouring capital.

A DREADFUL suspicion has entered my mind. The anti-
quarian marrow of Sylvanus Urban is freezing in his spinal
column, and his cavalier blood is running cold in his veins. W^e are

Table Talk. 635

all familiar with the minutely circumstantial and exquisitely pathetic
account of the last moments of Charles I. — how he said to one of the
gentlemen on the scaffold who had come too near the axe, " Take
heed of the axe, pray take heed of the axe ;" how he interchanged
pious reflections with Bishop Juxon ; how he removed his doublet
and waistcoat, and pushing his grey discrowned locks under a
silken night cap, asked, " Is my hair well ? " how he delivered his
diamond George to the good Bishop, with the single and mysterious
word " Remember ! " how finally he said to the Man in the Mask
"When I put out my hands thus ; " and how finally,

While the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands,
I le nothing common did, nor mean
Upon that memorable scene,
Nor call'd the gods in vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless might ;
But with his keener eye
The axe*s edge did try,
Then, bow'd his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.

It is singular that Clarendon, in his *' History of the Rebellion," says
not one word of the behaviour of the Martyr on the scaffold, although
he speaks in detail of the subsequent embalmment and burial of the
corpse. What if the whole minute and circumstantial account of the
last moments should turn out to be, if not entirely apocryphal, at
least greatly exaggerated ? The historians one after the other have
accepted the narrative with implicit faith and naturally copied and
recopied it ; but where is their authority ? I can find no trustworthier
one than a book I have just lighted upon, published in 1678, and
entitled " Memories of Uie Lives, Sufferings, and Deaths of those
Noble, Reverend, and Excellent Personages that endured Death,
Sequestration, and Decimation for the Protestant Religion and the
great Principle, Allegiance to the Sovereign." The author of this
book, a fat folio of 700 pages, was Dr. Daniel Lloyd, a fiirious
High Church partisan. He is great at the delineation of scaffold
exits ; and one of the reasons which induce me to doubt his strict
veracity as to the closing scene at Whitehall is the very suspicious
story which he tells concerning the execution of Archbishop Laud
(whom he styles " an Incomparable Prelate ") on Tower Hill. " The
clearness of his conscience," thus Dr. Lloyd, " being legible in the
cheerfulness of his dying looks, as the serenity of the weather is
understood by the glory and ruddiness of the setting sun ; then
desiring to have room to die .... he first took care to stop the

636 TJie Gentleman s Magazine.

chinks near the block, and remove the people he espied under the
scaffold, expressing himself that it was no part of his desire that his
blood should fall on the heads of the people ; in which it pleased
God he was so far gratified that there remaining only a small hole
from a knot in the midst of a board the fore-finger of his right hand at
his death haffefied to stop that also," One must have a very good
digestion to swallow this terribly tough fore-finger story. Bishop
Juxon, would of course be an unimpeachable witness in the matter;
but Juxon, although he printed a sermon which he had preached on
Charles's death, published nothing concerning the closing scene.
That loyal gentleman, Herbert, is an undeniable authority as to the
demeanour of the Martyr up to the momefit when he ascended the
scaffold^ but not afterwards. He tells us himself that the soldiers
refused to allow him to enter the room, which was the ante-chamber
to the scaffold, and that he was " left at the door lamenting." The
learned and impartial Catholic historian Lingard, who is so minute in
the details which he gives of the execution as to mention that a
dinner had been prepared for Charles in the room next the scaffold,
but that he refused to partake of anything beyond a manchet
of bread and a glass of wine, says nothing of the " Take heed of
the axe " or the " Remember " stories. Finally, the accepted version
is given in Hargrave*s State Trials ; but no authority as to the scaffold
scene is cited. Supposing it was all an invention of Dr. Daniel Lloyd.

" TTROM intelligence received" from a tribe of the Esquimaux
X^ it now seems certain that the exact locality of the cairn under
which lie the journals of the late Sir John Franklin may be ascer-
tained, and that search could be made for them at trifling expense
compared with their scientific, literary, and, it may be added, market
value. " Private persons who have money and spirit " are adjured to
undertake the task ; but if the surviving relatives of the great Arctic
explorer are really desirous of clearing up his unhappy fate, their best
contribution towards it would be to forego their legal claim to any
MSS. which maybe found, and make them the reward of the discoverer.
I think I know of at least one "enterprising publisher" who in that
case would be found willing to speculate in the matter. There is no
doubt that " What was found in the Cairn " would be the great suc-
cess of the season.

I DO not know how far the epidemics which have prevailed during
late years among animals are ascribable to the changed condi-
tions of life produced by closer association with humanity. It seems,

Table Talk. 637

however, as if the present age were likely to prove as memorable in
connection with disease among the herds as the fourteenth, fifteenth,
and sixteenth centuries were for pestilence among men. After wit-
nessing the ravages of rinderpest among our domestic cattle, and
hearing that a disease, equally mysterious and baffling, attacks the
reindeer of Siberia, I now find that the buffalo of the American
prairies is in the course of extinction from some unknown and
baffling disorder. It is imperative that we should strive to ascertain
the cause of such widespread and destructive diseases. With regard to
the plague, it appears to be not seldom a scourge produced by war.
Its last appearance in England was after the great strife of the Civil
War. Plague is now stalking in the rear of the armies so lately con-
tending in the East. Is it quite impossible that the reckless slaughter
of the buf!alo may have something to do with begetting an illness
more exterminating than the rifle ?

IT is next to impossible to shake the public faith in the value of
the observations of the lower creation. We know by experience
that our barndoor fowls will with infinite composure retire to roost
at ten o'clock in the morning in the case of an eclipse, yet that know-
ledge does not prevent the public from assuming the possession by
birds of mysterious sources of information on the subject of weather
which are sealed to us. Dogs are supposed to have some in-
tuition which warns them of approaching death, and many a heart
has been tortured by accepting as a forewarning of dissolution —
a dog's complaint against the moon for unreasonable brightness.
The fact is that animals in general are far less wise than we think,
even in the matters that come directly under their ken. Obser-
vations of natural phenomena on the part of a man, who, by noticing
the influence of changing conditions upon various objects, animate
and inanimate, becomes weather-wise, are far more trustworthy than
that kind of feeling which, like pain in an old wound, warns birds or
animals of the approach of wet Altogether curious is it, indeed, to
see how far animals are from possessing the kind of knowledge we are
most ready to assign them, that of the things they may eat with impunity.
Quite recently Lord Lovelace underwent a serious loss in conse-
quence of a herd of cows eating some yew-clippings indiscreetly
placed within their reach. Cattle continually mistake the kind of
food that will suit them, especially when they are strange to the dis-
trict in which it grows. After a time they find out its noxious
qualities, and are, it appears, able to transmit the knowledge to
their descendants.

638 TIu Gentleman! s Magazine.

SO the full-length portrait of the "Gentleman Skating in St.
James's Park " in the Exhibition of the Old Masters at the
Royal Academy, and which some critics declared to be a Gains-
borough, while others maintained that it was a Romney, turns out to
be from the pencil of Gilbert Stuart, an accomplished American
portrait painter, who \isited this country in the last years of the
eighteenth century. Lady Charles Pelham Clinton, to whose Lord the
picture belongs, is the daughter of the Skater whom Gilbert Stuart
has made to disport himself on the ice in so dignified a manner.
The obscurity which has gradually enveloped the name of the artist
who painted the 1 ortraits of most of the celebrities (including
Washington) of li:s own country and who, moreover, transmitted to
canvas the lineaments of many distinguished persons in English
society, is made manifest in a letter to Lord Charles Clinton from
Mr. Henry Grant, the son of the " skater," and who is now resident
in Virginia. " I will write," observes Mr. Henry Grant, " to those
who I think may be able to tell me more about the artist who was so
famous on this continent." Certainly a great deal more ought to be
kno^vn about Gilbert Stuart and the portraits which he painted in
this country, for his manner bore a remarkably close resemblance
to that of Gainsborough, and to that of Romney to boot, and it
is possible that a portrait by the American artist has ere now been
erroneously ascribed to one of the great English masters whom I have
named. The most attentive study of the chronology of costume
would not entirely guarantee us from error in this respect; since
Gainsborough died in 1768, only four years before the arrival of
Stuart in England ; and, as for Romney, he was in full swing as a
portrait painter in 1792. I find from the " Personal Reminiscences
of the late Henry Inman, Artist," contained in the private manu-
script diary of the late Mrs. Colonel William L. Stone (quoted in
Stone's " History of New York City "), that in 1838 there was living
an American painter named Vanderlyn, who had been Gilbert
Stuart's favourite pupil. I cannot, however, find any further notice
of Stuart in Mr. Stone's history.

THE "Private Manuscript Diary" contains, by the way, a
diverting reference to the condition of Fine Art in the United
States t>\'0 generations since. Inman told Mrs. Stone that when he
was a boy his father one day met John Wesley Jarvis, the painter,
"who was then' in the zenith of popular favour." "He spoke to
me of him," said Inman, " and procured an interview. Jarvis at once
proposed to take me (then only fifteen) as a pupil. Soon afterwards

Tabic Talk. 639

I went with him to Albany, where we put up at Crittenden's, the most
expensive hotel in the place. He represented me as a wonderful
boy and kept me living at a great expense, thereby creating a taste
for a style of life far above my means to support He then left me
for a few weeks, while he went to a distant city to fulfil an engage-
ment When I returned I told him that I was in difficulties ; that I
had incurred heavy expenses during his absence, and had no means
to pay my bills. * Then,' said Jarvis, * you must paint You can
paint now, better than any one in this country except me ; and you
can paint cabinet pictures in a style in which I will imtruct you that
will consume but little time. You can turn them off very fast and
charge low, say five or six dollars * (this is delicious, for the next
best painter, cetat, fifteen, on the American continent) ; * you can paint
half a dozen in a week. I will speak to all the great people here and
tell them what a wonderful lad you are ; and you will soon get
plenty of work. You can stay here all this winter and pursue this
course wliile I go to New Orleans. I will pay what I can of
Crittenden's bill already run up ; and in the spring, on my return,
we will begin again in New York." " Jarvis," continued Inman
" was as good as his word ; and during that winter I painted every
member of the Legislature, which brought me a considerable sum."
This consummation must have been a source of much comfort and
joy, not only to young Mr. Inman, but to the worthy and confiding
landlord of Crittenden's Hotel, Albany, New York. The oracular
utterance of John Wesley Jarvis to the artist who was in pawn, " You
must paint," reminds me of Jules Janin's advice to the young author
who waited on him with a letter of introduction. " Do you keep a
carriage and pair?" The aspirant for literary flinie uttered an
exclamation of amazement " Why, I can scarcely keep myself,
M. Janin," he pleaded. " Then," continued tlie ijimoMs feuilletoniste^
" start a carriage and pair at once. You will be compelled to work
hard in order to find oats for the horses ^

IT has begun to be suspected of late years that the love of life is
not (^uite so strong as the divines have described it to be. It
was at one time a sort of canon among physiologists tliat no man —
in possession of his senses — having once made an attempt at suicide,
however determined, and failed, would ever repeat it Yet a young
couple, a year or two ago, who were spenditig the honeymoon at a well-
known seaside place, took laudanum together and were both found
insensible, and at death's door. The husband left a document behind
him in German, Greek, and English, addressed ** To the Coroner and

640 The Genileman's Magazifte.

jury," containing a sort of transcript of his experience as a dying man.
Its last words were : " 2 a.m. ; no sleep yet, heavy head, niouth
parched and burning. Bury us under the same clod." These two
unfortunates, who were quite resuscitated, suffocated themselves with
charcoal in a Paris hotel in the ensuing spring.

Last week there occurred a suicide equally curious. A Mr. X,
who had defaulted in his accounts, but was allowed to make some
arrangement by the Court, omitted to do so ; on the renewed hearing
of the case he sent a telegram to the judge : " Poor Mr. X died sud-
denly yesterday morning," which might have been considered satis-
factory, if he had not unhappily been seen alive and well on the following
Sunday. Now, it is another canon among those who flatter themselves
they have studied human nature to some purpose, that persons who
threaten to commit suicide, or affect to have done so, are the last
persons in reality to do away >vith themselves. Yet poor Mr. X, on
perceiving himself recognised, walked down to the railway, and laying
himself across the line, was cut in two by the express.

THE first prediction based on the supposed connection between
the sun-spot period and terrestrial phenomena, has not
proved very strikingly successful. Among " the chief features un-
doubtedly deducible," after eliminating the mere seasonal effects of
ordinary summer and winter, was, we were told, the occurrence of a
period of intense cold at a time which was " chronologically identi-
fied " last summer with the end of the year 1877. I^ other words,
we were to expect that the winter of 1877-8 would be bitterly cold.
" This is, perhaps, not an agreeable prospect," said the Astronomer-
Royal for Scotland to the editor of Nature^ " especially if political
agitators are at this time moving amongst the colliers, striving to
persuade them to decrease the output of coal at every pit's mouth.
Being therefore quite willing for the general good to suppose myself
mistaken, I beg to send you a first impression of Plate 1 7 of the
forthcoming volume of observations of this Royal Observatorj', and
shall be very happy if you can bring out from the measures recorded
there any more comfortable view for the public at large." Up
to the time of my present writing the bitteriy cold weather has
not come, and if it did come now, it would be too late for the fulfil-
ment of Professor Smyth's prediction. It is clear that the true
method of predicting weather from sun-spots has not yet been in-
vented ; and we may be even permitted to doubt whether it ever will
be, or whether the imagined connection between the spot period and
terrestrial weather really exists. svlvanus urban.

THE;

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE

June 1878.

ROY'S WIFE.

BY G. J. WHYTE-MELVILLE,

Chapter XXVII.

THE IRREPRESSIBLE.

" TT THERE have you been hiding all this time? I thought you

V V had quite forgotten us. One never sees you now."

Miss Bruce shaded her eyes with a pink-tinted parasol from the
sun-glint off the water. Her carriage had been drawn up by the
Serpentine, and Ix)rd Fitzowen was leaning against the door.

"I am flattered to think I have been missed," answered that
young nobleman, who did not seem quite in his usual spirits. " I
hardly suppose you are pining for me ; but without wishing to be
rude, Miss Bruce, I cannot help observing that you look pale and
tired. I hope there is nothing the matter."

She smiled, not without a little blush that denied the charge of
pallor for itself " London dissipation, I conclude," she answered
wearily. ** But you need not have told me I am hideous. We go out
night after night, you know, the same round, like horses in a mill,
and what's the use? "

" Exactly the question I was asking myself when I caught sight
of your carriage. I was meditating, you understand, by the * sad sea-
wave.' That is all very well for me. But, Miss Bruce, why 60 you
come here ? "

The blush that had faded rose again a shade deeper. She was
not going to tell him or anybody why ; but, for some reason of her own,
the Serpentine reminded her of Mr. Brail.

" Do you suppose I can't meditate too ? " she returned, lowering
her parasol. " I was reflecting just now what useless lives we leadL^
yoL, ccxLiL NO. 1770. X T

642 The Gentleman s Magazine.

you and I and the rest of us wasting our time in amusements that
dotit amuse us, after all ! "

" That's the grievance ! I never used to be bored. Never knew
what fellows meant by the word. And — now ! " The jrawn widi
wiiich he pointed this disheartening confession sufficiently attested its
truth.

Lord Fitzowen had insensibly passed one of the landmarks setup
to remind us that in this world of change we must b^ carried with die
current, rest on our oars as idly as we may. There comes a time for
most men, usually before they are thirty, when boots, coats, horses,
and cigars seem stripped of their engrossing fascinations. To have
seen a favourite tried at Newmari^et, to be on visiting terms with
a popular actress, are experiences that no longer raise them in their
own esteem, and they wake up, as it were, to a new world, of which
they seem no less ignorant than the chicken bursting from its shelL
This is the period at which men take to work in good earnest ; and,
strangely enough, the idlest in youth often become the busiest in after
life. This is the. period, too, at which they bitterly r^et the time
hitherto lost, the bad start that preventstheir being more forward in the
race, realising in chances n^lected and advantages thrown away Ixml
Lytton's touching lines of him who

*' Paltered with pleasnres that pleased not, and fame where no fame could be.
And how shall I look, do you think, 1^^? with the angels looking at me.**

How shall the best of us look in such company? And how the
angels must wonder we can be such fools !

'' A man has no right to be bored," said Miss Hester, with a curl
of her lip. " You have so many pursuits, so much excitement Not
like us. When a woman b really imhappy, what resource has she in
the world ? "

" She can always sit down and cry."

''As you would sit down and smoke. Nonsense ! Some of us
have too much spirit] to cry. We get cross, though, I don't deny it,
and then we make the people about us as uncomfortable as our-
selves."

" Men have not that consolation."

" Haven't they ! There we differ. It seems to me that a man's
troubles react on the women who are about him, even to his aches and
pains. We bear your burdens and our own too."

" I wish you would lend me a hand with mine."

" So I will if I can. We are old friends, Lord Fitzowen, and
may trust one another. You know, you need only ask for my poor
\iii\t help. It is not mucYv, but ^o>3\!^\it li^^-^ ^n^w''

Roy^s Wife. 643

NoW| in this cordial profession Miss Bruce was not quite so sincere
as she persuaded hersel£ No doubt she felt pleased to meet his lord-
ship again, and would have made any commonplace social exertion
to do him a favour, but her principal reason for retaining him at her
side with such an appearance of interest was the excuse thus afforded
for a delay that would otherwise seem strange in the eyes of the
coachman and footman who had her in charge. After dropping papa
at his club, to return for him in an hour, she caused herself to be
driven to the Serpentine, avowedly for "a breath of air." In the dis-
tance, at least half a mile off, she had spied a figure very like
Mr. Brail walking towards her in company with a lady, while she was
conversing with Lord Fitzowen. So long as she remained in the same
place, this interesting couple could not but pass under her nose, so
she must keep his lordship a few more minutes at the carriage-door
as an excuse for standing stilL Hester's eyes did not deceive her.
CoUingwood Brail and Nelly were indeed taking a walk together in
the Park. The kind yoimg sailor, unhappy himself, had noticed the
constant depression of Mrs. John's spirits, and recommended his
favourite remedy, a " good long cruise in the fresh air." Nelly, who
yearned in her heart for something more rural than the Strand, con-
sented, nothing loth, and the pair wandered socially into the Park up
the ride, over the bridge, past the Powder Magazine, and along the
water's edge : Nelly caring little where she went, and Brail choosing
this particular walk because he had once heard Miss Bruce admit that
she thought it " rather nice."

But keen as was Hester's sight, we may be sure the sailor's prac-
tised eye made out the carriage and its occupant, even before he was
himself recognised. Nelly marked his bronze cheek turn pale, and
he stopped short in the middle of a sentence. " Mrs. John," said he,
with rather a foolish laugh, and the gulp of a man who is making a
clean breast of it, " you know about Miss Bruce. I've often men-
tioned her. That's her carriage I There she is ! "

If he liked Mrs. John before, she earned his eternal gratitude
now. For sufficient reasons, Nelly had no desire to be recognised by
any neighbour who remembered her at Royston Grange, least of all by
the handsome, happy girl whom she had received under such different
circumstances as a guest in her own house. It was with no considera-
tion for her companion, but in a sheer instinct of self-defence, that
she exclaimed —

*' Walk on, Mr. Brail ! go and speak to her 1 I know you won't

be happy if you miss such a chance. Ill wait here : or, better still,

T T 2

644 ^^ Gentlemafis Magazine.

m find my way home alone. No, don't apologise : I should reaUy
prefer it ; and if I'm tired, I can take a cab."

He felt bound to remonstrate, but not '' with a wiU,** and, it b
needless to add, went on by himself with a heightened colour and a
beating heart

Miss Bruce, who saw him coming, grew absent and restless. To
Lord Fitzowen's conversation, which conveyed indeed nothing par-
ticularly new or interesting, she made the most inconsequent remarks;
and Fitz, who was not without the social instinct called " tact," felt he
was actually " in the way."

" No doubt," he reflected humbly, and with resignation, ** this is
part of the whole thing. I bore myself intensely, and am becoming
a bore to other people. Even Miss Bruce can't stand me for more
than ten minutes, and would rather sit here deserted in the wilderness
than undergo my platitudes any longer. I accept the omen. I have
become a fogey. I must make up my mind to be rubbed out, and
content myself, like other fogeys, with the evening paper and the
club."

So his lordship bowed himself off, and, without once looking be-
hind him, strolled leisurely away.

Our business is not at present with Collingwood Brail, but if he
was the man we take him for, it seems improbable that he would suffer
so auspicious an occasion to pass imimproved. Rather will we follow
Lord Fitzowen, who, placidly coasting that straight and mathematical
piece of water called by Londoners the Serpentine, drifted into the
least frequented part of the Ride, just in time to meet Nelly pacing
calmly home.

She knew him a hundred yards off. There was no mistaking the
light easy gait of that unforgotten figure, the well-cut clothes, the
high-bred air, and the hat worn jauntily aslant, in virtue, as he used
to protest, of his Irish tide. She half stopped and half turned aside,
but thought better of it, and walked on. After all, why should she not
meet him ? He was a link with the past life, that now seemed like a
dream. He lived in the world from which she had been shut out
He must know, perhaps he would tell her, something of her husband,
and it was doing him only justice to admit that he ought to be welcome
for his own sake. He had always been kind, considerate, and
agreeable. She was glad to see him, and would not pretend to be
anything else. Had she cared for him ever so little, she could not
but have been gratified by his manner while he accosted her. He
was not shy. It had been proverbial in his old regiment, that "what
would make Fitz b\usVi ^o\M TSi^<& ^XLOthet man fly the kingdom."

Roy's Wife. 645

Nevertheless, the woman he admired and regarded more than any other
in the world, came upon him so unexpectedly, that she put him utterly
to rout. He was disarmed, immanned, colouring and cowering like a
school-boy, suspecting he looked, and satisfied he felt, like a fool.

Two people in such a position are seldom equally confused, or
what a world of cross-purposes we should have ! One gathers con-
fidence firom the disorder of the other, and women, I verily believe,
for all their assumed timidity, have more social courage than men.

Nelly put out her hand heartily enough, and he took it with the
homage a subject renders to his queen.

In such a crisis, our compatriots, who have seldom much to say at
a moment's notice, take refiige in the most minute inquiries as to each
other's health, only stopping short of feeling pulses, and looking at
tongues, in the engrossing interest they profess for mutual salubrity.
When Lord Fitzowen and Nelly had satisfied themselves in turn that
neither was a sufferer from organic disease, there ensued an awkward
and protracted pause — ^broken by the lady, of course.

"I wonder you knew me," said she. "It is so long since we
met, and you cannot have expected to see me here."

" Knew you ! " replied his lordship, finding speech restored as by
a miracle. "Don't you think I should know you anywhere? Do
you suppose there is another Mrs. Roy in the world, or if there were
a hundred, that I could mistake any woman alive for you ? Have
you forgotten ^"

" But, my lord ''

He held up his hand. " You are not to say * my lord,' " he inter-
rupted. " I am sure you must remember our compact, and you may
trust your dictionary as fi"ankly now as you did then."

The playful manner, the kind, protecting, yet wholly courteous
tone, took her back to the happy times of love, and wedlock, and
Royston Grange. She had been living a life of complete seclusion,
at her own choice, indeed, but none the less dreary for that, of daily
duties, business-like, irksome, affording little scope for variety, none
for interest ; she had gone into no society whatever, and had scarcely
stood face to face with a gentleman, except CoUingwood Brail, for
many weeks. Can we wonder that she felt unable to resist the charm
of Fitzowen's pleasant companionship, and accorded freely his humble
request that he might see her to the end of the Park, and put her
into a cab to take her home ?

He had too much experience to startle her by asking point-blank
what he wanted to know, and had tried in vain for some weeks to
find out, viz.| where she lived, what she ^iraa dovii%i«DA'^^s^^'^^

646 The Gentleman^ s Magazine.

might call on her at her own house? His code of morals was one of
which we cannot approve, the result of a &lse system of edacation,
and adopted in common with other young men of his kind, less from
innate depravity than from an utter absence of that religious principle
which alone defines the border of right and wrong.

It would have been difficult to make Fitz understand why a
woman separated from her husband should not be as completely a
free agent as a man who had never been married at alL He could
see that it was wrong to disturb wedded happiness and the peace of
famihes, to blight a girl's hopes or taint a woman's reputation before
the world with the lightest breath of shame. Such injuries he would
no more have inflicted than he would have made frm of the deaf^
tripped up the blind, or struck a man who was down. To his own
code of social morality, as it may be called, he adhered strictly ; but
this left a wide range wherein he felt at liberty to disport himself as
he pleased.

That he was doing injury either to herself or to Mr. Roy in trying to
win Nelly's affections now that she had voluntarily left her home, he
would have stoutly denied ; and had you told him that his intentions
were evil, simply and solely because opposed to the law of God, he
would h ave admired yoiu: sincerity, pitied yom: bigotry, and declined
to argue the subj ect with one who saw it from so diflferent a point
of view.

The passions are bad enough ; but if we have to battle with the
affections, we want all the help we can get The devil had no
worldly experience when he took the form of a serpent He knows
better now, and comes in the shape of an angel, appealing to our
higher feelings, oiu: better nature ; arguing, plausibly enough, that
those sentiments cannot be unworthy which elevate us above our
kind. We have but one answer: " I may not, and therefore I will
not ! " Nobody ever yet regretted its enunciation ; and there are
many reasons, notwithstanding the well-known argument of the
French princess, why "No" is a more valuable expression than
« Yes."

" I have never seen you about anywhere, Mrs. Roy," continued
his lordship in a light, easy tone, at which she could not take alarm.
" I have wondered, and fidgetted, and feared you were ill, and tried
in all sorts of ways to learn what had become of you ; but I am so
discreet, I have never asked one of our mutual acquaintances to help
me in my search."

** Do you see many of them ?" she returned, quivering all over to
think that this man iD^Yit. Yibn^ ^coi^ Qt\^ V^x -oi^t in company

Roy's Wife. 647

with Mr. Roy. " I am always pleased to hear of old friends, to
be reminded of anybody or anything connected with Royston
Grange."

" Have you not been there since the winter?" he asked, in the
hope of drawing an avowal of some sort

** Lord Fitzowen, you know I have not"

" Forgive me, Mrs. Roy, I did know it I am such a coward, I
oply put the question to gain time. Of course I knew. Of course
I have heard all sorts of stories. Of course I believe nothing but
that you are wholly right, and everybody else grossly in the wrong."

" What have you heard ? "

*' Only the common gossip of the world ; the handfuls of mud with
which it likes to pelt those it envies for their superiority. People
talked of a quarrel, a separation, incompatibility of temper, unworthy
accusations. I was only convinced you had been shamefully ill-
used."

" Why should you think that ? "

" Why ! Because I know it instinctively in my heart of hearts.
Because you are unlike most women, and better than aU. I do not
pelt you with compliments, or throw your personal attractions, charm
of manner, and so on in your teeth. You are above that kind of
thing. But if you were as plain as you are — ^well, as you are not, I
should still quote you as the person of all others most likely to make
a happy home for any man in his senses. Gopd heavens I what more
can a fellow want ? "

'^ I was not bom a lady," she said, with a thoughtful far-away
look that denoted some engrossing interest wholly \mconnected with
the flatterer at her side.

" A lady I Then what in the name of prejudice is a lady ? I
know a good many — I think I ought to be a judge. My dear Mrs.
Roy, quite the most i//iladylike woman of my acquaintance goes in
to dinner before half the peeresses in London. She is rude, yet
exacting ; shy, but overbearing ; awkward, ill-dressed, and as ugly as
sin j in all respects a complete contrast to yourself; and, except for
her rank, has no more claim to be called a lady than yoiu: cook! Now,
will you tell me that birth or station have anything to do with it, and
that there are not natural gentlewomen, recdfy gentle, and — and
lovable, in every class of life? "

They were pleasant words, they salved her woimded spirit like
drops of balm. Fitz, always enthusiastic — a quality to which, in
these lackadaisical times, he owed much of his popularity — had
worked himself into a great heat and excitement, fully convinced Coc

648 The Gentleman s Magazine.

the moment that society demanded complete reconstruction from a
new basis, at the level — ^wherever that might be — of this beautiful
Mrs. Roy.

" Unequal marriages never answer," she replied softly. " Mine
was only another example of the rule."

*^ Because you married a man who did not understand you, did
not appreciate you ; and whom, therefore, it is impossible you can
have really loved."

" Lord Fitzowen, you do not think so badly of me as that 1 "

"Think badly of you ! I, who believe in you as the pattern of
everything a woman should be ; who esteem and honour you more
than any other creature upon earth ; who, if you had only been freei
would have — "

" Lord Fitzowen, will you kindly call me a cab ? We are at the
end of our walk. I am glad to have seen you again. Good-bye.'^

She put out her hand, which he held for a moment, while he
asked, " AVhere shall I tell him to drive?"

" I can give him his orders when I get in."

He felt hurt, and showed it "Will you not even trust me with
your address ? " said he reproachfully. " What have I done that I
am never to see you again ?"

She looked him full in the face with those deep, dear, honest
eyes.

" My lord, you are a gentleman, you are a man of honour, and
you profess to be my friend. Can you not see that, situated as I am,
you could inflict no greater injury than by seeking my company at
home or abroad ? I will not deny that I was glad to see you to-day;
and when my misfortunes permit, I shall be glad to see you again ;
but in the mean time I do not intend that we shall meet, and I require
you on no account to follow me home. It must be so, believe me,
and I know you will be, as you always were, kind and considerate
and unselfish for my sake."

" By Jove ! you're the best woman in the world," answered Fitz,
completely subdued, and helping her into a hansom cab, with tears
in his eyes. " 111 do anything you ask me, now and always. God
bless you, Mrs. Roy, and good-bye I "

But he could not give her up so entirely, all the same. Before he
had walked twenty yards along the pavement, he spied a limber
fellow in a red waistcoat, who had held his horse and done his errands
on many occasions, and he could not resist the opportunity.
" Do you see that hansom with a gray horse ? "
*' And a white *at, my \oid^ X^, m^ lord "

Roy's Wife. 649

" There is a lady in it ; follow her wherever she goes, and bring
me her address. Do you want any money ? "

" No, my lord— Yes, my lord — ^All right, my lord ! " and the man
vanished like a sprite.

It is thus we travel to our inevitable destination. One step for-
ward, and two back ; such is the pilgrim's unassisted progress along
the narrow way.

Chapter XXVIII.

CHAMPING THE BIT.

John Roy, like the rest of us, seeing every prospect of attaining
his wishes, began to think that, after all, he was not much better off
than before. He seemed, indeed, less a free agent than ever, hampered
by an actual wife and a possible at the same time. Lady Jane, too,
whose former husband could have attested that she was not remark-
ably temperate in single harness, bounced and fretted and made
herself exceedingly disagreeable as one of a pair. Since Roy con-
fided his intention of obtaining a divorce, her ladyship had assumed
many airs and graces, less becoming to a widow than to a bride.

Her friends, finding them useless, discontinued their expostula-
tions, and her intimacy with Mr. Roy, which had ceased to be a nine
days' wonder, seemed to be now accepted as a matter of personal
convenience, creating no interest and little surprise. A woman never
likes an admirer so much as while she has to stand up for him, and
Lady Jane, missing the excitement of fighting his battles with her
fiiends, was fain to substitute that of fighting her own with him. He
belonged to her now, she argued — might be considered, to a certain
extent, in the light of a husband, and must be treated accordingly.

During this period of probation, our injudicious firiend often found
cause to regret the mild and equable rule of the wife he had abandoned.
Lady Jane seemed to expect from him the ready docility of court-
ship, combined with the good-humoured indifference of matrimony.
He was to do exactly what she liked. She was to do exactly what
she pleased. He must be in waiting to attend her at all hours, to all
places, while not objecting to be shunted, at a moment's notice, for
such of her less advanced acquaintances as still disapproved of the
connection. She paraded him at church, of course, and at all the
theatres ; nay, she once went so &r as to take him out shopping,
and kept him by her chair, at Marshall and Snelgrove's, a whole
mortal hour !

650 The GentlematCs Magazine.

He kicked freely that time, and it is only fair to say she never
tried him so high again.

But they were growing a little out of love with each other day by
day. Somehow the bloom was off the thing, and both b^an to
experience an imcomfortable sense of thraldom, though neither could
have explained why. Her heart beat no faster now when she heard his
knock, and he had ceased to follow it upstairs two steps at a time
But a link is none the less secure because for gold has been substi-
tuted iron, and although they often quarrelled, nay, sometimes
yawned, they seemed to affect each other's company more than ever.

That jealousy may exist without love is a position only seeming
imtenable to those who have not studied the more paradoxical sex,
in the rise, progress, and inevitable decay of their affections. Wth a
man, indeed, the sense of proprietorship seldom survives an attach-
ment, and it is only justice to admit that when a woman is once out
of his heart she never enters his head; whereas, perhaps, from
deeper tenderness, perhaps from more insatiable rapacity, perhaps —
how can I tell ? — ^from a mere instinct of acquisitiveness, commcMi
in all animals to the female, a lady never wholly abdicates of her
own free will, but, like a dethroned sovereign, clings to the empty
forms of a lost royalty, closing her baffled fingers on the fruling
shadow of a substance that had passed away.

Lady Jane's jealousies seemed to increase rather than diminish
with her waning affections. If Mr. Roy was five minutes later than
the time specified for an engagement, she told herself, and him too,
that she was siure he had some other attraction ; that he felt his pre-
sent connection a servitude and a clog ; that he was naturally incon-
stant, as she had bitter reason to know ! else, why was their youthful
attachment nipped in the bud ? and why, after deserting his fijrst love,
had he now deserted his wife?

The manifest injustice of such a reproach stung him to the quick,
and he spoke out '^ Hang it 1 Lady Jane," said he ; '^ you and I had
better understand each other before it is too late ! I do not imder-
rate the sacrifices you are making on my behalf. No, and I don't
forget them. I am sure you remind me of them often enough. But
I, too, am in a false position, and a very uncomfortable one besides.
Look at my future. It b dependent on lawyers, and servants, and
evidence, and an imcertain tribunal, of which I dread the publicity.
Yes, I dread it, though I know that justice is on my side. Now, you
are all right You have nothing to consult but your own wishes. If
you want to dismiss me, you need only say the word, and you are
free ! "

Roy's Wife. 651

" What nonsense you talk ! Suppose I should say the word? "

" I must take my hat and go ! It would not be my first dis-
appointment in life. I could get over it, no doubt, like the others."

" I dare say you would not mind it one bit ? '*

" Ask yourself that question, not me, I am tired of protestations
recriminations, botherations of all sorts. Either you trust me, or you
dotCt trust me. Say which ? "

She gave him one of the old looks. ^^Ido trust you," said she
eamestiy ; but added, with a sparkle in the blue eyes, " as far as I
can see you. Not an inch beyond."

" Then you judge of me by yourself ! "

" Mr. Roy, if you came here to insult me, I must remind you there
is a cab-stand in the next street."

" That is a broad hint. Lady Jane, and one I cannot refuse to take.
I wish you good morning."

