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NEW PICTURES 



AND 



OLD PANELS. 



WW^^M 



NEW PICTURES 



OLD PANELS. 



Br DR. DOEAN, 



c® 



LONDON : 

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, 

^3ii6Ii»i)CT in ffirtinarg to Sw ^ajtBtj. 

1859. 



xoH^Ln.y^^ 



Harvard college library 

BEQUEST Of 

DR. WIUIAN L RICHARDSON 

FEBRUARY 24, 1B33 



PS1MTBD BT 

JOHN EDWARD TATLOS, LITTLB QUXKM 8TBBBT, 

LINCOLN'S INN FIBLDS, LONDOV. 



I 



TO 

SAMUEL HOWELL, 

nUDDERSFIELD, ARTIST, 
THESE 

ABE DBDICATEDi 

BY HIS ERIEND, 



THE AUTHOR. 



Catttlflgtte af ^irtnm. 



^ ^picture in Wifttt pands* 

PAOS 
KIGHT-HAI7D FaI^EL 1 



• 4 



Left-hand Panel 19 

C^TE*^ Panel 31 

"POETBAIT OF A LaDT " 62 

■ 

ANDBfe CnfeNiEB: A Pen-and-Ink Sebtch 73 

POBTBAIT OF A KOBE SUCCESSFUL StBUOOLEB FOB FaME . . 89 

PiCTUBES AND PaINTEBS IN THE RUB St. DeNIB 106 

0U! panels reptesmtmg Beltguitis Subjects. 

Venus appeabing to Aspasli 119 

OuB Lady op Boulogne : aftee a Cabving by St. Luke . 131 

The Ungbacious Rood of Gbace, and Pbofiles of St. 

Gbihbald and St. Robebt 143 

The Floweby Legend of Oue Lady of Guadalupe . . . 154 



• • • 



VIU CATALOGUE OF PICTUEES. 

PAGE 

A PlOTUBB OV EVOLAKD A GSNTUBY AgO 167 

PlOTUBES OV EVGIAim BY FOBBIOIT SSBTOHEBS . . . . . 186 

HiBTOBICAIi POBTBAITS BY BOHAKTIC FaINTEBS 198 

Vaamas Sobztes dbawn by English Haitds 214 

A G-BOTTF 07 Queens Unqxteened 247 

Pobtbaits of the Daughtebs of Chables 1 267 

The Things We Don't Know 285 

PoBTBAITS of FaBINELLI and POICFADOUB 306 

"Tableaux de Pabis" in the Last Centuey 322 

PiCTUBES OF Old and Young Chbistmas 338 

Pobtbait of a Student in Love 347 

PlOTUBES OF BhINE-LAND, AND ITS BOMANOE 362 



» 



NEW PICTURES AND OLD PANELS. 



% 1|ktmt in 




RIGHT-HAND PANEL. 

A July sun can send warmth and apparent gladness even 
into Hart Street, Crutched Friars. Thus much, at least, 
was felt by an inhabitant who, early one morning, in. the 
month just named, of the year 1767, stepped into the street 
from a solemn-looking house, near St. Olave's church, where 
Pepys so disturbed the congregation by whispering — about 
the news of the Dutch victory, from pew to pew. 

The man who now stood on the causeway was of slight 
figure, had rather an intellectual than a purely handsome 
look, though his features were far from plain, and he might 
hare been taken by most people for a clergyman. He had 
rather a dissipated aspect, and an exceedingly lazy bearing ; 
he yawned languidly as he passed slowly along the street, 
and walked with both hands thrust into the pockets of a 
long-waisted black coat, which was stained with wine and 
punch, singed in several places where burning tobacco had 
fallen upon it, but which nevertheless fitted him so exactly, 
and was accompanied by a lace-edged cravat so dazzlingly 

B 



2 NEW PICTUEE8 AND OLD PANELS. 

white, and bj ruffles so extravagantly beautiful, — best seen 
when the wearer raised his hands to his forehead, which he 
did frequently, for last night's delights were being dearly 
accounted for, about that region especially, — that something 
of the stamp of a gentleman was impressed upon him. He 
had certainly about him all the characteristics of a rake, — 
and this was only in keeping, for he was one of the liveliest 
and " latest" revellers in London. And yet, therewith, he 
had, in spite of the shakiness of his gait, a composed, self- 
possessed air, and so much the look of a man accustomed 
to lay down the law, without being questioned, so much 
of the glow of satisfaction of a messenger of love, how- 
ever unlovely his own life, that, — combined with his cle- 
rically-fashioned hat, wis:, and shoe-buckles, any passer-by 
might ha.e been pa;don;d for taking him for a "parson." 
Nay, he might have been more than pardoned, he would 
have been justified. The personage in question wg^ the lec- 
turer of St. Olave's. He had been making a night of it at 
a neighbour's, whence, after a few hours' sleep, and a break-, 
fast where there certainly had been rum on the table, he 
was now wending his way homeward. 

He might have passed for five years older than he really 
was, — his actual age was eight-and-twenty. Tor this appa- 
rent addition to his age he was indebted to a double dis- 
sipation. He was not only addicted to late hours, the 
society of bucks, tolerably hard drinking, and card-playing, 
where his tippling had been of the hardest, strongest, and 
longest, but he was one of the most fashionable preachers 
of the day. In a few months subsequent to this, and for 
several years, afberwards, he was perhaps the most fashion- 
able preacher, and the rather handsome fellow led handsome 
women to Satan, just as Chesterfield sent his son in that 
direction, — with finely turned phrases, highly polished prin- 
ciples, and a rottenness of insinuatioi). and example that 
were certain in their combined effects. 



BIGHT-HAITD PASTEL. 3 

Now, to become and to remain a fashionable preacher 
cost this exemplary gentleman as much of his strength, as 
did his riotous way of life. His old father, the rector of 
Bourne, in Lincolnshire, was one of those dear, single- but 
large-hearted parsons and fathers of an earlier day, who 
probably spent nights in prayer and his little all of saved 
wealth, that his boy might be an apostolic missionary. 

"I would as soon see Will hanged," he used to say, 
taking his much-loved pipe from his mouth, to charge it 
again from the tobacco-box which lay on the ' Ductor Du- 
bitantium,' at his side ; '^ I would as soon see Will hanged, 
as disgrace himself, his family, or, above all, the Church to 
which he belongs, and the Gospel of which he is now the 
preacher." 

Gk)od old soul ! Well for him that he did not survive till 
1777, — or he might have seen all that he deprecated, and a 
scene at Tyburn, at the end of it.' 

At the present moment, the highly reverend Will had 
not got farther in his light and evil career than the status 
of a fashionable preacher. To that condition he was led 
indeed by his carelessness of serious things, his appetite, I 
may say his gluttony, for gaiety, and his inordinate love of 
money. He was by no means an idle fellow, — and there 
was his best chance against the Devil, who can easily take 
any number of them at any time, and with the slightest 
amount of trouble. Will could work like' a galley-slave, and 
in part proof of my assertion I may refer to the fact of his 
resolution, ultimately realized, to establish himself and his 
fortunes by becoming a fashionable preacher. 

" It will bring me the money that I love," said Will, " and 
it will enable me to spend it as fast as I like, and to borrow 
more, with facility, when the tide runs temporarily low ." 

As yet, he was only in the beginiaing of his career of 
fashion. BLitherto, he had worked variously. He had 
"jobbed" in the Church. " It pays well," said WiU, " and 

b2 



4 HEW PlCTtTBKS AKD OLD PAKEIS. 

is not fatiguing," He had taken pupils. *' It introduces 
me to good company," said "Will, " and I may find a patron 
among them." Ahove all, he had long trusted to his pen. 
It was a spade which had dug for him a little, no great deal, 
of the gold of Peru. It was, just at this moment, begin- 
ning to do more. His friend, the Eeverend Eli Synnamist, 
had lately started the * Tuesday Tomahawk ;' and Will was 
Lieutenant under this doughty Captain. They, had some 
eight or ten subalterns, — all of whom were men who pre- 
tended to principle, — and nobody doubted the amount of 
their pretensions. They all affected, in very good lan- 
guage, an immense superiority over all other literary men, 
publicly denouncing their books, and privately insinuating 
away their characters. Their own public mistook them for 
men of standing, because they were continually suggesting 
that they were so, though three-fourths of them could not, 
and the half of the other fourth would not, pay their cre- 
ditors. The paper brought with it certain dangers : the 
Eeverend Eli, himself, most delighted in attacking the books 
written by women, and had narrowly escaped horsewhipping 
for bespattering in the * Tomahawk' the volumes of two 
sisters on America, whose only male relative Eli had fondly 
imagined was at Philadelphia, and who was looking for Eli 
till obliged to give up the search in despair. There were 
two hungry lads in the neighbourhood of New Inn who 
depended entirely on the honorarium awarded by their 
leader, and whose " cue" it was always to sneer at writers 
who worked their pens for a livelihood. "Will's appointed 
task was to do and say as he was bidden, and well he did 
it. Had he received a ten-pound note, each time he vio- 
lated veracity, he might soon have ridden in a coach as 
grand and uncomfortable as that of George the Second 
himself. 

There was one other task, for which, however, a proper 
executant was long lacking. The worshipful Eli had almost 



BiaHT-HAKD FAKEL. 5 

as mucli luxury in attacking men as in assaulting women, 
but his fears got the better of him. Never did he feel such 
ecstatic deUght as when some one who had been the po- 
pular idol of the day, whose talents had been godlike, wit 
divine, learning profound, virtues numberless and active, — 
and yet who fell as it were into the dust, by error great or 
small. Upon such a fallen angel as this EH could jump 
with ruffianly delight- 'He was wise, however, and re- 
frained ; but he found a burly representative of his nasty 
and ferocious spirit in Bucephalus Bull, as he was gene- 
rally called, though he was a man of many aliases, and who 
watched for the slips and backslidings of great men with 
an insane eagerness. Bucephalus was miserable when the 
world was virtuous, but let only one of its great ones trip, 
and the unclean fellow swooped down upon him with mad 
delight. As the filthy vulture lights on the wounded war- 
horse, so BuU, scenting his quarry, possessed himself of a 
fallen friend. His beak plunged into the eyes of his victim ; 
his claws tore open the very entrails of the helpless one, and 
Bull, growing fat on garbage, was lightest of spirit and 
heaviest of purse, when better men than himself erred in 
presence of the world — and, what was worse, of Bull. Even 
Will, despite his love of money, had declared that he would 
rather be chaplain in Newgate, and ride to Tybum twice 
a week with a cart-load of convicts, — ^by whose deaths he 
should lose much punch, — ^than take such a task as Bull's. 

Yet Bull died in his bed ; and poor Will finally went to 
Tyburn with the Chaplain, — who left him there, and re- 
turned alone. 

The work in the 'Tomahawk' was, however, light, com- 
pared with that which Will passed through, or endured, in 
order not only to be fashionable in the pulpit, but out of 
it, — in fine houses, warm dining-rooms, mysterious bowers, 
and rollicking clubs. He had spent whole months with 
Mossop, the actor, who drilled him into reading the Litany 



6 NEW FICTVBES AlTD OLD PAVELS. 

with such witching emphasis, that women went miles only 
to hear him read the Litany. Mrs. Olive had made him pay 
rather dearly in dinners and suppers, and mulled claret and 
earrings, for instructing him in a pleasing delivery of the 
services for the solemnization of matrimony, the churching 
of women, and the private or public baptism of children. 
Palmer had taught him how to read a pubUc notice from 
the pulpit with effect, and Woodward had enlightened him 
as to the achievement of distinctness with grace, in enuncia^ 
ting the " Dearly beloved," and in reading an Epistle. For 
aU this, Will was indebted to the players at Drury Lane, — 
but the necessary money was weU laid out. It returned 
cent, per cent. Covent Grarden was not backward in lend-* 
ing him a certain sort of fitness for his calling. The effect 
was seen on an Ash Wednesday, when Will had to recite 
the Commination sentences, and on any day set aside for 
the proclaiming of the creed of St. Athanasius. Then^ 
Will's audiences beat Barry's; and Barry had been his 
master. Week after week. Will had attended at Barry's 
house. No. 61, Hart Street, Covent Garden, and there the 
two had gone through the threats and condemnations^ till 
at last. Will seemed to have gained the silver tongue of his 
instructor, and congregations of some men and many maids 
and matrons flocked to hear terrible penalties levelled at 
them, in so exquisite a voice and method, that even they 
who remembered the "Fly soft ideas" of Miss Brent, in 
^ Artaxerxes,' thought Ame's pupil not to be compared 
with Barry's. 

Nor was this all that Covent G-arden did to make a grace- 
ful apostle of him. Smith, that most irresistible of Valen- 
tines, addressed himself to Will's carriage, and in a very 
short time, particularly as the " parson " went every night 
to the play, and from the boxes, thronged with maccaronies, 
marked how the actor entered on and walked the stage, 
he produced such improvement, that half the women, and 



iBiaHT-HAKD PAKEL. 7 

sometimes all of them, in Will's congregation, used to 
slowly and silently tise to watch his graceful moyement as 
he passed from the vestry to the pulpit, or from the latter 
to within the rails of the " communion-." As this was al- 
ways done to a few notes from the organ, the effect was 
complete ; and when it was over, the siUy women fell back 
in faint ecistasy, each looking in a die-away fashion at her 
heighboiri*, iMid the expression evidently implying all that is 
meant in a "Did you ever?" 

There were others in Will's congregation who always 
circulated a soft and gentle "hush!" — musically and ten- 
derly sibillated pifevious to his saying, " Let us pray ! " Tor his 
unparalleled utterance of this and of the last eight words 
of the Lord's Prayer, to each of which he seemed to give 
different emphasis and additional beauty, he was indebted 
to Shuter, at whose lodgings, in Denzil Street, he took a 
good deal of instruction, and paid for a vast deal of liquor. 

I will say no more of his ecclesiastical studies, except with 
respect to his preaching. To Mossop, he owed much in 
this respect, but most to Mr. Serjeant Eaucceur, a man who 
was always engaged in causes where a tremendous philippic 
was required against immorality and uncleanness, generally 
or particularly. To call this Serjeant, however, simply a 
"beast" would be an insult to entire beastdom, where 
could be found only his superiors. His way, and trick, and 
thousand little telling fashions, were worth acquiring and 
improving on ; and this was done by Will, who, in the pul- 
pit, was held to be at once the most dignified and crushing 
adversary that Lucifer could possibly encounter. That bad 
and brilliant angel, however, good-naturedly thought other- 
wise- He did not dispute the courtesy nor deny the truths, 
but he felt that fashionable Will was no enemy of Gehenna. 

To acquire reputation exacted one species of labour, to 
sustain it required work as hard, and the achievement of it 
demanded a different sort of toil, as wearying and as ex- 



8 -TSTEW FICTTJBES AlTD OLD PANELS. 

hausting. "Will had for ever to live in company. He did 
not dislike it, but it sometimes fatigued him. He occa- 
sionally gave out that he could remain nowhere after mid- 
night, as from that hour till three was his only season for 
study. Revellers laughed at him, and detained him tiU 
dawn. The men loved him, for he could sing a good song, 
knew cards as well as he did his paternoster, took his liquor 
freely, and was as awake to everything about town as if he 
had no commission on earth, but to learn and teach it. 

Still more was he loved by the women, even by the 
really serious. To their serious questions he could always 
give serious and highly satisfactory answers. To these 
inqiiirers he seemed something angelic, so bright, so soft, 
so consoling, was this apostle from the taverns. Women 
more foolish loved him more fondly and, of course, more 
foolishly. They sent him bands, and worked slippers for 
him. The more timid despatched to him leather purses on 
which they had worked his initials. The more daring of- 
fered him braces knitted by their own hands, and dashingly 
offered, furthermore, to " help him on with them." Married 
women, who sat near him at dinner, would drink out of his 
glass, and then wink at and laugh with him. Bevies of girls 
were in the seventh heaven if they could secure him at some 
of their games. Solitary adorers discoursed with him in 
comers. Gifts of value rained upon him ; he had only to 
hint a want that he might have it supplied ; and three times 
his debts had been paid in full by the ladies of his various 
congregations. The matrons paid them the first time. The 
maids accepted the liability the next. On the third occasion 
there was a hot quarrel. The widows claimed the exclusive 
privilege, but the claim was disputed, as they had previously 
combined with the matrons, who now asserted their right, 
by turn. Ultimately the matter was compromised, and 
ladies of all qualities united, and raised such a sum-total, 
that the reverend gentleman was not only set free from 



BIGHT-HAITD PANEL. 9 

debt, but presented with such a sum over and above his late 
encumbrances, that he became more of the fine gentleman 
than he had ever been, speculated in marriage, aimed at 
winning a lady of title and a fortune ; — and fancying he had 
met both at Lord Sandwich's, eloped with the two, and 
found the lady's title one very common to Drury Lane, and 
her fortune, a couple of hundred guineas, contributed with 
alacrity by my lord. 

To this desirable lady. Will was now wending homeward, 
in the same street. It was so common an occurrence for 
him to be abroad all night, that Mrs. Dodd, for that was her 
name, received him with little or no manifestation of illwill. 
Eleven o'clock had just struck as her husband entered. 
He found her at breakfast, dressed in a loose wrapper ; 
otherwise, she was not what many ladies of her day were 
at breakfast-time, well-washed and well-attired. She was a 
handsome woman, with vanity enough for any fair demon in 
Pandemonium. Her hair was just sufficiently red to have 
taken some of this vanity out of her, but in the days of 
powder, Rufa was on a par with any blonde or brunette of 
them all. There was little of boldness in her expression, 
but there was somej and one could not readily say how 
highly it might be developed by circumstances. What there 
was, however, was unquestionable, although apparently 
small. It amounted to that unpleasant, knowing look, 
which bronzes itself on the faces of modem young ladies 
who have gone through the ordeal of keeping stalls at fancy 
fairs. 

" Moll," said IVIr. Dodd, " you are late at breakfast. 
What were you about last night ?" 

" What 's that to you ? " remarked the gentle creature. 
" Mind your own business. When you are a Bishop you 
shall be the supervisor of miae. Will you have some tea ?" 

" One cup, Mdlinda, with a drop of rum in it. I am not 
well this morning." 

b3 



10 STEW PICTURES AKD OLD PAIOLS. 

" Nor I neither !" cried Mollinda, with a laugh, " though 
I have not tried the remedy before as you have done." 

"I? O!— " 

"Ah! don't call in the vowels to tell lies, because" — and 
she tittered again — "y(m smell of it ;" and, pleased with her 
very smaU wit, she went to a cupboard in the room, took 
therefrom a suspicious but promising bottle, and opening 
the parlour-door, called to the servant for a cup and saucer 
and a glass. 