His hat was in his hand, he had already made two strides, in
high dudgeon, towards the door ; but as he fired up she cooled down,
and it was the Lady Jane of former days, of Kensington Gardens and
Hyde-Park Comer, whose soft voice called him back with a plaintive
little outcry.

" Mr. Roy, don't go ! "

"What would you have?" he asked, with his hand on the
door. " You attack me, you irritate me, you drive me mad with
reproaches, you order me out of your house, and then you say, * Mr.
Roy, don't go ! ' "

"And Mr. Roy has pity, and stays !"

" Mr. Roy was always a fool about somebody^ and gets no wiser,
it appears, as he grows older. But it is really time to put an end to
this kind of thing between you and me. It does seem such utter
folly for people situated as we are ! "

" But we are not situated, — that is what makes me irritable
and anxious, and perhaps a little unreasonable. Admit, now, I
have good reasons for being unreasonable."

" Because I can't drive a coach-and-six through the Laws of
England ! Because I can't set aside a hundred-and-fifty prior cases, to
bring forward my own grievance, and get it settled to-morrow — never
mind it's being Sunday— out of hand ! Yes, perhaps, from a lad5r's
point of view, you are justified in being, as you say, unreasonable ! "

" Now you are a good boy, and talk more like yourself, so I
am beginning not to hate you quite so much. Therefore, I don't
mind asking how we are getting on? Out of mere curiosity, of
course."

it
it

652 TAe Gentleman s Magazine.

^The veiy question I pat to Sharpe yesterday. Ootofineie
cariosity, of coarse."

'' Don't repeat my words, like a wicked parrot It is nice of yoa
to be anxioaSy and — and — ^impatient What did Sharx>e say ? *

^' The old Story — more evUence. These fdlows neivcr think they
have evidence enough."

^Soch nonsense ! If a thing is jet-black, yoa can't make it any
blacker by inking it They ought to set yoa free at onoe. r?e
always said so, and I am sure I am not prejudiced one way or
the other!"

^' Not the least, I should say ; nobody less so ! Well, tfaey are
going on, that is all I could get out of him ; but the thing moves so
slowly, diat it does put me out veiy much."
Why ?" with another of the looks.

For many reasons. In the first place, I abominate uncertainty ;
in the next, lawyers contrive toget througha great deal of money ; and
lastly, I am like a man in prison — ^I hunger and thirst to be free."

She seemed disappointed. '^ Free !" she repeated. ''Is that all?
And shall yovL be free, Mr. Roy, when this tiresome marriage of youn
has been annulled ? "

<< I hope sa You don't think I have got another wife hidden
away in a basket somewhere? Surely one has been trouble
enough ! "

She looked hurt, and her temper began to rise. The love-
making of these two was seldom without such passages of arms, not
always of courtesy, for sometimes they fought with point and edge,
i outrarue.

** I should not be surprised even at that ! I am learning some
strange lessons. One of them teaches me that a woman only receives
a stone in exchange when she gives her heart to a man. You
had better have your stone back again. I don't want it any more."

** Then why did you tell me to stop just now when I was going
away?"

''Why? Because I am a lady. Because I do not choose to turn
a visitor out of my house. Because I am unmasking 3rou every
moment as you sit opposite me in that chair — you used always to sit
on the sofa, but you hate to be near me now. Because, oh ! Mr. Roy,
because I am not a man to foiget the memories of a lifetime in five
minutes, to sacrifice justice, honour, and — and — and a loving woman's
affection at a day's notice for a firesh fancy and a new fiice I "

Then her ladyship began to cry, and so scored several points in
the game.

Roy's Wife. 653

It was his turn to play, but she seemed to have left him very little
on the table ; and what are science, execution, and chalk into the
bargain, without a break?

" The fancy is old, though the face is ^" he answered recklessly,
and, so to speak, taking his chance of a fluke. '' You have no right
to tax me with infidelity, and I hope you only do it to prove my truth.
Suppose I were to turn round and say all these reproaches were a
blind, a pretext for a quarrel, an excuse to get rid of me and take up
with somebody else ! What should you answer to thai f "

'' I should not answer at all ! I should tell you it was absurd,
impossible ; that you were mad and bad too, or such an idea could
never have entered your head ! "

" Lady Jane, I give in. Your logic beats one out of the field.
Good heavens ! how wonderful is the mechanism of a woman's mindl
Let us make a compact. Nothing shall ever tempt us into an argu-
ment after we are married ! "

She turned her head away to hide the blush that mounted to her
temples. " How do you know I shall marry you ? I never said I
would r

" Do you mean that after all I have gone through, my sacrifices,
my anxiety, my distress, and wear and tear of mind and body, you
will throw me over at last ? This is, indeed, a new experience of
women and their ways ! Well, Lady Jane, it is for you to decide.
Be it so. I accept, and for the future "

" Stop a moment, Mr. Roy. I never said I wouldn't /^^

Chapter XXIX.

THE WEATHER-GAUGE.

We left Brail alongside of Miss Bruce's barouche, summoning to
his manly heart the courage he felt oozing, notwithstanding their smart
gloves, through the palms of his brawny hands./ While he approached
the charmer, he felt dissatisfied with his hatter, tailor, and bdotmaker,
discovered that the weather had suddenly become several degrees
warmer, and even experienced an ignoble desire to cut and run, all
which unpleasant sensations vanished under the first glance of her
loving eyes, that absorbed every feeling of self in a delightful con-
sciousness of the presence that was life and sunshine and everything
else to him.

How many times in the last fortnight had he rehearsed jiist &uclx«.

654 Tf^ Gentleman^s Magazine.

scene, with questions, replies, rejoinders, the whole ima^naiy
encounter in which one disputant has it all his own way ! Yet he
could find nothing better to say,|while they shook hands, than, '' How
do you do, Miss Bruce? You are the last person I expected to
find here ! "

" Was that the reason you walked in this direction ? " returned
Hester, whose coolness returned with his obvious discomfiture. " I
hope, Mr. Brail, there is such a thing as an agreeable siuprise."

He coloured, he coughed, he shifted fi'om one foot to the other.
" Oh, yes — very — of course," he stammered, but said to his own heait
the while, " What has come to you? Here's a following wind, and a
flood-tide, and I'm damned if you can make any way at all i "

She marked his confusion, not without a little thrill of triumph,
mch as Pussy feels, no doubt, when the foolish mouse strays into
reach. Then, shutting her parasol only to open it again, she asked
quickly, " Who was that you were walking with? — I mean, the lady
you left to come to me."

" Mrs. John," he answered more boldly, as regaining confidence
on neutral ground ; " that is to say, her name is Roy — Mrs. Roy. I
think you must have known her at Warden Towers."

" Mrs. Roy ! " repeated Hester, in shrill accents of delight
" Then I have lit on her at last Know her 1 I should think I did
know her ! The sweetest, the kindest, the dearest thing alive, and
the most beautiful too. Oh, Mr. Brail ! Mr. Brail ! I have found
you out. No wonder your fiiends never see you, with such an
attraction as that to keep you away. I suppose you walk together
every day in the Park ? "

" I'll take my solemn oath, I never went out with her in my life
before," replied Brail, in great confusion and dismay. " We are at the
same hotel, Miss Bruce ; the fact is, she — well, she keeps it, one may
say — ^and, seeing her pining for fresh air, I proposed a cruise here

away. Miss Bruce, and "

" Keeps an hotel ! " interrupted Hester. " What do )fou mean
by an hotel? Why, she is a. lady. We have dined with her in her
own house at Royston Grange ! "

" A lady she is, and first-class, too ! " exclaimed the sailor. " But
she keeps an hotel, Miss Bruce, all the same — ^you may take my word
for it Hold on a minute. You don't know her history, and I don't
know that I've a right to tell it"

'^ I know more than you think. She has been maligned, and ill-
used, too, unless I'm very much mistaken. I never believed evil of
that woman. Nobody could, who looked her in the face."

Roy's Wife. 655

"It's not your way to think evil of anybody," said Brail, with
honest admiration. " And if you come to talk of faces, you know,
why "

" Tell me all about her, Mr. BraiL I am really interested. Is
she an old friend? Do you see much of her, and — and — don't you
think she is the most beautiful creature you ever beheld? "

" No, I don't I I can't help it. Miss Bruce ; but there are plenty
of ladies, that is to say, there is one lady, I admire ten times more
than Mrs. John. What's the good ? I'm only a poor lieutenant in the
navy, and she is fit to be a queen. I wish—"

" What do you wish ? "

" I wish I might tell her so, right off. Do you think. Miss Bruce,
a girl has a right to be offended with a plain, honest fellow, because
he looks up at her with the same sort of admiration a man has for the
moon, as something belonging to heaven, imspeakably bright and
glorious, but far out of reach ?"

" Offended ! "

" Because he would give her an arm or a leg freely to do her the
smallest service, or his head, for that matter, and thank her for taking
it oflf his shoulders ? "

" His head ! Well, his head might be of some use. What could
she do with his arms and legs, if she had them ? No, Mr. Brail ;
when you talk about heads, you come to the point, and I b^n to
see my way."

" Will you have mine ? I'd cut it off this moment, and give it you
freely."

" No, I will only ask you to lend it to me. In plain English, Mr.
Brail, you can do me a great kindness by simply using your wits."

"You know you're welcome to them, such as they are. Go
ahead. Miss Bruce. Only you give the orders, I'll take care they are
obeyed."

" I want you to find out all you can about this unfortunate couple.
I have set my heart on bringing them together again. Perhaps you
don't know that Mr. Roy is actually trying to get a divorce ? "

" The swab I "

"What's a swab?"

"I beg yoiu: pardon, Mieo Bruce. I mean it's cruel, disgraceful,
infamous ! It will break that poor lady's heart"

" Do you think she cares for him so much ? "

" I am siure she has some deep and bitter sorrow that she bears
with the pluck of— of an angel, you know. I have observed it ever
since we were paid off this last time. She is a different creature

656 The Gmtlemaris Magazine.

from what she used to be. I've never asked her plump, of course,
but I can see she is as unhappy as she can stick."

" How oddly you talk when you're in earnest ! Never mind, I
like it ! Now tell me exactly who she is, and what she is. We
never knew for certain at Warden Towers."

'' It's soon told. She is the niece of a dear old lady who keeps
an hotel near the Strand. She has lived there ever since I went
afloat as a boy, helping her aunt with the accounts and house-
keeping. She is there now, back in her old ways, working like a
nigger, but so altered I cannot bear to see it So sad, so tired, so
paJe! She has hauled down her coloiurs. Miss Bruce, as if she never
meant to hoist them again."

^ Poor dear ! But she is staying with her aunt, you say. I was
sure she would never do anything wrong, or even imprudent, and I
hope, from my heart, Mr. Roy will be punished as he deserves. He
gives out that she ran away from him, that she left her home with —
with another gentleman. Mr. Brail, I'm ashamed to speak of such
things, but if I was a tnan^ I wouldn't rest till I had seen justice done."

" You are not a man. Miss Bruce, happily for the credit of the
ladies, but I am — ^at least, I'm a pretty good imitation — ^and, as I said
before, there is nothing you can tell me to do I won't have a tiy at,
blow high, blow low."

" Do you know Lord Fitzowen ? "

Mr. Brail stared. The question seemed irrelevant, and in his
heart of hearts he rather mistrusted the influence of that voluble
nobleman with the young lady he adored. "Yes," he said, " I know
him well enough. Why ? "

" Do you consider him a what-d'ye-call-it ? — a swab ? "

" Certainly not I believe he is a very good fellow, and I know
he is a gentleman."

" Then you don't believe him a likely person to have placed Mrs.
Roy in a false position by his attentions ? You will wonder, Mr.
Brail, at my entering on such a topic, but I am no longer a girl. I
shall be twenty-fom: my next birthday, and one can't help hearing
people talk. I dare say you think I ought to sit with my mouth
screwed up, and pretend to know nothing 1 "

"I am not the best judge myour case," answered the wily lieu-
tenant. " You would have to be a long way out of your reckoning,
Miss Bruce, before I could admit you were wrong."

" Thank you ! I like people to believe in me. Well, then, about
Lord Fitzowen ? Does he often call on Mrs. Roy at this hotel where
you all seem to be living together in one family? "

Roy's Wife. 657

" Never by the remotest chance. I am sure of it, for I must have
seen him ! "

" Then if it is not Lord Fitzowen, do you think there can be
anybody else?"

"Who should there be? Mrs. John — we always call her Mrs.
John — never sees a soul except on business. She sits in a glass case
like the cook's galley, with a pen in her hand, from morning till
night I had to ask a dozen times before I could get her out for
a walk to-day."

** And you could swear to this ?"

" If I tell you so, of course I could swear it. My word is as good
as my bond — better, for that matter — and I don't know why it should
be worse than my oath ! "

Hester clapped her hands so gaily as to startle her coachman on
the box out of his peaceful doze. " Then we shall beat them ! " she
exclaimed. *' We shall take the wind out of their sails. We have got
the— the "

" Weather-gauge ? "

" The weather-gauge ! Exactly ! Just what I meant Mr. Brail,
I wish you would teach me some more of your sea-terms, they always
express what 1 want to say ! "

He looked immensely delighted, but our friend had learned navi-
gation as well as seamanship, and saw his way to a successful voyage
from a fresh departure, as it were, and on a different course. There
was more credit to be obtained, he thought, by doing her bidding
while still a free agent ; after accomplishing her orders to the letter,
he could come confidently for a reward, that in the mean time must
be rather less than promised, rather more than understood.

" It is very good of you not to laugh at me," said he humbly. " A
man cannot get rid of his seafaring ways and expressions so easily as
he slips out of uniform to go ashore. Well, Miss Bruce, when you
want me, sing out ! I shall soon be alongside."

" Then I'll sing out now. But not loud enough for the servants
to hear. This is a delicate business to undertake, and a difhcult, but
I think you have a good head on your shoulders, and a good heart
in your — well, wherever a man's heart is supposed to be."

" I know where mine is. Never mind. Go ahead."

" You shall have your sailing instructions. That is right, is it not ?
But of course they must be modified by circumstances, and a good
deal is left to your discretion."

** I understand, a sort of roving commission."

" Call it what you like. I don't think I shall be very hard upon
VOL, ccxLii. HO. 1770. u u

658 The Gentleman's Magazine.

you, so long as you do your duty. In the first place, you must get
introduced to Mr. Roy. I can help you so far. Then you must
make friends with him. You will have to manage that for your-
self."

" Can't you let me off making fiiends ? I couldn't shake hands
with a man who has behaved so like a scoundrel."

** You may trust to me. He is not such a — ^what is it? — ^not such
a swab as you seem to think. He will listen to reason if he hears it
from an unprejudiced person who leans to neither side. You are
that unprejudiced person. What earthly reason can you have for
interesting yourself in Mrs. Roy?"

" Does he not know she is a fnend of yours ? "
Miss Bruce blushed crimson. The sailor was not sure whether he
had made a point or a blunder.

"That need not enlighten him," proceeded the young lady.
" You are a firiend of mine, and of papa's, but how should Mr. Roy
have learned that interesting fact ? People in London only make
themselves acquainted with things which are not Do as I tell you,
and all will come right."

" Then tell me what to do."

" When Mr. Roy and you have dined together once or twice and
smoked a dozen cigars, you will become what gentlemen call great
friends. Then you will say to him, ' My dear fellow, I hope you
believe I would do you a tum if I could.' "

Brail stared. Was there nothing she didn't know, nothing she
couldn't do ? Why, she would leam to command an ironclad in a
week !

** He will answer, * I am sure you would. One expects no less
from a true friend,' " continued Hester, with a comical imitation of
the male voice and manner that plunged her victim fathoms deeper
in love than ever. * When I want you, 111 look you up.' Then you
must say, * You want me now. You are getting into an awful mess.
Have another cigar. I am going to tell you something you ought to
luiow — if s about Mrs. Roy ! ' He will probably look and feel very
angry, but he won't have anything to say at a moment's notice, and
while he is trying to think of an answer you can go on. * I happen
to have heard a great deal of that lady since 3rour differences.
She has been living with her aunt in the strictest seclusion. She is
never visited by a soul, and you have no more chance of getting a
divorce than I have of being Archbishop of Canterbury.' That's
strong enough, I think," concluded Miss Hester, opening her parasol
with a jerk to point this triumphant peroration.

Roy's Wife. 659

"And if I can get so far before he heaves a glass of grog in my
face, I shall have done a day's duty and earned a day's pay/' said the
sailor, contemplating his teacher with an expression of blended
adoration and amusement

" A day's duty," repeated Hester, " deserves a day's pay. Good gra-
cious, Mr. Brail, how long do you think we have been chattering here?**

** Five minutes."

**Five-and-forty, more likely! Look at my watch. Papa will
think I am lost I must go now — Mr. Brail, good-bye."

" And when shall I see you again ?"

" Oh ! not for a long time. (His face fell) Not to-morrow,
certainly." (It brightened again.)

" The day after, then ? "

" No, I think not, unless we go to the Horticultural.'*

"You will%o to the Horticultural ?"

" Not before five o'clock. Please tell them to drive on, Mr. BraiL
Once more, good-bye."

The horses were already in motion, the servants' backs were
turned, nobody was looking ; he bent over the slender gloved hand
she gave him, and pressed it to his lips.

His heart was stout, but it thrilled ; his brain was steady, but it
swam. When he awoke out of his ecstasy, the carriage was a quarter-
of-a-mile off, and she turned her head for the smallest fraction of a
second, and gave him a last look.

"I've done it!" said Brail, walking rapturously off towards
Kensington Gardens, for in his supreme delight he had lost "his
bearings," as he called them, and all knowledge of where he was.
" She can't make any mistake now ; and if it didn't seem impossible^ I
should say she meant me to try. She's not a girl to play fast and
loose with a man. Quite different ! I've seen them with dieir heads
all round the compass, so as no seamanship could bring them to, but
she's not one of that sort I believe in her like my Bible. The
weather-gauge, indeed ! How prettily she said it 1 Perhaps 111 have
the weather-gauge myself one of these days, and tow you into port,
my beauty, with a ring and a parson, and a whole fleet of brides-
maids, as happy as a king. Ah ! there's nothmg like it, when youYe
spliced to such a duck as that ! Talk of money, rank, fiishion I
Rubbish ! They're not worth a hank of rotten yam I Give me a
merry heart, a good conscience,

*' And the wind that blows,
And the ship that goes,
And tlie lass that lovci a sailor I "

u u 2

66o Tlu Gentleman's Magazine.

Chapter XXX.

WATCH AND WATCH.

It is not to be supposed that Lord Fitzowen's red-waistcoated
emissary failed in the task assigned him. He came to demand his
recompense, furnishing Nelly's full name and address within an
hour of his first start, and hung about Lord Fitzowen's residence tin
that nobleman should return to dress for dinner, contentedly
enough wishing, indeed, that all the jobs he took in hand were as easy
of accomplishment and as sure to be well-paid.

Comer Hotel, Comer Street, Strand. Surely no locality could be
less calculated to screen a lady from pursuit ! Why not take a room
there at once, disguised as a bagman — ^with such a red wig and sample
of hardware as should defy recognition, not to resume his real {cha-
racter until assured of forgiveness and success? The idea, though
tempting, was too theatrical, and he dismissed it with regret Such
an adventure would have suited his versatile genius, no doubt, but
seemed repugnant to good taste. Moreover, Fitz felt conscious, not
only of admiration for Mrs. Roy, but also of profound respect. This
it was that distinguished the present from all his past attachments,
and caused him to fear that he must be very fax gone indeed.

So he was content to wait a day or two, and then despatched a
bouquet of liberal dimensions, addressed to Mrs. Roy. Nelly,
believing, simply enough, that this floral offering was a gallantry from
Brail, thanked him accordingly, and it was only after the sailor's ener-
getic disavowal that she suspected the real offender. But what was the
use? she could not send them back ; the flowers were very beautiful,
bringing with them odours of summer, almost gleams of sunshine,
into the cook's galley, as the lieutenant called it, where she cast up
her bills.

"They're lovely, my dear, whoever sent them," protested her aunt
" Flowers isn't like ornaments, Nelly ; they're to be had for the
gathering. A young woman needn't be ashamed to accept of flowers,
come from where they will, and a young man wouldn't offer flowers
as didn't mean honest and honourable. If it was a bracelet, now, or
a pair of gold earrings, they'd have to go back next post : I've done it
myself scores of times ; but when they come with a nosegay. Thank ye,
kindly, says I, and you're welcome to a nosegay from me, if you look
for anything in retum ! "

Thus it fell out that when Lord Fitzowen summoned courage to
call in person at the Comei Hgtel^ he fQund his bouquet set in a jug

Roys Wife. 66 1

of water, propped by two ledgers on her writing-table, under Nelly's
very nose. Any encouragement thus afforded, seemed, however,
sufficiently counteracted by that lady's greeting, which was of the
coldest and most reserved. Putting her lips to an orifice in the wall,
that communicated by some mysterious pipe with the basement, she
summoned a flippant waiter to assist at the interview, ignoring
sternly the possibility that his lordship could have called for any
purpose less business-like than that of seciuing rooms. Fitz was not
easily defeated ; but it must be confessed that this masterly manoeuvre
placed him at considerable disadvantage. His frank, open nature
did him better service than any amount of artifice.

" Forgive me," he said, lifting his hat, " I only ventured to intrude
because, having discovered your address by accident, I wanted to
finish something I forgot to say the last time we met"

Nelly had turned very pale, but her lip was steady and her voice
firm while she answered : " I require no apology. I thought my
wishes would have had greater weight. I am sorry to find I am
mistaken. I conclude there is nothing more to be said."

The waiter stared, and whisked his napkin. Lord Fitzowen^
trying to intimate with his eye that it would be well if this functionary
were dismissed, preserved an awkward silence ; while Mrs. John did
a sum in addition, and did it wrong.

*' Do you wish to see my aunt ? " she said at last, looking up with
a gravity which proved too much for her visitor.

For all his romance, volatile Fitz was keenly alive to the ludicrous,
and he fairly burst into a laugh.

His mirth seemed contagious ; Nelly could not forbear smiling,
though resolved none the less to remain on her defence.

" Will you introduce me to your aunt ? " he exclaimed. " I should
be so delighted. I want to know the whole fiamily."

" It is all very well to laugh," replied Mrs. John, resuming her
gravity ; " but I should have thought you the last person in the world
to take unfair advantage of any one — particularly of the unhappy.
Do not force me to confess I was mistaken."

'' You don't mean I must never come and see you at all ? " said his
lordship ruefully. ** I only ask to be of service : I had no time to
tell you so the other day. I would run your errands, fetch and carry
for you like a dog ! "

'' I don't want a dog," she answered ; ''and I have nothing to
fetch and carry."

" But I may send you some more flowers, at any rate ? Afler all,
they are only vegetables. There can be no objection to flowers."

662 The Gentleman s Mazazine.

'j>

'< Neither flowers nor vegetables. I ought to have thanked jaa
for these. But no more ; and good-bye ! "

So his lordship had nothing for it but to walk out, baffled, defeated,
more enthralled than ever, and gathering what consolation he could
from his late rebufil

'' At least," he thought, '' she seemed to like the flowers. That
must mean she will forgive me for sending more. What on earth
made her have the waiter up ? I don't know why one should mind
waiters ; they must hear and see all sorts of thmgs. A waiter is really
no more protection than a toothpick ! Yes, I must be patient In
a week, or peihaps less, I might call again. I can excuse myself by
urging that she would not listen to me to^y. By d^;rees she will
get used to it, and in time she will let me sit in that g^ass-case with
her — of course under surveillance of the aunt, and eventually, perhaps,
only of the waiter. I can square Atm. It will be a long business, but
I shouldn't mind that, if I thought she would care for me at last. It's
up-hill work — I have made lamentably slow progress ; yet I cannot
help flattering myself I got the thin end of the wedge in to-day ! "

Thus ruminated his lordship under the erroneous impression that
it is possible to judge of one woman by another, or that experience
and analogy are of the slightest assistance in predicating the turns of
the female mind ; and while so ruminating, returned, instinctively, the
salute of that red-waiscoated messenger whom he so often employed.
As red-waistcoat looked after the nobleman with an admiring shake
of the head, he was accosted by a person wearing a shabby suit of
black, like an undertaker in difficulties, who pressed a sixpence into
his willing paluL

" What's this for ? " asked the recipient, at once suspecting " some-
thing up."

" Why, you see, my man, I'm from the coimtry."

" You looks like it," interrupted red-waistcoat

"From the country," continued the other, indifferent to irony.

" Corned up for the Horse Show ; and I want to know some of the

tip-toppers, if it's only by sight, so as to talk of them when I gets

home."
u Veil ? "

" Now, that is a real, natural swell, I'm sure of it, as you touched
yoiu: hat to just now. Would you mind obliging me with his name ? "
'*Vich?"

''The young gentleman in a blue surtout, with his hat a-one-side.**
" Wot ! Don't you know 'iVw ? "
"No. Who is he?"

Ro^s Wife. 663

" Who is he ? Why, Captain Bull That's who ^ is ! I
thought as everybody knowed Captain Bull ! "

And red-waistcoat, true to his salt, having mistrusted this country-
breed inquirer from the first, disappeared down a by-street, to melt
his late gratuity in gin.

The shabby man smiled, shook his head, and walked on. '' It's
a good name," he said to himself, '' a very good travelling name, is
Captain Bull. I might find it handy some of these days in my own
way of business. So his lordship calls himself Captain Bull, does he,
when he takes his little walks and plays his little game at this here
end of the Strand ? Let's see, now. The day before yesterday a
nosegay of flowers, not far short of a guinea's worth, I'll wager ;
to-day a visit under a false name ; to-morrow ? — to-morrow will be
an off-day, I guess. Spell of work — spell of rest ; that's about the
size of it with these here upper-crusts. And next week, maybe, she'll
drive out with him in a hired brougham, or what-not. I think I see
my way to put the puzzle together, piecing it in, bit by bit, till every
joint fits exact, smooth, and even as the palm of yoiu: hand. Then I
goes to my employer and draws my ten quid, and perhaps a couple
more for luck. Yes, I don't think I laid out that sixpence so badly.
For a Londoner, and a gutter-bred one, this chap in a red weskit
seems what I call a trifle soft^

Not so soft as the shabby person supposed. Red-waistcoat, who
had swept a crossing in St James's Street, hung about Tattersall's yard,
held their horses for Members of both Houses at Westminster, and,
when Parliament was not sitting, had spent one recess on plain fare
and regular exercise at Brixton, was about as sharp a blade as can be
turned out by the hard grindstone of lower London life. He saw
through the would-be countryman at a glance, detected the detective
by his boots — €x pede Herculem — ^and, making sure he was not followed,
ran like a lamp-lighter, through certain by-streets, to Lord Fitzowen's
house, where his knowledge of human nature told him his lordship
would return for revisal of his toilet after a visit to his lady-love in
the Strand.

He arrived simultaneously with that nobleman, and passed into
the hall by aid of the owner's latch-key.

"Well, Jack, what's up now?" asked Fitzowen, flinging his
umbrella with a clatter into the stand.

" You're watched, my lord ! " was the answer. " I made bold to
come on here at once, and give yoiu: lordship the office. When a
man knows as he's watched, there ain't no danger, like when a man
knows as he's drunk 1 " ">

664 The Gentleman's Magazine.

" Ho\i did you find it out, Jack? "

" Bless ye, my lord ! I hadn't no call to go a-finding of it out ;
the cove jumped slap into my mouth. * Who's that gent ? ' says he,
when I lifted my 'at to your lordship, which you returned polite. I
wam't agoin' to give him the tip, my lord, not if I know'd it I'm
not such a flat"

" Do you think he had been following me long ? "

" Best part of an hour, my lord. I see him before, when your
lordship passed down Pall-Mall. I couldn't be mistaken, a-cause of
his boots. He ain't a bobby, my lord 3 you've no call to be afraid of
that ; but he's as bad, if not worse."

" You'd know him again, I suppose ? "

" Anywheres, my lord. He couldn't deceive me^ not if I was to
drop on to him in a church."

"Then keep a sharp look-out. If you see that he tracks me
regularly, get into conversation with him, and find out his employer,
if you can."

" Let me alone, my lord. I'll soon know wot he's up to. Good
day, my lord. It's uncommon hot this afternoon."

" Are you thirsty, Jack ? "

" Always dry, my lord, begging your lordship's pardon."

" ITien go and wet your whistle with that, and don't come here
again till you've got something to tell me I didn't know before."

Red-waistcoat, pocketing a handsome gratuity, went rejoicing; while
Lord Fitzowen, dressingTleisurely for an afternoon ride, meditated on
Mrs. Roy's deep grey eyes, and the false position in which he had
placed both her and himself.

Watched I Had it indeed come to this ? He could depend on
Red-waistcoat ; the fellow was sharp as a needle, and familiar with
every kind of intrigue, even in phases of life far higher than his own.
There was no likelihood of his being mistaken, audit seemed probable
that, for some reason as yet unexplained, the attachment he had
allowed himself to cherish for this deserted wife was now suspected
by her husband. There would be an action at law, a show-up, a
general row, and he was to be made the scapegoat 1 What then?
Why, Mr. Roy was playing into his very hands. He desired nothing
better. Outraged, insulted, compromised by the man who ought to
have protected her, found guilty by the verdict of society before trial
and without evidence, her good name irretrievably tarnished as thus
connected with his own, Nelly would be more or less than woman if
she refused the only shelter left — ^his love, his protection, and his home.
They would go abioad at oucc. How delightful ! " The world for-

Roy's Wife. 665

getting, by die world forgot," they would find some beautiful nook in
Germany, Switzerland, the Italian Alps, no matter where, to furnish
the first example of a pair who, having set the decencies of life at
defiance, could make each other happy as the day is long I Would
he tire of her at last ? No, no ; a thousand times, no. And all the
while, with masculine self-sufficiency, he never dreamed of speculating,
would she tire of him ?

Pending this fin^l catastrophe, distant enough as yet, excepting
Lord Fitzowen's vivid imagination, Mr. Roy paid frequent visits to
Lincoln's Inn, returning therefrom day by day, with an increasing
depression of spirits that Lady Jane taxed all her energies to dispel
It vexed her not a little to see a man whom she now began to
consider personal property, in no way elevated by his prospects —
grave, silent, even morose, showing unaccountable dislike to the
pa3rment or acceptance of those little attentions by which women
set such store.

''I can't think what's the matter with you 1 " exclaimed her ladyship,
fairly out of patience with his continued despondency. " If it wasn't
so bad a compliment to myself, and I didn't know it must be impos-
sible, I should say you were in love with that odious wife of yours all
the time ! "

{To be continued,)

666 The Gentleman's Magazine.

DOMESTIC SLAVE-DEALING IN

TURKEY.

DO Englishmen— one is sometimes tempted to ask — at all
realise to themselves that Turkey is a great slave-owning
Power ? It would seem that most of us are either oblivious of this
fact, or indifferent to it. For in the rush of eloquence which is
poured out on the Eastern Question in Parliamentary debates and
political meetings, in the stream of words that flows from the pens
of our newspaper article-writers, in critical letters and denunciatoiy
pamphlets — ^how often do we find this fact even alluded to ? We
must confess that it is, by at least one great section of Englishmen,
entirely thrust in the background, as a bugbear not easy to deal with,
and best left unfaced. It may lurk in the dark shadows of things
that are, but it is best not to drag it out of the obscurity that has so
long shrouded it ; for that would surely be to complicate this
Eastern Question, through which so few of us can at present see
hopes of the dawn.

And yet it may well be a question whether any of those friends
of the Sick Man who are anxious to set him on his feet again
dare ignore a symptom of weakness and dissolution which, through
long neglect, has cankered and undermined his national strength.

A nation of slaves must be a nation of units, amongst whom
there can be but little true cohesion. If I am told that Turkey may
not strictly be called "a nation of slaves," let it be conceded that,
even amongst her free-men, many of her Beys and Pachas have
risen from a state of servitude, whilst those of the higher orders who
can boast of anything approaching family descent on the father's
side (and these are not many) are, in the greater number of cases,
the children of slave mothers ; so that the taint of slavery thus clings
to the domestic life of the Turk notwithstanding that he himself may
be free-bom. And as national life is but the outcome of family life,
it follows that the political institutions of Turkey must be more or
less aflfected by this slavery, which, however patriarchal in form, has
gone far to graft upon the race a servility of character growing more
and more innate as time runs on.

Domestic Slave-dealing in Turkey, 667

But it is not my intention to enlarge on this topic here. Taking
the existence of slavery as an acknowledged fact in the national life
of Turkey, we pass on to a consideration of the conditions under
which domestic slave traffic goes on.

And in the first place it is necessary to make a classification of
the slaves themselves. Let us divide them according to the simplest
distinctions which Turkish customs force on our attention. We then
have these four classes: the blacks, or eunuchs ; the white serving-
men ; the Negro or coloured women ; and the Circassians, or white
women. We must next ask, Who are the agents that effect the sale
and transfer of slaves, seeing that the scandal of a public slave
market is avoided in Turkey ? And the answer will show us that this
baneful trade, in one particular development, has the peculiar feature
of being promoted by those who are themselves slaves.

For the eunuchs, or black guardians of the hareem, great as is
their authority in the household, are bought and sold, and are
essentially the property of the master or mistress whom they serve.
And yet it is they who are the chief medium in effecting the transfer
of slaves. Not only so, but some, if not all of them, may occa-
sionally possess slaves of their own, and find means to carry on
limited speculations on their own account, either in the way of pro-
curing from Africa and placing out the younger eunuchs, or in
rearing young girls in order to dispose of them advantageously as
occasion offers. Here are two facts which are alone sufficient to
explain how the sale of slaves in Turkey and Egypt can be managed
as quietly and decorously as it is, and in a way which no pretence of
law-making can prevent In fact,, no amount of legislation about
Eastern slavery can be really effective which does not deal with the
root of the matter. Whilst the Turkish and Egyptian husband,
father, and householder is content to maintain a class of black
jailors to manage the women of the family for him, so long that
class will endeavour by every means to increase the trade by which it
lives, and which is the cause of its existence and power.

And there is, amongst these black guardians of the hareem — so
despised on the one hand, so feared on the other — a certain esprit de
corps such as one knows imites the members of the Jesuit priesthood.
There is a falling back upon the sense of brotherhood for strength
and support, and a tenacious clinging to the authority of the office.
The master's del^;ated power is, in fact, the eunuch's only brevet of
rank in the household ; and if he displeases his effendi, a word firom
the latter may reverse his position, and place him under the command
of one of his fellows, erewhile his subordinate. Nevertheless, so

668 The Gentlematis Magazine.

important does he know his services to be, that he is sure his condnct
will be screened and his position upheld within the ^Sacred
Enclosure " (as the hareem is called). The eunuch has thus a two-
fold position of dependence; his obligation to serve his master
^thfiilly, yet please and satisfy the whims of his master's wives and
his master's household The double service usually makes him a
sycophant and a traitor to his duty. It gives him also the oppor-
tunity to profit in a money point of view by his office. For, as I
have pointed out elsewhere, he can often obtain sufficient influence
over his mistress to induce her to aUow him to place in her hareem
some little boy or girl slave whom he has bought as an investment,
and whom he can rear and train there at a nominal expense; or
^ling this, he can place the child out to board.