The things required were speedily brought by a vixenish- 
looking maid, dressed in her mistress's fine, east clothes, 
and with something of beauty in her features. She was at- 
tired for the streets ; natty hat and mantle ; a tight stock- 
ing over a well-shaped leg, and a light but oldish silk dress, 
of which there was not much on her shoulders, but a won- 
derful amount curiously draped and disposed of between 
that and her heels. 

'^ Eum !" was all she said, and that as if making a remark 
to herself, on entering ; and then she added, '^ I am going 
out." 

Mr. Dodd looked lazily at her ; his wife rather angrily, — 
she did not wait for either to speak, but said, " You were 
both out all nighty and it's the second night I have been 
kept up, I won't stand it. I 'm going to see my cousin 
Mrs. Bellamy." 

" Then Flippy," rejoined Mr. Dodd, with a smile ; " you 
shall take her a letter from me. My dear," turning to his 
wife, " what 's the name of the man who works for G-riffiths ?" 

" Works for Griffiths ?" 

" Ay, ay, the publisher. You know Mrs. Bellamy told 
us that he was a poor, clever devil, who had sent her a tra- 
gedy of his own composition to read. What is his name P" 

" I 'm sure I don't know, and I 'm sure I don't care," said 
the married lady, handing him his little 'cup of tea, into 
which she poured a table-spoonful of rum. Mr. Dodd 



BieHT-HAKD PAKSiL. 11 

pointed to her own cup ; but with a lackadaisical " No, I 
thank you," she shook her head, and proceeded to replace 
the spirit in the cupboard. Before corking the bottle, how- 
ever, and when the door was between her and the two other 
inmates in the room, she put it to her lips, tossed back her 
head, and swallowed a liberal ''half-quartern." As she per- 
formed this feat, the back part of her head came in sight 
from behind the door, — the maid put her hand on Dodd'l^ 
shoulder, who had commenced writing, and directed his 
attention to the little accident. Both broke into a loud 
laugh. 

" Missus don't like rum in her tea," said Flippy. 

"Molly," said Dodd, "for secret drinking, the Bomans 
used to put their wiyefl to death. Priyate drinking is 
mean — " 

" Then I '11 takd some openly in my tea," replied the lady, 
suiting the action to the word ; " and here. Flippy, to keep 
you quiet, there 's dome for you." She took her own saucer, 
half-filled it, and handed it to the servant, who imbibed the 
liquor with a loudness and sureness of suction that would 
have done credit to any respectable whirlpool. Then turn- 
ing up her dress, she wiped her lips on the edge of her pet- 
ticoat, and taking the note from Dodd, departed. 

" You are not going to invite any men here, I hope," said 
Mfs. Dodd, when they were left alone. 

" No, my dear : men, — and women too, are in the habit of 
inviting me. The man is a writer whom Synnamist is anxious 
to engage on the ' Tomahawk,' and I wanted to learn his 
name, or meet him at Bellamy's tomorrow night." 

" Out again then ? " 

" Out again ; and you ? " 

" "Well, I think I may be at Bellamy's too. We can come 
home together, and that will look as pleasant as Pyramus 
and Thisbe." 

" Better not, Moll," said Dodd. " It will be dry work for 



12 NEW PICTUBES AND OLD PANELS. 

you there. When I am the Bishop you talked about, I will 
keep a carriage ; we will visit in company, and return home 
in like fashion." 

" Bishop, indeed ! I shall see you hanged first," exclaimed 
the charming Mrs. Dodd. 

"No you won't," almost as flippantly rejoined Dodd. 
" I am at work on a pamphlet on the injustice, bad policy, 
and absolute wickedness of frequent capital punishments. 
The reasoning is sound, and the effect must be good. At 
all events, if a fellow the less is not hung, I shall have a few 
guineas the more ; and so a valuable end will be obtained, 
one way or the other." 

" Ah, well, to be sure !" was the profound comment of Mrs. 
Dodd. " Could you let me have a guinea of it, beforehand ?" 

" Does your * Ladyship,' oh la ! — remember," asked Dodd, 
who frequently addressed his wife by this title, " that Mrs. 
Woffington once reminded Mrs. Bellamy that it was well 
for her she had a minister to supply her extravagance ? — ^and 
now you are looking to another sort of minister than Mr. 
Fox, my Lady, to supply yours. WeU, well, hussey, there 's 
a guinea. What will you do with it ? " 

" Get some claret — " 

" And we '11 have it at dinner, at one o'clock ; excellent 
idea !" 

This had not been exactly Mrs. Dodd's idea, but she was 
a good-natured woman, when any species of pleasant tip- 
pling vras in question, and she expressed her assent. 

" Meanwhile," she asked, " what will you do till dinner- 
time ? It only wants an hour of it." 

" I could well sleep that hour," said the clergyman ; "but 
I will not. J have a letter to write to the mother of the 
man who robbed me last month in the Ealing Eoad. He 
wiU swing for it next week, unless a petition for his life 
takes effect ; and it 's not likely to take much, the old woman 
Bays, unless my name is at the head of it." 



u 
u 



BIOHT-HANB PAITEL. 13 

" That 's easily managed." 

" "Not so readily. * Thou shalt not steal,' is a Divine com- 
mand, and he who breaks it, sins against Ood, as well ab 
against a hiunan law. The offence is too common. Examples 
are needed, and — " 

" And your pamphlet against the frequency of executions 
as bad policy, downright wickedness, and rank injustice ? " 

" Ay, ay, Moll, against the frequency ; but this is only a 
single case ; — " 

" WeU, if they hang ever so many or ever so few men, at 
a time, I presume, they hang no man twice. Frequency 
means — " 

" Tou don't understand the question, Moll. I must de- 
cline to sign the petition, but I will give all the consolation 
to the mother that she needs." 
After hanging her son ? " 

Nay, it is not I, but the law. iNow go away ; leave me 
to my letter ; and to finish a sermon I am to preach on 
Friday." 

" For how much P " 

" Two guineas, a pint of wine, and fare of a hackney coach. 
And that, Moll, is infinitely better pay than could be had 
in my father's early days, in London, by the threepenny 
cm'ates." 

" * Threepenny curates ! ' What were they ? and why 
* threepenny ' P Was it the worth of the labourer, or the 
regulated amount of the hire ?" 

" They were poor devils, my Lady, who had no benefice, 
not even a lectureship; they were without friends; were 
often suspected of being Nonjurors, sometimes were so ; and 
who hung about town looking for preferment, just like — " 

" The Eeverend William Dodd P " 

"Come, come," said that gentleman, a trifie irritated, 
" not quite that ; they were little better than mendicants, 
who read prayers for the richer sort — " 



14i inCW PICTUSES AKD OLD PAKELS. 

" Like Mister Dodd ! " 

'' And who did it," he continued, without noticing the in- 
terruption, *' for threepence a time ; part in monej and part 
in kind." 

*' I wonder so large a sum was not paid bj instalments. 
And how was the division of money and kind effected, mj 
dear P " 

" Well, ingeniously enough. Twopence of the threepence 
was always paid in farthings, and the other penny was pre- 
sented in the form of a cup of coffee ! " 

Mrs. Dodd laughed, while Mr. Dodd explained, with his 
hand round the neck of the rum-bottle, that the honorarium 
and refreshment were only for "praying;" preaching, he 
remarked, was always of higher value. 

"And practice as good as either," said the lady, "if it 
were not so unpleasant." 

" I '11 make some pretty parallels between them. It would 
do you good to go to church, for once, and hear my sermon." 

" What is the thing about ? " asked Mrs. Dodd, very irre- 
verently. 

" Why, have you forgotten ? It 's the annual charity-ser- 
mon, funds for which were bequeathed by Mrs. Fitzmechant, 
of Whetstone Park, who lost some of her family at Tyburn, 
and who left two guineas and a trifle over, yearly, for a ser- 
mon on the beauty of mercy and the necessity of suppressing 
the gallows." 

" Doesn't it strike you," said the lady, " that — " 

" The quotation from Shakespeare P Oh ! I thought of it. 
* The quality of mercy.' I know. Quotations from the stage, 
—there are people now who detect them. If it hadn't been 
for my ' Beauties,* perhaps there would not be many in the 
congregation who would find me out if I were to deliver 
Hhe passage as original. However, I will avow its source, 
and apologize for it ; hint that Bossuet once used to visit 
the theatre, and — but, d — it, Bossuet was a Papist. Never 



BI0HT-HAin> PAKEL. 15 

mind, the head of our Church goes to the play, and I 'U turn 
the matter so as to make it tell. * The quality of mercy' — *' 
Mrs. Dodd left him reciting the superb passage which he 
could admire, but not apply ; and while she was absent he 
worked hard ; answered the mother, leaving her son to be 
hanged ; finished his sermon, for the sake of the lucre, not 
of mercy; and then penned a few paragraphs for the 
' Evening Post,' out of which he extracted a few pounds per 
quarter. 

" Ah ! " he muttered, " there is Bielby's book to review. 
I promised him I would notice his book ; and so I will, for 
I wiU deceive no man. But Bielby is not of our set ; he 
calls the Tomahawks ' blackguards' and ' impostors/ because, 
good joke ! while we weekly profess to review no book we 
do not purchase, we denounce every book we cannot obtain 
gratis. Yes, I promised Bielby . . . and," he added, after a 
moment's thought, " I know what I will do. Tom Midgley, 
who hates Bielby, has attacked the book in the ' Post-Boy ;' 
now, I will refer to Tom's review, as the best we have read 
on this work, and by this notice I shall have kept my pro- 
mise." And with this balsam to his conscience, the honest 
man helped Bielby, — after his fashion. 

And then the amiable pair dined, and drank their claret, 
which, being soon despatched, was followed by rum-punch and 
cribbage. While Mrs. Dodd then slept, her husband, re- 
plenishing his glass, addressed himself to literary work. He 
went on steadily for a couple of hours, writing and sipping. 
It was work well paid for, compared with the ordinary literary 
honorarium in use, for Dodd was well "up to his work." 
Indeed all that he did was now well paid for ; and as he ter- 
minated, reckoning his gains on his fingers, he felt so satis- 
fied with himself that he ofiered, after tea, to take his wife 
to the play. 

The woman of the house, Flippy not having returned, laid 
out the table, on which was placed the eternal rum, — or 



16 NEW PICTURES ASD OLI> FANTELS. 

rather, the ever-replenished bottle. There was strong tea, 
delicate cream, fresh butter, one or two little delicacies, and, 
these enjoyed, there ensued the dressing of the lady, who 
came into the room again, a figure such as Sir Joshua ex- 
celled in painting— bright, light, speaking, sparkling, not 
more genteel than Pritchard, but draped like a Duchess, and, 
in prospect of a play, happy as a Queen, even though she 
was going thither with her husband. 

In the front seat of the very centre of the boxes at the 
'^little theatre" Mrs. Dodd sat, and almost looked the queen 
to whom I have compared her for happiness. There, how- . 
ever, she was left by the gay lecturer of St. Olave's, who, 
flitting round the house, or tripping down the private stair- 
case to the stage, stopped to gossip with every one he knew, 
and he knew everybody, spectator and actor. At one of the 
wings was that primest of Lord Foppingtons, namely Theo- 
philus Gibber, steeped to the lips in debt and distress, 
racked by bodily pains, but with so little sympathy for his 
creditors or himself, as to be brimming over with wit and 
jollity. After a burst of both, with a very profane savour 
about them, Dodd remarked : 

" You are a very fine gentleman to be named *Theophilus,* 
—'lover of God!'" 

" Bad translation. Will. G-od-beloved is more according 
to fact, and the intention of my respectable godfather and 
godmother. But, physician, prescribe for thyself. What 
in Lucifer's name art thou, that thou shouldst object to my 
name and deeds ? G-o and hang thyself, or be hanged ! " 

" If thou thyself come not to that end, Theoph," said 
Dodd,— 

" It will only be because I 'm bom to be drowned, accord- 
ing to the terms of the proverb," interrupted the other 
honest individual — who, a year later, did meet with death 
" by that cold river ; " — and then, even the actresses who 
used to flock to Wellclose Square, to hear Dodd preach for 



BIGHT-HAJTD PAIOL. 17 

bis Magdalens, were wont to cut unpleasant jokes with him 
on the drowning of Theophilus and the destiny reserved to 
himself. 

But on this particular night neither of the men thought 
much of any end but some very particular one in immediate 
view. When the play was nearly over, and a subsequent 
supper-party was arranged, Dodd was leaning against the 
doors of the box in which his wife was seated, when he 
was touched on the shoulder by a gentleman who was well 
known as being employed in writing for Government, or 
seeking writers willing, whatever their opinions, to do the 
same for a consideration. This gentleman had stood in the 
pillory, for abusing this very Administration. It was the 
luckiest thing for him that ever happened, for it enabled 
him to see the error of his ways, and to put money in both 
pockets by profiting by his enlightenment. 

What passed I will not be so indiscreet as to betray. 
Suffice it, that at the close of the conversation Dodd was 
radiant with delight. He escorted his wife to a chair, whis- 
pering to her eagerly how his pen was to purchase for him 
preferment, fortune, luxury, ease, unending happiness. The 
lady heard it all with sympathizing ecstasy ; and when the 
prelate-expectant told her, on shutting down the roof of her 
chair, that he was obliged to attend his new patron at a 
conference, she, who very well knew that he was going to 
sup with his old associates, asked for another guinea, that 
she might have revel with her own. 

Dodd flung the money in her lap, and hastened towards a 
neighbouring tavern. Gtiyest of nights did he there spend ; 
most superb of visions reared themselves in measure as his 
brain heated; — and as the second short hour "ayont the 
twal," struck from St. Olave's, a very disorderly-looking 
person, hat gone, wig awry, cravat with the ends down his 
back, a leer in his eye, and helplessness in every limb, was 
lying in a large armchair, trying to be gallant with Elippy, 



18 KEW PIOTimXS AirD OLD PANELS. 

and very irreyerently now rejoicing now ^msing that his 
wife was not in bed, as became a clergyman's lady. 

" Curse her," be cried, after tripping tbrice at the c hard ; 
'* Curse her ! and only think, Flippy, that woman may be ja 
Bishop's lady." 

" Gk) to bed," said Hippy, " I Ve just made it I " 
" And I, Flippy," rejoined the Eeverend Dodd, " have 
just made my fortune," — and therewith, with a half-solemn 
half-delighted aspect, and a tipsy muttering touching grati- 
tude and unworthiness, he passed to his bedroom, but with 
not quite so unshaken and majestic a gait as was imagiujed 
by the exemplaiy personage himself. 



19 



LEFT-HAND PANEL. 

On the following day, old Morgan, the oldest actor then 
alive in England, might be seen walking slowly into the 
* Dimciad's Head,' a dull-looking house in Paternoster Eow^ 
It was the residence of G-riffiths, the publisher ; and that 
celebrated personage might also then be seen in the parlour 
behind the shop, seated without his wig, while his wife wiped 
his head with a cotton handkerchief. 

In a closet beyond the parlour was visible a young man 
at a desk, busily engaged in writing. He was ill-dressed, 
awkwardly made, and coarse of feature. He had even a 
heavy stupid look, as he sat intent on his labour. It was 
only his side-face that could be seen ; but as he now and 
th^n had occasion to turn full round to Mr. Griffiths in the 
parlour, or as he did so, from time to time, when some re- 
mark attracted his attention, there was an expression on his 
features and a light in his eye which seemed to give promise 
of no common man. Still, his slovenly, wearied, and plod- 
ding appearance was decidedly against him. 

As Morgan entered the parlour, the literary drudge, — for 
that was evidently his office, — ^blushed slightly; for Mrs. 
Griffiths, ceasing to polish the skull of her husband, looked 
sharply round, and with a voice sharper than her look, bade 
him " get on with the article in hand, and let her have it for 
approval and correction when finished." The young man 
did not answer, although he was evidently irritated. Around 
his mouth there was an expression as if he had swallowed 
vinegar. He sat for a moment biting the end of his pen as 



20 ITEW PICTTTBES AKD OLD PANELS. 

vigorously as tbe great Coligny, wben in deep wrath op re- 
flection, used to champ his toothpick. He smiled at last 
with mournful resignation ; and then passing the not-very- 
clean sleeve of his poor coat over a rather hegrimed face, he 
addressed himself to his toil, with a remark which sounded 
as if it had reference to the intense heat. 

" Why don't you take off your coat," said Griffiths, " as 

I do r 

This suggestion only made the scribe button that vest- 
ment more closely round his throat. The vulgar wife of the 
bibliopole laughed vulgarly, and made an allusion to the 
person's linen, or the lack of it. The writer did not look 
up ; but the very tips of his ears were scarlet, and he could 
be heard, lowly but distinctly, as though he were reading to 
himself rather than addressing others, uttering these words: — 

" Ego cultu non proinde speciosus, ut facile appararet me, 
h4c nota litteratum esse, quos odisse divites solent." 

" My stars !" said Mrs. Griffiths ; " is that a part of your 
review of Mr. Mallet's ' Northern Antiquities ' P" 

" No, Madam," answered the young man, with a slight 
Irish accent ; " it is a passage in Petronius Arbiter, a gentle- 
man who was consul in Bithynia, and who also was an officer 
in the house of Nero, where he lived luxuriously, and died 
laughing." 

And the speaker sighed, as if he envied the destiny of the 
finest gentleman and the greatest scamp of those gay yet 
dangerous times. 

" I dare say he was a lazy fellow," said G-riffiths, at the 
same time signing to the young writer to go on with his vo- 
cation. " And now, Mr. Morgan," added he, turning to the 
old actor, " what news with you P " 

" Well enough with we," said the hearty old man, whose 
memory went back to the days of Mrs. Aphra Behn, " but 
ill with Garrick, iU with Barry, ill with that exquisite hussey 
Bellamy, and worst of all with Mrs. Woffington." 



LXFT-HAlirD PA9EL. 21 

" I hate both the women," exclaimed Mrs. Griffiths, sink- 
ing into a low chair the while, and putting on an expression 
of very pretty horror. " But what ails them all P " 

The young writer in the inner room looked round, for he 
was possessed with a taste for theatricals, and had at that 
moment in his pocket the draft of a tragedy, with fragments 
of scenes, the whole wrapped up in several sheets of Dublin 
ballads, of which he was also the author, and which, could 
they be recovered now, would probably prove to be as well 
worth reading as half the palimpsests found or forged by 
the clever Simonides. 

" Why, you see," said Morgan, " David is annoyed be- 
cause he turned away Mr. Home's ' Douglas.' Barry is an- 
noyed because all the tavern-critics continue to laugh at 
him for dressing young Nerval in a suit of white satin. 
Mrs. Bellamy is in distress because she could only play 
Almeria once throughout the whole of last season. And 
finally, poor Peg is ill for a score of reasons, some of which 
make Bellamy glad : she is ill because she produced so small 
an effect in Lady Bandolph; because she produced even 
less in Lothario (at which two circumstances her rival dances 
with delight) ; and she is dying at the thought- that the, 
shriek with which she finished Eosalind last May, when 
seized with her fit, is the last sound which the public will 
ever hear from her on the stage." 

" All these susceptible ladies and gentlemen," remarked 
the bookseller, " may recover their healths and their tempers 
before next season begins. And that reminds me," he re- 
joined, looking into the inner room. « Pray, sir, where is 
your promised article on the Scotch parson's play ?" 

" Sir," said the pale writer, rising, and advancing to the 
door, " it is nearly finished. But it is not so easy to review 
a play as it is to read, digest, and judge a few quarto volumes 
of travels or biography. To enjoy and to judge poetry de- 
mands a mind akin to the poet's. Genius lights its flam- 



22 KEW PICTTTEES AITD OLD PANELS. 

beau at the skies ; and mere men of earth must not be over- 
hasty in pronouncing upon the purity of the fire." 

" Oh, stuff!" exclaimed Mrs. Griffiths, turning her j&t back 
on the last speaker, and showing above her low dress, worn 
in summer-weather, a series of cupping-marks, that seemed 
to designate a patient with a tendency to the head of more 
blood than judgment. " You might as well say that it is 
more difficult to make a cribbage-peg than a walking-stick." 

"Not so, Madam," civilly rejoined the young man, stand- 
ing in the doorway ; " and yet you would find it more diffi- 
cult to make a watch than a warming-pan." 

" I never found it difficult to do anything," said the lady, 
whose conceit was notorious. 

"Except to write poetry, Polly," observed her husband. 

" And why should I not write verses, if I tried ?" asked 
the lady, rather more shrilly than usual. Her husband 
shook his head, smiled, and was silent. " I ask," she said, 
" why a woman, why /, should not write verses as well as 
any other rhymer ?" 

Her flashing eye rested on the shabby young man in the 
doorway. And he, fancying himself peremptorily addressed, 
looked slightly embarrassed for an instant, and then replied : 

" Indeed, Madam, I believe only for this reason. Poetesses 
are generally indifferent housewives. Ehyme does not, in 
their case, always accord with reason." Having said which, 
he slowly returned to his work ; while the lady looked at 
him with a puzzled expression, as if she could not very well 
make out whether he had intended to be caustic or compli- 
mentary. 

"You doubtless fancy yourself," she said tartly, "as 
famous as the authors we have hired you to review." 

He looked round with a flush on his face made up of 
hope and conviction of present power to be worked to fiir- 
ther ends. " Who knows P" he asked, not of them, but of 
himself. "Who knows?" he repeated; and old Morgan, 



LEPT-HAKD PAIOSL. 23 

looking in. and gazing at that strange face ^th interest, 
saw the tears in his eyes. " Who knows P" he asked for a 
third time. '^ There is something iherej^ he added, placing 
his podgj finger on his pallid brow. ^ Patience ! God does 
not let the tide run up to high-water in an instant. I can 
wait." And he resumed his task, with this final remark, 
murmuredk)wtohim8elf:"Icanwait. The spring wiU yet 
bloom for me. I know that he who cuts the balsam in the 
winter gets no juice. I can wait ; I can wait." 

Morgan resumed his seat ; and talking in a subdued Toice 
to Ghriffiths, said : ^' That young feUow puzzles me. I could 
almost swear that he was an actor in Tinselrouge and Why- 
tight's itinerant company, with whom I was starring last 
year. Did you pick him up at Dunstable ?" 

'' The gentlem»i is a physician," said Griffiths, with mock 
dignity ; '* a physician in reduced circumstances ; that is, 
he was so when I found him. He is now a literary man, 
and has just finished his first article. Poor devil ! he fancies 
he may purchase ffune by his pen ; but who will know any 
thing of him a hundred years to come, in 1857 P He will 
no more be known then than he is now. And the droll 
creature is a physician too! Not many months since he 
was practising in Southwark. That patch which you see 
on his elbow was then a hdle in his sleeve, which he dexter- 
ously hid &om his patients by covering it with his hat. 
Things have improved with him since he has been in my 
service ; for, as you see, his coat is mended. Where did 
I pick him up ? Oh ! at Dr. Milner's, at Peckham. I have 
a nephew at school there, where my reviewer was usher. 
He dined at table with us. Just fancy, an usher! But 
Milner declares his father was a gentleman ; and that we 
should not demean ourselves by allowing him to eat with 
us. And I am not sorry for it, seeing that it was a remark 
of his which first iuduced me to believe that 1 should find in 
him a capital reviewer, at a very small coat." 



24 NEW PICTUBXS AJSTD OLD PAliTELS. 

" What was the remark ?" asked the old player. 

" Why, I and Milner had been talking of our mutual re- 
gard, when the usher said, ' Modem attachments are often 
maintained by the same bond which united the twin-bro- 
thers, Jacob and Esau, of whom the one loved the other he- 
cause he did eat of his venison.' Pretty, wasn't it ?" 

"Sharp, certainly," answered the actor; "but I should 
not have thought that you would altogether have admired 
it." He looked towards the room where sat the poor hire- 
ling, and saw very well that though he was not listening, he 
could hear perfectly all that was passing, for the young 
scribe could be heard by Morgan distinctly uttering in sub- 
dued tones, an almost parallel sentiment from Dryden's 
* Theodore and Honoria :' — 

** He would have lived more free, but many a guest 
Who could forsake the Mend, pursued the feast." 

There was a smile on his face that made it look beaming 
with intellect. Morgan was benevolently determined to 
sustain that smile ; and he did so by asking the publisher 
if the usher had made any other remark that was ' pretty.' 

" Oh, ay 1" replied Griffiths. " His master and I were dis- 
cussing the difference between ancient banquets, with their 
guests, and modern feasts and those who are invited to 
them. Well, what do you think that dog said ? * Sir,' said 
he, ' it is the remark of Pliny, that the dinner-givers of his 
day always served up poppy-seed at dessert. So do many 
of the hosts of our own time, and long before dessert, — to 
say nothing of the quantity taken to table by the diners- 
out.' Now, sir," added Griffiths, " that observation was 
made in the spirit of a reviewer not unworthy to be of the 
brotherhood of the ' Whig Monthly.' All that is wanted by 
him we supply, I make suggestions, and Mrs. Griffiths 
corrects his articles. She will add some beauties to his first 
article on Mallet." 

"Does he like that ?" whispered Morgan. 



LBTT-HAND PAl^llL. 25 

" Oh, blesB you !" exclaimed the publisher, " if the fellow 
were to grow obstinate against it, Polly would keep him to 
cold meat and potatoes four times a week, and not much of 
either. If that were to fail, he may pack off to beggary 
again." 

Morgan looked towards the worker, from whose face a 
smile was just fading. "Mr. What's-your-name," said he, 
with an impudent familiarity characteristic of the times, 
"allow me to congratulate you upon the auspices under 
which you have commenced your literary life. You are in 
this much like Midas, gifbed, no doubt, in being able to turn 
all you touch into gold." 

" I believe," said the poor scribe, "that I am much more 
like that royal personage in this respect, that touch what I 
may, I starve." 

" Starve !" said Mrs. Griffiths, who piqued herself on her 
liberality ; " starve, with above a pound a week, bed, and 
board !" 

" Starve !" echoed her husband. " Sir, you lack truth, 
and want a contented mind. Sir, I fear you did not hear 
the last discourse of the Eev. Eli Synnamist, at St. Benet 
Fink. Sir, he told us that content is such a duty, that 
were a man to be cast into the bottomless pit, his first word 
on coming to himself should be, * I am satisfied.' " 

" Mr. Griffiths," said that gentleman's retainer, respect- 
fully but firmly, "the Be v. Eli Synnamist is no guide for 
me to follow. Tou call him a shining light. Yes ; he is 
like one of our roadside lights, which makes a little shining 
on earth, but leaves heaven all the darker. I am sorry to 
say it, but Mr. Synnamist is a hypocrite." 

"A hypocrite!" shouted Griffiths, and screamed his wife, 
" he is white as driven snow." 

" My dear Madam," said the undaunted reviewer to the 
lady, who snorted off the compliment as if there was some- 
thing nasty in it, " he reminds me of those sheep at the altars 

c 



26 KEW PICTUBES AKD OLD PANELS. 

of the ancients, which were whitened with chalk, in order to 
imitate the purity of the beloved lambs of the gods, which 
were only to be found on the banks of the Clitumnus. Do 
you know, Sir," he asked, turning to Griffiths, " that Mr. 
Synnamist edits the review which weekly professes to be in- 
dependent by purchasing every book it notices, and which 
condemns every work which is not supplied to it gratis /" 

Griffiths was a knave ; but his dirty ideas never reached 
to this heroic height of soaring rascality. He Mrly screamed 
with indignation ; and his wife heightened the din by a few 
notes peculiar to herself. Morgan added to the tumult ; and 
it was at its very height, when a lady appeared at the door, 
whose coming appeased the uproar in an instant. 

She was one of those bright creatures who can scarcely 
be described, and who defy criticism, except, of course, from 
a sister. If it be true that Lycurgus set up a graceful statue 
representing Laughter, and that he bade his Spartans wor- 
ship the new goddess, this was the deity herself. Eye, lip, 
cheek, nay, as the poet says, her foot smiled. Praxiteles 
might have thought himself happy to have had her for a 
model. Had she been by when Paris had to give aWay the 
apple, it would not have fallen into the bosom of Helen. 
Semele was only a dairymaid in comparison with her ; and, 
then, she wore a saucy look, — inexpressible, seductive, sub- 
duing, inimitable, — such .as the son of Semele might have 
worn before he took to ferment his grapes and drink deeply 
of the liquor. The voice sounded sweet, silvery, and saucy 
too, as she said : 

"Good folks, when your breath comes back, be kind 
enough to inform me if you have in the house a gentleman 
of the name of Mr. Oliver Goldsmith P" Before reply was 
given, she had shaken hands with Morgan, tapped Mrs. Grif- 
fiths on the cheek, and afber kissing her husband, clapped his 
wig on his head wrong side before, and broke into melodi. 
ous peals of laughter, in which every one present would 



LEPT-HAIO) PANEL. 27 

have joined, liad they not of one accord kept silent to listen 
to the silvery intonations of her own mirth. 

" My dear Mrs. Bellamy," said Qriffiths, " I am glad to 
find you well enough to be out. As to Mr. Oliver G-old- 
smith, there he stands ; but may I be bold enough to ask 
what you want with my servant P " 

"Don't be impertinent, Griffiths, nor use false terms. 
Mrs. Griffiths, you should teach your husband better man* 
ners. Ton can't P Don't I know it, my dear ? Mr. Gold- 
smith, I have read the specimens you have sent me of your 
intended tragedy, and they will not do. Now don't look 
downhearted. I commend to you the maxim of our German 
trumpeter in the orchestra, — * Time brings roses.' " 

" Alas, Madam," said Goldsmith timidly, "even if it be so, 
shall I ever reach them without pricking my fingers with 
the thorns P " 

" Of course not ! Why should you ? Who does ? As 
long as we can pluck the roses, never mind a scratch or two. 
Everybody has a thorn. Even wealthy Griffiths here feels the 
smart of it. Who is Griffiths's thorn ; eh, Mrs. Griffiths ?" 

" Madam," said that lady, who hated Mrs. Bellamy, " I 
hope she is not." 

" I hope so, too, my dear," answered the actress ; " and 
I did not say she was. I only asked a question. And, then, 
we have all got our pleasant little faults, which we must 
strive to amend — some day." (This was said with a saucy 
look.) " Have we anything else that is objectionable, Mr. 
Goldsmith ? " 

" Well, Madam," said Oliver, " I dare say we aU have — 
our viceSy which we surrender, as Lais the courtesan did her 
mirror, when she grew old, and found no more pleasure in 
employing it. Our hopes, I trust, we may always retain. 
Do you bid me keep mine ? " 

" Bid you ! Young man, there is stuff in you that shall 
make people talk of you centuries to come." 

c 2 



28 KEW PICTrEES AITD OLD PANELS. 

" And love me ? " 

" And love you. Some of .us will be despised, and some 
forgotten, when you. Sir, will be honoured ; but you must 
not write tragedies. You have the most charming style 
possible, but no more suited to tragedy than my muslin 
slip to — to — to Titus Andronicus. What have you done 
besides making these attempts on stilts ? " 

" I have only written a trifle," said the author modestly. 
" It 's my first article, — a review of Mr. Mallet's * Northern 
Antiquities.' " 

Mrs. Bellamy made a comically wry face, shook her head, 

and then remarked, " I dare say it is as bad as your tragedy." 

" Probably," replied the perplexed author. 

"And perhaps not," good-naturedly exclaimed the actress. 

" Will you come and take a dish of tea with a queen, and 

read this article to her majesty ? " 

" Queen ! " cried the two Griffithses. " What queen ? We 
have no queen since the demise of her most gracious majesty 
Queen Caroline. Se take tea with a queen ?" 

" Ah, dear stupid old folks, Mr. Goldsmith has more wit 
than both of you ; and old Morgan here, I see, knows of a 
queen in England not yet defunct. Now, Sir," she added, 
"put your manuscript in your pocket, and come along." 
She glanced rapidly at his coat, slightly curled her charming 
and ineffably impertinent nose ; and then, with a "pshaw," 
and a stamp of her little foot, as if annoyed with herself, she 
exclaimed, "My chariot waits; let us go."* 

She swept through the shop like a graceftd vision ; and 
as Goldsmith, his hour for labour having expired, prepared 
to follow her, Griffiths put his hand on his sleeve, and asked 
with great simplicity, — 

" Mr. Goldsmith, who is the queen you are going to take 
tea with, and to read to her your first article ? " 
" Queen Roxalana," said Goldsmith, with a smile. 
" Oh," exclaimed the publisher and his wife, " the cha- 



LEFT-HAIO) FAN£L. 29 

racter she plays in * Alexander the j9-reat' ! It is onlj her- 
self." 

" Only herself!" returned Goldsmith. " She, herself, is 
worth to me a throne-room full of queens. She has encou- 
raged me with a hope of fame and the love of a generation 
to come. The promise is an inducement to labour, and I 
will endure much for the great recompense." 

" Ah, Sir, I see, from the company you keep, you will be 
a miserable writer of comedies, or some such trash ! Sir, 
you will die in the Miut, and be forgotten a fortnight after* 
wards." 

« I have faith in her promise, and in my own perse- 
verance to make reality of it. This is 1757, and I have 
written nothing but an article for a review. Perhaps, in 
1857, sovereigns may have my collected works in their li- 
braries, and I may be affectionately known beyond the ocean. 
Perhaps — " 

" Now, Mr. Goldsmith!" called the sweet voice from the 
coach at the door. 

" You are stark staring mad," said Griffiths ; " but remem- 
ber, Sir, I expect you here early to-night, and at work by 
nine to-morrow. There is the article on ' Douglas' to be coup 
eluded, and a second is to follow on Mr. Jonas Hanway's 
book ; and I fear that this rantipole company will unfit you 
for steady labour." 

" Cease to fear it. Sir. What I have undertaken to per- 
form shall be accomplished ;" and he hurried off to the im- 
patient sovereign lady in the glittering vehicle at the door. 
She kissed the tips of her rosy fingers to the trio who had 
followed Goldsmith to the threshold; and many a queen 
would have given her ears — or, at least, her earrings — ^to 
have looked half so imperiously and saucily handsome. 

" Humph," said Griffiths, as the carriage drove off with 
its well-contrasted freight, " Beauty and the Beast." 

** Beauty!" cried his lady; "why she's crooked! They 



80 ISCEW FIOTTTBES AlTD OLD PAKELS. 

look like what they are — ^an impudent hussej and a mastiff- 
puppy. What do you say, Mr. Morgan?" 

" Well, I was going to say, Hebe and Hercules ; but I 
would rather call them Intellectual and Material Beauty." 

" Good gracious," cried Mrs. Griffiths, " what nonsense ! 
Mrs. Bellamy, I tell you, is crooked ; and Goldsmith is ninny 
enough to think people will talk of him in 1867. I really 
shall die of laughing. Dr. Hawksworth may be the darling 
of ages to come ; but a half-starved drudge like Oliver Gold- 
smith — pshaw!" 



81 



CENTRE PANEL. 

While Mrs. Bellamy and the dazzled yet self-possessed 
Oliver, who now felt as sure of fame as Mr. Dodd did of 
fortune, under promise of a benefice if he devoted his pen 
to the support of the Qt)vemment of Gteorge 11., proceeded 
in the lady's chariot towards Southampton Street, she briefly 
informed him that, moved by the evidences of his ability in 
the papers he had sent for her perusal, she had repaired to 
the house of Griffiths the publisher, with the fixed object in 
view of effecting, or, at all events, of oflering something that 
might turn out of great advantage to him. 

" A clerical friend of mine," she said, " is coming to see 
me today. He is a literary man ; and I may affirm," she 
added, with the look and voice of a light-hearted and light- 
principled woman, used to make such affirmations and to 
attach but little importance to them, " I may affirm that he is 
rather an ardent admirer of mine — at least he says so. His 
name is Dodd. He has heard of you. Do you know him?" 

Gt)ldsmith shook his head, and then said, " I know his 
brother, and indeed himself — the one, however, not much 
better than the other. I met one at a tavern, and encoun- 
tered the other at church." 

"His brother!" exclaimed Mrs. Bellamy, " tell me how, 
and when did that occur ?" 

" Well, Madam, it was on Saturday night, a month ago. 
Chance drove me, by force of a storm, into a tavern in Black- 
friars, where I found a score of honest fellows (I dare to 
say they were) making merry under the presidency of the 



82 ITEW FICTUBES AJTD OLD PANELS. 

jolliest if not the most honest fellow in the room. This 
chairman, who looked as fine as a lord-in-waiting, bat had 
much more wit in him, drank deeper, laughed louder, swore 
more variously, smoked more furiously, and sang funnier 
songs, and made more blasphemous speeches, than any other 
member of the society. Late at night I saw the handsome 
blackguard carried, surcharged with more liquor than sense, 
out of the room, I suppose to his lodgings. I made no com- 
ment nor asked any question, for 1 was a stranger, and 
knew not whom the comments I could have made might 
offend.'' 

"But what has this to do with Mr. Dodd ?" asked the 
actress. 