To free-bom Englishmen and women, living under laws which
secure personal freedom, it must be difficult to conceive how one,
himself shackled by the fetters of slavery, can lend his hand willingly
to enslave another for any profit he may gain. But here let us not be
too harsh in our judgment, nor too sweeping in our condemnation of
those who do this thing. Few hearts are wholly bad, or wholly
swayed by the passion for gain, even amongst the class of whom I
am writing ; and although in this slave traffic the love of money
generally comes to be the ruling motive, other and softer feelings
may at first dispute its rule. Isolated by his very position in the
household, knowing himself in most cases to have been kidnapped
and carried off from his own people, he comes to crave for the love
and respect and dependence of some one human being. Very likdy
he first buys and keeps some little child from much the same motive
as would lead us to keep and to cherish a pet : we like to have it, to
teach it to depend on us, to make it fond of us. Unfortunately,
many a person who keeps a pet is often more cruel than kind to it,
and this chiefly by ignoring sympathy, companionship, and those
litde interchanges of kindly attention which awakened afTection
craves. And so it no doubt happens in the case of the purchaser
and the bought child — there is no strong tie to bind the two together,
no constant companionship, or community of interest ; by-and-by
comes the opportunity for separation, and it is not evaded by any
plea of sentiment. An advantageous position will naturally be
sought for the proikgh^ and, if possible, one where she will pass fix)m
the condition of a slave into that of a wife. For the eunuchs are
tenacious of their influence, and by no means despise the opportuni^
of having another entrU into society ; they desire by all means to be
on visiting terms with the slave just transferred to another's owner-

Domestic Slave-dealing in Turkey. 669

ship, and on this account, if for no other reason, they take care to
keep on terms of friendly relationship both before and after con-
cluding the bargain which removes their late possession from their
further control, unless this influence be kept up by association and
the force of habit. So it comes to pass that, where such a master
has been fairly considerate, if not truly kind, he may retain, if he will,
a modified influence over the woman he has just sold, and may even
be repaid in future by a certain amount of gratitude and consideration
in return for the '' bringing-up " he has bestowed.

This will generally follow as a part of the training given, reverence
for an owner being instilled into a slave as a habit of mind. A slave,
in fact, does not look upon himself or herself as an individual^ but
as a dependent essentially a part of another, that other being the one
to whom he looks for his sustenance and the supply of his most
absolute daily needs — more he would think unreasonable, except in
rare cases. The idea of being independent — ^the sense of individual
responsibility in having to provide for his own wants — these have
never presented themselves to his mind. If the circumstances of his
life permitted him to conceive of a state of freedom, with the
anxieties and cares it must bring, he would probably, on the whole,
prefer the low level of a certain poor provision, with slavery, to the
uncertainties of a precarious existence in which he was not sure of
being able to obtain his own livelihood (owing to the depressed state
of trade and commercial enterprise as engaged in by Turks them-
selves). This supposition refers, of course, to the case where the
master has not been unduly harsh.

The case where the slave-owner is cruel or vindictive will, on the
other hand, destroy the soft mezzo-tinting of our picture. And we
may be sure that the lines may fall in every gradation of shading.
The master may be the exacting, self-asserting tyrant, or the kindly,
gently domineering owner ; between these two extremes every degree
of tyranny may intervene. But where cruelty has been wantonly
exercised, or petty annoyances have been ceaselessly inflicted, who
can tell what agony of mind, what contempt of the justice of men,
goad the slave to hatred of such a master, and impatience of his
yoke? Then poverty and the prospect of semi-starvation would be
welcome indeed, might liberty but be secured at the price of any long
endurance of mere privations in the future.

But the eunuch himself is not often tempted to such a bitter pass.
And yet he rarely looks forward to being other than a slave. It is,
indeed, an exceptional case when he attains his freedom even after
y^ars of long and faithful service. That it is so may be easily under-

670 The Gentleman's Magazine.

stood when we reflect that he himself is flattered hj the sense of
importance he derives from his oflice, which he therefore delights
to retain ; that years only add to his value in experience^ and in-
crease the consideration and obedience he is expected to exact
from those placed under his hand ; whilst, lastly and chiefly, the
riches and possessions he may have acquired in any way, either by
slave-dealing, horse-dealing, radng, betting, or gaming, become,
at his death, the property of his owner — whose interest it is^
therefore, to retain possession of so valuable a servant to tiie
last

If now we consider the eimuch not any longer in the r^i^ of prin-
cipal, but only as a medium of efiecting bargains for others in the
sale of slave property, we shall come upon a wider field. Here he is
legitimately occupied about the business of his employers. The
etiquette of Eastern life restrains a master from making inquiries on
his own account ; many Eastern ladies are too indolent to conduct
negotiations for themselves. If a slave is wanted with special
characteristics, such a one the eunuch undertakes to find, and sudi
characteristics he determines to test Here he has scope for his
peculiar talents — ^his power of observation and skill in trying what
amount of tact, perseverance, reticence, and integrity the proposed
purchase may possess. The business gives him occupation for some
long time, and interferes a good deal with his favourite game of back-
gammon ; but then it necessitates his paying so many visits to the
neighbouring hareems, that that of itself is some return for his trouble
and watchfulness. Wherever he goes he is well received, both by his
fellows, by the ladies of the house, or, in the mistress's absence, by
the upper slaves ; and as, on his roimds, his budget of news increases
in volume, this gives him a surer passport to welcome at each succeed-
ing visit. Still, no wayside amusements can long distract his attention
from the end he has in view, and sooner or later he hunts up jost the
goods he wants, and having beforehand arranged matters between
the principals, he has only to introduce them and leave them to con-
clude their bargain, feeling very sure that he will receive a douceur
as commission from both parties as soon as the transfer is effected.
It may become his duty to cany or receive the sealed canvas bag
which contains the gold pieces that are the price of a human being,
and from which he expects to have handed back to him a few shining
coins as a token of the estimation in which his services as go-between
are held ; but the old woman kiahia (superintendent) of the hareem
may dispute the privilege with him.

The position of a eunuch difiers considerably according to the

Domestic Slave-dealing in Turkey. 671

grandeur of the establishment to which he belongs.' If he is young,
and only in training for his duties, he may be little better than a
mere door-keeper, but as he grows older and has to watch over his
mistress and her slaves, to attend them when they go out, and
accompany them when they go to stay at the houses of their friends,
he begins to understand that he is a somebody of importance ; he
is likely to find that as he increases in favotu*, and is treated with
distinction by the ladies under his charge, so far he will have to
suffer from the envy or suspicion — sometimes from the falsehoods
and cabals — of his superiors in office (and the larger hareems usually
employ several eimuchs). Then comes a struggle for supremacy,
the end of which may well be that one of the two contending parties
is morally worsted in the eyes of the household, whilst the other sees
the plots he has raised against his enemy succeed so far as to
accomplish his removal from the house, either by his being given
away or sold. The former method is generally resorted to where
the slave is already in the secrets of the household ; for by his being
transferred to some member of the owner's family his reticence is
pretty sure to be secured, either by fear or bribes.

A master in the art of dissimulation, by nature a bully and a
tyrant, the black eunuch has cunning and sagacity enough to lord it
with a high hand over the white lady he was bought to serve, and
whose actual property he, with aU that belongs to him, may be. And
she, from habit, and bound down by the paralysing force of custom,
submits in dumb fear to the tyranny he can exercise over her in a
thousand petty ways. Such is one of the darkest problems of social
life in Turkey !

So much for the class of slaves whom I have placed in the first
division, on account of their anomalous position as slaves who may
be both principals and intermediaries in domestic slave-dealing.

In the second class we may place those boys and men, white and
black, who, being slaves, are employed in various occupations in
the saidamiik. The slavery is so essentially domestic in character
(probably owing to the total absence of women from the men's part
of the house), that all duties which come under the head of house-
work— such as sweeping, making coffee, attending to fires, serving
the table, makmg up beds, bringing candles, trimming lamps, setting
up night-lights (wicks burning in oil), and placing them throughout

1 It is only the richer classes of Turks who can afford to keep eunuchs to
guard their hareems. The old woman Hakia kadm is the guardian in the middle-
class houses, and a negress, or a white slaye chosen for her ugliness, in quite poor
dwellings.

6/2 The Gentlematis Magazine.

the sleq>ing rooms — have aU to be performed by men slaves, or by
paid servants who are for the most part Armenians or Greeks. Thexe
seemed to be, however, when I was in Turkey, no lack of young boys
and youths and grown-up men who avowedly were slaves. They
might be what one would hardly term pages or valets, jret they were
both, and might pass from one service to the other, or become pipe-
servers or waiters. Some who were, perhaps, not strictly slaves,
seemed contentedly to accept the implied position of slaves. Thus,
an old grandmother, who had never received her paper of manumis-
sion,^ might be looking after a stiurdy boy of six, the orphan child of
her married daughter, now dead, and the boy would be reckoned as
one of the household to which his grandmother belonged, and in which
he shared the little room set apart for her. Or a sood-nina (foster-
mother), when her charge was duly weaned, would leave her own boy
behind her, because, being a pretty child, the khanum had taken a
fancy to him, and had half promised to adopt him. That happened to
one of the sweetest little fellows I have ever seen ; but he, I believe,
was adopted en r}gU^ since he proved to be as affectionate and good-
tempered as handsome, and his mother, a Circassian, was said to be
quite willing to give him up. If he was not adopted, and also
properly provided for, I should fear that on the death of his pro-
tectress his position might be most uncertain as regards his personal
freedom.

Until a strict system of Registration of Births comes into force in
Turkey, the claim to freedom by birthright can in certain cases be
easily set at nought' Such a registration is the more needed, since
there is no ceremony of naming performed at the mosque corre-
sponding to our registered baptism, a father merely giving a name to
his child when its birth is announced to him, and this without any
ceremony whatever. Mussulman male children are probably not
reckoned in the population of Turkey till after the rite of circum-
cision, which may be delayed five or eight years. No return is made
of Mussulman women in the statistics of the country.

Let me remark here that the buying and selling of slaves of the class
with whom we are now concerned, appeared to me to rest chiefly in
the hands of the kiahia^ or house-steward, where the purchase was
for a large household. As to the price which slaves may fetch, there

* Slaves do not generally marry until they are made free ; for the children of
slaves would belong to the proprietor of the slaves. This is the case commonly
amongst the Arabs in Africa. The Turkish law resembles the old Roman law on
this and many other points of slavery.

* This article was in type before the Daily News of May 13th announced an
intended reform in Ihe ieg>slTatioa of births and deaths throughout Turkey.

Domestic Slave-dealing in Turkey. 673

is no fixed rule. Thus, a white slave may be bought for from 50 to
1,000 Turkish pounds; a negress for from 25 Turkish pounds up-
wards ; and a eunuch costs from about the same figure to any fancy
price, which varies according as his extreme ugliness, imposing ap-
pearance, or address in the arts of sycophancy may recommend him
for the place he is bought to fill. The above figures were given to
me by an effendi.

Slaves who are the lowest attendants in the sal&amlik have a
rough life. They eat where they can, and sleep on a thin mattress
thrown down where they can find a comer out of the draught These
correspond to the hoars or villeins of Saxon days. A grade above
these comes the lallah^ or man-nurse, who dresses like an upper
servant, and is treated with much consideration. A lallah may in
some families be a free man receiving wages, but he has usually grown
up as a slave companion to some little hey (every little hey having
one or two such playmates who are brought up with him). Being a
slave as a boy, he remains in a state of easy servitude as a man.
When his old occupations fail him, he is named lallah^ probably to his
master's first child. Whilst his charge is yet young he will carry him
out in his arms for hours, and when he is older, will patiently saunter
along beside the toddling child. In the same way little girls may share
the lallah s care. He is responsible for the child's safety when not in
the care of the black iiada (woman nurse) within the hareem. Later on
he is also responsible for the respectful conduct the boy shows towards
his khodja (tutor) when he begins to attend the mekteh (or class for
teaching reading and writing) : and it is not easy at first to persuade
a young pupil to consider as a very serious affair a lesson which
seems to consist of mimicry and imitation; for the child, seated
opposite the teacher (whose very gravity increases the comical side
of the exhibition), is taught to go through a violent gymnastic swaying
of the body to a sort of rhythmic nasal braying, before he gets by
heart his syllables, and next some verses of the Kordn. As the lallah
has more sympathy, so he has more influence with the pupil than the
khodja himself, certainly until his hyperbolical lessons of morality
come to be apprehended. This influence is generally durable, and its
strength greatly depends on the degree of affectionate familiarity to
which the boy has permitted himself to become accustomed. If there
has been much attempt on the part of his attendant to curb his will
habitually, then there is naturally a feeling of relief when the time comes
that the lallah is no longer considered indispensable, and the result
then is that the latter is passed on to some younger brother, or cousin,
pr friend. The stability of the position of a slave of this stan^in^'tois^a

VOL. CCXLIL NO. I77O. X 'i^

674 '^^ Gentlematis Magazine.

much then, at this crisis, on the amount of tact he has known how to
exercise in dealing with the whims of his young master during his
hours of relaxation, when his nominal business is merely attending him
on horseback, or sitting cross-l^ged behind him in a caique to hold
over his head the great umbrella that shelters him from the sun. Thus
it depends much on the lallah himself whether he shall be retained
about the person of his charge, his position gradually changing into
that of semi-mentor, semi-valet, as the boy grows from the youth into
the man. If his master prove grateful for his services, he may expect
to receive his paper of manumission by the time he is forty or five-and-
forty, and with it a pension which enables him to have a household
of his own. The children of such a freed slave will then merge into
the lower orders of the Turkish people, unless some fortunate chance
should raise them to affluence and position. Such good luck comes,
however, more frequently to a slave than to a free-man.

Yet, very naturally, a slave always looks to receiving his freedom (with
some sort of provision) sooner or later ; and knowing that some ten or
fifteen years of steady service^ will almost ensiure his obtaining it from
a considerate master, he will see that it is to his interest to behave
well, and will do all he can to merit his master's approval ; or, failing
thaty will at least avoid all causes of offence which might arouse against
himself any strong displeasure. I have no doubt that this hope of
thus one day winning his freedom holds many a slave silent as to
his master's cruelty or wrong-doing when the impulse awakened by
natural indignation is so strong that no other consideration could
restrain it It is at the same time possible that the patriarchal
character of the relation between master and slave, still traceable in
the East, may serve to bind the two by a tie of conmion interests,
which makes the one willingly merge his personal responsibility in
that of the other. But the evils of the system are sufficiently manifest,
and undoubtedly give rise to a state of things in which every phase
of tyranny is possible.

I have already observed that one characteristic of slavery amongst
the Turks at the present day is, that it is strictly domestic ; that is to
say, whilst the women-slaves are confined within the hareem, virtually
as prisoners, the men-slaves are employed chiefly indoors in the
saidamiiky and rarely about the grounds. There are several reasons
for this. In the first place, the Turkish master himself would con-

• I reckon these years of service from the time the slave is grown up. Each
rich family seems to have its own regulations for freeing slaves sooner or later
and many promises are made which may be kept or may be evaded as may prove
convenient.

Domestic Slave-deaUftg in Turkey. 675

sider it derogatory to his own dignity to let his slave perform
agricultural work, — ^work which ought naturally to fall to the lot of
the subject races. In the second place, the slave, whether Cir-
cassian, Georgian, or African, would resent being put to such work,
and would make his protest unhesitatingly. Were there no subject
Christian races to employ, no doubt the Turkish slave would be made
to work in the fields and at the galleys, as of yore ; but it happens, as
we notice in the third place, that it is much cheaper to hire labour
by giving the mere pittance of a few piastres a day to a Bulgarian or
Servian peasant, than to buy and maintain a slave to do the same
work. Again, the labour of the free-man is more profitable in the
sense that it is more thorough, because done more heartily. This
humble but practical illustration is the simplest lesson in the first
principles of pohtical economy one can conceive, suited to the
capacity of the ordinary Turkish slave-owner.

But a slave is not necessarily one who performs manual labour
only. He may be one employed in keeping the accounts of the house-
hold, or may act as subordinate paymaster under a kiahia who cannot
himself write accounts. I will instance one cultivated young Nubian
who filled such a post most creditably. Whilst quietly intelligent and
business-like, staid in manner, and unaffectedly dignified though re-
tiring, this young man of colour had in his nature those elements
which unmistakably go to make up the character of the true gmtle-
man of whatever race. A certain reserve and sadness in him made
me desirous to know his story, which I in time learnt. " Mon Princey^
as the young Nubian ever after dubbed himself, was really, as it
seemed from his simple account, a prince in his own land. But a
party of slave-hunters had one day surprised him when on a hunting
or fishing expedition, whilst he was accidentally separated from his
companions, — a blanket was thrown over his head to stifle his cries,
and he was carried off. At that time he was about nine or ten ; his
captors do not appear to have taken him for the sake of ransom ; they
probably could not understand his language, and he found no means
of making good his story or obtaining ustice, and at last saw it was
better to acquiesce in his fate. He was :?ltimately sold to one of the
princes of the reigning family in Egypt, where he was not badly
treated. From Egypt he had been sent to Constantinople, and as his
position was even better here, he had been able to save his dilik
(monthly allowance), wherewith to send to his own country for a
native dress such as he had formerly worn in his home land. That
was the one personal ambition he had permitted himself to gratify.
On my expressing a wish to see the suit it was displayed with much

XX2

676 The Gentleman's Magazine.

naive pleasure and some pride, and my admiration of the effective
costume (composed of a straight tunic of glossy dark-green silk, purple
silk under-robe, and curious head-dress) gave genuine pleasure to this
isolated young man, so unused to any show of sympathy.

^^ Mon Prince** had many estimable qualities; he was quietly
persevering and strictly ruled by the idea of duty. Will he, I wonder,
have remembered his own people, and care to go back to them some
day ? Perhaps one could hardly be surprised if he preferred the
luxuries of Constantinople to the comparative want of civilisation in
his country. He, in his quiet way, when I hinted at such a prefer-
ence, smiled and said, " One's own people are one's own people."
There was a patient tenacity of affection in that boy of twenty which
made me feel great respect for the strength of his home memories.

But I have still to deal with the subject of domestic slave-dealing
in the case of the women, whom I must divide, as I said, into two
distinct classes, according to their colour.

Under the term "black " women will be found, not only the coal-
black Negro, gaunt and square of limb, but the slight, well-made
Nubian, and the graceful, supple Abyssinian, with rounded, oval face,
well-formed features, and rich creamy-brown skin. Of this class a
considerable number find their way into the hareems of the richer
Turkish ladies, where they are employed in various ways, whilst each
one has only one definite duty. Thus, a black woman may be a
dada^ or nurse, in which case she will attend to nothing but the
immediate wants of her charge, dandling it, feeding it, watching it
most faithfully in its sleep, following its childish footsteps about the
house in its play, passing it over to the care of the lallah when it is
to go out for a walk, and sitting disconsolate, or at least unoccupied,
till it returns to her ; but it would not occur to her or to her mistress
that it was any part of her duty to occupy her leisure in sewing for
the child. These dadas are very faithful, and frequently are retained
in the household of the child they have nursed till their extreme old
age, when they have care and respect in retum. But still there are
frequent cases where, at first, they do not suit, and have to be got rid
of and replaced by another till the faithful one who does suit comes
along. Then again, this faithful dada may, after some years, be found
useless in the household, and then she may be given her freedom in
order to be married to some black man, who has asked for her perhaps
because he has a small business for making>'<?<7wr^ (sweet curds) in which
she could help. By-and-by the freed woman may become the saod-
ninaj or footer-mother (literally, milk-mother) of one of the children
in the household she Vvas \ale\7 \t^\.^ ^tA fco\x\ that time she will b^

Domestic Slave*dealing in Turkey. 677

treated with almost filial respect, and her wants will be well looked
after, since it is considered by the Turks a heinous offence to neglect
either parent or foster-parent. Many black women are bought to be
cooks to supplement the dishes sent into the hareem from the sal&amliky
where all the chief cooking is supposed to be done (so that at every
meal a string of waiters file into the hareem courtyard with covered
trays on their heads, bearing the provisions ready prepared). The
Arab woman who can please her mistress's taste by making fancy
dishes just flavoured with the right herbs, is considered "a treasure;*'
and though it may be long before the really clever one is found, yet
when she is found her mistress will delight to keep her to minister to
her fancied wants, or to her real wants in the long fast of Ramazan,
should she not be strong enough to pass the day without eating any-
thing (which most Mussulman women seem to try to do con-
scientiously). It will be a great piece of self-denial to part with such
a useful servant, but her mistress will sometimes give or sell her
under the pressure of certain considerations ; for instance, she wishes
to advance her husband's views at court, and she knows (for Turkish
ladies play a great part in politics, under the rose) that it may greatly
increase her interest with some influential lady-friend, who has lately
partaken of her dainties, to make her a present of one who can cook
such savoury meats ; so she heroically makes the sacrifice ; and it is
scarcely a less sacrifice if she receives by-and-by some present or
another slave in return. Then some khanums prefer black women
as khavchjees (coffee-makers), for which service they are in great
request, their faithfiilness in not allowing the beverage to be tampered
with being fully, though quietly, acknowledged. Amongst the men
slaves the same preference is often to be observed, a pacha generally
having one or two blacks as his constant personal attendants. As
hammamjees (attendants at the bath), black women are also much
prized, their manipulation in shampooing being considered more
delicate, and at the same time more forcible, than that of the white
attendants ; and the blacks are also most patient and unwearied in
this exhausting service. A good hatnmamjee^ whose hand '' comes
well " in bringing back strength and nervous force to the weary limbs
of her mistress— oftenest tired with doing nothing — is prized almost
as much as a good cook. She is, perhaps, more difficult to find, for
whether it be from some subtle power of sympathy or repulsion, it
happens not unfirequently that a shampooing attendant who is con-
sidered by one lady to be an excellent operator is not thought to be so
by another. For this reason a trial before purchase would bethought
fair where one lady proposes to take a hammamja from another.

678 The Gentlematis Magazine.

This hint will introduce the statement that Turkish ladies veiy
commonly negotiate amongst themselves as to the exchange or
purchase of slaves. The whim to possess a new face, the desire to
hear all that can be "pumped" out of this new machine-person
(whose mind as well as body is at the bidding of her owner), will
often be quite sufficient to decide the one negotiator ; whilst the
other may be actuated in getting rid of a slave by reasons quite as
puerile, or by more serious reasons which may be kept in the back-
ground, such as a fancy that the giri is revengeful, or is a tale-bearer,
or that she may possibly become her rival Again, some ladies
cannot find attendants sufficiently beautiful to please their fantastic
taste ; whilst others, on detecting a growing prettiness in their young
slaves, will hasten to be rid of them in order that their own
plainness may not be made more apparent by contrast These, and
a hundred other causes, operate to keep up a pretty constant inter-
change of slaves between the hareems.

I have been speaking here of all women slaves generally, and not
only of the blacks, of whom wives are not oflen jealous. Still, it
does happen, though rarely, that a pacha has a coloured son by a
dark mother. When this occurred in the family of Mehemet Ali,
Pacha of Egypt, it chanced that the succession to the Viceroj'alty fell
to that very son by seniority of age, but his mixed parentage being
but too apparent in his dusky complexion, his right was passed over
in favour of the relative next in age. In fact, the Turks do not
consider the blacks by any means on an equality with themselves,
nor do they think it necessary or advisable to give them the power to
read and write ; and the black (with some notable exceptions) seems
quite willing to be in the lowest stratum of the human family, quietly
contenting himself or herself with doing the simple duties that faU to
their lot, in general not toiling hard, but following a wearying, un-
varying round in a drudging, hopeless way that is painful to witness.

The black women are, on the whole, very estimable. They are
especially attentive and kind to the black eunuchs of the household,
whom they have an odd way of seeming to patronise, whilst they
yet show themselves full of pride that men of their colour should
have such power over the white slaves and over the white lady
mistresses. It did occur to me that the black women get their full share
of consideration in return from their black masters, and that there was
a good deal of partiality shown occasionally where it might chance
that a quarrel had to be decided between slaves of different colour.

We now come to the fourth great class, the white girls and
women. Certainly all axe not Cixcassians t^f sang^ but, from their

Domestic Slave-dealing in Turkey. 679

varying types, appear to be of all races and mixtures of races to be
found in Turkey and in neighbouring countries. The first question
in regard to this very numerous factor of the slave population is,
how do these women, of such varying physique and physiognomies,
all come to be in the condition of slaves in the hareems of Constan-
tinople and other large towns of the provinces? They were not
bom where they now are ; so much is clear. What system, then, of
slave-dealing can that be which does not show its ghastliness in
the public slave marts, yet manages to keep the hareems always
plentifiilly supplied with young children, girls and boys ?

From what I could ascertain from the slaves themselves and from
others, it seemed very evident that the greater proportion of them
were stolen children, and that the crime of man-stealing is very
common in Turkey. So that one can only conclude that kidnappers,
who live by this child-stealing, and carry on their nefarious trade by
all sorts of means, are more numerous than could have been
supposed, since the general supply of white children seems as in-
exhaustible as ever. Where they can get possession of children,
young and cheap, direct from their Circassian parents or relatives,
they no doubt do so, and in that case they are not kidnapping ; but
as some years since the Circassians were removed from their own pro-
vince, and assigned certain districts in the country and in Stamboul,
these traders have only had the colony home to draw upon, and
the supply from that quarter has been very limited.* This being the
case, the solution of the question as to the origin of the great bulk of
the white women slaves of Turkey seems to be the conclusion that
these children must be picked up in villages remote from the capital
by men of the lowest class, who make their requisitions in Armenia,
on the borders of Persia and Russia, in Georgia, Syria, Egypt, and
Arabia, as well as in villages nearer home, in Crete, Thessaly,
Albania, Servia, Bulgaria, and perhaps even in Roimiania itsel£

The fact that one may occasionally meet in the hareems with girls
who have a confused memory of some dialect which is not Turkish,
seems to point to the same conclusion. Quite old ladies may be
seen at the Sweet Waters, veiled and seated amongst the other
khanumsy who look more Greek than Turkish to judge by the
features, and on some Frank lady addressing them in Greek, they
have been found to be able to reply with fluency in that language — b,
sure indication that they have come of Greek parentage, and have
been either made captives in war, or stolen, or otherwise induced to

* The policy of the Goyemment has been to diminish the race by forcing all
able-bodied men to enter the anny, after which few can obtain permission to
many a woman of their own people.

68o The Gentlemaris Magazifie,

become Mussulmans. It must be taken into consideration that a
great proportion of children so carried oflf would soon lose all
memory of their native tongue, and if taken when very young, and at
once placed in Turkish hareems, they will natiurally grow up to speak
Ttirkish only, as the one language they hear spoken. Then, all their
surroundings are made Turkish, their dress and customs stamp them
as Turkish, in time they come to look on themselves as Turks, even
if knowing, by hearing it whispered, that they must have had some
far other origin.

Children thus taken at two or three years of age are probably
kept till they are five or six before being passed on to other
hands. Sometimes they are sold direct into a hareem by their
captor, to some old kiahia (steward or housekeeper), who is looking
after purchases, (for the kiahias share with the head eunuchs this
business, in which they outvie each other). Or the children may be
sent to the house of a professional private dealer, or agent, where
they will be seen amongst his or her stock of black and white slaves
by the kiahias^ ninasyeuniulis ^vakeels y and others who are always passing
in and out on business for their masters and mistresses. In this way
quite young slaves are soon disposed of, probably becoming playmates
to some little bey or khanum before they are seven years of age, some-
times at a much earlier age. Occasionally a rich lady will buy such
children to form them into a corps of infant dancers for the amuse-
ment of her hours of enmd ; but this fate is the most to be deplored
for them, gay as it may promise to be.

We proceed now to see what becomes of the generality of these
poor kidnapped children. They are not treated very harshly, perhaps ;
the elder slave girls take a certain oversight of them, call them their
tchoudjouks (children), and each little child calls one girl nina
(mother) — but does not say anna^ the tender word for "own
mother." If the child prove stupid, or ugly, or sickly, it does not
fare over-well, but it is seldom neglected. If all goes smoothly, it is
trained in some way, but in very desultory fashion ; and in every
hareem there are one or two, sometimes five or six such children
running about almost unheeded, except when they are pressed into
the service of the ninas to fetch and carry. But if a child does not
give promise of becoming all that the buyer has hoped, steps are
then taken to hear of another purchaser.

This is not difficult either in the case of children or grown-up

slaves. For, besides those whose part as go-between in the business

of domestic slave-dealing has already been pointed out, a mistress can

make inquiries of her visitors, and of her visitors' slaves, and of

several others, as to Vvate^ms *\tv vi\v\0[v ;). xv^\i i^N^i^ ^\ ^^\ ^^ ^Va^ves^

Domestic Slave-dealing in Turkey. 68 1

may be needed The hammamja-oi^ta is, however, her chief ally.
This is a free woman, — the professional bath-attendant, whose
services are in constant requisition in all the great hareems in suc-
cession, so that her days are passed in going from one to the other.
In this way she becomes possessed of all the current gossip, and is
sure to be Oil/ fait on the news of every projected marriage in the
fashionable world. This is all-important, as she can then supply
inquirers with details as to the number of new slaves the bride-elect
(herself, it may be, a slave) is intending to purchase ; how many
white, and how many black, girls are to form an establishment ; and
if she has herself been, or has sent a nina or other messenger to the
slave agents, or if she prefers to get her new slaves out of private
hareems. Having this knowledge, the hammamjees can be very useful
in recommending a slave they have been directed to speak of.

If the affianced girl be in the other lad/s set, and she consents
to see the slave proposed to her, the present mistress may, without
any hint to the ?uUMk who is to be disposed of, make a formal visit,
taking with her the attendant whose cleverness in twirling a cigar, grace
in handing coffee, or skill in lighting the chibouque (pipe), she
intends to show off to advantage, without her being subjected to the
embarrassment of hearing her points criticised to her face. This
may be done when the attendants are ordered to retire. But it may
happen, on the contrary, that a mistress feels no delicacy on this
point, but, having trained up a girl with a view to disposing of her
advantageously by-and-by, or wishing to get rid of one who does not
suit her after being lately acquired, and being willing to have her
slave seen as widely as possible, she openly talks of her intention,
and purposely takes the girl with her on a series of visits to the
houses of all her richest friends where she knows that other visitors
will be present In this case the girl will be dressed in the most be-
coming way, and is expected to show herself to the best advantage.
Let it be remembered that the solans of a fashionable Turkish
khanum are not filled with a mixed company of ladies and gentlemen,
but that here the rooms are equally filled with pretty mistresses
reclining on silken divans, puffing soft wreaths of smoke into the dim
atmosphere, and with their equally pretty but less fortunate serving-
women, who are expected to glide about in constant attendance to
fill and refill pipes, replace a slipper, or noiselessly supply the live
charcoal whenever the long jasmin chibouque has been thrown aside
in some fair smoker's abstraction. At dinner, too, no gentlemen are
present, and the conversation of the saloon is hardly interrupted.
Here the girFs duty is to wait behind her mistress, to hand her goblet
of sherbet, to stand with a gold-cir.bTOvdeivid c\oV\v oN^\\sfc\ ^3:"w\^sA

682 The Gentleman s Magazine.

offer the silver laym (basin) into which she pours rose-water over
her mistress's hands on her rising from the repast On such an oc-
casion I have seen a slave stand with immovable face whilst listening
to a debate on her good and bad points, and to a discussion of her
marketable value, carried on very much as though she were some
domestic animal — horse or cow — that had to be disposed of.

But besides thus occasionally conducting these negotiations on
their own account, Turkish mistresses, as I said, also send their slaves
to be disposed of at the houses of private but professional dealers,
whom we might rather term agents, since they do not appear to buy
the slaves on their own account, but only to have them under their
watch and ward until they can dispose of them to intending purchasers
who frequent their houses for the purpose of finding the sort of slaves
they want. I have no idea what amount of commission such agents
would demand. That they do obtain a commission one can hardly doubt
That many of them are tempted to become actual dealers seems more
than probable ; but I have here represented the case strictly as it
was told to me by slaves, who, having been sent to the agent's to be
disposed of, were after a time returned upon the mistress's hands.
I was told that most of these agencies are situated, not in the
Turkish quarter, but at Galata (the quarter of the shipping agents) ;
that the houses are not large, so as to challenge attention ; that the
people who keep them are either Turks or Circassians. The agent
receives a small sum (about two beshlics, or twenty pence a day) for
the keep of each slave, but a distinction is made in the acconmioda-
tion of black slaves and white. They are, in general, all miserably
fed and lodged, having insufficient covering at night Work is not
demanded of them, but during the day they sit about the house,
feeling imsettled, and pass their time in expecting some one in to view
them, or in being actually passed in review by any purchaser who may
come and look over the stock, or by a professional gueurgee
(examiner), who is supposed to certify as to age, race, and so on, and
who is held responsible for any deformity or personal defect which
might have escaped the notice of the purchaser.

A transfer is often made of a slave by her passing from the
possession of one member to another of the same family or house-
hold. This is done sometimes by deed of gift, sometimes by sale.
It will also occasionally happen that a husband may see and admire
one of his wife's slaves, and will not scruple to enter into negotiations
for making her his own property. If the wife's indignation overcomes
her desire for money, she objects, and the matter drops ; if she sees
no reason to refuse the lec^'esx, sVvt ^co^iesces. It fell to my lot to
know an example in pomx o^ ea.Ocv c2kSfc\\si^Oiaxx^\^^^^^^^^:we<^\3d^

Domestic Slave-dealing in Turkey. 683

seven hundred lints, and transferred her attendant from her own to
her husband's service ; but this case, accordifig to an account I heard
long afterwards, and as we cannot be surprised to learn, ended in the
lingering death of the girl.

Vile as the whole system of slave traffic is, it is yet more to be
deplored from the abuses to which it is capable of giving rise. It is
indeed repulsive — shocking to our every sense of right, to know that
women and children are thus bought and sold and given as presents
without their power to resist. But it is still more terrible to know
that it can happen ih3Xfree4fam Turkish girls may be sold into slavery
through the connivance or misrepresentations of their nearest relations,
notably of those who should have protected and befriended them in
their need. One such case is painfully present to my mind as I write,
in connection with the disgraceful custom observed in most of the
higher families, of mothers and sisters sending presents of three or
four beautiful slaves to sons or brothers on a birthday or other great
anniversary. During a visit which I made to one of the imperial
hareems, a young girl was pointed out to me who had been lately
purchased by a sultana with the intention of making her a gift to her
brother. The circumstances were peculiar. The girl, now a slave,
had not always been so. She was little over sixteen, and had but
lately lost her mother, whose death threw her on the care of an elder
sister. Left to such guardianship, it might have been hoped that the
young girl's freedom would at least have been respected; but
unfortunately, behind the grated windows of closed Turkish houses
it is easy to be false to such a trust There was property to be
divided between the two, and the elder thought of a plan for evading
that necessity. She affected to think it useless to explain business
matters to one who was almost a child, but bought her rich and be-
coming dresses and took her with her on a visit to the seraglio.
After spending a few days here most agreeably, receiving attention
and flattery on every side, the younger sister was quite willing to be
left alone for a time whilst the elder returned home to make some
necessary arrangements, professing it to be her intention to renew her
visit without delay. But days passed, and she did not come back.
She had, in fact, received a large simi of gold as the price of her
sister's freedom, besides which she took as her own that share of
their fortune which should have faUen to the younger girl.