" You shall hear, Madam. On the following day, being 
Sunday, I attended St. Olave's church, where the vivacity, 
earnestness, and lucidity of the preacher — it was Mr. Dodd 
— aroused the congregation out of the torpor into which 
they had fallen under a drowsy reader of the prayers. The. 
preacher had not uttered two sentences before I was struck 
with a wonderful resemblance he bore to the jocose, uproari- 
ous, unclean, blaspheming reveller of the night before. But 
he looked taller, much less healthy, more modest, and his 
pallid face and uncertain eye were in strong contrast with 
the flushed countenance and audacious look of the tavern- 
king of the night before. They were wonderfully alike ; but 
I was soon convinced, as indeed I wished to be, that of 
course they were not identical." 

• Mrs. Bellamy slightly laughed, looked out of the carriage, 
flung a shilling to a half-starved-looking family, (who imme- 
diately descended therewith into the next gin-vault, for the 
spirit-devil had cellars and not palaces, tJien^ and, with a 
knowing smile still mantling on her face, said, " "Well, 1 sup- 
pose you thought of the two Antipholuses, the pair of Dro^ 
mios, and the brace of Sosias !" 

" I did not know what to think," answered Goldsmith,. 



C£NTB£ FAKSL. 33 

" for I became first perplexed and then be\nldered. As the 
preacher grew warm and energetic, his resembhmce to the 
lord of misrule of the night before grew more striking. I 
rather gazed at than listened to him; and as I gazed, it 
seemed to me that I heard a confused medley of godly truths 
and godless songs ; that I saw bright openings of heaven 
and felt fierce blasts from hell ; and, in short, so troubled 
was I, that I did not awaken there&om. Madam, till I found 
myself nearly alone in the church." 

''And thenT* said Mrs. Bellamy, kissing her hand the 
while to a sickly-looking lady in a coach, going in a con- 
trary direction, adding, rather to herself than to Goldsmith, 
** Poor Peg WoflGmgton ! She hates me still ; but I have 
the best of life now, on or off the stage, and I won^t be 
uncivil to her, poor wretch ! " Having thus manifested her 
cojirteous charity, Mrs. Bellamy again said — 

« And what then, Mr. Goldsmith ?" 

"Then, Madam, I resolved to be enlightened, and re- 
paired to the vestry, requesting permission to speak a word 
with the reverend preacher. He advanced to meet me, and 
at once inquired my business. I briefly and rapidly related 
the incident of the previous night, and added that I had been 
80 astounded by his resemblance to my profane Mend of that 
night that, however presumptuous it might seem to him, I 
Gould not leave the church without once more looking on 
him." 

« What did Mr. Dodd say to that ?" 

" He turned. Madam, to the reader of the morning, and 
laying his hands on the shoulders of that gentleman, ex- 
claimed, " Fitzroy ! do you hear this ? Again I am the vic- 
tim of this detested resemblance ! Oh, Sir ! oh, my friend 
Fitzroy ! What can I say but * Alas, my unhappy brother ! ' " 

" You almost seem to smile. Madam," remarked Oliver to 
Mrs. Bellamy, who was much nearer to absolute laughter ; 
" but it was a shocking circumstance — " 

c3 



M XEW PICTCMES A^D OLD FASXLS. 

" That it wms ! shockiiig enoagh in all conscieDce, Ck> 
on ; I promise tou I will not laogh.** 

"" Afadam, the gentleman, whose name I tiien learned was 
Dodd, looked heartfl j ashamed of his brother ; and as for 
the other gentleman, Mr. iltsoT, he too aliOQk wiih erident 
emotion." 

^ So do I, believe me/' said the actreaB, laogfaing, and 
from much the same cause. "' The wickedness of Mr. Dodd's 
brother must be Terj distressing to Mr. Dodd ; but I dare 
saj he will get oyer it. Meanwhile, he — the clergyman, 
not the taTem-haunter — is anxious to be of use to you, 
and you will meet him at my house. And here we are, 
and the Eeverraid Mr. Srnnamist is coming, — ^you see I 
keep choice company, — who is still more anxious to serve 
you than Mr. Dodd. Come along. Sir; come along!" 

These last words were a consequence of Gk>ldsmith's evi- 
dent strong reluctance to enter the house, as soon as he 
heard the name of that areh-rascaL But who could hang 
back when Mrs. Bellamy said, *' Come along" ? Gk>ldsmith 
could not, at all events, and the silvery voice, the graceful 
presence, the winning smile, and the pleasantly beckoning 
finger, subdued him. He followed her into the house, the 
door of which was opened by a little African boy, with a 
monkey on his shoulder and a turban on his head. 

As Gk)ldsmith entered, he was immediately followed by 
Mr. Dodd, who had arrived at the house almost at the same 
moment; and, the former turning round, the two men at 
once recognized each other. 

" Sir," said Oliver, " I hope you are well ; and I hope your 
brother is well." 

**Gniank you! thank you!" was the acknowledgment of 
the first part of this expressed hope. A wave of the hand 
was the pantomimic reply to the second portion. It might 
have meant a wish that Goldsmith would not inquire after 
the tavern roysterer, or that Mr. Dodd had done with his 



CEKTBE PANEL. 85 

reprobate kinsmaii, and desired to hear no more on that 
subject. And thereupon, the two individuals advanced fur- 
ther into the house, and were formally introduced to each 
other by Mrs. Bellamy. 

As the Black-boy was closing the door, it was gently 
pushed open by a clerical-looking gentleman who had an 
abstracted air about him, and who moved mechanically to- 
wards the staircase. 

"That must be that rascal Synnamist," thought Gold- 
smith. 

" May I die," said Dodd, " if it is not Mr. Wesley !" 

" John "Wesley ! " exclaimed Mrs. Bellamy ; " you charm- 
ing man ! I am delighted to see you. What ever brought 
you here ? " 

" !Friend," said Wesley, with grave steady voice, and a 
rather puzzled aspect, " if you be one of the children of this 
world," — and his eye calmly passed over her, with a search- 
ing mission, and an apparently unsatisfactory result, " you 
will call it * chance.' I myself might think I came hither 
by mistake, for I now see this is not the house to which I 
intended to come, when I left my own. But there is, doubt- 
less, neither chance nor mistake in the matter. I have been 
directed hither for some good purpose ; which I pray to be 
enabled to perform. If counsel, caution, or admonition be 
wanting here, — and where is one or the other not wanting ? — 
lam ready, under reliable guidance," (and here he looked na- 
turally upwards,) " to administer either. Friends, come in ! " 
And he actually led the way as if the mansion were his 
own; and Mrs. Bellamy, Dodd, and Goldsmith followed 
him, — each wearing a different and a peculiar expression. 
Oliver, susceptible and impressionable, looked at the modern 
apostle with admiration and envy. "-He has reaped fame 
enough, Mid deserves it ! " he murmured ; and then he 
thought that it was a very fine thing to be the counsellor of 
thousands, and that he himself, were he to try the vocation, 



36 ITEW PICTTBES AJSTD OLD PIJOILS. 

might have his name in men's months, or rather in their' 
hearts, — even as was that of Wesley. 

Dodd walked after the English Loyola with a feeling of 
respect which he could not suppress, and a mingled look of 
ridicule and contempt. *' This fellow," so ran his comment, 
''is making mountains of money; and must be hoarding 
thousands, for he spends little or nothing. By Joyo ! I '11 
see whether I cannot hare as many followers in the Church 
as he has out of it, and make as much money by them ;" — 
and another ''by Jove!" implied that he highly approved 
of the very excellent suggestion. 

But it was the sprightly actress who seemed to derive 
most delight from the presence of the unexpected visitor 
whom she followed into the drawing-room. Subduing as 
much as was in her power, a little silvery laugh, she half- 
covered her face with her fSui, felt ecstatic at the idea of 
John Wesley being in the house of Lord Tyrawley's gay 
daughter, and taking the whole thing as a most admirable 
joke, was anxious to thoroughly enjoy it. She too, however, 
had her comment. " Dear, good, delicious man ! " she cried 
half aloud. " Is there any creature in the world who wins the 
admiration of millions, as he does ? How I envy him ! And 
how I wonder that he does not look the prouder for it!" 
And now the four individuals, each so widely differing from 
the others, and each from every other, stood together in the 
same room. 

Wesley's discriminating eye had readily perceived that 
neither of the men was " at home ;" but that the lady was 
very much so indeed. He accordingly addressed himself to 
her. " Be seated, Madam," said he, as if ^ were really the 
master, " you are, if I mistake not, mistress, here." 

"Well," said the actress, with an eye that sparkled, one. 
could hardly say whether with a smile or a tear, " mistress is, 
I believe, my most appropriate title ; and I am happy to see 
Mr. Wesley in my poor dwelling." 



CEKTBE PANEL. 37 

"IVhat is your name ? " bluntly, but not unkindly, asked 
Wesley. 

" Oh, Lord !'* cried the Brcverend Mr. Dodd, in a tone that 
set Mrs. Bellamy in a brief convulsion of laughter ; " he is 
going to examine us in the Catechism !" 

"iFriend!" said Wesley, "there is one name that thou 
shalt not take in vain. The law of God forbids, and I, His 
serrant, denounce such sacrilege. Be silent, if by speaking 
thou canst only be scurrilous." Mr. Dodd seemed inclined 
to retort, but happening to look at Goldsmith, he saw such 
approval of Wesley's course in the hard lines on the face of 
the literary drudge ; — and, turning towards Mrs. Bellamy, 
observed her gazing with such respect on the figure of 
the " Methodist," that he contented himself with uttering a 
little sound of impatience, and then, lazily cast himself at 
nearly fuU length on a broad high-backed couch, which hap- 
pened to be near him. He beckoned to Goldsmith to come 
round to him ; but Oliver would not be affected by the sig- 
nal ; he kept looking from Wesley to Mrs. Bellamy, and 
back again from the actress to the apostle ; — and each time 
with apparent increase of interest. 

"What is your name, Mistress?" repeated Wesley, in 
the tone of a catechist, who a second time addresses himself 
to a favourite but perhaps heedless child. " What is your 
name ? " * 

Mrs. Bellamy seemed as puzzled to reply to this simple 
question, as the poor, brilliant creature would certainly 
have been unable to answer to the next question in the 
Catechism, " Who gave you that name ?" Nevertheless she 
was too young, too high-spirited, too much accustomed 
to carry all things as she chose to carry them, to be long 
daunted. At the present moment, she did AVesley the 
honour, and her own better feelings the credit, of being 
ashamed of her name. She was, however, a wonderftil 
adept at evasion, — and she replied, not directly to Wesley's 
query, yet with strict truth : — 



88 KEW PIOTUSEB AlTD OLD PAITILS. 



9r 



'' I am the grand-daughter of Mr. Seale, the Quaker/ 

Wesley looked pleased. " Ay ! ay !" he said, " of the 
wealthy Friend whose stem virtue was the admiration of 
all men, even of those who could not approve of either his 
religious or political principles. But thou art not of the 
Society," he added, with a slight emphasis on the word 
italicized, and a slight smile as he gave expression to it. 

Mrs. Bellamy would not evade any longer the object 
sought by her visitor. *' Sir," said she, steadily, but with 
nothing of her old, audacious, and seductive manner; '^ J 
am an actress ; my name is George Anne Bellamy ; I am 
twenty-four years of age ; — and I believe I care for nothing 
on earth but admiration !" 

She paused, expecting that Wesley would fall into a 
manifestation of wrath. Dodd too, looked narrowly at him 
from the sofa, as a Spaniard at a bull-fight may look at a 
promising bull in the arena, from whose fury he expected no 
inconsiderable amount of gratification. As for Goldsmith, 
he moved forward a step or two, and was about to utter a 
few words of deprecation. All three evidently expected an 
ebullition of spiritual anger, but all three were deceived ; 
because not one of them knew " the man." 

" On earth ?" said Wesley ; " be it so ; though it may be 
not worth seeking, finding, or holding. Is there no love, 
child, that thou carest for ?" 

The lively George Anne had a very impudent answer al- 
ready on her lips, but she suppressed it. A smile remained 
there, however, as the ignorant young actress, who was the 
idol of a bad half of the town, repeated the word, "Lcwe, 
Sir ?" 

" Ay ! the love of the Father ; comparied with which all 
worldly admiration is filth ; nay, worse, is a snare that drag- 
geth whomsoever is taken by it, down to everlasting Hell." 

The four people were silent for a moment. Wesley was 
the first, however, to speak. Looking at Mrs. Bellamy, he 
said ; " So thou art that godless thing an actress !" 



CEirrBE PAKEL. 89 

Goldsmith again stepped forward, he bad not hitherto 
seated himself, and, overflowing to the lips with charity, he 
stammered out, " Spare the lady. Sir, and us who are her 
friends. If benevolence be a godlike virtue, Mrs. Bellamy 
is not godless." 

" If righteousness be but filthy rags, of what value is mere 
benevolence alone ? Why, man, it is a luxury, and that is not 
the ladder by which the heights of Heaven may be scaled." 

" Hm !" remarked Dodd, from the sofa, " that 's an obser- 
vation which I will develope in my next sermon to the Mag- 
dalens in Wellclose Square." He made a note of it, at the 
time ; and a great sensation, therewith, some Sundays sub- 
eequently. 

"And so," resumed Wesley, "thou art that godless thing 
an actress ! That people of thy wicked calling do not neces- 
sarily lack benevolence, even to me and to my people, far be 
it from me to deny. There is one Mr. Edward Shuter, 
living in Denzil Street, not far from here, — and he giveth 
largely from his earnings, especially to Mr. Whitfield. The 
man is a charitable man, but he hath too much humour, 
which spoileth all. He never brings me a roll of ten guineas, 
for the poor, without staying thrice as many minutes, — at 
the end of which time I have a humiliating and exhausting 
sense of dissipation ; he makes me laugh, in spite of myself, 
and to me his golden balsam is as smitings on the head. 
But he hath a kindly heart, may it yet be touched by a feel- 
ing more divine, — and thine too, young woman ! — nay, look 
not offended at the word ; would I were sure that thou art 
true woman, as that I know thee to be young!" 

Mrs. Bellamy here smiled her ineffably impertinent and 
intoxicating smile. 

" True woman,** cried Wesley, somewhat more sternly 
than hitherto. " Woman faithful to the mission that God 
hath committed to her ; or, if erring, repentant as Mary was, 
whose tears of sorrow were more acceptable where they feU 
than the most richly scented ointment." 



40 KEW FICTUBES AJSB OLD PANELS. 

At this remark, Mr. Dodd again entered a note upon his 
** tablets ;" the word Magdalen once more falling firom his 
lips, as he slightly altered the lines of Pope, — 

" At such words, shall 

' My Mr ones beautifully cij 
In Magdalen's loose hair and lifted eye.'*' 

"Wesley, as he heard the word uttered, turned to Gold- 
smith, fancying he had spoken, and said, '^ What of Magda- 
len ? Do I say what may be gainsaid ?" 

Poor Goldsmith looked exceedingly abashed ; stammered, 
as was often the case with him, when suddenly addressed, 
and protested that he received with satisfaction every 
word uttered by Mr. "Wesley. " I enjoy it the more. Sir," 
said Oliver, " that I at first took you for Mr. EK Syn* 
namist, who is, I believe, a very different person in every; 
respect." 

" Who can say P" was Wesley's form of reply ; — " and yet 
I hope we may be different. I know something of the 
gentleman you have named. When I was last in Lincoln- 
shire, I preached from a tombstone, near the church which 
he was temporarily serving. It was in the evening, when 
his own church was closed; — and he came to hear my 
sermon, — ' • 

" Well then, he was a liberal fellow ; why do you speak, 
slightingly of my friend ?" asked Dodd. 

" — To hear my sermon, and to enjoy what was to come of 
it. Before I had got half through it, I found myself carried 
off my legs, conveyed to a pond close by, and was twice 
dragged through it, while Mr. Synnamist looked on and 
directed proceedings from the summit of his own steeple." 

" By Jove, that was good, and Synnamist is coming here !" 
cried Dodd, bursting into loud laughter. Goldsmith uttered 
something very like the word "beast!" but it might have 
been a strongly accentuated " Fst! " At all events, it re- 
duced Mr. Dodd to silence ; and Mrs. Bellamy was so grate- 



CEITTBE PANEL. 41 

fill for the service, that taking Goldsmith by the hand, she 
introduced him to Wesley, by name, and added, — 

" He is a protege of mine. I have brought him here to- 
day to make him known to some men of mark, who may help 
him whither he most desires to go. Mr. Goldsmith, too wise, 
like me, to care for passing admiration," — she smiled, as she 
looked at his homely features, which caused him to smile 
too, and th^n he looked still more homely, — " has only one 
ambition, of fame, now and for ever ; here and hereafter." 

" A good name here, and its reward hereafter, are worthy 
objects of desire, if I understand what you say of the young 
gentleman rightly," said Wesley. "What I understand 
thereby is a good name on the book of judgment, and a good 
report on the trumpets of the angels whose brazen instru- 
ments wiU peal over while they direct the way whither man 
must go, after judgment is pronounced. Is this the fame and 
recompense which you seek, Mr. Goldsmith? Sit down, 
Sir." 

Oliver dropped into a chair almost unconsciously. Then, 
recovering from his confusion, he said, " Certainly, that also, 
that also ! I was taught that such were the better reputation 
and reward to be sought after by men, by my father, who was 
a clergyman." Wesley nodded approval. " But I confess' 
that I also desire, with all my soul, another sort of fame too.- 
I should be happy if I could feel assured that in a godless 
and indecent age, my pen should accomplish some work or 
wovkfl^ which matrons, maids, and men, might take up, for 
ages to come, with pleasure and lay down with approval. If 
I be permitted to achieve one or many works, there shall not- 
be a page of them that shall bring up a blush on any ingenu- 
ous cheek, nor give a pang to any honest heart. Oh that 
I may but effect this end!" And the tears stood in his 
honest eyes. 

■ Wesley looked moved for a moment; but only for a 
moment. The old, graceful calm came over him 5 and con- 



42 mew fictttbxs aitd old panels. 

BciouB that there is but one object about which man should 
be concerned, he enlarged thereon with wonderful eloquence, 
simplicity, and earnestness. He decried Fame as a Vapour 
that is scattered — an empty sound that dieth away — a 
circle extending over the face of the waters, only to fade at 
last — a writing on the sand, that the steps of man or the 
waves of Time shall obliterate ; these and a hundred other 
figures he employed till he had battered the trumpet of 
Fame into worthlessness, plucked every feather out of the 
brilliant wings, and made of the ideal angel so worshiped 
by us all, such a draggled, humbled, contemptible figure, 
that Goldsmith himself was half-ashamed of the idol which 
he daily and hourly reverenced. 

" And yet. Sir," he ventured to remark, " man must have 
an object ; the more innocent the better. Surely fame is 
an honest end in view. I should work to all the more use- 
ful purpose if I thought my name might be sounded with 
honest affection by the lips and in the ears of men in ages 
to come." 

Wesley had compassion on the poor young fellow, but 
he pressed his heel, nevertheless, on the fair-looking angel 
whom Oliver had placed erect and was again worshiping. 
" Friend," said he, " the fame thou dreamest of is not worth 
the labour bestowed upon it. "What thou doest, do for the 
glory of God, not for thine own glory, of which thou art now 
thinking. Such £a.me as that which now occupies thy mind, 
my good friend, may result in thy name living for awhile on 
earth, but it will do nothing towards obtaining for thy soul 
a place in heaven." 

"May I not have my mission, too, like other men?" 
asked Oliver, who, alarmed at the laugh from Dodd, and the 
smile on the fece of Wesley, added, as if he had been too 
presumptuous, " a small mission, perhaps, yet not a useless 
one ? I have read that the heathen philosophers who incul- 
cated virtue and spoke of a watchful deity, may have only 



OSKTBS FAinBL. 43 

been fulfilling their mission in preparing a corrupt world for 
a revelation of purity." 

"Wesley musingly, and seemingly with a critical spirit, 
repeated the well-known lines : — 

"Then those who followed Beason's dictates right, 
liyed up and lifted high their natural light. 
With Socrates may see their Maker's face, 
While thousand ruhrio martyrs want a place." 

"Tes, it has been said ; and I will not contradict that. 
Tou may have your mission. Abraham was called, Isaac 
was chosen, Bahab was saved, and David selected. The in- 
struments are nothing ; He who employeth them, all and 
everything. Think then of thy mission, not of thyself; of 
the glory of God, not of thine own laudation." 

" Sir," said Goldsmith earnestly, " I will try to do what 
you recommend, and hope yet to — " 

" Gain fame by following my advice ? Is that what thou 
wouldest say ?" Goldsmith blushed and was silent. " Well, 
well," rejoined Wesley, " accomplish thy best with the means 
vouchsafed to thee ; but if thou wouldest really be a man^ 
keep thy love of human glory subordinate." 

" And, Socrates I" said Mr. Dodd, looking at Goldsmith, 
who was ugly enough to have stood as a model to a painter. 
for -the plain teacher of ancient days, " Socrates, if thou 
wouldest be happier here, as well as elsewhere, than the 
* rubric martyrs' just noticed, beware of associating thyself 
with a Xantippe ! Eh, Mr. Wesley ? " 

"Wesley could not suppress a slight emotion which betrayed 
his having been rather rudely touched. In all Christendom 
there was not perhaps such a complete virago as Mrs. Wesley. 
Paul had a thorn in his side, and Job had heavy afflictions 
and an indifferent wife to boot ; but the thorn of Paul, the 
woes of the man of Uz, and even his wife, were positive lux- 
uries and enviable things, compared with the tribulations 
which overwhelmed John Wesley in the person of his spouse. 



44 NEW PICTUBES AKD OLD VATSTEZS. 

The allusion to Xantippe made him wince,— and to conceal d 
vexation of which he himself was ashamed, he turned to Mrs-.' 
Bellamy with an inquiring look, as if he desired to know 
something of the person who had last addressed him. 

" The Eeverend Mr. Dodd, of St. Olave's, who abeady 
knows you by sight." At this imperfect form of presenta- 
tion, the gentleman named arose from the sofa, advanced a 
step or two, receded as many, as if he were about to dance 
a minuet, and then effected a bow so ceremoniously low that 
it bore very much the air of mockery. Wesley smiled, ex- 
tended his hand — not for the Eeverend Mr. Dodd to grasp, 
but with an air of quiet command, implying, " That wiU do ; 
enough, and more than enough," — and added his simple but 
irresistible formula, "Be seated!" 

Dodd obeyed, almost with the unconscious and ready 
obedience which Goldsmith (who was now looking on the 
scene rather than sharing in it, with Mrs. Bellamy) had ren- 
dered to the same command. When he was seated, Wesley, 
having recovered full self-possession, resumed. — 

" Mr. Dodd, you and I are, as I believe, both Lincolnshire, 
men. My father at Epworth, as yours at Bourne, had that. 
almost intolerable, certainly most awful, responsibility, the 
care and guidance of immortal souls. We both hold the 
same high office that our fathers have held before us ; may 
we both do so to the saving of those souls and of our own!". 

" Excuse me," said the Eeverend William Dodd, drawing • 
himself slightly up, and yet assuming that condescending 
Hiir which pride so often wears, and under which it is doubly 
irritating and offensive, " excuse me ; we are not exactly on 
the equal terms to which you allude. You are greatly my 
elder, by a score of years or more, and yet I will be bold 
enough to remind you that you hive not followed the exam- 
ple of your father, for you have created schism in the 
Church, and instead of bread you have given men nothing 
but stones. Nevertheless," he added, "we are of the same 



CEMTEE PAKEL. 45 

county ; we should be better acquainted. You bave made 
a vast fortune, and are continually, so fame says, increasing 
it. I am only at the commencement of building up mine. 
It will be a splendid one, I hope ; and, perhaps, if we are 
remembered for nothing else, men may talk with wonder, in 
a hundred years, of the fortunes of the two lads from Lincoln- 
shire. Meanwhile, I shall be happy to see you in Hart 
Street. Will you dine with me to-morrow? — When wiU 
you come?" 

Wesley looked with mingled pity, wonder, and contempt 
upon the speaker and his words. He remained sUent. 

" You are not courteous, Sir," said Dodd ; at which speech 
Gk)ldsmith raised his hands, and looked with some wonder 
at Mrs. Bellamy, who at the moment was balancing on the 
point of her foot the slipper which had just fallen from it. 
" You are not courteous, Sir," repeated Dodd. 

" I regret to hear you say so," answered Wesley, " and 
ask of you to pardon me. I was thinking of my old Univer- 
sity days, when I was wont to receive hospitable invitations, 
like yours just offered to me, by men who did not affect to 
be my superiors. It was my object to narrowly watch all 
who came to visit me, and I feared that the majority neither 
loved nor feared God. I could not expect, therefore, that 
they would do me any good. When any such came, I be- 
haved, I trust, courteously ; but to the question, ' When will 
you come to see me ?' I gave no answer. They came again, 
perhaps, a few times, but when they found their visits unre- 
tumed, I saw them no more." 

" Well !" exclaimed Dodd, " and do you not call this dis- 
courtesy, that you say as much to me ?" 

" I call it truth ; a lesson ; a suggestion ; a story with a 
moral to it. Mr. Dodd had better make the best applica- 
tion he can of all. Let him aim at building up a fortune, 
as he calls it, in Heaven, where it cannot perish ; not one of 
filthy lucre upon earth, which may give promise of firmness 



46 ITEW FICTimSS AKD OLD PAJTELS. 

to-day, and maj end in hideous ruin ere the setting sun has 
all gone down upon it." 

" Oh ! I know your trick, Sir," cried Dodd, with increasing 
vexation; " you pretend to the gift of prophecy, and you 
draw divinations from texts of Scripture fortuitously hit 
upon. You — " 

** Friend," said Wesley, almost sternly, " he who knocks 
at the gates of that Book, with faith in his heart and inno- 
cence on his hands, shall never want for an answer, and that 
answer shall be everlasting truth." He took out a small 
Bible from his pocket. " There," said he, " seek, thou shalt 
find." 

Mr. Dodd took the book in his hands, and was about to 
open it ; but he suddenly seemed ashamed, or was afraid. 
He flung the volume on the table, on which the Black-boy 
had been disposing a tea-equipage, and he made the cups 
dance in their saucers. " It would be blasphemy," he cried, 
" and yet I know not. It is good to treat a fool according 
to his folly. Come, Sir, since this is the fashion with you, 
try these sortes, mere pagan fashion though it be, try this 
method yourself, but on my part. Let us see what cross or 
comic answer may come to such nonsensical questioning." 

Wesley was in the act of pouring some water from a de- 
canter into a glass. The latter was half-filled. He laid 
down the decanter, did not apply his lips to the glass ; but 
he took up the sacred volume, pressed it to his mouth, kissed 
it reverently, and prayed over it silently, but fervently, with 
closed eyes. 

The Eeverend William Dodd looked uneasy. Mrs. Bel- 
lamy was evidently awed. Oliver was undisturbed, but 
greatly interested. He had faith in the prophet, in his 
method, in his power, and in the volume by which he was 
about to work. " Now!" said Oliver. 

The exclamation was caused by the rapt look which illu- 
minated the ordinarily calm features of the great and new 
teacher. With head upraised, with arm extended, with the 



CSKTBE FAinSL. 47 

book held forth, and with a finger slowly reached to the 
pages, he sought solemnly for the message for which Wil- 
liam Dodd had so scomftdly asked. The finger, like a di- 
vining rod, bent over the leaves, sank between them, opened 
the volume, and rested on a particular passage. 

" Attend," said Wesley, with great gravity ; " these are 
the words of the Lord ! " 

Dodd sank back in the chair behind him, as if he no longer 
cared to hear them. Mrs. Bellamy hurriedly let her foot 
fall to the ground, and pushed it into her slipper. She had 
not been accustomed to be bidden to give heed to the words 
of the Lord ; and she was afiected by something more than 
the mere novelty of the incident. Goldsmith remained in 
his chair, grasping its sides vigorously, as if by a show of 
strength he could conceal a growing nervous weakness which 
was irresistible. 

"Attend!" repeated Wesley, "for these are the words of 
the Lord ; and because they are the words of the Lord, re- 
ceive them with reverence — standing .' " 

It was a singular sight, to see how instinctively he was 
obeyed. Actress, author, fashionable preacher, all were 
alike affected, and all simultaneously obeyed. 

" 2%e»«," said Wesley once more, with solemn emphasis, 
" are the words of the Lord vouchsafed as an answer to our 
grave inquiry, on the part of the Eeverend Mr. Dodd. Thus 
doth the Lord say unto him : — * And among these nations 
thou shalt find no ease : neither shall the sole of thy foot 
have rest ; but the Lord shall give thee a trembling heart, 
and fiiiling of eyes, and sorrow of mind ; and thy life shall 
hjEUig in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and 
night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life.' " 

You might have heard a pin drop in that room, as Wesley, 
with a sigh, re-conveyed the book to his bosom, and looking 
at Dodd, with compassion, exclaimed, " May the Lord have 
mercy on thy soul, thou miserable sinner!" 



48 WEW PICTITEES AKD OLB FAySLS. 

Dodd was as pale as a spectre ; but it was partly with 
rage. Haying no faith in the sortes, he jet could not help 
being considerably affected by the solemn passage, solemnly 
delivered by Wesley, and solemnly followed by the prayer 
that the Lord would have mercy on his soul. The imperti- 
nence of the thing, however, as he styled it, affected him 
still more, — with almost uncontrollable wrath. He could not 
speak intelligibly, so violent was his agitation. At length, 
he burst into wild, hysterical laughter, and this was followed 
by an incoherent tirade, of what his expectations were, and 
how he should rise and enjoy life and grow rich, while the 
Methodist teacher would still remain a teacher and nothing 
else, — unless, perhaps, he became a cheat. " I have glorious 
prospects. Sir, before me," he exclaimed. ** Glorious, I say. 
Sir. My intercourse with the nobility will lead me to 
Royalty ; the patronage of Eoyalty will lead me to lasting 
greatness. I may be a Bishop, Sir ! a Bishop, I say, ruling 
a diocese, while you hold nothing but the ministry of an 
illegal uncanonical conventicle ; where you must tremble at 
the loss of every individual member, while my fortune will 
be stable. Tremble you must, I say. Sir ; for, why p what 
for ? ah, ah ! what are the words, the lines, the sentiment 
of — what's-his-name, the poet, when he doubtless thought 
of fools like you, — what are the words? — oA.'" — with a 
groan. 

" Do you mean," asked Wesley, quite unmoved, — 

' Fools are more hard to conquer than persuade ?* " 
" No, no ! after that ! after that ! I have it ! I have it ! — 

* Their busy teachers mingled with the Jews, 
And raked for converts e'en tlie court and st^ws ; 
Which Hebrew priests the more imkindly took, 
Because thejleece accompanies the flock* 

* Because the fleece accompanies the flocTc ;' good that is ! 
good that is ! and applicable, if not to you, to the poor devils 



OXKTBE PANEL. 49 

under jou, who depend entirely on the Toluntary offerings 
of the deluded." 

Wesley seemed scarcely to attend to this nonsense and 
misapplication. Dodd only raved the more ; and the louder 
he raved, the nearer Goldsmith and Mrs. Bellamy drew to 
each other to gaze at him. He poured forth, sometimes 
with a wild sort of eloquence and an insane abuse of logic, 
sentence after sentence of contempt, reproof, and accusation 
against the Methodists. He dishonoured his own Church 
and himself by his unenlightened advocacy of the former, 
and his egregious praise of his own person and mission. 
Nothing, at last, could be fouler than the epithets which he 
flung at his undisturbed opponent ; nothing more ridiculous 
than his concluding assertion that if perfection was to be 
found on earth, it was — in the Reverend Mr. Dodd. 

" Perfection is by grace, and may come suddenly, I allow," 
said Wesley; "show how thou art perfect!" — and as he 
uttered the words, he took up the tumbler half-filled with 
water, and very placidly flung the contents into the perfect 
Christian's face. 

Dodd roared, then danced, then both danced and roared 
with rage. Wesley would have let him roar, and roar and 
dance, without interrupting him ; but the reverend gentle- 
man fell to swearing, — ^flrst fashionable, then some very blas- 
phemous oaths. Wesley stopped him at once, by a move- 
ment of his arm. 

" Thou art not perfect, poor sinful worm," he exclaimed, 
" for thou knowest not how to take an oflence with meek- 
ness." 

This remark set Mr. Dodd again in wild motion and law- 
less exclamation. The combined and contrasted exhibition 
of wrath and equanimity, of patience inculcated by insult, 
and insult repeated in the calm remark last made, had 
various eflect on th^ two spectators of the scene. G-oldsmith 
rubbed hia hands in silent ecstasy. Mrs. Bellamy made 



50 NEW PICTTJBE8 AND OLD PAITSLS. 

the room re-echo with melodious laughter. She clapped 
her hands, approached Wesley light-footed and lighter- 
hearted, and, before he was aware, she flung her radiant arms 
around that almost sacred neck, and exclaiming, '' You dear, 
delicious, incomprehensible man, I must kiss you," — she did 
what she said there was compulsion upon her to do, and 
Wesley could not help himself. 

She was hanging on his neck, when the door suddenly 
opened, and on the threshold appeared Mrs.' Wesley; behind 
her, looking over her shoulder, stood Mrs. Dodd. — " Sensa- 
tion T^ as the French reporters have it. 

Now Mrs. Wesley was an unpleasant woman. She was 
about to be so extremely unpleasant that we are bound to 
advance something in her behalf. In an immoral age she 
had the good fortune to be bom and brought up in a moral 
and religious household. But, therewith, she bad the mis- 
fortune to belong to a family, the heads of which stood, as 
it were, upon stilts, and made an exhibition of super-mo- 
rality and righteousness-overmuch to a wicked' generation. 
In that house, every transaction was accomplished by rule, 
so exact, and by time so duly measured, that a month's life 
there seemed an eternity of uneasy exactitude. The children 
found in their parents simply — magistrates. These were not 
without benevolence, and they were rich in good example 
most offensively conveyed. The discipline, in short, was 
penal, after its fashion. There were seasons, when to smile 
was to infringe propriety ; to unbend from the ever stiffly- 
maintained perpendicular, whether of figure or sentiment, 
was to outrage decency ; independence of action, on the part 
of the children, freedom of thought, or liberty of speech, was 
shocking and unfilial rebellion. Expansion of heart was 
never there allowed ; it made children forward. They were 
permitted to love only at the rate, progress, and measure 
sanctioned by the parental magistracy. That magistracy 
made home not beautiful, but weary, to those young hearts. 



OEKTBE PAITEL. 51 

but then it made bucH exemplfaj-lookinff puppets of the 
children, that the proverbially celebrated husbands of bache- 
lors' wives, and the mothers of old maids' children, pro- 
nounced the family to be the most perfectly brought-up 
'family ever looked down upon by the sun. 

This particular girl who, now a woman, stands the not 
silent exponent of rage at Mrs. Bellamy's door, left her 
home at an early age, and with a bounding heart, for a 
school where, however rigid and regular its discipline, she 
knew that, at least, she would be able to commune with 
her kind, — ^young heart to heart as young ; and that liberty, 
with strangers soon to be friends, she preferred to the 
monotony of cold love, dull duty, and want of confidence, at 
home. And here, she might have improved ; but the school 
system became, in another way, as pernicious to her as her 
home discipline had been. Heavy was the cost to the pa- 
ternal purse at which she was taught vanity and jealousy. 
The future Mrs. Wesley was a clever girl, but she had no 
particular beauty, save the beauty of youth, and was always 
very plainly, although neatly dressed. She soon observed, 
and not without pain, perhaps not without resentment, that 
dress and good looks counted as merits with the school 
authorities. At church, the maidens with the showiest slips 
and the prettiest features were invariably placed in the 
front row ; — and more than once, when a Bishop, and even 
less dignified visitors, honoured the establishment by their 
presence, it was the girl with the finest sack, or the most 
resplendent farthingale; the chit with the most sparkling 
eyes and the highest peach-blossomed cheeks, who were 
exhibited as model girls. Of course, the young lady with 
whom we are most especially concerned, began to grow 
jealous of superior beauty, and to have an inordinate love of 
dress. She had come to school with a disregard for home, 
and she ultimately returned to the little-cared-for home 
with a heart full of bitterness and costly vanity, — the result 

D 2 



52 inw PICTFES8 Ain> old pakels. 

of the Bystem by whicli she had been so grieyously injured 
at school. 

Then she found that home no better nor brighter than 
before. Better it could not be; for CYery propriety was 
pedestalled there in the smoothest, hardest, and coldest ot 
marble. Brighter it might have been, had the sunlight of 
freedom been permitted to shine upon the persons who ate, 
drank, slept, moved in and out, and existed there, — almost 
as smooth, silent, hard, and cold as the marble proprieties 
themselves. 

The bright iron cage soon lost its bird. The first wings 
that fluttered near the bars attracted her attention and won 
her to flight, — anywhere rather than in that decent, respect- 
able, well-to-do, but awfully dull home. She became the 
mistress of a rather brilliant home of her own ; and, as Mrs. 
Vizelle, made many " a night of it,'* at cards. In her hus- 
band, however, she found neither guide, companion, nor 
friend ; and when, at an early period of her married life, she 
had to assume widow's weeds, she did it with exemplary 
resignation and a dower, highly satisfactory. 