The latter, finding herself thus abandoned, submitted to her fate
with a good grace, and bent all her attention to do what was wished
of her. She was to learn to play operatic airs on the piano, and to
read and speak Italian. Both these accomplishments she mastered
to the satisfaction of her imperial nnstresa^'^^io Vn d»ft >^sfik& ^\^^t^^^

684 The Gentleman's Magazine.

her as a prodigy of learning to a prince of the blood, and he, in a
measure appreciating the gift, graciously condescended to accept and
value it — for a time, at least

This instance of injustice is surely not the only one of the sort
that has occurred " behind the Kaff^." From the peculiar isolation
of the lives of the Mussulman women of Turkey, we know they can
have small chance of redress where the slightest authority is used to
ensure their foregoing all complaint, since even the ccuit (judge) has
no right to enter the " Sacred Enclosure " without the express sanction
and summons of the owner of the hareem. The condition of the
women is rendered hard indeed where neither lawyer, doctor, nor
priest can come to their aid in cases of real oppression, severe illness,
or trouble of mind. That such cases of severity do occur, the
instances I have given may testify, and that in certain cases the lash
is cruelly used I can bear witness.*

Still, though essentially the same on the whole, we must admit
that domestic slavery in Turkey differs from that oppressive bondage
which we know was once common in America, the mere mention of
which at once brings before our mind's eye the bowed figure of the
rice-gatherer or of the cotton-picker, wincing beneath the brandished
lash of the slave-driver. It differs also from that equally grinding
and humiliating servitude which obtained still earlier in our own
colonial possessions in those halcyon days of English rule when the
existing governments had both the power and the will to give over
political offenders to the safe custody of the slave-owner in order to
be rid of them at home.^ But because there is this modification of

> The courbaich is made of leather thongs, sometimes knotted and sometimes
not. An angry mistress does not hesitate to strike with it, but orders for the
punishment of a slave are generally executed by the eunuchs.

' British men and women who were political ofTenders were disposed of by
being sold into slavery on three memorable occasions : by Cromwell after the
battle of Worcester; by Charles II. after the battle of Bothwell Bridge, when the
Covenanters taken by Monmouth and who refused to give bonds of conformity
were sent to the plantations ; and Monmouth's own followers by James II. after
Sedgemoor and Jeffreys' campaign. Of the latter case Macaulay writes thus :
" The number of prisoners whom Jeffreys transported was eight hundred and forty-
one. These men, more wretched than their associates who suffered death, were
distributed into gangs, and bestowed on persons who enjoyed favour at court. The
conditions of the gift were that the convicts should be carried beyond sea as slaves,
that they should not be emancipated for ten years, and that the place of their
banishment should be some West Indian island. This last article was studiously
framed for the purpose of aggravating the misery of the exiles. In New England
or New Jersey they would have found a population kindly disposed to them and a
climate not unfavourable to their health and vigour. It was therefore determined
that they should be sent to colonies where a Puritan could hope to inspire little
sympathy, and where a \«iboMT« \30rc1 Vcv ^t Vass^x^Xft laxiift ^:»q^^ Vss^ ^ Qoiyiy

Domestic Slave-dealing in Turkey. 685

its worst features, it does not seem to me a sufficient excuse that
England, as a nation (for whatever ends of a selfish policy), should
have so long closed her eyes with a feeling of complacent indifference
to the fact that there are in Turkey both black men and white men,
both black women and white women, who are essentially slaves ; nor
to the corollary that Turkey is the great emporium for the reception
of those Uving wares for which the system of domestic slave-dealing
is constantly creating a demand that can only be supplied from
neighbouring countries or from her own Christian provinces. One
fails to see how English statesmen can think themselves justified in
remonstrating with the rulers of Egypt and Abyssinia on the subject
of the slave-trade on the coast and inland, whilst they do not feel
themselves called on to make parallel representations to the ruler of
Turkey, whose social customs alone * must perpetuate the trade we
pretend to deprecate. Surely we should all judge alike on this point
imless we have become callous to evil, or incapable of any generous
impulses. It has been the glory of England since she herself be-
came a free nation to discountenance slavery in her own dominions
and in those of other powers. I am one of those who remember
the strong feeling of sympathy called forth here in England on the
occasion of the earliest date of the double anniversary on which
Russia justly prides herself. On that first Sunday, the 3rd of March,
1863, a dense crowd of some 7,000 persons assembled under the
dome of St. Paul's to bear their part in a grand Thanksgiving
Service for the Emancipation of the Serfs, assured to them that day
by one stroke of the Emperor's pen. One just and freedom-loving
voice — that of John Hampden Gumey— acknowledged and pro-
claimed the hope and significance there was in that act for the
moral greatness of Russia's future. In the struggle that has been
going on I cannot shake off the impression of his strong words. I
know, too, from personal knowledge, that Russia then had many

liUle health. Such was the state of the slave market that these bondmen, long as
was the passage, and sickly as they were likely to prove, were still very valuable.
It was estimated by Jeffreys that, on an average, each of them, after all charges
were paid, would be worth from ten to fifteen pounds. There was therefore much
angry competition for grants. Some Tories in the West conceived that they had,
by their exertions and sufferings during the insurrection, earned a right to share
in the profits which had been eagerly snatched up by the sycophants of Whitehall.
The courtiers, however, were victorious.

"The misery of the exiles fully equalled that of the negroes who are now carried
from Congo to Brazil. It appears from the best information which is accessible
that more than one-fifth of those who were shipped were flung to the sharks before
the end of the voyage." — See Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 217.

* Domestic slave-dealing goes on in the viceregal palaces of £^Qt yi&t^&vck.
Turkey, in spite of the Khedive's effoHi P) lo slop \Vvt %\a.Nt \.t^tVDt^^\si\sx«2si,

686 The Gentleman's Magazine.

earnest, noble-minded, pious men and women eager to sacrifice their
own " vested " interests in order to free themselves from the sin of
supporting slavery ; and some, at least, who would have been glad to
see it done away with in Turkey, from the best and highest motives,
for the progress of the whole human race. Knowing this, I for mj
part can but recognise a ring of sincerity in the thrilling telegram
which many of us were so breathlessly awaiting in which the Grand
Duke announced the conclusion of the preliminaries of peace on this
last Sunday, March 3. If Russia proves herself in the future sincere
in her work of accomplishing the true freedom of Turkey, let us
frankly confess that she has won her laurels most nobly.

But peace after war brings a breathing time in which to note the
mischiefs war brings in its train. One scarcely dare trust oneself
as yet to speak with unquavering voice of the keen sufferings to men
and women and helpless children which the war of 1877-8 caused.
And there is one dire consequence of it that ought to be known and
realised and set right, if possible. I allude to the fate of those
Christian children who have been captured by the Bashi-Bazouks and
other hangers-on of the Turkish army, taken into Stamboul and
bandied about from hareem to hareem, where the child-market was
already overstocked,^ so that merely nominal prices would have been
eagerly accepted ; for food was dear, and it was worth the captor's
while to get rid of his captive for a mere nothing, in order to have
one mouth less to feed. One shudders to think of the fate of these
children. They may fall into the hands of tolerant masters ; but
the passions of race against race have been violently stirred up
by late events, and the result may be that not only the ordinary
fate of the slave may fall to their lot, but with it the hate and
revenge which beaten masters find it in their power to wreak on
stray members of the championed race that the fortune of war has
thus drifted into their grasp. It is nobody's business, apparently, to
rescue them, or even to think about them. They have ^en where
they are, and there they must remain, unless their hard case should
touch the hearts of some who are great enough to help them.

And if war seems a light thing to us, let us remember that the
Greek war of independence, the Crimean war, and the late war in
Bulgaria have eaeh contributed to the increase of slave-dealing in
Turkey. And let it be remembered, too, that a nation in which
slavery prevails must ever be a weak nation. Had we but exerted
some strong moral suasion on Turkey at the close of ^the Crimean

* I chanced to learn, from a reliable source, that about Febniary and March
last the number of children thus being hawked about in Constantinople was
reckoned by the Turks iVvenvscVNe's Vo\)t ivtwVj a tkousand.

Domestic Slave-dealing in Turkey. 687

war in order to make her sensible of the reprobation we feel for
slavery, she could have done nothing else than listen to the repre-
sentations of her powerful ally. One can but think that reasons
might have been easily found at least to have suggested this step,
whilst Turkey was comparatively wealthy and prosperous. If we
wished to " regenerate " Turkey, it would have been wise to try to
remove from her this radical cause of decay — slavery — the real source
of so much that is pitiable, contemptible, and loathsome. Suflfering,
trickery, meanness, deceit, treachery, cruelty, tyranny, hatred — sudi
are the miseries that follow from it

Of all those seven thousand English souls who went forth from
St PauFs rejoicing and enthusiastic on the occasion of the Thanks-
giving for the liberation of the Serfs, how many remain whose hearts
retain enough of that enthusiasm to make them ready and willing
now, at the present crisis, to raise their voices to recall to England her
mission to the oppressed and enslaved, not forgetting that she once was
proud of such men as Wilberforce, Buxton, Clarkson, and Canning ?

In one of the most important debates of this year * the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer used the following words with regard to the
settlement of the Eastern Question at a possible European Congress : —
^' England is both strong enough and intelligent enough to be able to
give her own opinion, and I believe it is her duty to do so, because
England is the foremost indication of the spirit of freedom. . . .
There are traditions which England has to bear in mind, and it will be
her duty to speak in a manner worthy of those traditions." And Mr.
Gladstone, quoting those words, confirmed them thus : — " He has
said that this country is at the head of the cause of ^freedom, and
has traditions of freedom to which she ought to be faithful That
is better still. I would not wish an3rthing better than what I think the
genuine development of such a principle as that"

And I, too, would wish nothing better than to see our two chief
political parties (since they are of one mind on this great, glorious,
and moving memory of English traditions) join hands on this great
principle of English action, and so work together in that settlement
of the af]^rs of Europe which must eventually be effected, as to purge
it of the blot of slavery — lest in the coming ages Englishmen, com-
paring the pages of history, and pointing to the charter of Russian
liberty of 1863, to the American war of slavery in 1864, and to
English apathy during her twenty years' protectorate of Turkey,
should say, with no touch of approbation for their fore&thers —
"Look on those pictures, — and on this/" f. e. a.

> See the Daily News for February 9.

686 The Gentleman's Magazine.

earnest, noble-minded, pious men and women eager to sacrifice their
own " vested " interests in order to free themselves from the sin of
supporting slavery ; and some, at least, who would have been glad to
see it done away with in Turkey, from the best and highest motives,
for the progress of the whole human race. Knowing this, I for mj
part can but recognise a ring of sincerity in the thrilling tel^ram
which many of us were so breathlessly awaiting in which the Grand
Duke announced the conclusion of the preliminaries of peax:e on this
last Sunday, March 3. If Russia proves herself in the future sincere
in her work of accomplishing the true freedom of Turkey, let us
frankly confess that she has won her laurels most nobly.

But peace after war brings a breathing time in which to note the
mischiefs war brings in its train. One scarcely dare trust oneself
as yet to speak with unquavering voice of the keen suflferings to men
and women and helpless children which the war of 1877-8 caused.
And there is one dire consequence of it that ought to be known and
realised and set right, if possible. I allude to the fate of those
Christian children who have been captured by the Bashi-Bazouks and
other hangers-on of the Turkish army, taken into Stamboul and
bandied about from hareem to hareem, where the child-market was
already overstocked,' so that merely nominal prices would have been
eagerly accepted ; for food was dear, and it was worth the captor's
while to get rid of his captive for a mere nothing, in order to have
one mouth less to feed. One shudders to think of the fate of these
children. They may fall into the hands of tolerant masters ; but
the passions of race against race have been violently stirred up
by late events, and the result may be that not only the ordinary
fate of the slave may fall to their lot, but with it the hate and
revenge which beaten masters find it in their power to wreak on
stray members of the championed race that the fortune of war has
thus drifted into their grasp. It is nobody's business, apparently, to
rescue them, or even to think about them. They have ^dlen where
they are, and there they must remain, unless their hard case should
touch the hearts of some who are great enough to help them.

And if war seems a light thing to us, let us remember that the
Greek war of independence, the Crimean war, and the late war in
Bulgaria have eaeh contributed to the increase of slave-dealing in
Turkey. And let it be remembered, too, that a nation in which
slavery prevails must ever be a weak nation. Had we but exerted
some strong moral suasion on Turkey at the close of ^the Crimean

* I chanced to karn, from a reliable source, that about Febniary and March
last the number of children thus being hawked about in Constantinople was
reckoned by the Turks lVvcisvst\\ts Vo\)t ivtwVj a tHmuand.

Domestic Slave-dealing in Turkey. 687

war in order to make her sensible of the reprobation we feel for
slavery, she could have done nothing else than listen to the repre-
sentations of her powerful ally. One can but think that reasons
might have been easily found at least to have suggested this step,
whilst Turkey was comparatively wealthy and prosperous. If we
wished to " regenerate " Turkey, it would have been wise to try to
remove from her this radical cause of decay — slavery — the real source
of so much that is pitiable, contemptible, and loathsome. Suflfering,
trickery, meanness, deceit, treachery, cruelty, tyranny, hatred — such
are the miseries that follow from it

Of all those seven thousand English souls who went forth from
St. Paul's rejoicing and enthusiastic on the occasion of the Thanks-
giving for the liberation of the Serfs, how many remain whose hearts
retain enough of that enthusiasm to make them ready and wiUing
now, at the present crisis, to raise their voices to recall to England her
mission to the oppressed and enslaved, not forgetting that she once was
proud of such men as Wilberforce, Buxton, Clarkson, and Canning ?

In one of the most important debates of this year * the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer used the following words with regard to the
settlement of the Eastern Question at a possible European Congress : —
" England is both strong enough and intelligent enough to be able to
give her own opinion, and I believe it is her duty to do so, because
England is the foremost indication of the spirit of freedom. . . .
There are traditions which England has to bear in mind, and it will be
her duty to speak in a manner worthy of those traditions." And Mr.
Gladstone, quoting those words, confirmed them thus : — " He has
said that this country is at the head of the cause of [freedom, and
has traditions of freedom to which she ought to be faithful That
is better still. I would not wish an3rthing better than what I think the
genuine development of such a principle as that"

And I, too, would wish nothing better than to see our two chief
political parties (since they are of one mind on this great, glorious,
and moving memory of English traditions) join hands on this great
principle of English action, and so work together in that settlement
of the af]^rs of Europe which must eventually be effected, as to purge
it of the blot of slavery — lest in the coming ages Englishmen, com-
paring the pages of history, and pointing to the charter of Russian
liberty of 1863, to the American war of slavery in 1864, and to
English apathy during her twenty years' protectorate of Turkey,
should say, with no touch of approbation for their fore&thers —
"Look on those pictures, — and on thisT^ v. e. a.

> See the Daify News for February 9.

688 The Gentlematis Magazine,

THE PHONOGRAPH, OR l^OICE-

RECORDER.

A FEW months ago I had occasion to describe in these pages the
wonderful instrument called the telephone, which has since
then become as widely known in this country as in America, the
coimtry of its first development I propose now briefly to describe
another instrument — the phonograph — ^which, though'not a telegraphic
instrument, is related in some degree to the telephone. In passing,
I ihay remark that some, who, as telegraphic specialists, might be ex-
pected to know better, have described the phonograph as a telegraphic
invention. A writer in the Telegraphic youmaly for instance, who
had mistaken for mine a paper on the phonograph in one of our
daily newspapers, denounced me (as the supposed author of that
paper) for speaking of the possibility of crystallising sound by means
of this instrument ; and then went on to speak of the mistake I (that
is, said author) had made in leaving my own proper subject of study
to speak of telegraphic instnunents and to expatiate on the powers of
electricity. In reality the phonograph has no relation to telegraphy
whatever, and its powers do not in the slightest degree depend on
electricity. If the case had been otherwise, it may be questioned
whether the student of astronomy, or of any other department of
science, should be considered incompetent of necessity to describe a
telegraphic instrument, or to discuss the principles of telegraphic or
electrical science. What should unquestionably be left to the
specialist, is the description of the practical effect of details of
instrumental construction, and the like — for only he who is in the
habit of using special instiuments or classes of instrument can be
expected to be competent adequately to discuss such matters.
Though even in such matters, as I pointed out in my former paper,
a clear apprehension of the principles of the science involved will
suffice not only to prevent mistakes as to the value of such and such
peculiarities of construction, but even to enable the student of
principles (only) to suggest modifications of constructive detail.
The first time 1 evei sow the solar spectrum greatly dispersed — for

The Phonography or Voice-Recorder. 689

example — I saw it through a spectroscope of a novel form, the details
of the construction of which (so far as they depended on optical
principles) were entirely of my own devising. The dfrioriiAez. of
the practical spectroscopist would be (like the cognate idea expressed
by the telegraphist who criticised me as a supposed example of a non-
professional writing about telegraphic matters) that a rather complex
form of spectroscope devised in the study would be sure to fail in
practice ; yet in practice the instrument I devised worked excellently.
Now, it is a much easier task for one who has studied scientific subjects,
and knows what science really means, to follow the descriptions which
Morse, Thomson, Bell, Edison, and so forth, give of telegraphic or
mechanical instniments, and, having mastered their meaning, to
describe the instrument in his own words, than it is for him to invent
an effective form of an instrument (even though more closely related
to his own special branches of research) such as he has never employed
practically. For this reason I need make no apology for having, in
these pages and elsewhere, described telegraphic instruments or dealt
with matters electrical, chemical, geological, or otherwise non-astro-
nomical— at least, until it shall be shown that I have dealt with
them incorrectly. This, my critic in the Telegraphic youmal (some
one whom I fear I have in some way unwittingly offended) does
not pretend to assert And as he has been altogether mistaken
in attributing to me the article on the phonograph to which he takes
exception, and as completely mistaken (and more strangely for a tele-
graphic specialist) in supposing the phonograph to be a telegraphic
instrument, I venture to suggest the bare possibility that he maybe to
some degree mistaken in supposing that a student of astronomy must
of necessity be unable to understand, and therefore incompetent to
describe, any instrumental arrangements except those directly em-
ployed in astronomical research.

Although, however, the phonograph is not an instrument depend-
ing, like the telephone, on the action of electricity (in some form or
other), yet it is related closely enough to the telephone to make the
mistake of the Telegraphic journalist a natural one. At least, the
mistake would be natural enough for anyone but a telegraphic spe-
cialist ; the more so that Mr. Edison is a telegraphist, and that he has
effected several important and interesting inventions in telegraphic
and electrical science. For instance, in my former paper on " Some
Marvels in Telegraphy," I had occasion to describe at some length
the principles of his " Motograph." I spoke of it as "another form
of telephone, surpassing Gray's and La Cour's in some respects as a
conveyer of musical tones, but as yet unable to speak like Belf s . . .

VOL. CCXLIT. NO. I77O. V Y

690 The Gentleman's Magazine.

in telegraphic communication." I proceeded : " Gray's telephone is
limited to almost one octave. Edison's extends from the deepest
bass notes to the highest notes of the human voice, which, when
magnets are employed, are almost inaudible ; but it has yet to leam
to speak."

The phonograph is an instnunent which hcLs learned to speak,
though it does not speak at a distance like the telephone or the
motograph. Yet there seems no special reason why it should not
combine both qualities — the power of repeating messages at consider-
able intervals of time after they were originally spoken, and the power
of transmitting them to great distances.

I have said that the phonograph is an instrument closely related
to the telephone. If we consider this feature of the instrument
attentively, we shall be led to the clearer recognition of the acoustical
principles on which its properties depend, and also of the natiune of
some of the interesting acoustical problems on which light seems
likely to be thrown by means of experiments with this instrument

In the telephone a stretched membrane, or a diaphragm of veiy
flexible iron, vibrates when words are uttered in its neighbourhood
When a stretched membrane is used, with a small piece of iron at the
centre, this small piece of iron, as swayed by the vibrations of the
membrane, causes electrical undulations to be induced in the coils
round the poles of a magnet placed in front of the membrane. These
undulations travel along the wire and pass through the coDs of
another instrument of similar construction at the other end of the
wire, where, accordingly, a stretched membrane vibrates precisely as
the first had done. The vibrations of this membrane excite atmo-
spheric vibrations identical in character with those which fell upon the
first membrane when the words were uttered in its neighbourhood ;
and therefore the same words appear to be uttered in the neighbour-
hood of the second membrane, however far it may be from the
transmitting membrane, so only that the electrical undulations are
effectually transmitted from the receiving to the sending instrument

I have here described what happened in the case of that earlier
form of the telephone in which a stretched membrane of some such
substance as goldbeater's skin was employed, at the centre of which
only was placed a small piece of iron. For in its bearing on the
subject of the phonograph this particular form of telephonic diaphragm
is more suggestive than the later form in which very flexible iron
was employed. We see that the vibrations of a small piece of iron
at the centre of a membrane are competent to reproduce all the
peculiarities of the atmospheric waves which fall upon the membrane

The Plionograph^ or Voice-Recorder. 691

when words are uttered in its neighbourhood This must be re-
garded, I conceive, as a remarkable acoustical discovery. Most
students of acoustics would have surmised that to reproduce the
motions merely of the central parts of a stretched diaphragm would
be altogether insufficient for the reproduction of the complicated
series of sound-waves corresponding to the utterance of words. I
apprehend that if the problem had originally been suggested simply
as an acoustical one, the idea entertained would have been this — ^diat
though the motions of a diaphragm receiving vocal sound-waves
tnight be generated artificially in such sort as to produce the same
vocal sounds, yet this could only be done by first determining what
particular points of the diaphragm were centres of motion, so to
speak, and then adopting some mechanical arrangements for giving
to small portions of the membrane at these points the necessary
osciUating motions. It could not, I think, have been supposed that
motions communicated to the centre of the diaphragm would sufiice
to make the whole diaphragm vibrate properly in all its different
parts.

Let us briefly consider what was before known about the
vibrations of plates, discs, and diaphragms, when particular tones
were sounded in their neighbourhood ; and also what was known
respecting the requirements for vocal sounds and speech as distin-
guished from simple tones. I need hardly say that I propose only
to consider these points in a general, not in a special, manner.

We must first carefully draw a distinction between the vibrations

of a plate or disc which is itself the source of sound, and those

vibrations which are excited in a plate or disc by sound-waves

otherwise originated. If a disc or plate of given size be set in

vibration by a blow or other impulse, it will give forth a special

sound, according to the place where it is struck, or it will give forth

combinations of the several tones which it is capable of emitting.

On the other hand, experiment shows that a diaphragm like that

used in the telephone — not only the electric telephone, but such

common telephones as have been sold of late in laige quantities in

toy shops, &c. — will respond to any sounds which are properly

directed towards it, not merely reproducing soimds of different tones,

but all the peculiarities which characterise vocal sounds. In the

former case, the size of a disc and the conditions under which it is

struck determine the nature of its vibrations, and the air responds

to the vibrations thus excited; in the latter, the air is set in vibrations

of a special kind by the soimds or words uttered, and the disc or

diaphragm responds to these vibrations. Nevertheless, though it is

Y Y 2

692 The Gentleman's Magazine.^

important that this distinction be recognised, we can still learn, from
the behaviour of discs and plates set in vibration by a blow or other
impulse, the laws according to which the actual motions of the
various parts of a vibrating disc or plate take place. We owe to
Chladni the invention of a method for rendering visible the nature
of such motions.

Certain electrical experiments of Lichtenberg suggested to
Chladni the idea of scattering fine sand over the plate or disc whose
motions he wished to examine. If a horizontal plate covered with
fine sand is set in vibration, those parts which move upwards and
downwards scatter the sand firom their neighbourhood, while on those
points which undergo no change of position the sand will remain.
Such points are called nodes ; and rows of such points are called
nvda/ lines, which may be either straight or curved according to
circumstances.

If a square plate of glass is held by a suitable clamp at its centre,
and the middle point of a side is touched while a bow is drawn
across the edge near a comer, the sand is seen to gather in the form
of a cross dividing the square into four equal squares — like a cross of
St. George. If the finger touches a comer, and the bow is drawn
across the middle of a side, the sand forms a cross dividing the
square along its diagonals — like a cross of St Andrew. Touching
two points equidistant fi-om two comers, and drawing the bow along
the middle of the opposite edge, we get the diagonal cross and also
certain curved lines of sand systematically placed in each of the four
quarters into which the diagonals divide th^ square. We also have,
in this case, a far shriller note fi-om the vibrating plate. And so, by
various changes in the position of the points clamped by the finger
and of the part of the edge along which the bow is drawn, we can
obtain innumerable varieties of nodal lines and curves along which
the sand gathers upon the surface of the vibrating plate.

When we take a circular plate of glass, clamped at the middle^
and, touching one part of its edge with the finger, draw the bow across
a point of the edge half a quadrant from the finger, we see the sand
arrange itself along two diameters intersecting at right angles. If the
bow is drawn at a point one-third a quadrant from the finger-clamped
point, we get a six-pointed star. If the bow is drawn at a point a
fourth of a quadrant firom the finger-clamped point, we get an eight-
pointed star. And so we can get the sand to arrange itself into a star
of any even number of points ; that is, we can get a star of four, six,
eight, ten, twelve, &c. points, but not of three, five, seven, &c.

In these cases the centre of the plate or disc has been fixed. If,

The Phonography or Voice- Recorder. 693

instead, the plate or disc be fixed by a clip at the edge, or clamped
elsewhere than at the centre, we find the sand arranging itself into
other forms, in which the centre may or may not appear ; that is, the
centre may or may not be nodal, according to circumstances.

A curious eflfect is produced if very fine powder be strewn along
with the sand over the plate; For it is found that the dust gathers,
not where the nodes or places of no vibration lie, but where the mo-
tion is greatest Faraday assigns as the cause of this peculiarity the
circumstance that '^ the light powder is entangled by the little whirlwinds
of air produced by the vibrations of the plate ; it cannot escape firom
the Httle cyclones, though the heavier sand particles are readily driven
through them; when, therefore, the motion ceases, the light powder set-
tles down in heaps at the places where the vibration was a maximum."
In proof of this theory we have the fact that " in vacuo no such effect
is produced ; all powders, light and heavy, move to the nodal lines.''
(TyndaU on "Sound.")

Now, if we consider the meaning of such results as these, we
shall begin to recognise the perplexing but also instructive character
of the evidence derived from the telephone, and applied to the con-
struction of the phonograph. It appears that when a disc is vibrating
under such special conditions as to give forth a particular series of
tones (the technically-called fundamental tone of the disc and other
tones combined with it which belong to its series of overtones), the
various parts of the disc are vibrating to and fro in a direction square
to the face of the disc, except certain points at which there is no
vibration, these points together forming curves of special forms along
the substance of the disc

When, on the other hand, tones of different kinds are sounded in
the neighbourhood of a disc or of a stretched circular membrane, we
may assume that the various parts of the disc are set in vibration
after a manner at least equally complicated. If the tones belong to
the series which could be emitted by the diaphragm when struck,
we can understand that the vibrations of the diaphragm would re-
semble those which would result from a blow struck under special
conditions. When other tones are sounded, it may be' assumed that
the sound-waves which reach the diaphragm cause it to vibrate as
though not the circumference (only) but a circle in the substance of
the diaphragm— concentric, of course, with the circumference, and
corresponding in dimensions with the tone of the sounds — were fixed.
If a drum of given size is struck, we hear a note of particular tone.
If we heard, as the result of a blow on the same drum, a much higher
tone, we should know that in some way or other the effective dimen-

694 '^f^ Gentleman's Magazine,

sions of the drum-skin had been reduced — as, for instance, by a ring
firmly pressed against the inside of the skin. So when a diaphragm
is responding to tones other than those corresponding to its size,
tension, &c., we infer that the sound-waves reaching it cause it to
behave, so far as its effective vibrating portion is concerned, as though
its conformation had altered. When several tones are responded to
by such a diaphragm, we may infer that the vibrations of the dia-
phragm are remarkably complicated.

Now, the varieties of vibratory motion to which the diaphragm of
the telephone has been made to respond have been multitudinous.
Not only have all orders of sound singly and together been responded
to, but vocal sounds which in many respects differ widely from or-
dinary tones are repeated, and the peculiarities of intonation whidi
distinguish one voice from another have been faithfully reproduced

Let us consider in what respects vocal sounds, and especially the
sounds employed in speech, differ from mere combinations of ordinaiy
tones.

It has been said, and with some justice, that the organ of voice is
of the natiwe of a reed instrument A reed instrument, as most
persons know, is one in which musical sounds are produced by the
action of a vibrating reed in breaking up a current of air into a series
of short puffs. The harmonium, accordion, concertina, &c., are reed
instruments, the reed for each note being a fine strip of metal vibrat-
ing in a slit The vocal organ of man is at the top of the windpipe,
along which a continuous current of air can be forced by the limgsL
Certain elastic bands are attached to the head of the windpipe, almost
closing the aperture. These vocal chords are thrown into vibration
by the current of air from the lungs ; and as the rate of their vibra-
tion is made to vary by varying their tension, the soimd changes in
tone. So far, we have what corresponds to a reed instrument admit-
ting of being altered in pitch so as to emit different notes. The
mouth, however, affects the character of the sound uttered from the
throat. The character of a tone emitted by the throat cannot be
altered by any change in the configuration of the mouth ; so that if a
single tone were in reality produced by the vocal chords, the reso-
nance of the mouth would only strengthen that tone more or less
according to the figure given to the cavity of the mouth at the will of
the singer or speaker. But in reality, besides the fundamental tone
uttered by the vocal chords, a series of overtones are produced
Overtones are tones corresponding to vibration at twice, three times,
four times, &c. the rate of the vibration producing the fimdam^ital
tone. Now, the cavity of the mouth can be so modified in shape as

The Phonography or Vaice-Recorder. 695

to strengthen either the fundamental tone or any one of these over-
tones. And according as special tones are strengthened in this way
various vocal sounds are produced, without changing the pitch or
intensity of the sound actually uttered. Calling the fundamental
tone the first tone, the overtones just mentioned the second, third,
fourth, &c. tones respectively (after Tyndall), we find that the follow-
ing relations exist between the combinations of these tones and the
various vowel sounds : —

If the lips are pushed forward so as to make the cavity of th^
mouth deep and the orifice of the mouth small, we get the deepest
resonance of which the mouth is capable ; the fundamental tone is
reinforced, while the higher tones are as far as possible thrown into
the shade. The resulting vowel sound is that of deep U (" 00 " in
" hoop ").

If the mouth is so far opened that the fundamental tone is accom-
panied by a strong second tone (the next higher octave to the funda-
mental tone), we get the vowel sound O (as in " hole "). The third
and fourth tones feebly accompanying the first and second make the
sound more perfect, but are not necessary.

If the orifice of the mouth is so widened, and the volume of the
cavity so reduced, that the fundamental tone is lost, the second
somewhat weakened, and the third given as the chief tone, with very
weak fourth and fifth tones, we have the vowel sound A.

To produce the vowel sound E, the resonant cavity of the mouth
must be considerably reduced The fourth tone is the characteristic
of this vowel. Yet the second tone also must be given with mode-
rate strength. The first and third tones must be weak, and the fifth
tone should be added with moderate strength.

To produce the vowel sound A, as in " far," the higher overtones
are chiefly used, the second is wanting altogether, the third feeble,
the higher tones — especially the fifth and seventh — strong.

The vowel sound I, as in " fine," it should be added, is not a
simple sound, but diphthongal. The two sounds, whose succession
gives the sound we represent (erroneously) by a single letter I (long),
are not very different from " a," as in " far," and " ee " (or " i" asin
" ravine ") ; they lie, however, in reality, respectively between " a " in
" far " and " fat," and " i " in " ravine " and " pin." Thus the tones and
overtones necessary for sounding " I " long, do not require a sepa-
rate description, any more than those necessary for sounding other
diphthongs, as oi, oe, and so forth.

We see, then, that the sound-waves necessary to reproduce accu-
rately the various vowel sounds, are more complicated than those

696 The Gentlematis Magazine.

which would correspond to the fundamental tones simply in which
any sound may be uttered. There must not only be in each case
certain overtones, but each overtone must be sounded with its due
degree of strength.

But this is not all, even as regards the vowel sounds, the most
readily reproducible peculiarities of ordinary speech. Spoken sounds
differ from musical sounds properly so called, in varying in pitch
throughout their continuance. So far as tone is concerned, apart
from vowel quality, the speech note may be imitated by sliding a
finger up the finger-board of a violin while the bow is being drawn.
A familiar illustration of the varying pitch of a speech note is
found in the utterance of Hamlet's question, " Pale, or red? " with
intense anxiety of inquiry, if one may so speak. " The sp)eech note
on the word * pale ' will consist of an upward movement of the
voice, while that on * red ' will be a downward movement, and in
both words the voice will traverse an interval of pitch so wide as to be
conspicuous to ordinary ears ; while the cultivated perception of the
musician will detect the voice moving through a less interval of pitch
while he is uttering the word * or ' of the same sentence. And he
who can record in musical notation the sounds which he hears, will
perceive the musical interval traversed in these vocal movements,
and the place also of these speech notes on the musical staff."
Variations of this kind, only not so great in amount, occur in ordi-
nary speech ; and no telephonic or phonographic instrument could
be regarded as perfect, or even satisfactory, which did not reproduce
them.

But the vowel sounds are, after all, combinations and modifications
of musical tones. It is otherwise with consonantal sounds, which, in
reality, result from various ways in which vowel sounds are com-
menced, interrupted (wholly or partially), and resumed. In one
respect this statement requires, perhaps, some modification — a point
which has not been much noticed by writers on vocal sounds. In
the case of liquids, vowel sounds are not partially interrupted only,
as is commonly stated. They cease entirely as vowel sounds, though
the utterance of a vocal sound is continued when a liquid consonant
is uttered. Let the reader utter any word in which a liquid occurs,
and he will find that, while the liquid itself is sounded, the vowel
sounds preceding or following the liquid cease entirely. Repeating
slowly, for example, the word " remain," dwelling on all the liquids, we
find that while the "r" is being sounded the "e" sound cannot be
given, and this sound ceases so soon as the ^'m'' is sounded; simi-
larly the long "a" sound can only be uttered when the "m" sound

The Phonography or Voice-Recorder. 697

ceases, and cannot be carried on into the sound of the final liquid
" n." The liquids are, in fact, improperly called semi-vowels, since
no vowel sound can accompany their utterance. The tone, however,
with which they are sounded can be modified during their utterance.
In soimding labials, the emission of air is not stopped completely at
any moment The same is true of the sibilants s, z, sh, zh, and of
the consonants g, j, f, v, th (hard and soft). These are called, on
this account, continuous consonants. The only consonants in pro-
noimcing which the emission of air is for a moment entirely stopped,
are the true mutes, sometimes called the six explosive consonants,
b, p, t, d, k, and g.