Hitherto, she had never really enjoyed the illusory de- 
light of once having completely her own way. When the 
widow's eye fell upon such a man of mark as Wesley, she 
made a resolution, and therewith a determination, that it 
should be realized. She decided to marry the apostle who 
was the eloquent advocate of celibacy, — as regarded mi- 
nisters. Perhaps her decision was founded on that advo- 
cacy. However that may be, the accomplished fact fol- 
lowed, to the surprise of some, the consternation of others, 
and apparently to the perplexity of the missionary Benedict 
himself. 

" Brother," said a fellow-labourer to him, once, " tell me, 
I pray, wherefore you espoused this lady ?" 

" Curious friend !" answered Wesley, with a touch of the 
testy humour of Coriolanus about him, '^I will inform 



OEKTBS FAITEL. 53 

tbee; — I married the lady, for reasons — best known to 
myself." And nothing further was ever said on the sub- 
ject ; but under our &ee constitution of society, there was a 
liberty of comment among friends and neighbours, that was 
perfectly astounding. 

Never had the world beheld a couple so ill-matched. All 
the errors of home-training, school-teaching, and world- 
experience, combined to make a cruel and jealous tyrant 
of Mrs. Wesley. Her husband could not stir from home % 
without rude questioning, and sharp sarcasm ; while away, 
she watched him from her window, or tracked his footsteps, 
or set spies on his path. When he returned to his un- 
happy hearth, the torrent of her passion followed him to the 
door of the study, into which he locked himself; and even 
then it spent and shattered itself upon the outside walls. 
Ay, and to still greater lengths did this ornament of her 
sex and crown of her husband audaciously extend her de- 
stroying passion. There was Mrs. Bellamy, at this very mo- 
ment, with her fair little plump hands on the scant locks 
of Mr. Wesley. Well, Mr. Wesley's wife had more than 
once had her hands in the very same place, but it was to 
pluck the locks away by handsfull. And this, she now ad- 
vanced to do, when she beheld the rather exciting spectacle 
before her. 

Let us mention, parenthetically, that Mrs. Dodd had 
meanwhile slipped past her ; and, taking a seat by the side 
of her still angry husband, whose misfortunes excited no 
sympathy in her, she intimated to him that Eli Synnamist 
had just been arrested for debt, and that that dignified 
person's presence need not be further expected by any of 
the party at Mrs. Bellamy's. 

It was the smart application of Mrs. Wesley's right hand 
to the young actress's left ear that once more set the atten- 
tion in one direction. And then, the virago elevated her 
shrill notes, and grievously therewith assailed the ears of all 
the audience. 



54 NEW PICTURES JlWD OLB PANELS. 

" So," she screamed, and placed herself before Mr. Wes- 
ley, " so this is your visit to a sick brother at No. 15. I 
suspected you, Sir, and watched you to this house. No. 25, 
and have waited till I was weary, to see you come forth ; 
and now I have entered to force you home. What am 1, 
with your preachings and travellings ? Fine preachings, in- 
deed! But now I know you." And she advanced towards 
him with a disgustingly threatening air. 

"Know me!" said Wesley, "would that thou didst! 
Learn to know me, if thou canst; and try to know thy- 
self." 

• " Know myself r^ screamed the mad mother of all the 
Bacchantes, " I say I know thee, thou false one, and this 
painted woman here — " 

At these words, Mrs. Bellamy rubbed her pretty cheeks 
with the whitest of kerchiefs, and scornfully showed that the 
passionate woman was in error. 

" And I suspect thee, John ; thou evil one ! who scatter- 
est my means ; thy praise is all for others, thy neglect for 
me, — who, who might have made a figure at Court, and 
who have wherewith to support the outlay for such a circum- 
stance, but that my funds are squandered in tents and 
tabernacles ! 

(( T >» 

" Stay .'" gently yet imperiously fell from the lips of her 
husband ; and it checked her. " Learn, I say, to know me 
better, and to know tliyself. Suspect me no more, asperse 
me no more ; do not contend thus foolishly for mastery, 
power, money, or praise. Be content to be a private, in- 
significant person, known and beloved by God and me." 

"Be content, indeed!" she exclaimed, after her brief fit 
of patience. " What have I to be content with ? You are 
a great personage, and I in your sight and the world's sight 
am just nothing, having no character at all." 

" Character !" he said, with a slight flavour of acerbity ; 



CEKTBE FAKEL, 55 

*^ that thou hast, good wife. Happj the woman who hath a 
fair one in the book of God. But of what importance is 
thy character to mankind ? If thou wert buried to-day, or 
hadst never been bom, what loss would it be to the cause 
of God ?" 

This question only excited further outbursts of wrath, 
poured for the most part on Mr. Wesley, but for a warm 
share of which, Mrs. Bellamy came in, very frequently. 
Indeed, Mrs. Wesley applied to the latter a term so exceed- 
ingly unpleasant, that the ire of the actress was raised. 

" Madam," she said, " I wish to be civil to a lady so much 
my elder, in my own house ; but you must not asperse me, 
nor disparage, by so doing, my own mother, who has more 
than once sat at the same card-table at Bath, with yourself, 
when Mrs. Yizelle, and with Mrs. Whitfield, when she was 
the Widow James." 

Wesley looked almost cross ; but he could not controvert 
the truth ; he therefore made the best of it ; — as indeed 
George Whitfield himself did, on similar occasions : — " Mrs. 
Whitfield was, as I have heard, a very gay lady ; but now 
she is one of the despised lambs of God." 

Mrs. Wesley had words enough at will, wherewith to pelt 
Mrs. Bellamy, and indeed they fell for a fiill quarter of an 
hour, harsh, heavy, and unsavoury. 

It is ill looking at or listening to a woman unwomaned by 
fury. We will, therefore, content ourselves by saying that 
Wesley, with his rare tact and patience, perseverance and 
gentle firmness, at length succeeded not only in pacifying 
his impracticable wife, but in inducing her to take the 
hand of Mrs. Bellamy. He even concluded a treaty of peace 
with Mr. Dodd, and, still with his quiet air of mastery, di- 
rected the Black-boy, who had for a long time been looking 
in at the door, to serve tea. 

**Tea!" exclaimed Mrs. Bellamy, "will you take tea here 
with us ? — with me?'^ 



56 KEW FICTUBB8 AKD OLB PAVELS. 

" Wby not P" asked "Wesley with a smile ; " I will do so 
with pleasure ; if you will aU accompany me to the theatre, 
afterwards." 

The effect of this proposed arrangement can hardly be 
imagined. All the company repeated the word ^^ theatre ! 
with Mr. Wesley !" in various and wonderful intonations. 

"Charming!'* added Mrs* Bellamy. "I shall be proud 
to be seen by your side !" and she rattled gaily among the 
cups. 

«By Jove!'' added Dodd, "that is an ideal" "But it 
promises fine sport," said his wife. 

' Wesley looked at his wife, but she simply uttered, 
"Eudge 1" He looked at her more earnestly, and then she 
said, somewhat subdued, " Oh, where you please." 

Oliver too had something to add to his exclamation of 
surprise, and that was the expression of his fear that he 
should not be able to return to Mr. Griffiths, the publisher's, 
by nine o'clock. 

"You may be there as the hour strikes," said Wesley, 
" if you mean Mr. Griffiths, in Paternoster Eow ; — who 
will, moreover, with his wife, be present." 

There was no further objection to be made; and never 
was there a tea-party where there was so much cheerfulness 
with so little scandal, or any other evil thing. Wesley at- 
tuned everything to harmony (as Dryden said Purcell would 
have done in Hell, if Satan would have had him), and on this 
occasion he attuned the ears, minds, and souls of the com- 
pany to wonderful purpose, for the moment. At length, 
when Juba had announced the arrival of the hackneycoach, 
for which he had been sent, the joyous party moved towards 
it ; and Mrs. Bellamy, as she arranged her hood, asked if 
Poote played that evening. 

Goldsmith's eyes sparkled for a moment, — but Wesley, 
simply said he knew nothing of Mr. Foote save that he was 
to be seen at a house in the Hay market. " We are going," 



OBKTBB PANEL. 57 

he said, "in an opposite direction, to the *New Welb,' 
near the Spa." 

" Oh 1" cried Mrs. Bellamy, as the colwjh, after much 
straining and heaving, got slowly under way ; — " that 's but 
a poor house ; — and I thought it was closed." 

"Wesley made no observation by way of reply, except that 
for five years the theatre, called the " New Wells," near the 
Spa in the fields, had been under a new and a better ma- 
nagement than formerly ; — and thereon the conversation 
took another turn. 

At length the coach halted up to and before the house. 
The building had, and it still has, a right theatrical aspect. 
The doors for box, pit, and gallery, still remain, still conduct 
the visitor to various parts of the edifice, — but the edifice 
itself had ceased, as Wesley had intimated, to be what 
it formerly had been, about five years. It was in truth a 
large " Methodist chapel," and strangely enough, that fact 
had been forgotten by Mrs. Bellamy ; was not remembered 
by Dodd ; and had never been known to Goldsmith. The 
publisher Q-rifl&ths, however, who loved excitement, was 
often there with the partner of his cares and house. 

The edifice was entered by Wesley and his companions. 
The latter did not discover its character till they were 
seated, and then an imperative gesture, as he left them, kept 
them in their places, — ^not silent, neither remonstrant, but 
pleased, and curious to see the course and end of the novel 
incident. Dodd, to do that reverend gentleman justice, 
was a little ashamed to find himself in a conventicle ; he 
who was not ashamed to sit in the front row of a Theatre 
Eoyal, and whose " brother" was so lively a gentleman at 
tavern revellings. But the moment came when no one 
present had eye or thought or feeling or memory for any 
worldly thing but the individual in the pulpit. There, 
Wesley was altogether another being, resembling only in 
features the visitor at Mrs. Bellamy's. Prom the first mo- 

d3 



68 NEW PIOTTOES ATO OLD PANELS. 

ment, he spoke as one inspired, and there was not a hearer 
in his presence who did not apply some portion of the por- 
tentous message as an intimation made especially from 
Heaven to himself. Griffiths was so touched with a diatribe 
against meanness, that he looked at GJ-oldsmith and deter- 
mined to pay him a trifle more liberally. Mrs. Griffiths had 
a persuasion that, if it did not cost much, she would better 
the fare of the poor drudge. And in the eyes of that poor 
drudge, worldly fame was again rendered so contemptible 
that he felt, — ^he almost felt, even he could despise it. Even 
Mr. Dodd and his wife were seen to blush at certain pas- 
sages which seemed to strip the covering from their souls, — 
at the nakedness of which they shuddered. Mrs. "Wesley 
herself, in a seat apart, looked upon her husband with some- 
thing like fear as his Ithuriel's spear pointed slowly in her 
direction. Finally, his eye fell with pity on the brilliant 
Mrs. Bellamy. For awhile she withstood that, and even the 
words that fell from the speaker's tongue. But these were 
powers that could not be resisted long. As word fell afber 
word, like coals of fire upon her head, or pierced her as 
repeated stabs from a dagger might her heart, she wept, 
sobbed, shrieked ; and as glad tidings ot love and salvation 
descended like balm poured gently into torturing woimds, 
she flung aloft her arms as if to pray to Heaven, or to im- 
plore Heaven's messenger, for fewer miseries and more pro- 
mises of love. Straightway, with arms still uplifted, she 
fainted — and not she alone, for before John Wesley had 
closed his discourse, more than one sinner — ^young, old, hope- 
ful, or despairing — lay senseless before him, testimonies of 
his wondrous power over the living soul. 

With the exception of the preacher and his wife, there 
were assembled that evening, round Mrs. Bellamy's supper- 
table, the party that a few hours earlier had left the house 
for the ex-theatre at the New Wells. Mr. and Mrs. Grif- 



CEKTRB TAIS'EL. 59 

fiths were there too, for neither could resist an excellent 
thing, whether it regarded a sermon or a supper. 

I think it was Mr. Justice Tindal who used to say of a 
pulpit discourse he had heard somewhere on circuit, that it 
must have heen the very hest to which he had ever listened, 
for he had remembered what it was about for more than a 
fortnight. Mrs. Bellamy and her friends canvassed Wes- 
ley's sermon over their punch with a vigour that gave pro- 
mise of its remaining in their memories for ever ; but, in 
truth, it was already practically forgotten. From the ser- 
mon they fell to criticizing the style of the preacher, and 
then, natural consequence, the preacher himself. Finally, 
they examined narrowly touching his motives. 

" I think," said GriflSths, " he is writing an autobiography ; 
and the more sensation he makes now, the higher will be the 
price he will ask for his work of us poor publishers." 

" I don't know about his autobiography," rejoined Grif- 
fiths's dulcis uxor, " but I do know that Mrs. Wesley played 
him a fine trick the other day. She burned half a quire of 
his private journal. A quarrel and (so I hear) blows ensued ; 
and as man is naturally a brute, I dare say it was Mr. Wes- 
ley who beat his wife, and not she who assailed him !" 

Having thus pleasantly determined the character of the 
great reformer, she looked at Mrs. Bellamy ; and the actress, 
lately so terribly moved, could only now expatiate on the 
value of Wesley's powers to an actor. " It would be worth 
Peru," said George Anne; " I shall never forget him." 

"He is certainly clever," was the unwilling remark of 
Dodd, whose wife only laughed, asked for more punch, and 
ventured to suppose that even Mr. Wesley did not dislike 
the precious liquor in private. " Yes, he is clever, undoubt- 
edly ; but he is not perfect. He loves power, and is as proud 
of possessing it as any of us of holding what is most dear to 
him." 

There was a shade of truth in this, although it fell from 



00 ITEW PI0TUSS8 ANB. OLD PAKELS. 

the unholy lips of the fashionable preacher. Those lips 
were now curled with something like scorn, as he added ; 
" We shall not live to see it ; but I will venture to assert, 
that if Lincolnshire be not under water in a hundred years, 
the name of Dodd will be better remembered in his nati?6 
county than that of Wesley. What do you say, Mr. Gold- 
smith ?" 

Oliver had risen to depart, alone, humbly. He turned to 
the company, and with a farewell salutation to them gene- 
rally, he remarked : " How Mr. Wesley or you may be ac- 
counted of in Lincolnshire a hundred years to come there 
is but One that knows. He has told me how to temper my 
thirst for fame, and I will endeavour to walk in the light 
of his counsel, well content if my name be then remembered 
in England half as well, and my memory be cherished with 
but a portion of the affection that will hang to his." 

The idea of John Wesley and Oliver Goldsmith sharing 
the admiration and regard of an English posterity in the 
century to follow, so pleasantly excited idl the company, 
save Mrs. Bellamy — ^who looked upon the preacher as a man 
of temporary notoriety, and the poor author as a man of no 
account at all, — that, with the exception noted, they hailed 
Gk>ldsmith's departure with shouts of laughter. 

He descended, unmoved by the ridicule, to the street, and 
went his way along the Strand, musingly. " Twice to-day," 
thus ran his thoughts, " have I been laughed at ; twice en- 
couraged ;" his hand passed over his brow, and he added, ** I 
have it here !" He went on musingly. " I am but a slave,*^ 
he said, as he reached his own humble apartment, ''but 
there were slaves of old who created glorious names, in spite 
of their bondage. I will at least try and create an honoured 
one, in spite of mine." 

He dreamed that night of Plautus and Plato and Epicte- 
tus, and of a dozen others who had achieved greatness under 
difficulties. His vision showed him all those illustrious hea- 



OSKTBB PAITBL. 61 

theDS reclining on a green velvety sward in front of the 
Temple of Eame. An exceedingly swarthy but intellectual- 
looking gentleman, a Carthaginian, who had written some 
sparkling comedies in his day, took him by the hand and 
introduced him to the company. Modest Oliver felt 
ashamed, even in his sleep, and stammered out to a noble 
G^reek poet, who looked smilingly upon him, that he was 
only the poor son of a poor Irish clergyman. 

"By Jove!" cried the Greek, with an irreverence worthy 
of Mr. Dodd, " what has that to do with us here ! My 
mother sold water-cress !" 

A dozen voices seemed to reiterate the names of humble 
professions exercised by the speakers, who nevertheless won 
immortal reputation as authors. Goldsmith was confused 
by the noise; but at length he heard distinctly the voice 
of his master Griffiths, rudely summoning the slave to the 
mill. 

He arose and went to his toil, more than hopefully, think- 
ing of Mrs. Bellamy, Wesley, and his dream, and with a 
confidence in the future which, as Time has proved, was by 
no means misplaced. 



62 



" PORTRAIT OF A LADY." 



A COMPANY of artists, some half-dozen from various parts of 
the world, were contemplating the triple panels on which 
were painted the picture which has taken the form of words 
in the preceding pages. 

A young French painter, examining the figures there 
grouped, observed, i* Yes, truly, they all struggled in their 
various ways." Then, taking from his portfolio the crayon- 
sketch of a lady, he asked those around him to guess her 
quality. 

" She looks like a Duchess," said Mr. Mee Aughton, the 
only individual present who was not an artist, " a Duchess 
fond of her dignity, and ease." 

Alexandre smiled. " By many degrees," he replied, " she 
waB better than a peerage full of Duchesses. She was one 
of the heroic strugglers, rather after usefulness than fame ; 
in short, a true heroine in her way." 

" Ah!" remarked Mee Aughton, " it was the opinion of 
Jeremy Collier that it would be better for the world if there 
were fewer heroes in it. Of the men who had been suf- 
ficiently illustrious to claim to be ranked under that dis- 
tinctive name, there was only one whom Collier acknow- 
ledged a benefactor of the human race. This individual 
was the apocryphal Hercules. *I scarcely ever heard of 
any, excepting Hercules,' says Jeremy, * but did more mis- 
chief than good.' He described heroes generally as * over- 
grown mortals,' people who * commonly use their will with 
their right hand, and their reason with their left.' " 



"jOttTEAIT or A LADY." 63 

" It must be remembered, however," said Smith, an En- 
glish artist, " that when Collier thus referred to * heroes,' he 
had in his mind warriors only. Fanny Wright, herself some- 
thing of a heroine, according to her own fashion, made a 
nicer distinction when she remarked that * heroes were much 
rarer than great warriors.' " 

"Collier," said Mee Aughton, "discerned that the heroic 
must be looked for elsewhere than only in the warlike. The 
pride of heroes, he says, * is in their title ;' and their power 
puts them in possession. Their pomp is furnished from 
rapine, and their scarlet is dyed with human blood. K 
wrecks and ruins and desolations of kingdoms are marks of 
greatness, why do we not worship a tempest and erect a 
statue to the plague ? A panegyric upon an earthquake is 
every jot as reasonable as upon such conquests as these." 

" Larochefoucauld," observed Alexandre, " may be said to 
have thoroughly understood the meaning of the term * hero,* 
when he remarked that * there are heroes in evil as well as in 
good.' Massillon, too, was well acquainted with the worth 
of the term when he asserted that * it is easy to be at certain 
moments heroic and generous; what is really difficult is 
this, — ^to be constant and faithful.' He who has courage 
over himself," he continued, " is a hero ; and a * heroine' is 
something more than the mere * bellatrix' and * virago,' 
which often pass for its synonyms. There are many better 
worth knowing than the * formosse chorus heroinse' of Pro- 
pertius, or the heroines of romance, over whose imaginary 
miseries so many tears are shed that there are none left for 
human calamity. Now my heroine, Marie Lucille, was just 
one of those. Look at her portrait as I tell you her history." 

One winter's evening, towards the close of December, 1809, 
the snow was falling thick in the district between La Chaise 
Dieu and Brionde, in the department of the Upper Loire. 
A solitary horseman, who had nothing at all of a knightly 



64 ITEW PICTUBES AlTD OLD PAKILS. 

aspect, and who looked bewildered, imcomfortabley and dis- 
gusted as the flakes fell on his face, was the only hmnaii 
figure to be seen in the dreary picture. The rider bent for- 
ward so far beyond his horse's ears, as to give him the lur of 
one anxious to arrive at a cottage in the distance before the 
steed on which he was mounted. 

"If they are savages who live there," murmured he, 
" they will not have the heart to refuse me hospitality in 
such weather as this." And therewith, having reached the 
door, he applied the butt-end of his whip to the panel, and 
knocked with apologetic hesitation. 

"Jump down, Doctor," exclaimed a voice firom within; 
" I will take your horse in half a minute. We have been 
looking for you this hour. You have come too late, but you 
are perfectly welcome." 

The Doctor was among the first lecturers on therapeutics 
in Paris, and had not the least idea that he was known, 
expected, or welcome, in this part of the Upper Loire. He 
was on his way to Brionde, indeed, to attend a family- 
festival, the grand portion of which was a christening. The 
Doctor's brother had been for some years settled in the last- 
named town, which the professor of therapeutics was about 
to visit for the first time, for the purpose of standing god- 
father to a recently-born niece. He had been mitlr ing a 
geological tour in the south, and intended to take Brionde 
on his road back to the capital. 

By this time night had succeeded to evening, the snow 
fell faster and thicker than before ; and suddenly a man 
appeared on the threshold carrying in his hand a blazing 
pine-stick, which he held aloft while he looked into the dark 
night. 

"Come in. Doctor," said he; "you'll find your god- 
daughter within, and your brother is not far off." 

"My good friend," said the traveller, "there is surely 
some mistake. My goddaughter — " 



"POETaAJT OF A LAJ)T." d5 

" Look you there now,*' interrupted the man, sbftking his 
pine-stick the while to enable him to distinguish the stranger, 
"I took you for our good Doctor Gerard, who had not 
only promised to be here for a birth, but to be sponsor for 
the baby. His brother, the Cur6, too, engaged to g^ve it 
his blessing, and to taste our omelette and a bottle of the 
year 6." 

The stranger explained his condition, asked for hospitality, 
and was believed and welcomed without hesitation. 

" It is all one," said the host, taking the bridle of the 
horse. " Go you in ; you will find a Josephine within hap- 
pier than the poor Empress yonder ; for she is the mother of 
a child, and is under the roof of her husband. Go you in ; 
I '11 see to the horse." 

The Doctor felt that he had not arrived at the most 
opportune of moments ; nevertheless he was the most em- 
barrassed of the party in the cottage. Under the circum- 
sfances, the hospitality which he received was "princely." 
The house and the inmates were poor indeed, but the latter 
had large hearts. They were all the happier, too, that their 
child was a girl. " They can't make a conscript of her,'^ 
exclaimed both the parents, with a feeling which was common 
at the period, when a girl was born. 

On the morrow, before taking leave of his kind enter- 
tainer, the Doctor, placing his hand on that of the mother, 
observed to her, that he should be well pleased to be per- 
mitted to be godfather to " mademoiselle" there, " if — " He 
was about adding more, when mademoiselle herself uttered 
a cry so shrill, that the speaker paused. 

" Pardi !" exclaimed the father, " she agrees, and does not 
wait for us to give our consent. You shall share the office, 
Sir, with Monsieur Gerard." 

This matter being arranged, the Parisian professor bade 
his hosts farewell. They promised to find a deputy for him 
at the ceremony of baptism, and to give him news of his 
goddaughter, or ask his counsel in her behalf, should occa- 



66 VZW PICTUBEB AJSTD OLD PAlfELS. 

sion arise for either. And therewith he rode away, and very 
speedily forgot his sponsorial obligations to Marie Lucille. 

The child grew — a plain child, with a grave look about 
her. She stumbled through infancy with tolerable credit 
and c(^untless bruises. When she could run alone and was 
able to speak, the companions of her age invited her to share 
their sports. She crossed her little hands behind her back, 
and sharply and peremptorily refused. Her unpopularity 
was established " for ever." 

She lay about at the cottage-door, now in the sun, now 
in the rain, and seemed to care little for either. She was a 
dreaming child, hardly conscious of what she dreamt or 
wherefore. She had not the love of her fellows, but she won 
their respect. All the childish quarrels of the neighbourhood 
were referred to her for arbitration. People stood near her 
on these occasions, amused at the gravity of the little judge 
in a tattered gown. They never found reason, however, to 
deny the justice of her award. The tribunal of Marie Lucille 
was an institution in the eyes of little village litigants. 

Hitherto her life had been one of unmixed happiness. 
She did not know that she was poor ; and she felt, without 
thinking about it, that she was powerful. But she was now 
placed in a position which revealed to her her poverty, and 
made her sensible of being in subjection to others. She was 
sent to work in the fields during half the day, and to school 
during the remaining portion of it. 

" She is not worth her salt," said the farmer who em- 
ployed her to pick up stones. 

" She is a fool," said the schoolmistress ; " and is always 
asking questions above common sense." 

The fact was, that in the fields Marie Lucille was study- 
ing even the stones. These, the herbs, the flowers, and the 
grasses, were her books ; and when she took them to the 
school and laid them before the purblind Minerva there, she 
found the instructress could not read them. Her surprise 
was extreme. " I can teach myself to read," said she ; "but 



"POBTRAIT OP A LADY.'* 67 

of what use is this woman, if she cannot help me to do what 
I am unable to do for myself?" 

She already saw that there was something imperfect in 
the educational system. The germ of the reformer was 
already in course of development in the little person of 
Marie Lucille. 

She remained the only child of her parents, whose ill- 
health but increased their poverty. The girl, before she was 
in her teens, laboured with an energy beyond her strength 
in order to aid her honest but almost helpless father and 
mother. Within two years she lost both ; and at the age of 
sixteen, the reserved, rather plain, but strongly intellectual- 
looking girl, was left an orphan, with nothing before her but 
a life of hard labour, and very delicate health wherewith to 
meet the burden. 

"There is nothing else," said Marie Lucille; "let us 
make the best of it." 

She found even this philosophy, however, of little avail. 
What she could gain by hard and constant work barely 
sufficed to keep life within her. Her strength daily decayed ; 
and, worst of all to her, she had not leisure in any way to 
" learn anything new." She was conscious of an insatiate 
thirst for knowledge, and her very heart died within her as 
she discovered the impossibility of slaking that thirst. 

" Well," said she half-aloud, as she stood on the little 
" esplanade " of the village one Sunday evening, looking at 
the dancers, but thinking of more serious matters, — " well, 
there is something wrong here. It cannot be God's fault. 
It must, then, be my fault. I will go to Monsieur le Cure ; he 
of course will put me right." 

Monsieur le Cur6, however, could not do what she ex- 
pected of him. A gentle shower of ordinary and well-inten- 
tioned platitudes failed to refresh her. " My child," said 
the good old man, " it is your duty to be content with the 
lot which God has assigned to you." 



08 KEW PI0TURS8 AKD OLD PAHSLS. 

" Monsieur le Cur6," asked Marie Lucille, " does Gtoi 
always, as you say, fit the back to the burden ?" 

" Doubtless," was the reply. 

''Then," said Marie, without the least awe at finding 
herself about to beat the Cur6 in argument, — " then I am not 
in the position assigned to me. The burden I carry is in- 
tolerable, not because of its weight, but because it does not 
fit my back. I would labour twice as long as I do, if the 
work were different from that to which I am now improperly 
condemned." 

The Cur6 looked at her with the aspect of a pope on the 
point of excommunicating a rebel prince who had defied 
pontifical teaching. She stood the look firmly ; not auda- 
ciously, but with the strength born of the conviction that 
she was right, that she knew more about the matter than 
the priest, and that Heaven would help her if she only 
strove to help herself. 

" Go and dance !" said the Cure. 

" That is all the comfort that the well-provided ant could 
contribute to the poor lean grasshopper, who, according to 
its nature, had passed the summer singing in the grass. I 
will go to Paris !" said Marie Lucille. 

The resolution thus expressed astounded not only the 
Cure, but the entire village. She was, however, not to be 
moved from it. She had a presentiment, she said, that her 
field of labour was in Paris. 

" Where they sow sin, and reap tears," was the comment 
of the Cure. 

" As men sow, even accordingly shall they reap," rejoined 
the young logician. " May it be so with me ! Amen." 

There was abundance of weeping when the sickly-looking 
but stout-hearted orphan turned her face towards the capital, 
and went on her long and weary way. It was a work of 
many weeks to traverse that long road ; and fatigue and 
want more than once threatened to kill her before she had 



"POBTILLIT OP A LADY. ' 69 

« 

accomplished her object. At length she glided into the 
brilliant city, like a phantom. Scared and bewildered, she 
looked about her for the first time with a feeling of helpless 
despair. 

Her strong mind mastered her weak body. She had not 
come purposeless, and she was resolved to carry her pur- 
pose out. She had long carried about her her Parisian god- 
father's address. With an instinct which resembled expe- 
rience, and which told her that an interview would be more 
profitable than a correspondence, she had walked to the 
capital, detjprmined to consult him (if he were living), who 
had promised to give her counsel if she happened to need 
it. Marie Lucille discovered her godfather's abode, and was 
laughed at by the porter when she ofiered to ascend the 
stairs which led to his apartment. 

The pilgrim had not wandered so far to be rudely turned 
away from the shrine now that her hand was upon it. She 
stoutly maintained her right ; and an altercation ensuing — 
particularly loud on the^ part of the porter — as the one as- 
cended the staircase and the other attempted to obstruct 
the ascent, the doctor himself, somewhat fatter than of old, 
appeared at the door and demanded an explanation. 

" Monsieur le Docteur," said ' the porter, " this beggar- 
girl-" 

" Godfather!" exclaimed the poor girl, who, hearing the 
title, concluded that she had reached her desired end, '' I 
am Marie Lucille." 

" And who the d — is Marie Lucille ?" asked the Profes- 
sor good-humouredly ; " who claims me for a godfather ?" 

The girl could speak well, and, exhausted though she 
was, a few sentences, spoken without circumlocution and to 
the purpose, soon enlightened the Professor. He led her 
into his little diaing-room with a gentle care that puzzled 
the wondering porter ; ordered refreshment for her, con- 
signed her to his bonne, and promised to hear her full story, 



70 mSW PICTUBES AND OLD PANELS. 

her experiences, her hopes, and her desires, on the follow- 
ing morning. 

When that morning arrived, Marie Lucille looked two or 
three years younger for her repose ; and at the conclusion 
of a long interview with the kind-hearted Professor, declared, 
very considerably to his surprise, that she thought she was 
best fitted to gain her livelihood in the same way that he 
did. 

The Professor burst into a fit of laughter, and looked in- 
credulous. Marie herself blushed, as she always did when 
she or her situation was misapprehended. " I simply mean," 
she said, " that I should like to teach." 

" What do you know ? " naturally asked the Professor. 

" Nothing," was the reply ; and it caused the Doctor to 
look at his strange visitor most curiously, but with a re- 
spectful, an admiring curiosity. 

"Nothing!" he repeated. "Do you know, Marie, that 
your answer does you credit, while it gives me encourage- 
ment ? I will place you where you will be aided along the 
first pathways you are eager to traverse. If you answer 
my expectations, future succour, my good girl, shall not 
fail you." 

" I will answer them," said Marie, " God willing. I think 
I have discovered the position in which He is pleased that 
I shall be placed." 

Marie not only answered, she exceeded the expectations 
of her godfather. And yet she was not a quick girl. She 
was much better than that merely. She had intellect, and 
therewith she had the most abundant patience, the most un- 
flagging perseverance. She was never in a hurry to attain 
an end, and her object was accomplished all the earlier. 
Her progress was watched with extraordinary interest by 
her godfather, and by very many of his friends. It was sin- 
gular to observe that as her intellect expanded, and her 
knowledge increased, she seemed to grow beautiful* Her 



"POBTEAIT OF A LADY." 71 

features remained what they had been, save that they gained 
in refinement ; and over all there became spread an expres- 
sion so exquisite, that it had a hundredfold the charm of 
mere material beauty. It was an expression made up of 
content, gratitude, and consciousness of being victor in a 
struggle of long continuance. No student ever worked for 
honour with such zeal as this peasant-girl laboured to ac- 
complish the object of her healthy ambition. At the end of 
five years of almost unremitting application, there were not 
many men in the capital who were acquainted with more 
languages than the poor girl from the Upper Loire, nor who 
had read to more purpose, although they might have read 
more extensively. At the end of seven years, the silent 
worker, the laborious student, was recognized as the most 
accomplished woman in the capital. She was amongst the 
most graceful also ; for she seemed to acquire grace in pro- 
portion as she acquired knowledge. 

"You are one of our best scholars," said her aged and 
delighted godfather to her ; " what is now your purpose ? " 

" To repay you for aiding me to become what I am. I 
still want to teach, — not children, but those who aspire to 
become teachers. My happiness is to labour ; that is the 
labour which will bring me happiness." 

Marie Lucille found both to her heart's content. Her 
establishment for teaching teachers gained so well-merited 
a reputation, that when a candidate for a license to become 
an instructor appeared before the government Board of Ex- 
aminers with a certificate which described her as being a 
pupil of the once peasant-girl from the Upper Loire, the ex- 
amination was made all the more rigid, from the conviction 
of the examiners that the pupil could distinguish herself by 
the brilliancy, accuracy, and solid worth of her replies. 

Few perhaps have been in the He de Paris without 
having had their attention directed to the fine old cloister- 
looking mansion in which she whom I have called Marie 



72 NEW PICTVBES Aim OLD PAKSL8. 

Lucille laboured to admirable effect for ratber more tban 
twenty years. In 1855 she withdrew from its superinten- 
dence with a fortune which she has right nobly earned ; but 
not until she had provided a successor whose qualifications 
gave warrant that the establishment and its objects should 
not suffer. 

" Why retire thus early ? " said a French prelate to her 
the other day. 

" To give others an opportunity of retiring as early," an- 
swered Marie LuciUe. 

If they who were at Notre Dame on the day of the 
thanksgiving-service for the downfall of Sebastopol remarked 
a lady, who was distinguished for her grace, collecting con- 
tributions from the faithful, and who was evidently an ob- 
ject of affectionate interest to all, such persons have seen 
my friend Marie Lucille. 

" How," said the Archbishop to her, at the defe4ner which 
followed the service, — " how happy you must be in the con- 
dition in which it has pleased God to place, you!" 

" And that, Monseigneur, because I discovered a truth 
which is not universally known, namely, that we may be in 
places which were evidently not intended for us by Heaven." 

" I hope," said the prelate, with his joyous laugh, " that 
you are not alluding to me." 

*^ I fancy," remarked an octogenarian gentleman, who had 
been a lecturer on therapeutics in his day, " that our Mend 
was thinking of a cure in the Upper Loire." 

'^ I was thinking of a poor girl there, who once gathered 
stones in a field for her daily bread, and who has to-day 
been associated with Duchesses in collecting thank-offerings 
for victory. The place God expressly intended for her was 
the one she occupied between those two extremes." 

The Archbishop, by an emphatic nod and a sunny smile, 
gave ecclesiastical sanction to the sentiment of Marie 
Lucille. 



73 



ANDRE CHENIER. 
A pen-and-ink: sketch. 

"These is a plagiarism," said Alexandre, as he dropped 
the portrait of Marie Lucille into his portfolio, " in the 
picture in words that Mr. Mee Aughton gave us of Oliver 
Groldsmith. Certainly, he may have put his finger to his 
forehead, and declared that he had something there. But 
the act was really done under grave circumstances by one 
more struggler for fame, our Andre Chenier, — and that, not 
when Hope was new-bom, but when she was dying." 

There lay on the table before us, De Latouche's edition 
of Ajidre's work ; and Alexandre placed there also the vera 
effigies of the sincere and gentle author. Over both there 
ensued a world of comment, accompanied by expressions of 
admiration and sympathy. The conversation was inter- 
rupted, yet often renewed. Its tenour was an outline his- 
tory of the hapless young author who exhibited — 

'* So inanj graces in so green an age." 

The history was in itself complete ; and it may, perhaps, 
be better told here in its continuity, than according to the 
broken dialogue, out of which it was built up. 

Andr6 Chenier! Name of melancholy memories! But 
over the grave of him who bore it, France has made such 
compensation as she could ; and him whom she murdered, 
it is now her delight and privilege, and her bounden duty, 
to honour, 

£ 



74 K£W PICTUBES AND OLD PANELS. 

The story of Ch^nier is brief, romantic, and almost inex- 
pressibly sad. 

In the year 1762, five years after Goldsmith began to 
dream of fame, that year of English triumphs, France was 
represented at Constantinople by a Consul- General who, 
democracy not being then in the ascendant, was not 
ashamed to call himself Louis de Ch6nier. He had won the 
heart of a Greek maiden. Four sons blessed their union. 
The two youngest were poets. The fourth (with wliom we 
have little to do) was Marie- Joseph, the author of * F6nelon,' 
of ' Charles IX.,' of * Tiberius,' * Henry VIIT.,' ' Brutus,' 
and other dramatic pieces of merit. The third son was 
Marie- Andr6. He was bom at Constantinople, the 20th of 
October, 1762. His mother, as we have said, was a Greek ; 
and Monsieur Thiers is the grandson of her sister. 