To reproduce artificially sounds resembling those of the conso-
nants in speech, we must for a moment interrupt, wholly for explosive
and partially for continuous consonant sounds, the passage of air
through a reed pipe. Tyndall thus describes an experiment of
this kind in which an imperfect imitation of the sound of the letter
'* m " was obtained — an imitation only requiring, to render it perfect,
as I have myself experimentally verified, attention to the considera-
tion respecting liquids pointed out in the preceding paragraph.
" Here," says Tyndall, describing the experiment as conducted during
a lecture, " is a free reed fixed in a frame, but without any pipe
associated with it, mounted on the acoustic bellows ; when air is
urged through the orifice, it speaks in this forcible manner. I now
fix upon the frame of the reed a pyramidal pipe; you notice a
change in the clang, and, by pushing my flat hand over the open end
of the pipe, the similarity between the sounds produced and those of
the human voice is unmistakable. Holding the palm of my hand over
the end of the pipe, so as to close it altogether, and then raising my
hand twice in quick succession, the word ' mamma' is heard as plainly
as if it were uttered by an infant For this pyramidal tube I now
substitute a shorter one, and with it make the same experiment. The
' mamma ' now heard is exactly such as would be uttered by a child
with a stopped nose. Thus, by associating with a vibrating reed a
suitable pipe, we can impart to the sound of the reed the qualities of the
human voice." The " m " obtained in these experiments was, how-
ever, imperfect. To produce an " m " sound such as an adult would
utter, without a " stopped nose," all that is necessary is to make
small opening (experiment readily determines the proper size and
position) in the side of the pyramidal pipe, so that, as in the natural
utterance of this liquid, the emission of air is not altogether inter-
rupted.

I witnessed in 1874 some curious illustrations of the artificial

698 The Gentlematis Magazine.

production of vocal sounds, at the Stevens Institute, Hoboken, N.J^
where the ingenious Professor Mayer (who will have, I trust, a good deal
to say about the scientific significance of telephonic and phonographic
experiments before long) had acoustic apparatus, including several
talking-pipes. By suitably moving his hand on the top of some (^ these
pipes he could make them speak certain words with tolerable dis-
tinctness, and even utter short sentences. I remember the per-
formance closed with the remarkably distinct utterance, by one
profane pipe, of the words euphemistically rendered by Mark Twain
(in his story of the Seven Sleepers, I think), " Go thou to Hades l"

Now, the speaking diaphragm in the telephone^ as in the phono-
graph, presently to be described, must reproduce not only all the
varieties of sound-wave corresponding to vowel sounds, with their
intermixtiures of the fimdamental tone and its overtones and their
inflexions or sliding changes of pitch, but also all the effects produced
on the receiving diaphragm by those interruptions, complete or
partial, of aerial emission which correspond to the pronunciation of
the various consonant sounds. It might certainly have seemed hope-
less, fi*om all that had been before known or siumised respecting the
effects of aerial vibrations on flexible diaphragms, to attempt to make
a diaphragm speak artificially — in other words, to make the move-
ments of all parts of it correspond with those of a diaphragm set in
vibration by spoken words — ^by movements affecting only its central
part It is in the recognition of the possibility of this, or rather in
the discovery of the fact that the movements of a minute portion of
the middle of a diaphragm regulate the vibratory and other move-
ments of the entire diaphragm, that the great scientific interest of
Professor Graham Bell's researches appears to me to reside.

It may be well, in illustration of the diflSculties with ifdiich
formerly the subject appeared to be surrounded, to describe the
results of experiments which preceded, though they can scarcely be
said to have led up to, the invention of artificial ways of reproducing
speech. I do not now refer to experiments like those of Kratzenstein,
of Sl Petersburg, and Von Kempelen, of Vienna, in 1779, ^^^ ^^
more successful experiments by Willis in later years, but to attempts
which have been made to obtain material records of the aerial motions
accompanying the utterances of spoken words. The most successfiil
of these attempts was that made by Mr. W. H. Barlow. His purpose
was " to construct an instrument which should record the pneumatic
actions" accompanying the utterance of articulated sounds ''by
diagrams, in a manner analogous to that in which the indicator-
diagram of a steam-engine records the action of the engine." He

The Phonograph, or Voice-Recorder. 699

perceived that, the actual aerial pressures involved being very small
and very variable, and the succession of impulses and changes of
pressure being very rapid, it was necessary that the moving parts
should be very light, and that the movement and marking should be
accomplished with as little friction as possible. The instrument he
constructed consisted of a small speaking-trumpet about four inches
long, having an ordinary mouthpiece connected to a tube half an inch
in diameter, the thin end of which widened out so as to form an
apertiu^ of 2\ inches diameter. This aperture was covered with
a membrane of goldbeater's skin, or thin gutta-percha. A spring
carrying a marker was made to press against the membrane with a
slight initial pressure, to prevent as far as possible the effects of
jarring and consequent vibratory action. A light arm of aluminium
was connected with the spring, and held the marker ; and a con-
tinuous strip of paper was made to pass under the marker in the
manner employed in telegraphy. The marker consisted of a small
fine sable brush, placed in a light tube of glass one-tenth of an inch
in diameter, the tube being rounded at the lower end, and pierced
with a hole about one-twentieth of an inch in diameter. Through
this hole the tip of the brush projected, and was fed by colour put
into the glass tube by which it was held. It should be added that,
to provide for the escape of the air passing through the speaking-
trumpet, a small opening was made in the side, so that the pressure
exerted upon the membrane was that due to the excess of air forced
into the trumpet over that expelled through the orifice. The strength
of the spring which carried the marker was so adjusted to the size of
the orifice that, while the lightest pressures arising under articulation
could be recorded, the greatest pressmres should not produce a move-
ment exceeding the width of the paper.

" It will be seen," says Mr. Barlow, " that in this construction of
the instrument the sudden application of pressure is as suddenly
recorded, subject only to the modifications occasioned by the inertia,
momentum, and fiiction of the parts moved. But the record of the
sudden cessation of pressure is further affected by the time required
to discharge the air through the escape-orifice. Inasmuch, however,
as these several effects are similar under similar circumstances, the
same diagram should always be obtained fi-om the same pneiunatic
action when the instrument is in proper adjustment ; and this result is
fairly borne out by the experiments."

The defect of the instrument consisted in the fact that it recorded
changes of pressure only ; and in point of fact it seems to result from
the experiments made with it, that it could only indicate the order in

700 The Gentlematis Magazine.

which explosive, continuant, and liquid consonants succeeded each
other in spoken words, the vowels being all expressed in the same way,
and only one letter — the rough R, or R with a burr — ^being always un-
mistakably indicated. The explosives were represented by a sudden
sharp rise and fall in the recorded ciuire ; the height of the rise
depending on the strength with which the explosive is uttered, not
on the nature of the consonant itself. Thus the word "tick" is
represented by a higher elevation for the "t" than for the "k,"
but the word "kite" by a higher elevation for the "k" than for
the "t" It is noteworthy that there is always a second smaller
rise and fall after the first chief one, in the case of each of the
explosives. This shows that the membrane, having first been
forcibly distended by the small aerial explosion accompanying the
utterance of such a consonant, sways back beyond the position where
the pressure and the elasticity of the membrane would (for the
moment) exactly balance, and then oscillates back again over that
position before returning to its undistended condition. Sometimes a
third small elevation can be recognised, and when an explosive is
followed by a rolling ' r ' several small elevations are seen. The con-
tinuous consonants produce elevations less steep and less high;
aspirates and sibilants give rounded hills. But the results vary gready
according to the position of a consonant ; and, so far as I can make
out from a careful study of the very interesting diagrams accompany-
ing Mr. Barlow's paper, it would be quite impossible to define
precisely the characteristic records even of each order of consonantal
sounds, far less of each separate sound.

We could readily understand that the movement of the central
part of the diaphragm in the telephone should give much more
characteristic differences for the various sounds than Barlow's logo-
graph. For if we imagine a small pointer attached to the centre of
the face of the receiving diaphragm while words are uttered in its
neighbourhood, the end of that pointer would not only move to and
fro in a direction square to the face of the diaphragm, as was the
case with Barlow's marker, but it would also sway round its mean
position in various small circles or ovals, varying in size, shape, and
position according to the various sounds uttered. We might expect,
then, that if in any way a record of the actual motions of the ex-
tremity of that small pointer could be obtained, in such sort that its
displacement in directions square to the face of the diaphragm, as
well as its swayings around its mean position, would be indicated in
some pictorial manner, the study of such records would indicate the
exact words spoken near the diaphragm, and even, perhaps, the pre-

The Phonography or Voice-Recorder. 701

cise tones in which they were uttered. For Barlow's logograph, deal-
ing with one only of the orders of motion (really triple in character),
gives diagrams in which the general character of the sounds uttered
is clearly indicated, and the supposed records would show much
more.

But although this might, from d priori considerations, have been
reasonably looked for, it by no means follows that the actual results
of Bell's telephonic experiments could have been anticipated. That
the movement of the central part of the diaphragm should suffice to
show that such and such words had been uttered, is one thing; but
that these movements should of themselves suffice, if artificially
reproduced, to cause the diaphragm to reproduce these words, is
another and a very dififerent one. I venture to express my convic-
tion that at the beginning of his researches Professor Bell can have
had very little hope that any such result would be obtained, notwith-
standing some remarkable experiments respecting the transmission of
sound which we can new very clearly perceive to point in that direc-
tion.

When, however, he had invented the telephone, this point was in
effect demonstrated; for in that instrument, as we have seen, the
movements of the minute piece of metal attached (at least in the
earlier forms of the instrument) to the centre of the receiving mem-
brane, suffice, when precisely copied by the similar central piece of
metal in the transmitting membrane, to cause the words which pro-
duced the motions of the receiving or hearing membrane to be uttered
(or seem to be uttered) by the transmitting or speaking membrane.

It was reserved, however, for Edison (of New Jersey, U.S.A.,
Electrical Adviser to the Western Union Telegraph Company) to
show how advantage might be taken of this discovery to make a
diaphragm speak, not directly through the action of the movements
of a diaphragm aflfected by spoken words or other soimds, and
therefore either simultaneously with these or in such quick succession
after them as corresponds with the transmission of their effects along
some line of electrical or other communication, but by the mechani-
cal reproduction of similar movements at any subsequent time (within
certain Hmits at present, but probably hereafter with practically un-
limited extension as to time).

The following is slightly modified from Edison's own description
of the phonograph : — %

The instrument is composed of three parts mainly ; namely, a
receiving, a recording, and a transmitting apparatus. The receiving
apparatus consists of a curved tube, one end of which is fitted with

702 The Gentleman! s Magazine.

a mouthpiece. The other end is about two inches in diameter, and
is closed with a disc or diaphragm of exceedingly thin metal, capable
of being thrust slightly outwards or vibrated upon gentle pressure
being applied to it from within the tube. To the centre of this
diaphragm (which is vertical) is fixed a small blunt steel pin, which
shares the vibratory motion of the diaphragm. This arrangement is set
on a table, and can be adjusted suitably with respect to the second pait
of the instrument — ^the recorder. This is a brass cylinder, about four
inches in length and four in diameter, cut with a continuous V-groove
fix)m one end to the other, so that in efifect it represents a large screw.
There are forty of these grooves in the entire length of the cylinder.
The cylinder turns steadily, when the instrument is in operation, upon
a vertical axis, its face being presented to the steel point of the receiv-
ing apparatus. The shaft on which it turns is provided with a screw-
thread and works in a screwed bearing, so that as the shaft is turned
(by a handle) it not only tums the cylinder, but steadily carries
it upwards. The rate of this vertical motion is such that the cylinder
behaves precisely as if its groove worked in a screw-bearing.
Thus, if the pointer be set opposite the middle of the uppermost part
of the continuous groove at the beginning of this turning motion, it
will traverse the groove continuously to its lowest part, which it will
reach after forty turnings of the handle. (More correctly, perhaps, we
might say that the groove continuously traverses past the pointer.)
Now, suppose that a piece of some such substance as tinfoil is
wrapped round the cylinder. Then the pointer, when at rest, just
touches the tinfoil. But when the diaphragm is vibrating under the
action of aerial waves resulting from various sounds, the pointervibrates
in such a way as to indent the tinfoil — ^not only to a greater or less
depth according to the play of the pointer to and fro in a direction
square to the face of the diaphragm, but also over a range all round its
mean position, corresponding to the play of the end of the pointer
around its mean position. The groove allows the pressing of the pointer
against the tinfoil free action. If the cylinder had no groove, the
dead resistance of the tinfoil, thus backed up by an imyielding sur-
face, would stop the play of the pointer. Under the actual conditions
the tinfoil is only kept taut enough to receive the impressions, while
yielding sufficiently to let the play of the pointer continue imre-
strained. If now a person speaks into the receiving tube, and the
handle of the cylinder be turned, the vibrations of the pointer are im-
pressed upon the portion of the tinfoil lying over the hollow groove,
and are retained by it. They will be more or less deeply marked
according to the quality of the sounds emitted, and according

The Phonograph, or Voice-Recorder. 703

also, of course, to the strength with which the speaker utters the
sounds, and to the nature of the modulations and inflexions of his
voice. The result is a message verbally imprinted upon a strip
of metal. It differs from the result in the case of Barlow's logo-
graph, in being virtually a record in three dimensions instead of
one only. The varying depth of the impressions corresponds to
the varying height of the curve in Barlow's diagrams : but there
the resemblance ceases ; for that was the single feature which
Barlow's logographs could present Edison's imprinted words show,
besides varying depth of impression, a varying range on either
side of the mean track of the pointer, and also — ^though the eye
is not able to detect this effect — there is a varying rate of progres-
sion according as the end of the pointer has been swayed towards or
from the direction in which, owing to the motion of the cylinder, the
pointer is virtually travelling.

We may say of the record thus obtained that it is sound presented
in a visible form. A jovuualist who has written on the phonograph has
spoken of this record as corresponding to the crystallisation of sound.
And another who, like the former, has been (erroneously, but that is a
detail) identified with myself, has said, in like fancifril vein, that the
story of Baron Munchausen hearing words which had been frozen
during severe cold melting into speech again, so that all the babble of a
past day came floating about his ears, has been realised by Edison's
invention. Although such expressions may not be, and in point of
fact are not, strictly scientific, I am not disposed, for my own part,
to cavil with them. If they could by any possibility be taken au
pied de la lettre (and, by the way, we find quite a new meaning for this
expression in the light of what is now known about vowels and
consonants) there would be strong objections to their use. But, as no
one supposes that Edison's phonograph really crystallises words or
freezes sounds, it seems hypercritical to denounce such expressions
as my most acciu^te though utterly mistaken critic of the Telegraphic
youmal denounces them.

To retiun to Edison's instrument.

Having obtained a material record of sounds, vocal or otherwise,
it remains that a contrivance should be adopted for making this
record reproduce the sounds by which it was itself formed. This is
effected by the third portion of the apparatus, the transmitter. This
is a conical drum, or rather a drum shaped like a fiiistum of a cone,
having its larger end open, the smaller — which is about two inches in
diameter — ^being covered with paper stretched tight like the parch-
ment of a drum-head. In front of this diaphragm is a light flat steel

704 The Gentleman's Magazine.

spring, held vertically, and ending in a blunt steel point, whidi
projects from it and corresponds precisely with that on the diaphragm
of the receiver. The spring is connected with the paper diaphragm
by a silken thread, just sufficiently in tension to cause the outer &ce
of the diaphragm to be slightly convex. Having removed the
receiving apparatus from the cylinder and set the cylinder back to its
original position, the transmitting apparatus is brought up to the
cylinder until the steel point just rests, without pressure, in the first
indentation made in the tinfoil by the point of the receiver. If now
the handle is tiuned at the same speed as when the message was
being recorded, the steel point will follow the line of impression, and
will vibrate in periods corresponding to the impressions which were
produced by the point of the receiving apparatus. The paper
diaphragm being thus set into vibrations of the requisite kind in
number, depth, and side-range, there are produced precisely the same
sounds that set the diaphragm of the receiver into vibration ori-
ginally. Thus the words of the speaker are heard issuing from the
conical drum in his own voice, tinged with a slight metallic or
mechanical tone. If the cylinder be more slowly turned when
transmitting than it had been when receiving the message, the voice
assumes a bass tone ; if more quickly, the message is given with a
more treble voice. " In the present machine," says the account,
" when a long message is to be recorded, so soon as one strip of tin-
foil is filled, it is removed and replaced by others, until the commu-
nication has been completed. In using the machine for the purpose
of correspondence the metal strips are removed from the cylinder
and sent to the person with whom the speaker desires to correspond,
who must possess a machine similar to that used by the sender. The
person receiving the strips places them in turn on the cylinder of his
apparatus, applies the transmitter, and puts the cylinder in motion,
when he hears his friend's voice speaking to him from the indented
metal. And he can repeat the contents of the missive as often as he
pleases, until he has worn the metal through. The sender can make
an infinite number of copies of his communication by taking a
plaster-of-Paris cast of the original, and rubbing off impressions from
it on a clean sheet of foil."

I forbear from dwelling further at present on the interest and
value of this noble invention, or from considering some of the develop-
ments which it will probably receive before long, for already I have
occupied more space than I had intended. I have no doubt that in
these days it will bring its inventor less credit, and far less material
pin^ than would be acquired from the invention of some ingenious con-

The Plionograph, or Voice- Recorder. 705

trivance for destroying many lives at a blow, bursting a hole as large
as a church door in the bottom of an ironclad, or in some other way
helping men to carry out those destructive instincts which they inherit
from savage and brutal ancestors. But hereafter, when the represen-
tatives of the brutality and savagery of our nature are held in proper
disesteem, and those who have added new enjoyments to life are
justly valued, a high place in the esteem of men will be accorded
to him who has answered one half of the poet's aspiration,

*' Oh! for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still.''

RICHARD A PROCTOR.

Note, — Since the present paper was written, M. Aurel de Ratti
has made some experiments which he regards as tending to show
that there b no mechanical vibration. Thus, 'when the cavities
above and below the iron disc of an ordinary telephone are filled with
wadding, the instrument will transmit and speak with undiminished
clearness. On placing a finger on the iron disc opposite the magnet
the instrument will transmit and speak distinctly, only ceasing to act
when sufficient pressure is applied to bring plate and magnet into
contact Connecting the centre of the disc by means of a short
thread with an extremely sensitive membrane, no soimd is given out
by the latter when a message is transmitted. Bringing the iron
cores of the double telephone in contact with the disc and pressing
with the fingers against the plate on the other side, a weak current
from a Daniell cell produced a distinct click in the plate, and on
drawing a wire firom the cell over a file which formed part of the
circuit, a rattling noise was produced in the instrument' If these
experiments had been made before the phonograph was invented,
they would have suggested the impracticability of constructing any
instrument which should do what the phonograph actually ddes,
viz., cause sounds to be repeated by exciting a merely mechanical,
vibration of the central part of a thin metallic disc But as the
phonograph proves that this can actually be done, we must conclude
that M. Aurel de Ratti's experiments will not bear the interpretation
he places upon them. They show, nevertheless, that exceedingly
minute vibrations of probably a very small portion of the telephonic
disc suffice for the distinct transmission of vocal soimds. This might
indeed be inferred from the experiments of M. Demoget, of Nantes,
who finds that the vibrations of the transmitting telephone are in
amplitude little more than i -2,000th those of the receiving tele-
phone.

VOL. ccxui. wo. 1770. z z

7o6 TJu Gentleman's Magazine.

I

CHARLES NODIER.

PERHAPS the word " fascinating " might best characterise this
delightful writer, and would yet fall short of my intended
praise. Nodier possesses that inexplicable witchery exercised by some
authors wholly out of proportion with the importance of their worics,
whether considered severally or as a whole, a witchery almost inde-
pendent of subject and style, dependent, indeed, we know not on
what The French mind is keenly alive to the attractiveness of their
story-teller par excellence^ and though his nationality has a good
deal to do with such esteem among his country-people, it is rather
astonishing that he should be so little read here, whilst recent
writers like Alphonse Daudet, Victor Cherbuliez, and Gustave Droz
among novelists are comparatively familiar to us, and even young
poets like Coppee, Theodore de Banville, and Sully Prudhomme
begin to find an English public, who turns again and again to the
deliciously fanciful pages of "Les Contes de la Veill^" or the
entrancing " Souvenirs et Portraits de la Revolution." Edition after
edition of Nodiefs works continue to appear on the other side of La
Manche, yet to the best of my knowledge none have found their way
into an English translation, and very scant justice has been meted out
to them by English critics on French literature. Van Laun, in his
generally meritorious work, vouchsafes only a couple of pages to this
charming writer, and for the most part he is wholly ignored by foreign
critics of French writers, whilst superabimdant praise is lavished upon
less remarkable fellow-authors. Very different is the case in Fiance,
where Nodier has met with ample recognition at the hands of his
critics and editors, Jules Janin, Ste.-Beuve, Victor Hugo, and
Alexandre Dumas the elder, inter cUios, One and all do homage to
the story-teller, poet, humourist, bibliophile, critic, journalist, philo-
loger ; and their testimony may be briefly summed up in the words
applied to oUr own Goldsmith, nullum quod tetigit nan amavit

Nodier's life bridges over two momentous periods in French
history. As a boy he remembered the assassination of Charlotte
Corday and the events of the Terror, making personal acquaint-
ance with St ]\ist, the youngjer Robespierre, and other prominent

Cfmrles Nodier. 707

characters in the great Revolution ; though at heart no Republican,
as an old man he consorted with the leading spirits of new France.
He outlived the victory of the democratic principle in the stormy
days of July, but died, fortunately for himself, too soon to see
his beloved country once more under the heel of a Bonaparte.
His life in itself was not particularly eventful, though pleasant
to read of, no matter who his biographer. He was by birth a
Franche-Comtois, being, like his fHend and great compatriot Victor
Hugo, bom at Besangon. Every province in France has its cha-
racteristic, though not so saliently marked as Michelet would have
us believe, and we may fairly take some of Nodier's intellectual and
social qualities as typical of his own. That subtle imagination,
nurtured on the legendary lore and wild scenery of the Jiura ; that
ndiveth and homeliness, as striking in the celebrated and courted
writer and librarian of the Arsenal as in the struggling student thirty
years before ; that poetic conservatism, verging on superstitiousness,
which could not brook the destruction of any ancient landmark, and
anathematised progress itself; that boundless S3anpathy, good nature,
and deep religious feeling, have doubtless something to do with the
hardy, simple race from which he sprang. One of the earliest incidents
recorded of his childhood has — ^we might almost say — been perpetuated
by the charming pen of Paul Fdval; at any rate, " Le Premier Amour de
Charles Nodier " is not likely to be forgotten ; and recited as I heard
it once in a large French city, before 500 Lyc^e scholars, it is the signal
for unlimited laughter and applause. The episode of a ten-year-old
schoolboy who writes love-letters to his mother's middle-aged bosom
friend, and appoints a rendezvous, there to receive at her hand what
his biographer calls '' the most humiliating of maternal punishments,''
in other words, a sound whipping, is not one we should read to our
children. In France, however, it is otherwise, and so amusingly has
Paul F^val told the story, and so well does it lend itself to recitation,
that as we listen we forget to disapprove. Nodier himself would cite
this sample of precocious boyhood, adding pathetically, " I bore the
lady no malice in consequence, but from that day I became consti-
tutionally timid, and for years after never entered into conversation
with a woman without the dread of a whipping !"

Bom in 1780 of a respectable and lettered family, Charles Nodier
from his earliest years gave the promise of a distinguished career.
Noting the striking capacities of their boy, his parents spared no
pains to secure him an adequate education ; and whilst all France
was ringing with the Terror, he was throwing heart and soul into
Latin, Greek, and natural history. The leading events of that

ZZ2

7o8 Tfie Gentlematis Magazine.

awful time laid strong hold on his imagination^ and the varied
experiences of these schoolboy days are among the most interesting
of his miscellaneous writings, whilst they lend more than romantic
interest to many of his novels and stories. At twenty, as might be
expected in the history of a French man of letters, he went to Paris,
fired with the natural ambition of a young writer. There, as naturally,
considering the suspiciousness of the times, he was arrested and
thrown into prison for his share in a certain play long since forgotten,
his recollections of Ste. Pdagie being afterwards embodied in " Les
Suites d'un Mandat d'arret." After some months' confinement he
was liberated, but for four years kept under strict police surveillance,
and to the last day of his life he resented a rigour as cruel as it
was unmerited. At twenty-eight, he married a portionless girl of
seventeen. The young couple, who had both chosen each other
for love, not based upon prudential -motives, as is commonly the
case in France, settled themselves at Amiens, as joint secretaries to
an eccentric old English lady and gentleman, whose portraits Nodier
has given con amore in his novel " Amdie." The next stage in their
existence was an exile to Laybach in the ^o-qsI^qA Province JUyrienne^
Nodier being nominated by Napoleon to the post of Librarian in
1 8 1 2. This expatriation ended after the downfisdl of the Emperor, but
it was not the only occasion upon which one of the first among
French writers was compelled by pecuniary need to accept an ill-
paid post in a foreign country. A little later he was nominated
to the Professorship of Political Economy at the Lyc^e Richelieu,
Odessa, and in preparation for a final exit fi-om France, sold or gave
away everything he possessed, even his entomological collections
and his books. The author of " Les Contes de la Veillfe " and " La
F^e aux Miettes," Professor of Political Economy ! What a com-
mentary on the times ! and what a satire on the construction of society!
However, the project was not carried out, and Nodier settled in
Paris instead, where, with the exception of short holida3rs spent in
his beloved Jura and in foreign travel, was passed the rest of his
happy, honoured, and laborious hfe. In 1824, his appointment as
Librarian of the Arsenal settled for once and for all the terrible
question of bread-winning. Nodier was here in his element The bib-
liophile, the antiquary, the story-teller, could desire no more. Fpends
gathered round him, the choicest spirits of the time in art, letters, and
science, making an almost matchless circle of which he formed the
leader. Relief was afforded to his graver studies by the society of
his accomplished wife and daughter, and when he died in 1844 there
were a dozen chroniclers ready to tell the story of a life as genial,

laborious, and piodMc^v^ ^.'^ ^xi^ '\ELVix^t^.\>3i^«

Charles Nodier. 709

Nodier was a Frenchman to the backbone, yet cosmopolitan in
his tastes and habits to a 'degree rarely foimd among his coimtrymen*
He was — what hardly any Frenchman ever is — an admirable traveller,
enjoying with English relish the various countries he was enabled
to visit in his better days — Switzerland, Scotland, Spain, Italy ; no
matter whither he went, he found everything new, strange, and
delightful. He was no less cosmopolitan in literature. Goethe,
Cervantes, Chaucer, Hoffmann, Tieck, Walter Scott, not to speak of
less famous names, were as familiar to him as writers of his own
coimtry; and literatiure indeed he studied as such, quite apart from
nationality. Again, he was curiously improvident, much more ailer
the manner of English than French authors. He lived without
any thought of the future, and instead of laying by a small dowry for
his only child, when the time of her marriage came, sold his library
in order to purchase her trousseau ! Even the strong passion of an
ardent bibliophile was mastered by the stronger habit of living with-
out thought of the morrow. On the modest income of a French
librarian he dispensed lavish hospitality, and the various accounts
of those Sunday dinners and " at homes " in the Arsenal give a
charming picture of the happy abandon in French society we find so
difBcult to imitate. Lafayette, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas,
Alfred de Musset, Eugene Delacroix, Balzac, Ste.-Beuve, Jules
Janin, Liszt, Lamartine, Alfred de Vigny, David d'Angers, Victor
Consid^rant — all these were among the constant visitors at the Arsenal,
and one of them has drawn the following portrait of the incomparable
story-teller. It comes af^er a general description of the weekly
reception : —

'' If Nodier, quitting his chair, placed himself in a comfortable
attitude with his back to the fireplace, we might be quite sure he was
going to tell us a story. Then everyone smiled in anticipation of
what was coming from those lips, so finely outlined, so full of delicate
raillery and intellect Then everyone was silent, while he gradually
developed one of the charming narratives of his youth, an idyll of
Theocritus, or a romance of Longinus, Walter Scott, and Perrault in
one!

" It was the scholar at issue with the poet — memory struggling
with imagination ! Not only was Nodier delightful to hear at these
times, but delightful to behold. His long lank form, his long thin arms,
long slender hands, and long face full of pensive calm, all harmonised
with his slow enunciation and Franche-Comtois accent. Whether
Nodier began a love-story, the history of a Vendean conflict, or of an
episode in the Revolution, we listened almost breathlessly, so admi-

7IO The Gentlematis Magazine.

rably did the story-teller know how to distil sweetness from every-
thing. Those who chanced to enter in the midst of a recital sat
down quietly, and it always finished too soon for alL

'' And we saw no reason why it should finish at all, since Nodier
seemed able to draw inexhaustibly firom that purse of Fortunatus called
the imagination. No one applauded, any more than we applaud the
rippling of a river, the song of a bird, the perfume of a flower.
But the rippling hushed, the song ended, the perfimie vanished, we
listened, we waited, we longed for more. Then ofl-times Nodier
would gently sink into his great arm-chair, and turning to Lamartine
or Victor Hugo, would say, * Come, enough of prose for to-day, let
us have poetry.' Whereupon, without fiirther importunity, one of
the two poets, not quitting his chair, would give utterance to delicious
verse, tender, passionate, or melancholy, as the case might be. Every
one applauded now ; and the applause ended, the rest of the evening
was given up to music, dancing, and cards."

What a delightful social picture is this ! Who does not envy the
frequenters of Nodiefs salan^ so simple, so cordial, so abounding in
the lighter graces of thought and imagination ? Grave discussions
upon politics, abstruse scientific and philosophical questions were
eliminated firom these brilliant thousand-and-one nights at the Arsenal
People went to be fascinated, and never in vain. In striking con-
trast with the elegance of the intellectual feast spread before them
was the material part of it. Nodier prided himself upon his
bourgeois origin, and cultivated le terre-^-terre^ in other words, the
commonplace, with a persistence amounting to mania. He pre-
ferred candles to wax-lights, pewter to plate, cabbage soup to any
other, household bread to rolls. He detested novelties even in the
shape of progress, and could not reconcile himself to gas and rail-
ways ; he was curiously wedded to old customs and superstitions,
never omitting the twelfth cake, the bdgnets du camavcU, le jamban
des Fdques ; whilst the thought of imdertaking an important transaction
on Friday, of overturning a salt-cellar, above all, of dining thirteen
at table, filled him with terror. Among his papers his daughter found
the following memorandum regarding the last-mentioned omen : —

The 6th Florial 1803 I dined with Legargne at the Tnileries, the company
numbering thirteen, all then in the prime of life, five of whom died vrithin twdve
months after, five the next year, the last two at the end of ten jreaxs, as follows: —

Ars^ne, ^

Balleydier, \ prematurely of disease.

Michon, J

Madame Q. of grief and misery.

Colonel D. of yellow fever.

diaries Nodier. jii

Colonel O. of twenty-fiTC lance cats.
Colonel A. of a cannon-balL

' y in a mad-house.
G

M. D. in a shipwreck.

P., suicide.

M. guillotined.

The banquet was a very gay one !

These old-world superstitions form the subject of one of his
most charming stories to be mentioned further on, and his clinging to
tradition is seen in all. The only kind of innovation he found
tolerable was the spread of pacific ideas, the amelioration of the
legal code, and increased charity, kindness, and well-being. Thus, no
French writer has upheld the abolition of capital punishment more
strongly than he, and none has written more eloquenUy and
touchingly about helpless humanity, idiots, maniacs and fools, and
also about animals. On the first subject he bursts out with a vehe-
mence unusual to him : —

"Oh ! ye makers of revolutions, who have revolted against all the moral and
political institutions of your country," he says, ** who have revolted against laws,
domestic affections, creeds, against thrones, altars, tombs — ye have left untouched
the scaffold I And you speak of your enlightenment, you propose yourselves as
models of perfected civilization. . . . We must not murder. We must not kill
those who kill. We must kill the laws of murder."

Certain kinds of mental alienation possessed strange fascinations
for him, which might seem astonishing but for one fact We are apt
to forget that the romance of all time and all ages, the novel that
towers over all others as supremely and eternally as Mont Blanc over
his fellow-peaks, has for its principal characters a madman and a fooL
Yet, did any sane person ever tire of those wonderfiil conversations
between Don Quixote and his esquire ? Have we not here an inex-
haustible source of tears and laughter, wit, wisdom, and gaiety? And
Nodier, whose subtle fancy had this kinship with his great compeer,
was drawn towards the '^ wisdom that speaketh through the lips of a
fool," seeing herein something sacred and supernatural Of animals
he always wrote, if not with the familiarity of La Fontaine — ^for he
alone, by some secret charm unknown to the rest of the world, con-
trived to learn their thoughts, or, at least, ways of looking at things
— sympathetically, and with the insight of the poet and the
natiuralist Next to Elzevirs, he adored butterflies, "those most
bewitching of all creatures heaven has not thought fit to endue with
a soul," as he writes somewhere ; and if anything made him happier
than strolling down the quays in search of some famous douguin, it
was the sight of a rare bird or insect

\
I

712 Tlie Gentleman s MagaziTU.

No wonder that a man of tastes so multifarious and numerous
relished travel, as few do even in these days of easy locomotion and
Murray's handbooks. No matter whither he went, he gleaned rich
harvests by the way; poetry, legend, folk-lore, nothing that appealed
to the story-teller escaped him. And with wondrous skill did he
subserve his vast stores of knowledge and experience to the art
of which he was master. Perhaps none of Nodier's stories could
be pointed out which has not some historical fact, some tradi-
tion, ancient chronicle, or popular belief as a basis. Upon the
slightest, not unfrequently the gloomiest background, he would
embroider one rich and animated picture after another, each having
some special raison (THre^ and all perfect as works of art. Nodier
reaches the high- water mark of prose, and certainly did not transcribe
Rabelais three times for nothing : for it is said that, fired with a desire
to approach the wonderful language of Pantagruel and Gaigantua, he
actually copied each of these works three times over ! He adored
style, and in the delirium of his last hours murmured to some un-
known interlocutor, ''Read Tacitus and Fdnelon in order to
strengthen your style." In these days young French writers read
Nodier for the same purpose. Nor were his thoughts less pure than
the dress in which he clothed them : '' Let the little ones come in to
listen," he says somewhere ; " there is nothing in my stories to do
them harm, and you know me well enough to believe it." The
marvellous, the supernatural, the horrible, indeed, may thrill his
readers, the pathetic make them weep ; he nowhere calls forth a
blush. It is impossible to give any adequate notion of so voluminous
and many-sided a writer in a short paper, but we fancy that all
familiar with Nodier's works will coincide in the verdict of his
countrymen who put the story-teller before the critic and historian,
much less the poet. It is in the novelette that he rivals Tieck,
Hoffmann, Zschokke, Hawthorne, and even Foe. It is by the
novelette, that most delightful and rarest of literary achievements, he
will be remembered.

When we come to analyse these little chefs-d'auvre^ we are com-
pelled to a very disadvantageous comparison with the productions
of the day. Short stories, as a rule, whether English, French, or
German, are vapid affairs, like other ephemeral works, mere con-
spiracies, as Schopenhauer somewhere says, between author, printer,
and publishers to extract a thaler or two from the pockets of the
public. No sooner are they read than forgotten, and the wonder
is that they are read at all, were it not, again to quote Schopenhauer,
that the preponderating mass of human beings have no brains to

Charles Nodier. 713

speak of, and prefer to think by means of other people's, no matter
how poor they may be. But Nodiefs stories are all gems, some
bright and happy in design, others engraved with grotesque, even
awful figures. Yet all are perfect as genius and workmanship can
make them ; most, if once read, to be read many times. Take
as a specimen the so-called " Histoire Veritable et Fantastique,"
Fauly ou la RessemblancCy the scene of which is laid in the Pyrenees.
A French marquis, accompanied by a young servant named Paul, is
slowly driving along the winding road above the lovely valley of
Arg&les, followed by an aged peasant farmer on horseback, who,
whilst keeping at a respectful distance, is observed to watch the party
with something more than curiosity. His wistfulness attracts the
marquis's attention, and when obliged to put up at the post-house
of Pierrefitte, he finds himself opposite the old man, who timidly
begins a conversation : —

" You must have been astonished, monsieur," he said, " to see
me so bent upon following you, and such inquisitiveness, out of place
at my age, may have given you but a poor opinion of me."

" No, indeed," answered the marquis, " I imagined that you had
something you wished to commimicate — that is alL"

" I have indeed, if you give me permission," replied the peasant ;
"but how to explain myself? My sole object was to attract the
attention of a young serving-lad seated on the driving-box, who
did not appear to recognise me. Yet it is quite possible," he said,
stifling a sob, " that we indeed saw each other to-day for the first
time. May I ask how long he has been in your service ?"

" For two years," replied the marquis, " and I have known him
from his childhood. He quitted his family to come to me."

'' His family?" repeated the old man, raising his eyes to heaven
and shedding tears.

" Explain yourself," cried the marquis. " I know nothing of this
mystery, but I desire much to hear what you have to say, maybe to
console yoiL"

Afler some hesitation the other related the following story, just
such a story as we may yet hear fix)m the lips of a Breton peasant : —
A short time before he had lost his only child, a youth of exactly the
age, stature, name, and general appearance of the marquis's servant-
lad Paul. The mother, heartbroken at this cruel misfortime, would
steal from the house at night and weep over her son's grave, imploring
the comfort of the Virgin, which at last was vouchsafed. " Listen,"
said a saintly apparition of the mother of Jesus ; " you have prayed
to me, and I have heard your prayer. Send your husband into the
mountains. He will there find your lost child."

714 Tfie Ge?Ulemans Magazine.

Persuaded against his will, since reading and the society of en-
lightened people had cured him of popular superstitions, the old man
at last set forth — truly enough, to find his son.

" Your son?" asked the marquis in profound astonishment

"Yes, monsieur, it is indeed my son. He does not recognise
me, but it is he. How can I mistake him ? — I, who am his fiither."

Then after shedding abundant tears and further reflection, he is
compelled to admit that it cannot in truth be the son he has buried,
but a heaven-sent image of him to take his place.

" The likeness has deceived me, it will deceive his mother," he
cried entreatingly. " I offer him mother, father, an ample heritage.
He has been poor, he shall be rich ; he is a servant, he shall be
master. Heaven does not make such likenesses in vain. The por-
tionless will become heir, and the moiuning parents recover their
child. Oh ! monsieur, do not refuse your intercession on mj
behalf."

It is not necessary to unfold the denautment of this exquisite
little story, which is in Nodier's happiest vein. "La Ldgende de
Soeur Beatrix" is another little poem in prose, also founded on a
popular legend. Here he has ample opportunity for describing the
romantic scenery of the Jura, so familiar to him, and made familiar
to his readers in idyllic pictures, fresh, joyous, animated as the
face of Nature herselfl Perhaps the most striking stories in the
* volume before us, " Contes de la VeiDfe," if indeed stories they
can be called, are M, Cazotte and M, de la MeUrie. Nodier never
saw things after the manner of other people. The weird, the
mysterious, the supematural had the strangest fascination for him,
and in the first of these narratives we have a sketch as powerful
and vivid as if from the hand of Rembrandt M. Cazotte, it will
be remembered, was a venerable gentleman of irreproachable character
and high social position, who, after being rescued firom the massacres
of September by his heroic daughter Elizabeth, fell a victim to the
Terror. Four months before his death he relates the following inci-
dent which had happened in his youth. At that time there was
living a certain aged lady named Madame Lebrun, reputed to possess
the gift of prophecy. So old was she, so wizen, so cadaverous to
look at, that the people circulated all kinds of fabulous reports about
her. Some said she was the female Wandering Jew, others that she
was an Egyptian princess, others a dethroned Queen of China or
Japan, others that she was no other but the unfortunate Maiy Queen
of Scots, whose life a devoted waiting-woman had saved at the cost
of her own 1 All agreed that she was a seer, that she would live for

Charles Nodier.^ 715

ever, and called her La Fde d'lvoire, the Ivory Fay. Space does
not permit an analysis of the stoiy, so I will content myself with
giving the climax to which a series of interesting episodes skilfully
lead up.

The scene is Madame Lebrun's own room, to which M. Cazotte
is admitted by specid privilege, trembling he hardly knows why.
" The apartment had nothing about it of the Sibyl. There were old
wood carvings, old-fashioned pieces of furniture, a prie-Dieu in the
style of a hundred years before. As may be imagined, my eyes imme-
diately fastened themselves on the F^e d'l voire, whom my companion
Angdlique constrained to keep her place, in order to avoid fatigue.
I at once went over to where she sat, and with some difficulty hindered
her from rising. Then I discovered that her piercing black eyes
were fixed on me, with an iron gaze. * Oh God ! oh God ! ' she
cried, falling back on her chair and covering her face with her hands,
' is it possible that Thy justice will permit this one crime more ?
Again and again, oh God ! ' Then she let her arms fall down on
each side of the chair as if they belonged to it, her body became
rigid, her face melancholy, her attention apparently directed else-
where, so that I ventiured to look at her. I was struck with the
aptness of her sobriquet^ * La Fde d'lvoire.* Her complexion was that
of polished ivory, rendered shining by time. Blood and life seemed
to have entirely disappeared from under the glossy, tight-stretched
skin, marked here and there by deep lines that a sculptor might have
chiselled, and which hid the histoiy and sorrows of a centuiy. It
was difficult to decide if the F^e dTvoire had ever been beautiful,
but I could fancy her charming in former days, and my imagination,
fertile in such metamorphoses,, was rejuvenating her when suddenly
one of her hands moved as if by a spring and ran through my hair.

" * Again and again 1 ' she cried. * But there is no possibihty of
error ! ' Then she murmured, her voice becoming almost inaudible,
*The same destiny for this as for the others. Another head for
the executioner 1 ' "

"J/", de la Mettrie" in a light and playful vein, is written in
Nodier's most fascinating manner. It is indeed an apology for popular
superstitions, and after reading it, I venture to affirm that the most
positive-minded will refuse to dine thirteen at table, will look with
dismay at the overtiuned salt-cellar, will hail swallows' nests in his
house-roof delightedly, and as long as he Uves refuse to undertake
any important transaction on a Friday !

The delicate aroma of Nodier's style is of course lost in a trans-
lation, but the ideas are here. Thus charmingly M. de la Mettrie,

7i6 The Gentleman's Magazine.

the principal personage in the narrative, discourses on spilling salt
"You must have seen," he says to his companion, " my movement
of impatience at the awkwardness of the waiter just now. The poor
devil is not perhaps naturally a. villain, but is for all that destined to
end badly. A fatal predestination stamps him. He has overturned
the salt-cellar ! "

" Indeed ! " I cried with astonishment

"You did not notice that he stumbled over the threshold in
entering the room, and that he held the salt-cellar in his left hand
though not left-handed? The individual who cannot foresee the
obstacle sure to present itself in a house he has long inhabited, is
sure never to foresee any obstacle whatever. The Romans re-entered
the house if they had stumbled on quitting it, and it was a sensible
precaution. A man who stumbles has slept ill or is in a bad state of
health or mental preoccupation which exposes him to every danger.
If he employs his right hand for services requiring delicacy and
practice, he shows me a radical defect in his unfortunate organisation.
All the favourable chances of life belong to foresight and dexterity;
for skill is only dexterity of mind. As the hand is the necessary
implement of fortune, evil hap is the inevitable lot of the poor
wretch who wants exactitude and precision in manual functions.
The Latins were so penetrated with the notion, that they used the

same word for unfortunate and left-handed (sinister)

As to the overturning of the salt-cellar, the explanation of it is so
easy and common-place that I think you can hardly have interrogated
me just now seriously. Salt has been from the earliest times the
emblem of wisdom, and I will now to-day tell jrou why. The use of
salt is not circumscribed like that of bread ; it is of the first necessity
wherever there is a family, and for this reason it has become the sign of
hospitality among those ingenuous or ingenious tribes we are pleased
to call savages. The action of spilling salt indicates among them
the refusal of protection and hospitality to such strangers as they
may have reason to suspect are thieves and murderers. No
affront was intended by the waiter who overturned the salt-cellar
just now ; the unfortunate creature has nothing left but to hang
himself, if indeed he has sense enough to calculate the adjustment
of a cord and the weight of his own body. And if you turn over
in your own mind the countless series of accidents that must result
from such carelessness as his, you can but feel deep sympathy for his
employer. I do not hesitate to affirm that the house in which salt
is most frequently overturned, must of necessity be the most un-
fortunate in the world ; because you are sure to find there the least

Cliarles Nodier. 717

order, economy, aptitude, and foresight, all elements of first import-
ance in a household."

Here is something still more charming about the popular pre-
judice in favour of swallows' nests: —

'* Blessed, thrice blessed, the house with swallows' nests in its
roof! It is placed under that sweet security for which pious souls
believe themselves indebted to Providence. In fact, without attri-
buting to swallows the prophetic instinct in which poets believe, we
may surely suppose that they have the natural sagacity of all birds in
choosing a safe nesting-place. When they settle in towns and villages,
they fix themselves in a quiet dwelling where no commotion will
disturb their little colony, or under a roof solid enough to promise a
harbour for the coming year. Like strangers from foreign parts, they
put faith in a look of welcome. I am not sure that their presence
betokens happiness in the future, but certainly it testifies to the well-
being of the present Thus, I have never beheld a house having
swallows' nests in its eaves without feeling favourably disposed towards
its inhabitants. There, you may be sure, are no nightly orgies, no
domestic quarrels. There the servants are benevolent, the children
are not pitiless ; you will find some wise old man or some tender-
hearted young girl, who protects the swallows' nest, and thither I
would go were a price put upon my head, having no fear for the
morrow. People who do not persecute the importunate bird and her
twittering offspring, are naturally benevolent, and the benevolent
enjoy all the felicity that earth affords."

Nodier assimilated the poetry of all countries. In " Le Songe
d'Or," we have an Oriental epilogue ; in " Inez de las Sierras," a
Spanish legend ; in " Trilby," a charming bit of Scotch folk-lore ; in
the exquisite little story called " La Soeur B^trix," he finds inspira-
tion in an old monkish chronicle. Thus the story-loving reader is
indulged in a perpetual variety, and he appropriates nothing that he
does not make entirely his own.

Among Nodier's graver works, perhaps the " Souvenirs et Portraits
de la Revolution et de I'Empire" are the most important, and no student
of French history can afford to pass them by. His suggestions, for
they are hardly to be called anything more, are a mine of wealth
to those already familiar with weightier writers. Nodier breaks new
ground. He wrote history after his own ^hion, not telling us any-
thing we can learn elsewhere, but painting a series of pictures from
memory and observation, some highly coloured it may be, all highly
original and striking. Take the incomparable sketch of St Just,
whom Nodier saw as a boy, having been arrested at Strasbourg

7i8 The Gentleman s Magazine.

during the mission of the terrible young dictator. We know wdl
enough what such men did ; we want to know what they were like,
how they dressed, how they spoke, in fine, what manner of men they
were. The description is much too long to give entire, but a few
lines will indicate the effect produced upon the quick-minded school-
boy of twelve : —

'' I was then to behold St Just, that terrible St Just, whose name
I had never heard except coupled with threats and menaces \ My
heart beat violently, and my legs trembled under me as I crossed
the threshold. St. Just, however, paid no attention to me. Turning
his back and looking at himself in the glass, between two chandeliers
full of wax-lights, he adjusted, with the greatest possible care, the
folds of that large and lofty neckcloth in which his head, to use the
cynical expression of Camille Desmoulins, was stuck up like a censer
{exhausste comme un encensoir). I profited by the operation to study
his physiognomy in the glass. St Jusf s featiures in no wise possessed
those harmonious outlines and that prettiness that flattering engravers
have given him. He was, nevertheless, good-looking enough, though
his chin, large to disproportion, owed something to the obliging foWs
of his voluminous cravat ... All the time St Just was occupied with
other matters beside his toilette. A young man, seated near him
beside a table lighted by two wax candles, was writing as best he
could under the other's rapid dictation. Before one page was
finished another sentence had to be taken in, and the sheets by
dozens were handed over to a German translator in an adjoining room.
What St Just improvised, whilst thus artistically interlacing the folds
of his neckcloth, were irrevocable decrees and judgments without
appeal. ... I still seem to hear the quick, sonorous voice of this
handsome young man, made for love and romance. I cannot even
now recall without a shudder the redundance of the cruel word
Death ! ... St. Just, however, at last came to an end of his
toilette, and his butchery. He turned rapidly round, for the stiff
scaffolding in which his head now rested permitted no side-way move-
ment, and questioned me concerning my arrest, age, parentage, &c''

"True, true," he said impatiently. " Eleven or twelve years at
most He looks like a little girl I A decree of arrest against a child !
That is the way the wretches think to curry favour with the Mountain !
Oh! I will soon punish these onslaughts on our most precious
liberties."

In the midst of these sanguinary anathemas the schoolboy was
permitted to depart, taking to his heels as fast as they would cany
him. Side by side with this forcible picture may be put the sketches

Charles Nodier. 719

of the unfortunate Pichegru, whom Nodier worshipped to the last
day of his life. Pichegru was, like himself, a native of Franche-
Comt^, another reason of Nodier's unbounded affection. "The
little town of Artois," he writes sadly, " produced Charles Pichegru,
the Fabricius, the Epaminondas, the Phocion of our history, the de-
fender of the monarchy, the terror of giants, the pride and delight of
the people." Nodier in this instance, as in many others, was swayed
by feeling and passion ; but he was no politician, and belonged to no
party, always sympathising, as he said, with the losing side. As one
of his critics aptly remarks, he was Moderate under the Terror,
Republican or Monarchist under the Empire, Girondin under the
Restoration ; or, as he himself declared, on the occasion of his re-
ception at the Acad^mie Frangaise, " Whilst isolating myself from
human affairs by my theories, I have remained a man in every feeling
binding the individual to his kind. I have lost a large number of
illusions ; I have never forfeited affections." Without such explana-
tions as these the apparent inconsistencies nmning through his works
would be inexplicable. In his early years he was an enthusiastic
Republican, belonging, when a mere boy, to the violent society of
the Amis des Peuples^ and a few years later he made a pilgrimage to
Paris, on purpose to visit the hotel occupied by Charlotte Corday,
and to collect the minutest particulars respecting her two days'
sojourn. The little paper dedicated to this subject is intensely in-
teresting, as showing the effect produced by Marat's assassination on
different minds. He is staying at that time in the house of the so-
called pro-consul of La Montagne, a certain curd, who had married
a beautiful chanoiness, both of remarkable attainments and character.
The man breaks into tears and lamentations for his friend, his
brother, the wise, the divine Marat. The woman, taking the boy
with her, retires to her room, and kneeling on the prie-Dieu cries,
with hands raised to heaven,

*• Sainte Charlotte Corday, priez pour nous I "

Her young companion follows her example, and at that very moment
Charlotte Corday's head fell on the guillotine ! With such graphic
touches Nodier's narratives abound, and if they do not make up
what can be precisely called history, at least they help us to under-
stand it In " Le Dernier Banquet des Girondins," Nodier, seizing
upon every available source of information, has endeavoured to realise
one of the most striking incidents on record. " To my thinking,"
he writes, in his prefatory notice, " there is nothing more magnificent
in all history than this banquet of the martyrs of liberty, who

720 Tlie Gentlematts Magazine.

discuss their beloved Republic, its grandeur, and its faD, and who
end their glorious vigil by a discourse on the immortality of the
soul, with as much freedom of mind as if they had been talking
under the arches of the Portico or the shadows of the Academy.
Imagine to yourselves all that was choicest in human nature there
assembled in the Conciergerie ; the noble and the plebeian, the priest
and the soldier, the poet and the tribune, the dreamer and the
sceptic, all joyous as at a festival, and all doomed to die on the
morrow ! For them there was neither appeal nor mercy, no more
contest or victory, only the guillotine and the executioner ! "

And eloquently indeed is the superb theme dealt with. The
principal figures in the tragedy stand before us in bold relief ; we study
their physiognomies, we listen to their voices, we are made familiar
with their convictions and disenchantments. " If," as Nodier him-
self says, " the last supper of the Girondists was not precisely what
I have described, it must have been very like it" This is as much
as we can claim for the Phedon. Unfortunately Nodier, whilst an
indefatigable collector of the scattered writings of others, sadlj
neglected his own, and at his death left no complete edition of his
voluminous works. Since that time reprint after reprint of individual
favoiuites has appeared, with prefatory notes by Ste.-Beuve, Jules
Janin, Alexandre Dumas, and others, but to the best of my know-
ledge his writings are not accessible in a collected form. This is all
the more to be regretted, as some of his criticisms, now out of print,
show him at his best and happiest He was a subtle critic, but his
subtlety, grace, humour, are to be sought neither here nor there, but
throughout his entire works. Whether annotating an author after
his own heart like La Fontaine, satirizing the follies of his time in
"Polichinelle" and "Les Etudes Progressives," or doling out fedry
marvels in '' La F^e aux Miettes," he is always inimitable and always
charming. Nodier first sets himself to please, next to astonish, last
of all, to instruct his readers, and in all these intentions succeeds to
perfection. His compatriots adore him, and no wonder.

M. BETHAM-EDWARDS.

721

ANGLING IN QUEENSLAND.

IT has to be done sooner or later ; and now is as good a time as
any to make a full deliverance upon the subject of angling in
Queensland. Month after month I have avoided the task, knowing
that it must involve dear recollections that would only embitter the con-
trast between here and there. The best I can make is a confession of
disappointment Parodying, it is not to be denied, is somewhat of
a pickpocket's business, but the following true state of the case has
so often presented itself to my fancy that I shall be all the better for
perpetrating it : —

Farewell the flowery mead I Farewell the stream I

Farewell the varied fry, and the pike

That make ambition virtue 1 Oh, farewell.

Farewell the artful roach, and the shy carp,

The spirit-stirring dace, the bronze-armour'd tench,

The royal salmon, and all quality,

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious trout 1

Farewdl I Redspinner's occupation 's gone.

Sport of any description must be eagerly sought for in Australia,
and then it is an open question whether the reward is commensurate
with the toil. Once and again the fowler may meet with a lagoon
or creek swarming with game, and bring home as many birds as he
can stagger under ; but his next twenty visits may produce but an
odd couple or so, for which he has to wade armpit deep in water and
mud, and clamber, stumble, and tumble over a thousand obstacles
imknown in the old country. With the rod it is even worse than with
the gun. The rivers as a rule are large, with dense scrubs along the
banks, and only to be conunanded by formidable journeys on horse-
back ; and when the water is reached, the fish are scarcely worthy of
your attention.

The song may tell you it is wiser to forget, but it does not inform
you how it is to be done. When I am knee-deep in mud amongst
the mangroves, can I for the life of me forget the walk or drive from
the railway station to the river ; the fragrant lane where sweet flowers
bloom, birds carol, and insects hum in the leafy hedges ; the merry

vou ccxui. NO. 1770. 3 A

722 The Gentleman^ s Magazine.

rippling stream, the cosy seat amongst the flags, feet dangling over
the water weeds and blossoms, and the dark alders opposite, under
which there is a fish rising, rising until you have effected your cast,
taken the turns out of it by a timely application of india-rubber, and
sent the light fly across to try conclusions ? Yet an angler who is
worthy of the name, if he cannot kill trout, will turn his attention to
the next best on the catalogue ; will descend from dace to roach,
from pike to barbel, and go on descending, stopping short only of
the humble stickleback, beloved of Hampstead boys whose hook is
a bent pin and whose creel a pickle-bottle. On this principle, yoa
need not rust altogether even in these subtropical parts.

The further south in Australia you go, the better, I believe, the
angling. In Melbourne I foimd an admirably conducted angling
club, whose members were endowed with the right spirit, and whose
seasons showed a record of which sportsmen need not be ashamed ;
and there were fish at their command of which we know nothing, so
near Capricorn as we are. In New South Wales, the intervening
colony, matters are not so flourishing for anglers as in Victoria, but
better than in Queensland. There are lakes in Australia Felix where
fine sport is had with English perch, which have been successfully
acclimatised; and if there are no trout streams there at present, there
will be in the course of a year or so, according to trustworthy as-
surances.

Trout in Queensland appears to be an unhoped-for delight. Wc
could find them waters of which the most fastidious amongst them
would, if they studied appearances only, heartily approve — heads of
grand streams, purling and eddying over rocky beds, and replete
with veritable trout residences, quite after the orthodox pattern. But
there is a fatal drawback in the climate, which gives us a summer
heat for four months in the year of often loo degrees, and sometimes
more. The summer of 1877 was exceptionally severe, for instance,
and day after day the thermometer exceeded 104** ; in the month of
January, when home friends were probably performing the outside
edge on the ice, I rode five-and-forty miles on a day when the
marking reached 115° in the shade. What would trout say to this?
They would decline, without thanks, any efforts at acclimatisation.

The angler in Queensland will not, therefore, find much use for his
favourite weapon, the fly-rod. Far away north, leagues above the
tropic of Capricorn, there is, I am informed, a big fish which rises
fitfully at a large hackle, and is known as the palmer, a name given to
it for no other reason than its fondness for the red and black arti-
ficial flies of that nsjue, althoug^i the settlers believe, and will hand

A^igling in Queensland. 723

down to posterity the tradition, that it was christened in honour of
Mr. A. H. Palmer, the popular leader of the squatter party, and one
of the oldest and most respected of colonists. A report was lately
brought to me of a fresh- water mullet which rises at a fly, but it was
sufficiently doubtful to warrant simimary dismissal. Of course in a
young colony, where people mostly have something sterner to do than
whip streams by way of experiment, there may be ways and means of
sport of which we, as yet, know nothing, and fly-taking fish may be
in good time discovered or introduced For myself, whose experi-
ments have been conducted perforce at the coastal ends of the rivers,
every trial with the artificial fly has been in vain ; and while results
have been nil^ faith has been a mere vanishing point

Coming from the negative to the positive, it is gratifying to be
able to tell the emigrant that when, in the tiresome process of pack-
ing, he pauses before his rods and tackle, questioning whether he will
in the new land find use for them, he may give himself the benefit of
the doubt, and put them in with his other eflects. Yoimg gentlemen
newly arrived firom home generally display a costly sporting equip-
ment, which but too often is sold within the first twelvemonth at half
its cost price. I have seen twenty-guinea breechloaders, with all their
etceteras, sold for (in colonial parlance) five notes (;£^s), revolvers
going for a song, books being almost given away ; but never once
have I seen rod or winch oflered for sale. It is not, however, abso-
lutely necessary to bring out these implements, seeing that fishing-
tackle may be easily procured in Brisbane ; and as for rods, I have
on the rack before me as useful a general weapon as could be desired,
made firom a black bamboo ait in a friend's garden, and merely fitted
with large rings to make it complete.

The most common fishing in Queensland, by which must be
understood, for the purposes of this subject, the southern district
around the metropolis, is jew-fishing. The jewfish is probably known
by various names in different parts of the world, but throughout
Australia the name is well understood to refer to the same individual
It is salmon-shaped, and quite as silvery as that royal fish, with lovely
dark violet tints over the head and back. When the sun catches it
on its first appearance out of water it reflects the most beautiful
shades of violet and purple, but the colours soon fade, and the bright-
ness of the silver sides rapidly becomes tarnished. From a distance
you would be led, by its coloiu: and proportions, to believe, on the
moment, that the jewfish held up for your inspection was a veritable
salmon. In other words, it is a handsome fish. There the resem-

3Aa

724 TIu Gentlemans Magazine.

blance ends. The flesh is white and soft, except in large specimens,
when a block cut out of the middle and boiled makes an agreeable
dish for a table upon which flsh is but too seldom seen.

Jew-fishing is very uncertain sport. The year before last the
Brisbane river was swarming with fish, and it was no uncommon sight
to see a dozen punts coming in, after a few hours' anchorage opposite
the Government Printing Office, in the heart of the city, each laden
with spoil. In due course the floods came, and since then there have
been no jewfish — why, nobody seems able to explaiiL When the water
is too salt, the jewfish, which comes from the sea in large shoals,
ascends the rivers, having apparently a weakness for brackish water.
The ordinary method of capture is the hand-line, with live prawns
or bits of fresh mullet as bait, and you must be as particular in
anchoring the punt as if you were selecting a barbel swim in the
Thames. A sandy shelf near the Brisbane bridge is always a ^vourite
ground. The fish bites briskly, and you haul it in as quickly as
possible. Great was the astonishment and amusement of the Bris-
bane fishermen when a kindred spirit and I appeared with the old
paraphernalia of rod, winch, and landing-net, attempting the well-
remembered ledgering process. Of course it answered thoroughly ;
the fine tackle — ^^^-e used gimp-hooks — told, as it always will, and the
playing of a four-pounder was no contemptible sport with a Thames
punt rod. The "takes" of jewfish, however, do not generally
average more than two pounds, and a couple of anglers, when sport
is good, ought not to be satisfied with fewer than four dozen. Fish
are taken up to sixty pounds weight, if local history is worth anything.
I'can answer myself for several seven- and eight-pounders, and one
four times heavier.

We were tired of city sights and sounds, and my kindred spirit
proposed a trip down the river. The old mare was forthwith put
into the buggy, and off we bowled to the Powder Magazine, half-a-
dozen miles out, the river scenery gladdening our eyes for nearly the
whole distance. By and by came a bit of rough corduroy road, and
then off" we turned into the scrub, pausing a few minutes while the
kindred spirit put a charge of No. 4 into his gun, and secured a blue
crane for a firiend who wanted a specimen. Then on to the river-
bank. The mare was unharnessed, hobbled, and turned adrift,
according to custom on these excursions, and soon our rods were
together, our running bullets and stout gimp-hooks affixed, and
baited with pieces of half-dried mullet. For half an hour there was
not a sign. The yellow tide rushed by outside oiu" eddy, at the rate
of four miles an hour upward ; the fishing eagles soared and wheeled,

Angling in Queensland. 725

artfully, however, keeping out of range, and the mosquitoes were
fearfully on the alert Yet not a sign.

" This is very singular I " cried my companion at last, struggling
with his rod.

" Let him go ; it's a monster," I replied.

There was, as he suggested, something singular. His rod was an
old cut-down spinning rod, all too limber for the work, and the line
one of the finest made — enough for roach, but too delicate for any-
thing else. The rod was describing a fine half-circle, and a heavy
body was slowly moving out of the eddy, keeping a ponderous strain
upon the line, and proceeding throughout with careless deliberation.
It could not be a shark, which goes off like an arrow when hooked ;
even a jewfish makes a sharp rush at first It might be a groper,
one of the lethargic rock-cod family inhabiting these waters, and
sometimes taken by hook and line. Nor could it be a catfish, a
slimy wretch, half eel and half fish, hated of all mankind, and
invariably murdered out of hand as we murder dogfish at the
English sea-side. Whatever it might be, it refused to be flurried.
Once now and then it leisurely changed its course, and made as if
it would double, but the rod ever remained bent like a whip, and the
strain never relaxed. Twenty minutes passed.

" Give me a spell: I am tired," said my friend.

So saying, he handed over the rod to me, who seized the oppor-
tunity to lecture him upon the folly of working with unsuitable tools.
The moment would arrive sooner or later when this unknown monster
would become aware of what was the matter, and a vigorous movement
would settle the business, so far as we were concerned at least That
was the only comfort I could give him as he stood by with the gaff,
and we both resolved to hold on to the bitter end. Suddenly the
strain was taken off; the rod straightened. This was more singular
than ever. The monster must have got away without so much as a
twist of his tail. I had not felt the ghost of a movement But
there was more to come. Gradually the line tightened, and the
heavy strain was again put on, though the weight, dead as it was
before, now seemed more dead. I determined to bring matters to a
crisis, and presented the butt very cautiously. Slow and sure, in
came the invisible. A huge silver side flashed under the foam of the
tide, and disappeared, leaving two ludicrously excited men to wait for
its reappearance. The next time it gleamed near the surface the gaff
found a home, and the mystery was at an end. It was a great jew-
fish, or rather seven-eighths of cme. The tail portion had been bitten
off by a shark after the fish was hooked, and, beyond doubt,

726 The Gentleman s Magazine.

at the moment when the relaxed strain led us both to believe the fish
had escaped. The shark-bite was a clean-cut crescent, five inches
across and three inches thick. The mangled fish plunged about on
the grass for several minutes before it died, and the remnant whidi
the shark had been kind enough to leave us turned the scale at 28 lbs.
It had been a splendidly proportioned fish.

At night sometimes the jewfish chases the small fiy near the sur&ce,
and good sport may then be obtained by a floating line baited widi
mullet fry, as near the dimensions of a minnow as possible. At die
embryo watering-places which are springing up in Moreton Bay,
quantities of these fish are firequently taken in this way. I have tried
them with spinning tackle, but without success.

The angler's best friend, take the year through, is the bream, of
which there are several descriptions. My bream par cxcelUnce^ how-
ever, is a common sea-bream, with faint black vertical bars, strong
spines in the dorsal, and golden tips to the other fins, a silvery, burly,
bold, comely fellow, excellent eating, game to the death, and a ^
specimen of his tribe when he weighs a pound and a hal£ When
others are fickle and coy, you will find him loyaL Having caught
one by accident on a handline, I recognised an old friend, and paid
his kinsfolk the compliment ever afterwards of fishing for them with
gut foot-line, perch-hook, and float. Further, I manifested my respect
by compounding a delicate paste for his especial delectation, and was
compensated by full appreciation on his part Being fortunate in
having a river frontage to my little garden, with rocks and mangroves
at high-water mark, I have paid him persistent attention, and rarely
does he send me empty away. It always struck me, watching their
habits at the Brighton Aquarium, where a very happy family was
accommodated in one of the left-hand tanks, that these bream were
high-spirited and of good character ; and now this impression has
been confirmed. They come in at high water and grub about at the
roots of the mangroves, or amongst the rocks, and if they mean
business they do not leave you long in doubt They will not brook
boisterous treatment, however ; cover your hook from point to shank
with paste, drop it quietly in not more than a yard from the brink, and
see that it moves with the stream, just skinmiing the bottom as it goes.
If the bream are there, the float will give a preliminary stab, and dazt
beneath in the most workmanlike manner. The strike must be sharp
and not too hasty, and you must keep the fish well in hand. I have
known a poimd-and-half bream run out twenty yards of line without
a check, making the winch scream again at the speed ; and the
ingenuity and. courage they display in their endeavours to release

Angling in Queensland. 727

themselves by taking advantage of roots, logs, and stakes, indicate
a high order of intelligence, for a fish. Somebody has lately
attempted to show that amongst the finny tribes the carp has most
brain-power. It may be so ; but I would back my gamesome
bream against the carp, in times of difficulty and crisis, for 'cuteness,
and, should he have grown to the patriarchal and not unknown
dimensions of three pounds, for strength also.

The whiting, as we know it in Queensland, in shape and size
bears a marvellous resemblance to the grayling, the only difference
being that the tinting is brown rather than blue. It is purely a sea
fish, and loves sandy shallows. It affords, perhaps, the prettiest sport
we enjoy. You must wade into the sea with basket over shoulder,
and be provided with a light, stiffish rod, fine tackle, and small
hook, if you would deal with it scientifically, and the addition of
a float is an addition also to the fun, though, as the bait must always
rest fairly upon the bottom, this tell-tale is not a necessity. Certain
conditions of wind and water having to be fulfilled before the whiting
will be in satisfactory humour, there is an amount of capriciousness
about the sport And it is a waste of time to fish except with the
incoming tide. Go out an hour after the tide has turned, and retreat
with it until high water. Sometimes you get a dozen or a score ; the
last whiting expedition upon which I ventured brought me ashore,
after four hours' angling, with a creel that holds three-and-twenty
poimds of fish crammed to the cover. The whiting bites freely and
battles pluckily; and as you have to deal with it in the water without
a landing net, you must have all your wits about you. It seldom, if
ever, comes up the rivers, and, if it does it would appear as if some
restless member of the shoal had lost its way and strayed, against its
will, into foreign parts.

The journey to the sea-side therefore comes into the list of attrac-
tions in whiting fishing; and in bush rides, monotonous though they
may become by long familiarity, I have always found something to
occupy the attention, spite of the solitude which characterises Aus-
tralian forest. I have travelled three days in the bush without seeing
as much bird or animal life as you have in the course of one hour in
rural England, but there is a fascination in the very weirdness of
the trees and vastness of the forest, diversified as it is here and there
by bright spots and verdant nooks. Let me briefly recall my first
whiting expedition.

It was a day of great enjoyment, even if I have to confess that,
during the greater portion of it, my heart, as the saying goes, was in
my mouth. Mr. B., who kindly undertook to initiate me into the

728 The GentlematCs Magazine.

sport, drives a very skittish horse, and, Australian>like, prefers it to a
quiet animal. Driving through the bush was to me then a new expe-
rience. There was no track, and the country was timbered li^tly
enough, as it seemed to me, to admit of the buggy passing between die
gum trees with not more than half an inch to spare. Within a few
months I had learned not only to laugh at this, but to take a pleasure
in such driving ; that sunny morning, however, I at first feared would
be my last. The horse never moderated from his strong, tearing trot,
and every five minutes I expected to find the wheels crashing against
the trees, and ourselves shot out upon the ground. In the nick of
time, however, Mr. B.'s strong hand had piloted us clear, only to
repeat the touch-and-go process immediately afterwards. Under-
neath the axle-bar swung an iron bucket, with which the horse was to
be watered at a pond half-way, and, plunging into and out of a bit of
swamp, the utensil rattled suddenly against the wheel. The horse
snorted and bolted. There seemed no hope. But Mr. B. was
master of the occasion. He selected the biggest tree that stood in
the path, and with a tremendous haul upon the reins pulled the
animal's head straight into the great iron-bark trunk. The manoeuvre
was effected so quickly that the brute was taken unawares, and puUed
up with a jerk that shook us breathless. It was my duty, of course,
to make believe that I had been used to such diversions all my life,
but I am bound to say I was glad when we got out of the bush,
among the prickly pears, upon the open grass bordering the beach.
The boys collected dry wood, lighted a fire, and boiled the quart-pot
or " billy," while we unharnessed, turned the horses adrift, and camped
clear of the mosquitoes, which swarmed in thousands in the adjacent
scrub.

Four of us took to the water, each provided with a small bag of
fresh shrimps, one of which was sufficient for three baits. The whiting
began to bite merrily, and we might have had a sensation catch but
for two villanous enemies — sharks and stinging rays. Not only were
these a perpetual nuisance, they were a source of danger. The rays
run very large in these waters, and to tread upon one may result in an
ugly wound from the serrated lance with which its long powerful tail
is furnished. This creatiure scoops out for its repose a saucer often a
yard in diameter and a foot deep in the sand, and on this particular
morning a swirl of sand in the blue waves at our knees would time after
time inform us of the danger we had escaped, a danger which perhaps
the new chum was likely to exaggerate in consequence of the account
given by one of his companions of a fisherman who lay at that moment
in a precadous ^ta^e in the Brisbane hospital, fit>m the wound of

Angling in Queensland. 729

a stingmg ray. The rays, fortunatdy, were not mischievously in-
clined at this time, but they were ravenous, which was quite as bad.
At one moment the four fishermen yelled with one accord that they
were fast in stinging rays. It was pull devil, puU baker, with us all, and
it was soon proved to be the shortest way out of the difficulty to break
ourselves violentiy away from the enemy, and allow him to go his
way with our hooks and sinkers. By patience we might have dragged
the creature ashore, but as that would have involved a retreat of a
quarter of a mile, the beach being hereabouts almost level, and the
game would have been useless when killed, we, on principle, secured
freedom with all possible despatch. For ten minutes we might be left
alone with the whiting, every bait answering for a fish. Then the sharks
would have a tiun, the smaller ones taking unwarrantable liberties with
our shrimps and reducing the number of our hooks, the larger ones
driving us together to shout and beat the water in unison to scare
them away.

It may be, as my companions declared, that there is nothing to

apprehend from sharks in shallow water, but I have a weakness which

leads me to prefer their room to their company. Once there were four

sharks playing around us — fellows of six feet long, and my nearest

companion was able to poke one with his rod as he sailed by, his

ominous fin, as usual, out of the water. By and by, there was a general

shout of " Look out" A shark was espied coming from sea towards

us at the speed of an express train, cleaving the water, and heading

for us straight as a dart Alarmed by our unanimous shouts — and if

we had never exercised our lungs before, we did so then — and splash-

ings, the shark turned at right angles and swam sulkily away, then

turned and bore back towards us at his former lightning speed, passing

in front at not more than two yards' distance. I had a clear view of

the beast, which was quite ten feet long, and which, having passed

us, swam out to sea, enabling us to mark its track for a quarter of a

mile. It may be, I repeat, as my companions declared, that there is

no harm to apprehend from a playful movement of this description ;

yet a shark is a shark, and its likes and dislikes are pretty well known.

I have often been among the sharks in the same way since that day,

but, when the excitement of sport was over, was always ready to

acknowledge the charge of foolhardiness. To conclude the story, I

may state that, sharks and stinging rays notwithstanding, no member

of our quartette had fewer than three dozen whitings when the tide

compelled us to terminate our fishing, and one of the party, as I

know to my cost, had lost two dozen gut hooks by the predatory

ruffians who plagued us. Finally, the whiting is delicious eating.

730 The Gentlematis Magazine.

Another delicacy is the garfish. This is the nearest approach we
have to smelt or whitebait ; in fact, it is cooked and eaten in the
same manner as smelt at home. Being repeatedly assured by
Queenslanders that the garfish could not be taken by hook, I
watched its habits, and arrived at an opposite conclusioiL On the
sea-shore the garfish, of which there are two or three varieties, are
large and coarse, but in the river they are not more than five or six
inches long. They swim at the surface in shoals, are very shy, and
affect eddies. At the slightest movement from the bank they
disperse in a panic, and return no more. An artificial fly they would
not look at, but it was patent that by whipping alone could they be
taken. At length I found out that a tiny morsel of shrimp, on the
point of the smallest fly-hook denuded of its dressing, was the thii^
It was always a difficult matter to get them, however, and the
peculiar formation of the mouth, the under lip protruding like a
snipe's bill, rendered it a ticklish matter to strike at the right time.
The little garfish, moreover, does not exist in any quantities; so that
whipping for garfish is not, on the whole, a remunerative pastime,
unless you know the fish are about

One of the drawbacks to all kinds of angling in Queensland is
the uncertain movements of the fish. They may be here to-day and
gone to-morrow. Even the bream, which I have described as the
most constant, takes leave of absence when there is a freshet. There
is a fish called the tailor-fish, and by the aboriginals pumha^ from
which I hoped much. A few exhibitions of fierceness which came
at odd times under my notice induced me to mark him as fair game
for spinning tackle. He is a very thin fish, with greenish back and
white belly, smooth skin and large mouth, and a row of sharp teetii.
He has, saving the mouth, a distant likeness to a herring, and does
not run much larger. But the rascal would take a mullet almost as
big as himself, and one afternoon, in the Brisbane river, I had capital
sport for an hour, spinning with one of my pike-flights. You might
see the fish leaping everywhere on that and the next day ; since then
not a Tailor has been seen in the river.

There are several fish that fall accidentally to the angler's share,
most of them as imwelcome guests. The catfish I have already
mentioned. Old fishermen have told me that the flesh of this
uncanny-looking intruder is superior to eel, but the public cannot be
induced to believe it. There is a natural repugnance to scaleless
fish, and this specimen has, in addition to a nasty brown slimy
jacket, a couple of barbs, one on each side of its ugly mouth, that
do not improve its personal appearance. The catfish, when caught,

Anglhtg in Queensland. 73^

makes a queer noise not unlike the croak of a bullfrog, and continues
making it for perhaps five minutes. I caught one of five pounds
weight the other day, while fishing with anchovy paste for bream.
The toadfish meets with no more mercy than the catfish. This is a
small curiosity, three or four inches long, marked like an English
perch, but round, and possessing an enormous head. Underneath
it is white and soft, almost woolly. It has a tiny mouth and two
rabbit-like teeth. A favourite amusement among boys is to take the
toadfish and roll him with the pahn of the hand. The little round
body puffs out imtil it becomes a round ball, the skin tightened of
course to its utmost tension. While in this condition toadie is
treated to a blow with a stick, and explodes with a loud report. The
toadfish is said, and I believe with truth, to be highly poisonous; but
he is a pretty object in the water, though an inveterate pest when he
takes a fancy for the dainties intended for his betters. In the
category of nuisances comes also a pike-eel, so called from its long
jaws and terrible teeth. It is too bony to eat, and too formidable to
handle or introduce as a comrade into a punt; therefore the cus-
tomary welcome he receives is to be battered over the head with the
rowlocks, stabbed with knives, and hurried off the line as much
hacked and mauled as energetic hatred can accomplish while he
wriggles with neck on the gunwale. The Colonial does not take
kindly to eel, but the black-fellow ranks it with 'possum, guana,
snake, and other dainties.

The Queensland perch is not a perch in any sense of the word.
It is a small fish, with blunt head and square mouth overhung by
thick bony snout. There are two kinds, named respectively the gold
and silver perch, the former being bronze and yellow-lined, the latter
silver and purple. These fish are caught when jew- fishing, but no one
thinks of taking them on their own account

For table purposes, the flathead is preferred by many to any
other denizen of the Queensland waters, and this is another friend
of the angler. It is a sea fish that pushes its way, when there is no
fresh water, up the rivers, feeds on the bottom and sucks the bait,
so that the angler does not suspect its presence imtil, in pulling up
his line, he discovers that something is hooked; and, like nearly
every description of fish in these waters, it has knives and daggers
concealed about its person. It has a flatter head than the pike, is
roimd and tapering, with belly white and flattened, and altogether
like nothing but itself. Its skin is something like that of the sole,
and its flesh white, firm, and sweet I have known them caught
from 14 lbs. downwards, but, although they are too good to be thrown

732 The Gentlemaiis Magazine.

away, I never heard of an angler who was particularly glad to see
them. Somehow the foot is pressed upon it before the hand, and
the operator would rather sacrifice the hook than meddle with its
mouth.

By the piers at the seaside you sometimes see numbers of strange
and beautiful fish, whose names are unknown so far as I have been
able to discover. Amongst them is a litde fellow, called at one place
Three-Tailers, at another, diamond-fish. It swims in the water in
shoals, and yoiu: first impression is that you are watching a company
of small bream. A litde quiet observation, however, dispels that
idea. It is the most airy-mannered fish, exquisitely silvered, shaped
enough like a diamond to justify the name, and wonderfully gracefiil
in all its movements. Standing on its head is a favotuite amuse-
ment, and one might almost fancy that it had been on land for a
holiday, had seen and admired the flight of the swallow, and was
desirous of emulating that flight on retiuning to its native element
It is the thinnest fish and the broadest for its size I have ever seen,
and has scales to be compared with nothing so much as specks of
the finest silver gilt. Around the piles are a few zebra-marked fish,
like Lilliputian bream, which a crownpiece would cover; and
sneaking behind the woodwork in their rear is a leathery creature
with a hog's snout and fins of extraordinary wing-like shape. On
the top of the tide, as it flows imder the jetty, are borne the loveliest
examples of the medusae, throwing out their el^ant appendages and
evidently enjoying the amount of life vouchsafed to them. Grand
umbrellas are the heads of some of them, twelve inches across, and
fringed with delightful adornments of blue, rose-colour, and violet
Onward they revolve, an endless procession, gay and beautiful while
their brief day lasts, and always unmolested by the army of voracious
cannibals over which they float.

For a lazy aftemoon give me the young mullet when they swarm
up from the sea in the spring months. They are to be found close
in shore, shooting hither and thither, as do dace at spawning-time;
and dace the casual observer might be pardoned for considering them
to be. They are taken about a foot beneath the surface, with paste
as used for roach, and with roach tackle, if you substitute for porcu-
pine-quill a bit of cork of horse-bean size. Sitting on the sward at
high water you may basket two or three dozen in the course of an
hour. Out in the stream, the large sea mullet may be leaping in
thouss^ds, but they baffle the most skilful angler. Twice in a year
you may be surprised at finding a solitary specimen on your hook,
but as a rule large mullet are not to be caught by hook and line.

Angling in Queensland, 733

Of the fish in the rivers of tropical Queensland I say nothing
because I know nothing. Time enough when I have made their
acquaintance. For the same reason am I silent respecting purely
fresh-water fish. These, I suspect, are very few in nimiber. There
is the valuable Murray cod, however, which the black-fellow knows
well how to catch; and there is a fresh-water mullet, which a squatter
friend of mine takes with a spinning-flight wrapped in an aquatic
weed upon which they feed at stated seasons. The waterholes yield
catfish, eels, and a small turtle beloved by aboriginals, whose choice
of food, poor savages, is very limited; but there is not much tempta-
tion for the angler there.

REDSPINNER.

734 "^he Gentleman's Alagazine.

ANIMALS AND THEIR ENVIRON-
MENTS.

THERE are few studies in natural history of greater interest and of
more captivating nature than that of investigating the relations
which exist between living beings and their surroundings. How are
animals and plants affected by their environments ? in what d^;ree
and in what fashion do external influences modify habits ? and how
do varying surroundings alter the structure of living beings ? — such
are the questions which the biologist of to-day proposes, and such
are a few of the problems to the solution of which the energies of
the modern naturalist are directed. A backward glance of by no
means very extended kind at the natural history of the past, will
suffice to show the wide and sweeping changes in opinion which the
lapse of a few years has wrought regarding the relation between
animals and plants and the world they live in. Of old, naturalists
paid little heed to such a relationship, and to the effect which a
change in climate, food, or habitat induced in living organisms.
The living being, able no doubt in virtue of its vital powers to over-
ride many of the outward and physical forces which operate so
powerfully on the non-living part of the universe, was apt to be
regarded as almost wholly independent of external conditions. " In
the world, but not of it," is an expression which may be said to
summarise the tendency of biological thought in the past with
reference to the relationship existing between animals and plants, and
the outward conditions of their life. Nor need we look far afield to
discover the reasons which induced naturalists to credit the living
part of Nature with a fixity which nowhere held sway in the
inorganic world. The tendency of biological opinion in the past was
to regard the forms of animal and plant life as fixed quantities, which
varied now and then no doubt, but which on the whole preserved, as
far as observation could detect, a perfect and stable uniformity of
form and function. With the extreme prevalence of the idea of the
fixity of animal and plant species, the doctrine of " special creation "
had unquesl\ona\Av mucYi Xo do» A. glance at a natural history text-

Animals and their Environments, 735

book of some twenty years back or so will serve to show clearly'and
unmistakably that the former idea of a " species " of animals or
plants was based on the continued and unvarying likeness of a
number of living beings to each other. Buffon's definition of a
" species/' for example, shows that he regarded it as " a constant
succession of individuals similar to and capable of reproducing each
other." And another authority, MiiUer, defines species to be " a
living form, represented by individual beings, which re-appears in the
product of generation with certain invariable characters, and is con-
stantly reproduced by the generative act of similar individuals."
Thus the various species of animals and plants were regarded as
essentially immutable in their nature, and as continuing perma-
nently in the likeness which they had inherited firom the creative fiat
in the beginning of this world's order.

But meanwhile ideas of a widely different nature regarding the
nature of living beings had been slowly asserting themselves, and
had their part outcome in the work of Lamarck, who clearly recog-
nized the effects of use and disuse and of habit on the frames of
animals, in producing modifications of their form and structure.
Similar or analogous thoughts were beginning to influence the sister
science of geology. The writings of geologists who, Uke Hutton,
Playfair, and Lyell, advocated the doctrine of Uniformity in oppo-
sition to that of an ill-defined Catastrophism, had a powerful effect
in suggesting that the order of Nature, both in its living and non-
living aspects, might be different from the old ideas founded on the
stability and unalterable nature of the universe — ideas these, which,
like many other thoughts even of modern kind, had come to be
regarded with respect from the fact of their venerable age, if from no
other or more satisfactory cause. From Goethe himself, as a master
mind, came abimdant suggestions tending to enforce the opinion
that living beings were to a large extent amenable to outward causes,
and influenced by external agencies. In his " Metamorpiiosis of
Animals," the poet-philosopher, with that imaginative force so
characteristic of his whole nature, thus enunciates the opinion that
the outer world, the animal constitution and the manner of its life,
together influence in a most decided fashion the whole existence of
the living being : —

** All members develop themselves according to eternal laws,
And the rarest form mysteriously preserves the primitive type.
Form therefore determines the animal's Way of life,
And in turn the way of life powerfully reacts upon all form.
Thus the orderly growth of form is seen to hold.
Whilst yielding to change from externally acting causes."

736 The Gentleman's Magazine.

Elsewhere, Goethe says of this subject, that while " an inner
original community forms the foundation of all organization, the
variety of forms, on the other hand, arises from the necessary relations
to the outer world ; and we may therefore justly assume an original
difference of conditions, together with an uninterruptedly progressive
transformation, in order to be able to comprehend the constancy as
well as the variations of the phenomena of form."

Thus are clearly expressed Goethe's views that the living fonn
was a mobile quantity, influenced and altered to a greater or less
degree by outward causes, acting in concert with the internal life-
forces and inherited constitution of the being ; in other words, with
regard to the form of animals and to borrow Shakespeare's phrase, we

might say,

** In them Nature's copy's not eteme."

Later years brought to biology the enriching knowledge of Darwin ;
and generalizations regarding the origin of living beings, startling and
revolutionizing in their nature, were submitted to the scrutiny of the
scientific world. But afler the first feelings of surprise had passed away,
and as the clearness of Darwin's views and their exceeding harmony
with the facts of life were observed, biologists gladly hailed his generali-
zations as afibrding the basis of a reasonable conception of nature at
large. Facts in animal life, hitherto regarded as simply inexplicable,
and which were accepted as primary'mysteries of biological faith, re-
ceived at the hands of Darwin new and rational explanations; and to the
eminently plain and consistent nature of the ideas involved in his
system of thought may be ascribed the great success and ready
acceptation which evolution has met in the world of thought at laige.
Amongst other features which this method of thought exhibits in
characteristic fashion, is that of assigning a paramount place to the
influence of habit and use, and of outward circumstances upon
the form and "way of life" of living beings. A few illustrations
of the changes which both common and unwonted circumstances of
existence may effect in the history of animals, together with a brief
chronicle of the influence of such changes on the development of life
at large, form the subjects we propose for treatment in the present
paper. The inquiry, it may be added, is one full of promise,
especially if regarded as an incentive to a fuller and more complete
study of the relations of living beings to the world in which they live.
No fishes are better known to ordinary readers than the so-called
" Flatfishes " — the Pieurotuctida of the zoologist Under this dc-
signation we include the soles, flounders, halibut, turbot, brill, plaice,
and other less familiar forms. As these fishes are observed on the

Animals and their Environments. 737

fishmonger's slab, or better still, when they are seen swimming with a
beautiful undulating motion of their bodies in our great aquaria, the
epithet "flat," as applied to their form, would be regarded as of most
appropriate kind. If an unscientific observer were asked which sur-
faces were flattened in these fishes, he would be very apt to reply that
the one flat surface was the back, and the other the belly of the animal.
In proof of the correctness of his assertion, he might point to the well-
known feet that one surface — the so-called " back" — is dark-coloured,
whilst the opposite and presumed under surface is white. Again, the
idea that the darker surface is the back would be strengthened by
the observation that it bears the eyes, and further that the fish swims
with this surface uppermost Notwithstanding these apparently well-
founded observations, however, the zoologist finds ample reason for
a complete denial of their validity and correctness. He would
firstly direct attention to the feet that, on each flat surface of the
fish, and in the breast-region, a certain fin is to be discerned. These
fins form a pair, possessed by all save the very lowest fishes ; they
are named "pectoral" or "breast fins," and correspond, as may be
proved by an examination of their skeleton, with the fore-limbs of
other vertebrate animals. In the flatfishes, it usually happens that
one pectoral fin is of smaller size than the other. Moreover, there are
other two fins, also paired, to be discerned in these fishes, placed
below the breast-fins one on each flat siu^ce of the body, but
exhibiting a somewhat rudimentary structure and only a slight
development as compared with their representatives in other fishes.
These latter are the two " ventral " fins of the zoologist, and an
examination of their skeleton and nature shows that in reality they
represent the hind-limbs of the fish, just as the breast fins correspond
to the fore-members. A very cursory examination of other fishes in
which both sets of fins exist would satisfy us that the paired fins are
invariably borne on the sides of these animals. This rule of fish-
structure accords with the position of the limbs in all other vertebrate
animals. These appendages are always paired, and are invariably
lateral in their position and attachments. We are therefore forced to
conclude that, unless the flatfishes present extraordinary exceptions
to the laws of limb-development and situation represented in all
other vertebrate animals, they must, like other fishes, carry then-
paired fins or limbs on tlie sides of their bodies. Otherwise we
must assume that they bear the limbs on their backs and on
the lower smrfeces of their bodies respectively ; a supposition, the
mere mention of which is suflficient to show its absurd and erro-
neous nature. It may thus b^ dearly shown that the flat surfeces

VOL. GCXUI. MO. 1770b 3 B

738 The Gentleman! s Magazine.

of the soles and their neighbours, judged by the fact that thejr
bear the paired fins, must represent the sides of their bodies.
And an examination of the other series of fins found in these fishes
would show the latter statement to be correct- The seoHid set
of fins possessed by fishes includes the so-called "unpaired"
fins, which are invariably situated in the middle line of the body.
With the "back" fins and "tail-fin," as examples of these latter
appendages, every one is acquainted ; and when we look for these
fins in the flatfishes, we find them developed in a very t}'pical
fashion. There is a long " back " fin, for instance, fringing the body
above, and defining the back for us ; a second or "anal " fin of equal
extent borders the body below ; and the tail-fin is equally well
developed. An examination of the tail-fin alone would in fact show us
the true relationship of the various surfaces of these fishes; since in all
fishes this fin is set vertically, and not crosswise, as in the whales.
Placing the tail-fin in its proper position, that is, setting our flatfish
with the back-fin uppermost, we then note that the flat surfaces of the
tail will correspond with the flattened surfaces of the fish, and that
the latter must therefore be the sides of the animal

But there still remain for comment and explanation the remarkably-
placed eyes, which, according to oiu: observations, are now seen to be
situated on one side of the body, and not on the back, as is commonly
supposed. The side on which the eyes are placed is usually the left
side ; but in several species they are situated on the opposite surface ;
the eyed side being, as we have seen, the dark-coloured surface. To
this latter side, also, the mouth is to a large extent drawn, this
aperture thus becoming unsymmetrically developed. Occasionally
also, it may happen that in species of flatfishes in which the eyes are
habitually situated on the left side, these organs may be placed on
the right, and vice versd. The occurrence of this reversion of the
eyes throws some little light on the somewhat mechanical causes and
chance nature of the conditions which determine the peculiar features
and form of these fishes. How have the eyes of these fishes come to
be developed on one side of the body? and is this condition original
or acquired? are questions which the mere consideration of their
peculiar structiu-e must suggest to the most casual observer. It may
be said that but two explanations are open for acceptation in this, as
in all other cases relating to the development of life at large. Either
we may believe that the animals were originally and specially created
with these peculiarities and abnormal features fully developed ; or that
these features are the result of secondary laws and outward forces
acting upon the form ; and dirough the form, determining the " way

Amtnals and their Environments. 739

of life" of the being, to use Goethe's expressive phrase. The first
hypothesis admits of no enlargement or discussion. If accepted, it
must be treated as a matter of imquestioning faith around which the
mind may not attempt to travel. But it is exactly this unquestioning
belief in a theory which the scientist will not recognize ; and more
especially, if from the other view of the matter he gleans a large
measure of aid in the attempt to understand how the modifications
before us have been produced. Having due regard to the alterations
and changes of form and structure that are so characteristic of living
beings, and recognizing the plasticity of life in all its aspects, the
zoologist will no more believe that the peculiarities of the flatfishes
present us with originally created featiures, than that the deformities
in man which follow the accidents of human existence are the pro-
ducts of a creative force of special kind.

That the case of the flatfishes has long formed a text for grave
biological discussion is evident firom the attention it has received at
the hands of Mr. Spencer, Mr. St. George Mivart, and other naturalists.
Mr. Spencer, in dealing with the modification of animal forms by
the influence of external conditions and environments, explains
the want of symmetry in the flatfishes by assuming that the two
surfaces of the body have been exposed to diflerent conditions.
Respecting Mr. Spencer's views, Mr. Mivart has remarked that
'^abundant instances are brought forward by him of admirable
adaptations of structure to circumstances, but in the immense
majority of these instances it is very difficult, if not impossible,
to see how external conditions can have produced or even have
tended to produce them. For example," he continues, " we may
take the migration of an eye of the sole from one side of the
head to the other. What is there here, either in the darkness, or
the friction, or in any other conceivable external cause, to have
produced the first beginning of such an unprecedented displacement
of the eye ? Mr. Spencer has beautifully illustrated that correlation
which all must admit to exist between the forms of organisms and
their surrounding external conditions, but by no means proved that
the latter are the cause of the former. Some internal conditions,"
concludes the author, " (or in ordinary language some internal power
and force) must be conceded to living organisms, otherwise incident
forces must act upon them and upon non-living aggregations of matter
in the same way and with similar effects." These quotations will
serve to show that zoological authority has recognized, in the case of
the flatfishes, an important subject of remark. With reference to
the latter portion of Mr. Mivart's observations regarding the power

3Ba

740 The Gentlematis Magazine.

and presence of internal forces in animals, it may be said Aat no
naturalist may for a moment doubt the influence of those forces-
summed up in the words "life" and "vital action " — nor does Mr.
Spencer, as far as I can learn, ignore their existence. It is the life
and internal forces of the living being which i^esent us with the
primary conditions of existence. What we do contend for, however,
is that outward circumstances powerfully influence these internal
forces, and through such influence produce modifications both of
form and structure in living beings. In support of this latter opinion,
no animals furnish more satisfactory evidence than the flatfishes.

The first point in their history to which attention may be directed
is that in their early life, and when the young fish emerges from
the egg, the eyes are situated where we should naturally expect to
find these organs — one on each side of the head. Moreover, in the
days of its youth the flatfish is thoroughly synmaetrical in all other
respects, even to the coloration of its body, tlie two sides being
tinted of the same light hue. Soon, however, a change of stmcture
and conformation begins to be apparent, especially in the head-region.
The eye of the lower side, on which the fish is destined to rest,
begins literally to travel round to the upper side of the body; this
process taking place merely through a cmious malformation and
twisting of the bones of the head, and not by means of the eye passing
through the skull, as was formerly supposed. Then also the colour of
the upper side of the body gradually deepens and acquires the tint of
adult life ; a hue admirably in harmony with the surrounding sand,
and rendering the detection of these fishes as they rest on the sandy
sea-bed a matter of extreme difficulty, as anyone who has " speared "
flounders knows. The causes of the development of colour on
the upper surface may doubtless, as Darwin remarks, be attri-
buted to the action of light ; but it is notable that in some flat-
fishes there exists a chameleon-like power of altering the tint of
their bodies so as to bring them into harmony with the particular
colour of their surroundings. The acquirement of this latter condi-
tion becomes allied to that termed " Mimicry ; " but to explain the
development of the power of changing colour, we must call to aid
conditions other than that of the action of light, and which aflfect
and influence the more intricate and hidden forces of living beings.
Thus are gradually acquired the peculiar features which mark the
adult existence of these fishes. The chronicle of their early life and
history impresses one fact primarily on our minds, namely, that if dieir
development is to be held as furnishing a clue to the origin of their
modifications, the knowledge that at first the flatfishes possess

Animals and their Environments. 741

symmetrical bodies demonstrates that originally they exhibited, as
adults, no modification or deformity such as they now possess.
Assume with Darwin — and the assumption is both reasonable and
warranted — that the " embryonal (or young) state of each species re-
produces more or less completely the form and structure of its less
modified progenitors," and we may be taught by the development of
the flatfishes that they have sprung from ancestors which possessed
symmetrical bodies, and that the conditions they present to our
notice have certainly been of acquired nature.

But the question, ''How have these abnormal conditions and
modifications of structure been acquired ? " still remains for con-
sideration. It is on this point that Mr. Mivart challenges the
adequacy of external conditions and outward influences to produce
the characteristic deformities before us. On another occasion this
author remarks, '' If this condition had appeared at once, if in the
hypothetically common ancestor of these fishes an eye had
suddenly become transferred, then the perpetuation of such a
transformation by the action of ' Natural Selection ' is conceivable
enough. Sudden changes, however, are not those favoured by the
Darwinian theory, and indeed the accidental occurrence of such a
spontaneous transformation is far firom probable. But if this is not
so, if the transit was gradual, then how such transit of one eye a
minute fraction of the journey towards the other side of the head
could benefit the individual is indeed far fi-om clear. It seems even,"
concludes Mr. Mivart, '' that such an incipient transformation must
rather have been injurious.'' As far as these remarks regarding
the rarity of sudden variations are concerned, they are perfectly
appropriate ; although it must at the same time be borne in mind
that occasionally startling modifications have appeared in a species of
animals in one generation, and without the slightest warning or indi-
cation that a sudden alteration was to be produced. A well-known
instance of this kind was the sudden appearance of the Ancon or Otter-
sheep of Massachusetts ; — a sheep possessing a long body and short
legs, which was produced as the oflspring of an ordinary ewe and ram.
This sheep in its turn became the progenitor of a whole race of
Ancons ; and many other examples of sudden variations from the
type of a species might be illustrated in both animal and plant
worlds. But apart from the fact that alterations of structure, as
great as those seen in the flatfishes, have been suddenly developed
in animals, Mr. Mivart is correct enough in laying stress on the
fact that, to satisfy Mr. Darwin's ideas, it must be proved to be
likely that the variations ii^ the flatfishes arose gradvially, and were as

742 The Gentlematis Magazine.

gradually intensified and transmitted as distinct characteis to tbcfr
descendants. Whilst, if Mr. Darwin's theory is tenabl^ it must abo
be shown that the propagation of such deviations from tiie Ofdinaijr
structure of the fishes was an advantage to the animal concenied.
In this last thought, indeed, lies the essence and strength of
Darwinism. Nature selects such variations for transmission to
posterity as will favour the existence of the species. Un&vomaUe
variations will, in the "stmggle for existence," -tend to die oat
Hence Mr. Mivart most appropriately calls upon the supporten
of the theory of evolution by " Natural Selection " to show cause dut
the variation in the flatfishes was beneficial and not injurious to the
individuals exhibiting it Such are the issues of the question befoit
us. Let us try to discover hg^w the evolutionist, viewing the question
from the Darwinian stand-point, will answer the demands laid upon
him by opposing tenets and theories. .

It may be observed in the first place that the flatfishes are, to an
appreciable and in a readily understood sense, gainers firom their
ground-inhabiting tendencies. Their bodies, as already remarked,
closely approach the colour of the sand and other surroundings, and
they not only find protection firom their enemies in this fiishian,
but readily obtain food firom the sand on which they rest. As fu* as
the advantages gained firom their habits are concerned, the case
seems clear enough if regarded in this light This observation,
however, throws no light on the question of the manner in wfaidithe
modifications of body which so perfectly adapt them for a ground-
life have been gained ; and to attain the desired information on tfak
latter point we must once again study the early history of these fishei
When young and possessing symmetrical bodies, and when the eyes
are placed in the natural situation, they may be observed to swim
through the water in a vertical position, like other fishes; their flattened
surfaces appearing as their sides, and the long dorsal and anal fins
bordering the upper and lower margins of the body respectivdf,
whilst the tail-fin is set vertically. Soon, however, it is observed that
they retain their vertical position in the water with difi&culty, owing to
the great relative depth of their bodies. Like crank ships, in fiict,
they have a tendency to become overbalanced ; and there can be
little doubt that the small size of the pectoral and ventral finsi
together with the absence of a "swimming bladder" or ''sofOBd,'
materially aid in producing this result. Thus unable to swim eiea
for any length of time, the yoimg flatfish comes to a natural eDou|^
position of rest on its side. Malm's observations now come to aid
our comprehension of the case in a very remarkable degree. TUs

Animals and their Environments, 743

observer tells us that the young fish, as it lies on its side, twists the
lower eye upwards as if in the effort to see above ; or, in plain
language, tries to look round the comer of its own head. So
strenuous are these efforts of the young animal that the eye is pressed
with a great degree of force against the upper part of the orbit or e3re-
cavity, with the result, as Makn testifies, of contracting, in a marked
feshion, the forehead or space between the eyes. This observer,
indeed, mentions that he has witnessed a young flat fish elevate and
depress the lower eye through a distance corresponding to an angle
of seventy degrees. The effect of this firequent muscular exertion on
'the soft cartilaginous and flexible tissues of the skull of the young
fish may readily be imagined. In time, the temporary displacement
of the tissues caused by the movements of the lower eye comes to
exercise a permanent influence in producing a decided deformity, and
induces the twisting of the bones of the head. So that, in response to
the frequent efforts of the yoimg fish, the lower eye is graduaUy
transposed to the side of the body which will hereafter be the upper-
most Biuface, and which will meanwhile have been acquiring its
characteristic coloration. Such is the explanation given by com-
petent observers of the manner in which the flatfishes have acquired
their strange modifications of structure. The flatfishes of to-day
acquire this modification in virtue of inherited tendencies and of the
effect of habit transmitted through many antecedoit generations.
But the observation of the st^^es through which the young animals
pass in the seas of to-day, reveals a truthfiil and unerring history of
the feshion in which their far-back progenitors inaugmrated the first
phases in their singular transformations.

So far as the explanation of the curious features presaited by the
flatfishes goes, it is fully supported by facts as they stand Addi-
tional evidence of weighty kind, however, is obtainable from various
sources in favour of Goethe's assertion that form of body '^ determines
the animal's way of life," and that " in turn the way of life power-
fully reacts upon all form." The evidence that the deformity in
question has been acquired through the material contact of sur-
roundings with the bodies of the first flatfishes is derived from a two-
fold source — ^firstly, from a view of the various members included in
the group of the flatfishes; and secondly, from our knowledge of the
development of abnormal features in other fishes and in other
groups of animals. It would certainly afford some ground for Mr.
Mivart's remark, that by ^ Natural Selection *' we jnight requixe to
postulate the sadden transference of the lower eye to the upper side
of the head, if the flatfishes were found to present a thorough

744 '^^ GentUmatis Magazine.

unifonnity and similarity in their deformity. If the whole race or
family of these fishes, without a single exception, presented the
malformations in a typical degree, then the idea of sudden and shaip
modification might be rendered probable enough. But the syste-
matic naturalist would inform us that these fishes are not uniformly
modified. On the contrary, they present us with a vatied array of
forms, at the one extremity of which we meet with symmetrical
flatfishes, having eyes entirely unaltered in position, possessing equal-
sized fins, and retaining their young or embryonic characters ; whilst
at the other extremity of the group we observe fishes in which the defor-
mities obtain their highest development. Thus there is a genus of flat-
fishes known as HippoglossuSy and which includes the various species of
Halibut. Some species of this group — such as Hippoglossus pingm
— retain throughout life the characters, form, and symmetry they pre-
sent on leaving the egg. From this unaltered and undeformed species
of flatfishes we may pass by easy and gradual transitions to such fishes
as the soles, in which the distortion reaches a very typical development
In this fact of the varying degrees of abnormality exhibited by these
fishes we may find a counter-proof of the acquirement of these
peculiar features. A creative act or a sudden modification would
have affected the entire race. A graduated series of forms, exhibidng
every degree and stage of abnormal development, shows that the
distorted conditions have been not merely acquired, but that they
have been favoured in some species to the neglect or escape of
others. In the Hippoglossi we may see representatives of the
original type from which the modem flatfishes have been evolved ;
and we may conceive of this evolution having taken place through
the laws of ordinary development acting upon bodies^ which, firom a
mechanical cause — that of overbalancing themselves — and from thus
being placed in a false position, as it were, have gradually adapted
themselves, through a ciuious modification of form, to a new " way
of life."

A second series of facts corroborative of the view that 4e
flatfishes have thus evolved their peculiar features by adaptation to
the outward circumstances of their existence, is furnished by a know-
ledge of the distortions which follow upon unusual modes of life or
accident in other animals. Mr. Darwin mentions the curious fact of
human history, authenticated by surgical experience, that " in young
persons whose heads from disease have become fixed either side-
ways or backways, one of the eyes has changed its position and the
bones of the skull have become modified." So also, if one ear of a
lop-eared rabbit tends to fall downwards and forwards, its meie

Animals and their Environments. 745

weight is found to affect the development and growth of all the
bones of the skull^ and to cause a forward protrusion of the head on
that particular side. Mechanical causes, and the mere action of
weight or strain, may thus produce changes of surprising extent in
structures of greater firmness than the soft skulls of fishes. The
evidence in support of the evolutionist's theory of flatfish modifica-
tion, however, is also strengthened by certain cases of distortion
which follows upon the habit evinced by the young of certain well-
known and symmetrical fishes of resting on one side. Young trout,
salmon, and perch have been found to acquire unsymmetrical skulls
from this habit ; and they have also been seen to strain their lower
eyes in the endeavour to look upward, after the fashion of the young
flatfish. One authority, indeed, declares that it is possible that the
yoimg of the most modified flatfishes are in reality unsymmetrically
developed even within the egg. This condition, if actually present,
must necessarily be viewed as the inherited result of the typical
development of the unsymmetrical state in ancestral forms ; and its
occurrence would render easy of explanation the cause of the young
fish losing its balance so soon after its escape from the egg. In some
fishes, which are widely removed in their systematic position from
the flatfishes, there is a want of symmetry which compels the fishes
to rest on one side. Such are the curious Deal-fishes (Trachypterus
arcturus) or Vaagmars, which derive their popular name from
their exceeding thinness of body, and which are allied to the
familiar Tape or Ribbon fishes. The Deal-fish rests on its left side,
and, like the flatfishes, is a bottom-living species. Moreover, it
swims diagonally through the water from its want of symmetry, and
evinces a disparity in development between the two sides of the
head. The occurrence of allied conditions in the heads of higher
animals and in other and distinct groups of fishes would seem
to argue clearly and forcibly in favour of like conditions producing
like results to those seen in the flatfishes. Nor must we lose
sight of the fact that disuse of the fins of the lower side in the
flatfishes will account for their lesser size, as compared with
those of the upper siur&ce ; and that the jaw bones are stronger
and teeth more numerous on the lower side of the head. This
latter result accrues naturally from the more constant use of
the jaws on the lower side of the head than on the eyed side in the
act of feeding on the groimd — z. fact pointed out by my friend
Dr. Traquair, and illustrating the influence of " use " in develop-
ing structures, as opposed to the effects of '* disuse" in rendering
organs useless and abortive, Fron^ ev^ry consideration, we are

74^ The Gentleman* 5 Magazine.

forced to donclucje that the flatfishes present us with typical
examples of animals which oWe their peculiar form and habits to the
circumstances of their life, associated with the action of environ-
ments upon their frame. We learn from the consideration of
such features of living beings, not only how perfectly adaptation
to circumstances is correlated with structure and life at large,
but also how plastic and mobile under the sway of outward forces
the living organism may prove. Whilst no less powerfully does
the consideration of the flatfishes and their modifications support
the ideas that the existing order of nature is largely due to
secondary causes and to mechanical forces which acquire domi-
nance and power over living beings through the eflfects of per-
petuated habit, and of use or disuse continued through long periods
of time.

Within the confines of the group of vertebrate animals ranking
next in order to that of the fishes, we may find examples of the
relationship between living beings and their surroundings, if any-
thing, of more typical and distinct nature than those presented by
the flatfishes. This group of animals is known as that of &e
Amphibia^ and is represented by the fix)gs, toads, newts, and alEed
animals, which, in popular phraseology, would be termed "reptiles,"
although zoologically they form a perfectly distinct group fix>m the
latter creatures. It may facilitate the comprehension of the illus-
trations about to be brought forward, if we firstly glance at certain
of the chief characters by which the dass of amphibians is dis-
tinguished. The newts, frogs, toads, and their allies, witiioot excep-
tion, pass through a series of changes in form (6r metamorf hosts) m
their young condition, and possess breathing organs in the form of
external gills in early life^ facts well known to any one who has
seen a young fix>g in its tadpole stage, and who has had the Curiosity
to watch the transformation of the tadpole into ^e adult fix>g; All
amphibians further possess lungs in their fully grown condition,
whether the gills of early life persist or not Thus the curioos
lizard-like Proteus, found in the caves of Adelsbeig, and the still
more curious Axolotl of Mexico, exemplify newt-like creatures
which retain the gills of early life, and breadie by these orgkns as wc9
as by the lungs with which they are provided in their adult shape.
The common newts of oiur ponds and ditchies, the land-newts of
other countries, and the frogs and toads, breathe, on the contrary, by
lungs alone in their perfect condition; the gills of early life beh^
discarded when these creatiues assume terrestrial habits. Thus tbt
newts, aI&.ou^ArAn% «s8iexvtiallY in water, breadie like Ae firogs Iqr

Animals and their Environments. , 747

lungs alone in their adult state; and, like the aquatic and lung-
bearing whales, have to ascend periodically to the surface for a
supply of atmospheric air. Bearing these characters of this group
of animals in mind, the curious nature of the changes through which
certain of its members pass may be fully realized. The axolotl (Siredan
piscifarme) is a creature inhabiting the fresh waters of Mexico, and, de-
spite its somewhat uninviting appearance, is used in its native regions
for food. It is a lizard-like animal ; possesses a fin-like flattened tail
which forms an efficient swimming organ ; and as a further adapta-
tion to an aquatic existence, possesses three well-developed and fringe-
like gills on each side of its neck. Lungs also exist in the axoloti,
which is thus a most typical '' amphibian," in so far as the possession
of a double set of respiratory organs is concerned. Its length is
about ten or twelve inches, and its colour a dark brown spotted with
black. The axolotl has been long known to science as an interest-
ing amphibian ; but the possibility that it was only an immature or
larval form of some other amphibian, formed perhaps the most note-
worthy point in its history. Cuvier appears to have had doubts
of its identity ; and Mr. Baird, writing of the axolotl, thus says :
" It so much resembles the larva of Amblystoma punctata (a North
American newt), in both external form and internal structiu-e, that I
tannot but believe it to be the larva of some gigantic species of the
genus." Nothing very definite, however, could be urged in support
of the idea that the axolotl was a creature still in the days of its youth;
and there existed, moreover, one feature which strongly militated
against such a supposition — ^namely, that these animals were capable
of perfectly reproducing their species, since they were known to pro-
duce young freely, both in a state of nature and captivity. Of
all physiological tests of an animal's maturity this latter may be
said to be that of the most general application. The law that
the perpetuation of the species is a function of adult life only, is,
in fact, one of the most universal application. But in 1857,
Dumeril laid before the French Academy of Sciences a com-
munication in which he noted the instructive fact that some
thirty axolotls had mysteriously emigrated from the water in which
they lived peacefully with hundreds of their neighbours, had shed
their gills, cast off their skin, and had assumed the colour and
appearance of the genus Amblystoma — a well-known group of
American land-newts, which, like other amphibia, possess gills in
early life, but breathe when adult by lungs alone. This transforma-
tion of the axolotl into a completely different animal, with which it
was not known to possess any relationship whatever, excited, as

748 The Gentleman's Magazine.

might be supposed, no smaU amount of interest, especially when the
presumably adult nature of the axolotls was kept in view. Professor
Marsh, of New Haven, U.S., has placed on record the fact, that x
species of axolotl (Siredon lichenoides) common in the western parts of
the United States also loses its gills and fins when kept in confinement,
and also exhibits other changes of structural nature. This species
further assumes the likeness of a species of Aniblystoma (A. mazw-
Hum) ; and Professor Marsh has also remarked that the changes just
described occur when these axolotls are brought from their native
lakes — situated in the Rocky Mountains at an altitude of 4,500 to
7,000 feet — to the sea-level

The exact causes of these curious changes has only recently, and
through the perseverance and ingenuity of a lady experimenter,
Fraulein Marie von Chauvin, been brought to light. This lady's
experiments confirm in a very striking manner the ideas biologists
have been led to form regarding the influence of surrounding condi-
tions, not merely on living beings in the present but in their past
history as well. Dumeril, thinking that excision of the gills might
induce the change of form, cut off these organs in the axolotls, but
without obtaining a successful result ; the animals simply producing
new gills in virtue of the power of replacing lost parts so common in
their class. But Fraulein von Chauvin, by dint of care and patience^
succeeded in enticing five specimens from their native waters by
gradually inuring them to a terrestrial existence. The animal*? were
highly refractory as far as their feeding was concerned ; but their
objections to diet when under experimentation were overcome by the
ingenious method of thrusting a live worm into the mouth; whilst by
pinching the tail of the worm, it was made to wriggle so far down
the amphibian's throat, that the animal was compelled to swallow
the morsel Of the five subjects on which the patience of Fraulein
von Chauvin was exercised, three died, after a life of nearly fifty days
on land. At the period of their death, however, their gills and tail-
fins were much reduced as compared with the normal state of these
organs. The two surviving axolotls, however, behaved in the most
satisfactory manner. Gills and tail-fins grew " small by d^;rees and
beautifully less," and apparently by an actual process of drying and
shrivelling through contact with the outer air, as opposed to any
internal or absorptive action. The animals moulted or shed their
skin several times ; and finally, as time passed, the gills and tail-fin
wholly disappeared, the gill-openings became closed, the flattened
tail of the axolods was replaced by a rounded appendage, the eyes
became lai^e, and ultimately, with the deyelopmeDt pf a beautifid

Animals and their Environments. . 749

brownish'black hue and gloss on the skin, varied with yellow spots on
the under parts, the axolotls assumed the garb and guise of the land-
Amblystomas. It was thus clearly proved that a change of sur-
roundings— ^represented by the removal of the axolotls from the water,
and by their being gradually inured to a terrestrial existence — has the
effect of metamorphosing them into not merely a new species, but
apparently an entirely different genus of animals.

The bearings of this case will be more fully noted hereafter, but we
may, as a last example of the influence of surroundings on animal exist-
ence, mention Fraulein von Chauvin's experiments on the Black Alpine
Salamander (Salamanda atra,) a species of land newt, living on the
Alpine range, at heights of about 1,000 feet above the sea-level, and
in comparatively dry places. As in all other amphibians, the young
possess gills, but the possession of gills by immature creatures in dry
and stony places would appear to place the animals at a singular
disadvantage. How, then, has Nature surmounted the difficulty, and
adapted the young animals to their surroundings? Simply by
causing the young to undergo their metamorphosis within the body
of the parent — these animals being ovo-viviparous^ that is, retaining
the eggs within their bodies until the young are hatched. Thus
the young of the Alpine salamander pass their "gilled" con-
dition within the parental body, instead of in water, as do the
young of our common newts. But, it might be asked, did the young
of the Alpine salamander at any previous period in the history of the
species ever live in water — ^in other words, is their present an acquired
condition or not? Fraulein von Chauvin's experiments supply a
clear reply to this question. Of two young salamanders possessing
external gills, which were taken from the body of the parent and
which were placed in water, one died ; the survivor casting off its
first set of gills four days afterwards, and actually developing a second
and larger set of unusual form, but probably resembling those with
which these animals in their original water-habitation were provided.
A tail-fin was also developed, and for fifteen weeks this young
salamander, at a time when it should have been living a terrestrial
existence, enjoyed its life in water. At the expiry of that period,
however, the gills were cast off, and the animal appeared in the like-
ness of its land-living parent Succeeding experiments of Fraulein
von Chauvin on the development of the Alpine salamander served
to reveal other interesting details, supplementing in a remarkable
manner that lady's previous observations. Five larvae, the survivors
of a set of twenty-three, were placed in water ; one of these young
salamanders being somewhat more advanced in development than the

750 The Gentlematis Magazine.

others. The youngest of the four possessed six red gills of branded
form, and of such a size that they appeared to impede its movemcirts
in swimming. Soon after being placed in the water, these gills began
to shrivel, and were finally rubbed off by the movements of the
animal against the sides of the aquarium ; so that it ap]>eared to be
entirely destitute of breathing organs. It lay quiescent in the bottom
of the vessel for three days, three new gills of different structoie from
the first organs being then developed on each side of the head, whilst
the new breathing organs were much shorter than the discarded gills A
new tail-fin had also been developed in place of the first with which it
was provided, the second appendage being the larger of the twa After
fourteen weeks of aquatic life, the gills began to decrease in size, and
the tail to become rounded, and in a few days more the young animal
quitted the water and assumed the form, colour, and entire aspect of
the adult. The second specimen, which, as already remarked, was
more advanced in development than the first, assumed the likeness
of the adult after a much shorter existence in the water. The young
appeared to be perfectly at home in the water, and fed greedily when
they entered it ; this fact being somewhat remarkable in view of die
present life and modem development of the species.

That the present course of development in the Alpine salamander
is an acquired condidon, and one altered from its original state, there
can be no doubt Its mere relationship to its amphibian kith and kin
proves this assertion to be true; whilst the fact that the young will li\"e
for an extended period in water, and the mere presence of gills in the
young state, place the altered nature of these animals beyond a doubt
The development of useless gills in the young salamander cannot be
explained by any such phrases as "adherence to type," "unity of type,"
" natural symmetry," and the like — unless, indeed, we may suppose
that Nature imitates humanity in its anxiety for symmetry, and supplies
the young salamander with gills which never were used, and which never
were meant to be used, on the principle of an architect who places blank
windows and painted imitation blinds on a house under the idea of
securing uniformity. Such a practice, admittedly far from aesthetic in
architecture, is positively degrading when appHed to the explanatiao
of Nature's ways and works. It is an idea, besides, which is founded
on pure and baseless assumption, and as such demands no fiirther
notice. The opposing view, which regards the gills of the yom^
Alpine salamander as the representatives of organs which, at a former
period in the history of the species, were used for breathiqg in its
water-living stages of development, is, on the other hand, not onlf
reasonable and consistent, but also demonstrates how great an altex^

Animals and their Environments. 751

tion in the nature of a living organism a change of surrounding con-
ditions may induce. As Mr. G. H. Lewes remarks, " This aquatic
organLcation has no reference to the future life of the animal, nor has
it any adaptation to its embryonic condition ; it has solely reference
to ancestral adaptations, it repeats a phase in the development of
its progenitors." That the change in the Alpine salamander's mode
of development has, in reality, been one entirely dependent upon
external causes, is a suggestion which, as made by Fraulein von
Chauvin, carries weight with it in support of the idea of the close re-
lationship between living beings and their environments. Want of
food would thus be a condition which could scarcely be conceived as
having driven the Alpine newt to its high habitat, since the dietary
would become scarcer and more difficult to obtain, the higher the
altitude it reached. More probable is the idea that slow elevation of
the land surface was the cause of the change in habits and develop-
ment A slow rise of land would imply an equally gradual alteration
of habits, as water-pools became less numerous. The young, at first
bom alive and gilled, would be produced at less frequent intervals and
in fewer numbers, whilst they would also be retained for longer periods
within the parent-body. This view accords with the actual detail of
the animal's life. For only two young are produced at a birth by
these animals ; the other eggs serving as food for the developing
minority. This latter remarkable feature of the sustenance of the
young by their immature brethren can, of course, be regarded only iu
the light of an acquired condition, and as one which has arisen out
of the needs and necessities of the species.

The conclusions at which the earnest and unbiassed student of
Nature may arrive regarding any points involved in his studies may
very frequently be found to be greatiy at variance with the notions of
natural law and order that prevail in the world at large. But, as
Tyndall has well remarked, "in the choice of probabilities the
thoughtful mind is forced to take a side ; " and the attitude of the
seeking mind towards natural phenomena and their explanation must
ever be that of estimating causes by the likelihood and value of the
evidence brought to hght Judged by the standard of once-popular
faith, that the living things of the world were created as we find them,
the cases of the flatfishes and amphibians do not seem very promising,
it must be confessed. But the choice of a side admits of no hesitancy
here. The evidence that outward and mechanical agencies, operat-
ing upon living bodies and correlating themselves with the forces
and ways of life, are the causes of the peculiarities we have noted, is
too forcible to be for a moment doubted. A peculiar form or shape

752 The Gentlefnan!s Magazine.

of body, a rise of land, and the influence of the ''law of likeness" in
perpetuating the variations thereby produced— such are die causes
and means through which the greater portion of the world of life has
been and is still being moulded. . How much in any case may be
due to the influence of outward causes, and what amount of power
we are to ascribe to the internal forces and constitution of living
beings, no one may dogmatically assert But our ignorance of the
exact relations of these causes to outward conditions will not militate
in any way against the recognition of the power of the latter to effiect
change and alteration in living nature. In the axolotl, the external
influences of a land life are seen to cause gills and tail-fin to shrivel
and ultimately to disappear. In the young salamander, on the
contrary, the vital process of absorption must apparently be credited
with the chief sliare of the work of modification, and of causing
gills and other larval structures to become abortive. In the flat-
fishes a mechanical cause, namely, a tendency to lopsidedness,
presents us with the primary reason for the peculiar development
and position of the eyes. And we thus see, in the case of the
axolotl, the mechanical beginnings of actions, which in the flat-
fishes and Alpine salamander have been operating through loDg
periods of time, and which, through the agency of the law of likeness
and heredity, have become well-defined characters of the species.
Admitting tiiat variations may begin fi-om without, that they arc
transmitted to posterity, and that as time passes they may come, as
we have seen, to represent the " way of life," we are thus placed in
possession of rational ideas regarding the manner in which cause
and eflect in one phase of nature are related. And if it be urged
that great are the mysteries which yet beset the " ways of life," the
knowledge that we have obtained of even a small part of the order of
Nature may still lead towards a fuller and wider comprehension of the
universe and its laws. We are now only studying the alphabet of
Nature. A little patience— and we may be able to say with Shake-
speare's soothsayer,

** In Nature's infinite book of secrecy
A little I con read.**

ANDREW WILSON.

753

TABLE TALK.

THE purpose of Allegory, we have been informed on high
authority, is to make the head ache, which seems hard on
many well-meaning writers from John Bunyan downwards ; it has
also been stated that the thing has never yet — as regards the art of
Painting, at least — been popular i^ath mankind. In Regent Street
there is at this moment a curious proof to the contrary. In the
window of one of its art shops hangs a picture in front of which there
is almost always an admiring crowd, of which I confess I often make
one. I have no doubt the work is taken by the public for an
accurate representation of the commencement of a modem battle.
I am quite sure of this from the remarks I have overheard them
express, and which are beyond measure charming. There is a general
on horseback, sword in hand ; cavalry, infantry, artillery, and sailors^
and in front of them — so that they must all swim it, or drown in
it — a river. The picture is spiritedly drawn, and the uniforms, no
doubt, are as properly represented as they are highly coloured.
Underneath it is written " Ready." If the persons represented were
really ready, they would have stripped off everything ; and yet, it is
most curious, and shows the simplicity, if not the innocence, of our
common natiure, that not a soul seems to take it, for what it obviously
is, — an Allegory to please the Jingos.

A STILL more curious example of simplicity — though only an
individual one — can be seen daily among the advertisements
of the Times, " A gentleman who during long travels abroad has lost
most acquaintances of his own station, would like to fill up spare time
by a written ^exchange of ideas on subjects of the day. Address,
X. Y." Where can X. Y. have been, to come back with such an
aspiration as this ! Conceive, in these days, any human being wanting
to hear more about the " topics of the day" than he can possibly
help. The difficulty is rather how to escape them, when they are
flourished in your face by every newsvendor, and even printed on the
pavements of the street Even if X. Y. is so fortunate as not to go out
to dinner, he has only to step into a railway tram or a twopenny l}us
vou ccxLii, NO. 1770. 3 c

754 '^f^ Gentleman's Magazine.

to get his fill of '^ an exchange Of ideas " on such a subject Imagine,
for example, anybody of sane mind wanting at this time of day to
have another man's views of the £astem Question, and in writing !
Nay, worse, wanting to reply to them, also in writing ! My own expla-
nation of this is that in " his long travels abroad " — va Timbuctoo,
perhaps, where there are still no school boards — ^X. Y. has forgotten
how to read and write, and wishes to recover those lost arts by prac-
tice. The one bright (and rare) spot in his melancholy case is that
he does not seem to want to publish these lucubrations. On the other
hand, supposing him to be wealthy, and therefore, as will appear
to many people, worth cultivating, how this proposal of his will en-
courage bores ! Only conceive a bore with full permission to weary a
fellow-creature with "his views in writing on the topics of the day !"

IN spite of political trouble and commercial stagnation, and in pre-
sence of discoiuraging fact and disquieting rumoiu:, the " collecting
mania" still exists and flourishes. While commonplace and prosaic
manufactures languish, books, pictures, and porcelain not only main-
tain their value, but realise increasing prices. In one department of
ceramic art it seems likely that this present year will mark a point of
culminating interest. With the exhibition of Sir Henry Thompson's
Blue and White Porcelain, the finest collection except, perhaps, that
of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, at present in existence in England, it
seems probable that a taste which has hitherto been confined to an
esoteric few may receive an impetus towards a more general adoption.
Hitherto the cognoscenti alone have raved about the special beauties
of this most prized product of Oriental art ; and the deep luminous
haze of the blue, the cool lucidity and matchless transparency of the
white, the grace, elegance, and distinction of such designs as the
famous hawthorn or the double chrysanthemums, and the unsur-
passable and indeed unapproachable brilliancy of the glaze have been
" caviare to the general." It is curious to find how early Chinese
artists began to be influenced by European associations. Among the
gems of the collection are two so-called Keyser cups, which are of
unquestionable antiquity. On these are presented St. Louis <A
France and his queen seated on a throne beneath a canopy. Aro\md
the top of each cup runs a legend to this efliect: L^ empire de la
vertu est ktabli jusqi^au bout de Vunivers, Other specimens deal
also with European subjects and present European costumes. The
catalogue, with its dainty cover and its superb reproductions
of Mr. Whistler's drawings of the specimens, is likely to do more
even than the collection itself to commend blue and white china

Table Talk. 755

to public appreciation. Meanwhfle, so rapid has been the rise in
value of these objects, that a jar bought a score years ago for a
few guineas.is now worth hundreds. ^ Worth its weight in gold " is
indeed wholly inexpressive when applied to things like these, which
are almost worth their weight in bank-notes.

THE sayings of children have always had an inexpressible
charm for me, but nothing in the way of ncuvetk and uncon-
scious humour comes up to a remark I heard the other day from a
young lady of the age of seven. She is deservedly a pet of her
household, but is a little exacting and given to bemoan herself as
being rather neglected and ** sat upon *' in her family circle than
otherwise. " Nobody ever cared for me," she informed me : " for
even when I was bom, my mother and all my sisters were away at the
seaside."

THAT we have not got a great school either of drama or of his-
trionic art such as exists in France, may be conceded. We have,
however, made gigantic strides of late in the direction of improvement
A writer in an influential review speaks thus concerning the present
state of the drama in England : — " The theatre has long been a
weariness of the flesh to cultivated men and women. In this enor-
mous capital, with all its wit and wealth, its luxury and art, it ought
to be possible for a tired man to be able to find somewhere among
twenty or thirty theatres a wholesome and pleasant evening's enter-
tainment, let the want strike him when it will On the contrary, this
is just the thing which is not" Now, this is about as correct as
would be the statement, that '^ in this enormous capital, with all its
wealth, &c., it ought to be possible for a hungry man to obtain^ a
mutton chop, let the want strike him when it wilL On the contrary,
this is just the thing which is not" Culture, about which it is
fashionable to talk overmuch, is of coiurse a matter of degree. A
man may possibly train his Acuities to such over-nice musical per-
ception that the false and discordant note alone strikes him in nature's
harmonies. The man so cultivated, however, that he cannot when
he requires such intellectual repose or stimulus as the theatre affords
find it in the absolutely perfect presentation of " Olivia " at the Court
Theatre, in the superb msemhUdi "Diplomacy" at the Prince of
Wales's, in Mr. Irving's magisterial conception of " Louis die
Eleventh," or Miss Neilson's exquisitely tender and noble imper-
sonation of Isabella in " Measure for Measure," is, to use an old
proverb, more nice than wise. I will go further, indeed, and will say

756 The Gentlemafis Magazine.

that a man of highest endowments may obtain a pleasant respite from
labour at other theatres ; may, in spite of its musical (?) accessories,
find " Nell Gwynne " entertaining, may become interested in Ae
domestic story of " Our Boys," may enjoy a hearty laugh at ** Id on
parle Fran^ais," or at the splendid caricature of " Diplomaqr" at
the Strand. If he cannot, tant pis pour luL To travel from an
East-end Dan to a West-end Beersheba and find all barren, may be
said to show absence of powers of observation rather than prorc
there is nothing to observe.

IT is a painful spectacle, though not an unconunon one, to see a man
of Science totally destitute of Humour. But it is still worse to find
people without either. In a Pall Mall Gazette of recent date there
was a charming story of a black Preacher in America who has
proved (to the satisfaction of his congregation, at least) that the sun
moves round the earth. If the latter moved round the sun, as he
pointed out, " the ocean would be spilled over the land," At the
conclusion of his discourse he asked those whom his alignments had
convinced to hold up their hands, and every hand was uplifted. The
Fall Mall, quoting from the Nation, congratulates the United States
that " the people " have now taken astronomy into their own hands,
as they have done the slavery question, and that " the* word of the
honest working man, no matter of what colour, will go as far, with r^ard
to the motion of the planets, as that of the bloated astronomer in his
luxurious observatory with his costly instruments that could never
have existed but for the toil of the industrious mechanic."

Now, this amazing paragraph has been actually taken as a serious
statement by the select band of Flats who would have the earth in
unison with them, and who deny its motion ; they have printed it cf
extenso, and sent it out into the world as a corroboration of their
theory ! They have always expressed their contempt for the class to
whom that gentleman belonged who could see *' a great deal of asser-
tion" in Paradise Lost, " and not one word of proof," but henceforth
they will scarcely venture to talk of the simplicity of the Mathema-
ticians.

A STORY which is current concerning the Laiureate tells that he
once at the house of one of oiu: best-known astronomers
availed himself of the opportunity afforded him of contemplating the
heavens through a powerful telescope. Having surveyed a portion
of the milky way, and ascertained for himself that the whole was
resolvable into endless series of systems like our own solar system,

Table Talk. 757

he put down the telescope with the laconic observation, '* I don't
think much of our county families." The satire has a touch of Swift.
I am afraid that a man of a cynical turn of mind might find the pre-
tensions of monarchy scarcely more imposing than those of the
English "untitled aristocracy." Few of my readers, I fancy, turn
their attention to the " Almanach de Gotha." If they did so, they
would be astonished to find how many discrowned monarchs still
claim " the right divine of kings to govern wrong." It matters little,
perhaps, that the democrats who form so important an element in
the populations of large cities should learn to prate about " a mob of
kings." A more serious difficulty arises, however, when it is seen
that the most loyal Conservative, anxious only to believe in every-
thing, will find insuperable difficulties in the way of accepting the
self-styled monarchs for what they profess themselves. As monarchs
forward their own descriptions to the almanack, and as the last
thing a monarch does is to forego his title to any possessions that
have ever belonged to his family, the difficulty of deciding who is
wrong and who is right is insuperable. Putting on one side claims
such as those to the Duchy of Saxony, which may almost be
described as countless, I find such shadowy dignities as King of the
Goths assumed by two reigning monarchs. No monarch except
Queen Victoria puts forward a claim to England. It shows, how-
ever, how ridiculous assumptions of this nature are considered, when
we find Germany allowing the Emperor of Austria to style himself
Duke of Lorraine and Duke of Silesia, Italy permitting him to
arrogate the titles of Duke of Modena and Duke of Parma, and '
Turkey winking at his putting himself forth as King of Jerusalem.
The statesman who said everything was worth studying except
heraldry must have had royal and imperial pedigrees in his mind in
making the exception.

THE dangers of doing anything, if we are to believe in oiu: scien-
tific authorities, are becoming very serious. The last " out,"
according to a great medical organ, is the danger of sitting in a
hansom cab, because the passenger is on a level with the horse's
head ; " many cases of intractable irritation of the more exposed
mucous membranes having originated in this manner." If the horse
has a cold, in short, the fare catches it.

It is also dangerous to sit upon the knifeboard of an omnibus,
because you are on a level with the next passenger, who may be smok-
ing a cigar, and many cases of cuticular irritation (sometimes even

758 The Gentleman's Magazine.

accompanied by fits of irritatioii) originate from the sparks ^diich do
not always " fly upward," but sometimes in your eye.

It is also dangerous to sit upon any board, unless the company b
** limited ; " (this is especially the case in the City).

And it is also dangerous — even for the hiyghest ^^ scientific autho-
rities"— to sit on a mare's nest: because what is hatched is often
a mere hobbyhorse.

EVERYTHING concerning Russia is at this moment of interest
I extract accordingly fit>m the " Historiettes et Souvenirs d'on
Homme de Theatre," of Mr. Hippolyte Hostein, the following curious
anecdote, which, he states, was told him by Vedel, formerly catssier
and administraUur of the Commie Fran9aise. At the period when
the French army, tmder Napoleon, entered Moscow, the performances
of the French company at the Imperial Theatre of St. Petersbnig
were continued in obedience to direct orders of the Czar. Vedd
was at that time playing the premier rdUs^ the *' leading lady " being
the celebiated Mdlle. Mars. Much apprehension was naturally aroused
in the mind of the actress by the increasing hatred of France that had
been begotten by the onward march of the, so iziy victorious army.
She held, however, to her post until one day she was informed that
bands of moujiks, armed with sticks, were surrounding the theatre and
endeavouring to force an entrance. Yielding at last to the persuasions
of her companion, she started for the theatre, passing, in the carriage
provided by Government, through a menacing crowd. Once in the
•house, she was instructed by the Superintendent-General of the
Theatres to fear nothing, whatever might occur. Upon appearing on
the stage she found the house crowded in all parts with bearded
moujiks, who had swarmed even into those places usually assigned to
the Russian nobility. At this sight the courage of Mdlle. Mars fiadled
her, and she dropped swooning into the arms of Vedel, who hastily
tried to lead her off the stage. Her weakness seemed to embolden
the audience, who rose, threatening the company with their sticks,
while some of the boldest commenced to clamber fix>m the pit on to
the stage. In a moment the Superintendent-General, the Count de
Narischkine, sprang firom his private box on to the stage, followed hjr
some officers. He gave a signal, the doors of the orchestra, the
balconies, the galleries, were thrown open, and detachments of the
regiment of Pr^obajenski showed themselves, with fixed bayonets, at
every door. The moujiks, seeing themselves surrounded, became
tranquil A table was then brought, and a book ; and M. de Narisch-
kine, addressing the crowd, now quiet and attentive, said, ^< My brave

Table Talk. 759

fellows, what is the use of insulting and killing a few inoffensive
comedians who are your guests ! I have a nobler revenge for you.
You will one and all come to me in turn and be inscribed in this book
as soldiers, and I will then send you to the advanced posts, where
you can best prove your fidelity to Holy Russia and our glorious and
respected Emperor." Nothing was left the moujiks except to obey.
I do not, of course, guarantee this story, but it has every appearance
of truth.

SINCE the locust swarm of Personal Papers have settled down
upon us, we have been able to understand what public, and
indeed private, life must have been in the days of the Satirist and
Theodore Hook's John Bull. But until the War fever broke out,
men of culture, or, at all events, of position, still expressed themselves
with decency respecting their political opponents. Now there is
nothing too bad to be said — and believed — of those who differ from
us. Mr. Bright's late speech at Manchester has stung the Jingos,
who had been " pretty wild " before, to madness. The miliary folks,
in particular, are outraged by that observation about the large amount
of valour in the market to be purchased almost anywhere at eighteen-
pence a day. And this is what — among other nice things — they go
about saying, to the great satisfaction of their friends: that the reason
of John Bright's antagonism to the Unspeakables is a mere matter of
commercial rivalry : he is in the Kidderminster line, it seems, or they
say so, and wishes to put an end to the manufacture of Turkey
carpets. *

THOUGH there is no want of situation and melodrama to those '
who look for them in our own so-called commonplace
English life, there is no question that the influence of civilisation
tends to convention in crime — as in all other things. Only in India,
for example, could now occiu: so astounding a criminal case as that
of the Rajah of Poorree, accused and convicted of having put to
death with unspeakable tortures a Hindoo ascetic. He has for some
occult reason, known only to our Indian judges, been sentenced to
imprisonment for life only, instead of the " ten thousand deaths " his
cruelty warranted, and even against this sentence he has appealed.
Both the murderer and his victim are extremely remarkable persons:
the Rajah is the hereditary guardian of Juggernaut, " the secular
head of the Hindoo religion " and " the incarnation of Vishnu "
himself— that is to say, he is at least as important a spiritual person-
age in the eyes of his fellow-countrymen as is the Pope in those of

760 The Genttefftatis Magazine.

good Catholics — while the Hindoo ascetic was a man of such severe
and excessive sanctity, that he had the power of curing diyasc^ It
was this gift that got him into trouble with the Rajah, who seems to
have been under the idea that he was practising witchcraft on him.
James the First would under the same circumstances, probablj, have
proceeded in a like manner. . The Rajah is only twenty-two, and is
said to have " led a blameless life." I don't say that I wisk soch a
thing to happen, but what a boon it would be to the daily p^>eis
(should they faD in getting up a war) if the Archbishop of Canteibuiy •
should proceed to extremities with his Surrogate, for example (whom
I conclude, though I have not thie faintest notion what he is, to be
the next most religious man in the Kingdom). We certainly lose
something by being so very correct and civilised.

VISITORS to Paris who arc unfamiliar with the fascinating
capital will do well to bear in mind, since it will simplify their
views concerning its geography, that — in its course from the point
where, just above the Font National^ it receives the waters of the
Marne, to that at the Pont dc GrenelUy a little below the TrocadAo,
the site of the new Exposition — the course of the Seine is quite similar
to that of the Thames between London and Vauxhall bridges. The
line of the Quai des Tuileries and the Quai du Louvre resembles
pretty closely that of the Embankment ; and the long street, the
Rue de Rivoli, answers fairly to Ludgate Hill, Fleet^ Street, and the
Strand. The Place de la Concorde corresponds to Charing Cross,
the river Seine making at that point the precise kind of bend idiidi
the Thames takes as it turns to Westminster. As a consequence, the
southern bank of the Seine corresponds to that of the Thames. There
are not so many direct routes as those great arteries from the various
bridges which meet at the Elephant and Castle. If less direct, however,
in their progress, the streets and boulevards of Paris conveige in the
same manner, the point at which they all meet being close to the
Observatoire on the Boulevard Arago. In a rough sort of way the
Boulevards des Capucines, des Italiens, &c., correspond to Oxfixd
Street, and those des BatignoUes de Clichy, de la Chapelle, and dc
la Villette to the Marylebone, Euston, and City Roads. A brief
study of these facts, with a map of Paris, can scarcely fail to be of
service to the visitor to Paris who, with no previous knowledge of id
features, seeks to dispense with a guide.

SYLVANUS URBAir.
i^Poitiswood* ^ Ca.f Printers^ Nrto^trett Sauare.