The boy was early removed from the banks of the Bos- 
phorus, which he ardently loved and long fondly remem- 
bered. His young years were spent in the enjoyment of a 
judicious liberty on a soil fertile in gifted sons of a golden 
lyre — cheerful Languedoc. From this, his second home, he 
was taken at the age of eleven, and with his two elder bro- 
thers transferred to Paris, where he entered as a student 
into the college of Navarre. 

It was a college of great reputation. There, John or 
Charlier de Gerson, to whom has been ascribed the author- 
ship of the * Imitation of Christ,' once ruled from the profes- 
sorial chair ; and there Doctor Major wrote his * History of 
Scotland,' and dedicated it to his own Sovereign, Jame9 Y. 

It was there, perhaps, that young Andr6 first inibibeid bis 
strong feeling of hatred against oppression, and his tran- 
sient sentiment of repugnance against kings. This is. easily 
Accounted for. The reigning monarch was, ea^ (j^dio, first 
Fellow. Jeanne de Navarre would have it so when she 
founded the college, out of compliment to her husband 
Philippe le Bel. Now, the kings of France would not .con- 



AJSTDni CHiirCEB. 75 

descend to accept the revenue arising from the fellowship 
(it was ft very small one); but the popularity they might 
have gained thereby was all sacrificed by the college autho- 
rities, who with the !Royal benevolence purchased rods to 
scourge refractory scholariB. The latter thought little of the 
charity, although they painfully felt the honour. 

The Sovereign's liberality never fell upon the studious 
Andr6, whose career at college was a brilliant one. At six- 
teen he was a Greek scholar, and composed very tolerable 
Sapphics. Ere he had reached twenty his fortune took him 
irom the pale dcriater and retired leisure, and flung him into 
the garrison at Strasburg, where, much to his surprise, he 
one day found himself second lieutenant in the regiment of 
Angoumois. The change was complete, and it thoroughly 
disgusted }dia. He loved refinement, was given to peace- 
able pursuits, and lofty thoughts, and high aspirings ; above 
all, he was devoted to the profound study of the ancients. . 
In the noisy, crowded garrison of Strasburg, he felt himself 
alone ; and, sickened at heart with the world into which he 
had fiedlen, he took off his epaulettes after half a year's ser- 
vice, and returned to Paris, to his books, his gentle muse, 
and his few but faithful friends — ^to Lavoisier, who preceded 
him at the guillotine, to Falissat, and to David, whose art, 
when devoted to the illustration of liberty, he eulogized in 
nervous rhymes, and when prostituted to flatter anarchy, he 
denounced with crushing contempt. Ch&teaubriand loved 
him, and Le Brun, the great painter, first marked his rising 
talent and bade him rush on to deathless reputation. Andre 
was in no huny ; he studied early and late, lived modestly, 
as b^cam^ liim, wrote much, and published nothing. He 
was as poor as Chatterton, but being more virtuous, he was 
less friendless. When fever was the result of excessive 
study, the friends of his in&ncy, the brothers Trudaine, 
nursed him into health, and then took him through scenes 
of beauty by the arrowy Bhdne, which strengthened his 

b2 



70 NEW PICTURES AlTD OLD PANELS. 

mind as well as his body. Subsequently, the Marquis de 
Luzerne, ambassador to England, brought him over in his 
suite and abandoned him to penury. He lived among us 
unknown, solitary, and uncared for. His condition is inex- 
plicable, for he seems to have been undeserving of it. The 
sins of his own countrymen he somewhat splenetically 
visited on ours, and denounced an inhospitality of which 
our fathers were not guilty. He punished them in some 
very indifferent verses; but he was generous, and after- 
wards built the lofty rhyme in praise of those English vir- 
tues and valour which had secured a constitutional freedom 
which Montalembert has eulogized, like Chenier, and which 
France did not then know and has not yet secured. 

Andre returned to Paris just after the meeting of the 
States General in 1789. He hailed the dawn of liberty with 
the shout of a young and ardent heart, a shout whose 
echoes died away in a mournful wail at liberty abused. He 
now neither hated kings nor aristocracies, but, wishing to 
reform and not destroy the monarchy, he did hate the 
boasted creators of freedom, who only murdered the virtuous 
in order to enthrone hideous vice and bloody idols in their 
place. His affections were neither with Coblentz nor with 
the Jacobins, but with his country. His great and honest 
wrath was directed solely against those who impeded her 
welfare. He assailed them vigorously wherever they were 
to be found, not caring whether they stood on "talons 
rouges" at Versailles, or beneath the "bonnet rouge" of 
the crapulous faubourgs. 

For a time he refrained from interfering in public affairs, 
devoting himself solely to the improvement of his powers 
and the worship of his favourite muse. He still published 
little, but his private friends hailed with some enthusiasm 
his successful efforts to banish the stilted poetry of the day, 
and to substitute for it a style founded on the purest clas- 
sical models from among the ancients. 



A^Dfii CKiNlER. 77 

He could have been vrell content thus to have gone on 
daily towards poetical perfection, but the hurricane of politics 
swept him out of his tranquil and happy haven, into that 
dark and troubled sea wherein all his countrymen were 
fiercely struggling, and upon whose face there shone no 
promise yet oi halcyon days to come. He accepted his 
destiny with a fearless heart, and forthwith addressed him- 
self to a mission which admitted but of absolute success or 
certain death. 

His brother had joined the Jacobins, but Andre denounced 
the tendencies of that club of assassins of their country's 
freedom. On the brow of Charlotte Corday he hung a 
poetic wreath, giving to that immortal heroine an eternity of 
fame, and blessing the hand which had done justice upon 
the most cowardly and most extensive of murderers. He 
showered down a rain of fiery rhymes upon CoUot d'Herbois, 
who had prepared an ovation in Paris for the Swiss soldiers 
who had revolted at Chateauvieux, slain their gallant com- 
mander, and fired on the Eoyal troops sent to quell the 
mutiny. He held Eobespierre in supreme horror long be- 
fore the latter had permanently disappointed the world and 
earned for ever its undying execration. But, above all, and 
without caring the less for rational liberty, he had learned 
to love the King in his cruel captivity, regretting that, in 
the endeavour to substitute a constitutional for an absolute 
royalty, he had unwittingly impeded liberty, and for one 
erring master had helped a hundred tyrants to fatten on the 
blood of France. To see his mistake was to endeavour to 
amend it, and when Louis Capet was smnmoned to answer 
before judges predetermined to condemn him, Andre Che- 
nier courageously offered to stand by the old and faithful 
Malesherbes, and aid him in defending the doomed " Son of 
St. Louis." The generously-proffered succour was not em- 
ployed, though it was tearfully acknowledged ; and the living 
Majesty of France was exultingly sentenced to pass under 



78 ITEW PICTUBES AIH) OLD PAHELS. 

the knife of tlie emblem of French liberty — the gnfflotine. 
Ere the King met death on the scaffold, he addressed a 
letter to his judges, appealing from their unjust sentence to 
the hearts of the people over whom he had reigned. The 
letter was noble, heart-stirring, and true, — and Andr^ Ch^nier 
was its author. The implacable judges read it with cool 
contempt, refused its prayer, set down the writer's name in 
their bloody tablets, and bade " Monsieur de Paris " rid them 
swiftly of the " last of kings." 

The capital no longer afforded security to the young poet, 
and he accordingly withdrew from it secretly, and not with- 
out difficulty. After various changes of residence, he finally 
settled privately at Versailles, of which place his brother 
Joseph was a representative in the Convention. H6re he 
did not hope to be the less undisturbed, because of the prox- 
imity of his place of refuge to that tribunal by which to 
be suspected was to be condemned. It was at length tacitly 
permitted him to live in safe retirement under his brother's 
protection. K for a moment he stepped forward into pub- 
licity, it was to defend his brother from the attack made upon 
him by Burke. In all other respects he lived in close seclu- 
sion, preparing his immortal rhymes for publication ; and, 
free from all more serious passions, indulging in poetical 
attachments, musically recorded, with CamiUe, with Fanny, 
and with the irresistible, however ideal, Nesera. 

Had he confined himself to such liaisons he might have 
survived the tempest which finally overwhelmed him ; but 
he had a heart fashioned for better things than feverishly 
entertaining imaginary loves. He was a warm friend, and 
the intrepidity of his friendship betrayed him to death. 
News reached him in his retreat of the arrest of the com- 
panion of many of his happy hours, M. Pastouret. To the 
residence of the latter, at Passy, Chenier hurried on the 
benevolent mission of bearing consolation to a hearth which 
had been visited by sudden desolation. While mingling 



XSHni CH^NIEB. 7d^ 

Mb tears with those of the bereaved family, the house was 
yisited by officers of the revolutioiiary tribunal in search of 
treasonable papers ; and Ch^nier, so innocently, and so right- 
eously of purpose, discovered on the premises, was arrested 
as 9Uipect, and carried away to the prison of St. Lazare. 

His sole hope of ultimate escape lay in the possible for- 
bearance, not of his enemies, but of his Mends. The for- 
mer in the multitude of captives hardly knew where to select 
their victims. The appeals of friends only served to give 
direction to their choice. Joseph Chenier has been rashly 
styled a fratricide for not battling in the Convention for 
the life of his brother. The republican knew his fellows 
too well. To bring his brother's name before them was 
only to drag him more swifbly to death. He knew the value 
of the proverb current in the Eastern city of his birth, that 
" Silence is gold," and he now applied it. Andr6 accord- 
ingly lay in St. Lazare all forgotten, till the anxiety and 
fatal eagerness of his father brought down upon him the 
ruin which that father would have fondly averted. 

Oblivion was the boon prayed for by all prisoners. Actual 
Ub^y could hardly be a greater blessing. In the tempo- 
rary enjoyment of it, Andr6 Chenier formed new and main- 
tained old friendships among his fellow-captives. To one of 
these, Suv6e, the artist, we owe the only portrait of Chenier 
which we now possess. Suv6e, Buffon, the son of the great 
naturalist, the brothers Trudaine, and Eoucher, the poet of 
the ' Months ' (JLes Mois,) were his most loved associates 
vrithin the prison. But there was one other more loved 
than all besides, the young, fair, and innocent Mile, de 
Coigny. A captive like the rest, she equalled the boldest 
of them in the modest heroism of her deportment ; her 
beauty won a universal homage ; she moved within the 
gloomy limits of the prison like something divine ; conso- 
lation seemed to attend her footsteps ; the most dejected 
looked up and smiled in her presence ; all felt that there 



80 lf£W PICTTJSES Ain) OLD PAir£LS. 

was that witliin her which must secure her from a terribie 
and ignominious death ; and all perhaps bore within their 
breasts some secret hope that in connection with her there 
was a promise of life to those around her. To this im- 
conscious enchantress Andr6 Ch6nier appears to have sur- 
rendered his entire heart. The most manly worship that 
ever was paid to female worth and youthful excellence 
was paid by this doomed prisoner to the young sharer and 
alleviator of his captivity. From her sprang the inspira- 
tion which produced an ode to which France can produce 
few equals — no superior. In his * Jeune Captive' there 
breathes a sense of reality to which no force of mere ima- 
gination could ever have attained ; and therein also is to 
be found an intensity of feeling bom of experience, and 
not of a poet's passing fancy. It is the sublime of fond 
affection hopelessly entertained. 

It was but a dream, but in it the sleeper might have 
remained happy till the morning of his liberty dawned, 
had not his father, as we have intimated, accelerated the 
fate of the son, by his too eager haste to yield him rescue. 
The old man, confident of his son's innocence, and igno- 
rantly believing that innocence could secure his restoration 
to freedom, so urged upon the authorities the right of allow- 
ing Andre to clear himself by trial, that to the imprudent 
prayer fatal concession was made, and Ch^nier was com- 
manded to appear before the butchers, who, in dealing out 
murder, pretended to be administering justice. On the eve 
of his trial, the agitated sire flung his arms round the neck 
of his son, and bade him be of good cheer, urging on the 
other the courage which he himself now lacked, and tremu- 
lously assuring him that his talent and his virtues would 
gain for him a speedy triumph. " Virtue !" said Ch^nier, 
with heroic calmness, — "Father, M. de Malesherbes was 
virtuous — and where is he ?" 

Andr6 knew that the axe was whetted for him, because 



AKDBi CH^NIEB. 81 

of his opposition to the anarchists, and the service he had 
rendered the King. He appeared before the revolutionary 
tribunal, but to the absurd accusation of having supported 
tyranny, and of having conspired to escape, he would not con- 
descend to offer a single word of defence. He calmly w^aited 
to hear himself declared an " enemy of the people,*' and con- 
demned to suffer death on the 7th Thermidor. His bosom 
companions, the brothers Trudaine, were condemned with 
him, and they solicited the favour of being permitted to die 
at the same time. The favour was brutally refused. With 
an idea of prolonging the agony of those who petitioned for 
it, the two brothers were condemned to live a day longer 
than Andre, and to be carried to the gmllotine on the 8th 
Thermidor. On the 8th Thermidor! On that day the 
tribunal had lost the power of enforcing its own decrees 
— ^the Reign of Terror had closed — the two emblems, of 
painted wood, which stood opposite to each other on the 
place of execution, namely, the statue of Libebty and the 
GrUiLLOTiKE, were pulled down; and the morning which 
Ch^er had longed for, but which he was not destined 
to see, began to dawn. 

On the 7th Thermidor, 1794, a few minutes before eight 
in the morning, Chenier, for the last time, took pen in 
hand, and recorded this last fragmentary song of his charmed 
but mournful lyre ; at each line he wrote, thie wheels of 
the cart which was to convey him to the sca^old were 
making their progressive rounds towards his prison-door: — 

** Ck>mme un dernier rayon, comme un dernier z^phire 
Anime la fin d'un beau jour, 
Au pied de r^ha£Eiud j- essaie encor ma lyre. 

Peut-etre est ce bient6t mon tour ; 
Peut-Stre avant que Theure en cercle promenee 

Ait pos^ sur r^mail brillant, 
Dans les soixante pas oil sa route est bomee, 
Bon pied sonore et vigilant, 

£ 3 



82 KEW PIOTITBES AiTD OLD PAITELS. 

Le sommeil du tombeau pressera ma paupi^re! 

Avant que de ses deux moiti^3 
Ce yers que je commence ait atteint la demi^re, 

Peut-dtre en ces mure efiVay^ 
Le messager de mort, noir recruteur des ombres. 

Escorts d'infiimeB soldats, 
Bemplira de mon nom ces longs corridors sbmbres*' — 

The hand which had thus been recording the approach of 
the messenger of death was here stopped, and, as the clock 
struck eight, the heroic poet calmly seated himself in the 
spacious vehicle about to carry its last offering to the bloody 
altar of the Jacobins. His companions were many, in all 
about fourscore; some reports say, not more than thirty- 
eight, but the latter number applies to the male victims. 
There were in addition a crowd of females, of all ages and 
conditions; ancient matrons of an ancient lineage, whose 
daughters were themselves mothers — young maidens — ^pale 
and trembling, yet God-fearing; girls, noble, gentle, and 
simple, but all sisters in this solemn hour of a bloody bap- 
tism — and some there were, two poor young mothers, utterly 
friendless, who bore with them to the foot of the guillotine 
babes closely pressed to the breast yielding its last tribute 
of loving nature even unto death. Oh, hard destiny ! Twelve 
short hours more, and all might have been saved. 

Andr6 looked serenely round at his brothiers and sisters 
in affliction. Near him sat De Montalembert, De Crequi, 
and De Montmorency ; close by, that endless sufferer the 
famed Baron de Trenck ; nearer still, perhaps the greatest 
hero of them all, the aged Loiserolles, who, having heard that 
morning, his son's name called upon the roll of death, an- 
swered cheerfully to the summons, and suffered gloriously 
in bis place — the more gloriously as it was silently. The 
generous old man buried the secret within his own godlike 
bosom ; and the mistake was not discovered until the sacri- 
fice was consummated. 



ANPSi OHENIEB. 83 

There was one place yet vacant ere the living load, which 
three horses could with difficulty drag to death, passed on 
its mournful way. It was suddenly occupied by Boucher, 
the poet. " You here ?" said Chenier, with a heavy groan ; 
" you, father, husband, and guiltless ! " " And you ?" said 
Boucher, " with your virtues, your youth, your genius, and 
your hope !" " But Z," added Chenier, " have done nothing 
for posterity ;" and then, striking his forehead, he was heard 
to exclaim, ''And yet I had something there !" 

As they passed on to death their eyes met those of a mu- 
tual friend who had joined the blaspheming crowd, and who 
accompanied the victims a great portion of their way, as one 
who would cheer them on their dark expedition, and was re- 
luctant to bid them farewell. This friend heard Chenier, 
amid the clamour of the mob which insulted courage and in« 
Boeence, address to Boucher the opening lines of Bacine's 
' Andromaque.' The older poet answered with readiness, 
and both were deeply touched when the younger son of 
song uttered those noble lines in which the speaker declares 
that the presence of a friend gives a new aspect to fortune, 
and that by their union their common destiny loses half its 
harshness. 

M. de Latouche, in the life of Chenier prefixed to his 
works, says that Andr6 lefb St. Lazare in the forenoon. 
Count Alfred de Vigny, in his 'Stello,' minutely details 
the scene at the execution, and states that it did not take 
place till the evening. The two accounts are perfectly re- 
concilable. The prison was at a great distance from the 
scaffold, and not only was the longest route taken, so as to 
render the agony more acute, but the progress of the un- 
wieldy vehicle which slowly conveyed Chenier and his com- 
panions in misfortune was constantly impeded, and even 
stayed, by a multitude of people of a different class to those 
who were hired to spend their unclean breath in shouts 
against the defenceless, devoted to death. 



M ywsf PICTURES Ajsm old panels. 

The people had got some idea that the Beign of Terror 
was at its close, that tyranny was wellnigh extinct, and 
that this last huge sacrifice to its will was a mere huge 
murder, not more atrocious than many which had preceded 
it, but one more facile of obstruction, more easy to be pre- 
vented. They therefore surrounded the vehicle, opposed its 
progress, checked and frightened the horses ; to the confused 
remonstrances of the half-terrified guards they uttered one 
terrible, loud, and universal cry, thrice reiterated, of " No ! 
No! No !" Many of the condemned extended their arms 
to those whom they would fain have looked upon as their 
deliverers. The latter often so pressed upon the vehicle as 
to threaten to overturn it. This result was two or three 
times nearly achieved ; and it was only amid difficulty and 
danger that it was at last brought to its destination — ^the 
open space between the two emblems, — the Guillotins 
and LiBEBxr ! 

The day, up to this moment, had been extremely sultry, 
and the people had been rendered by it all the fiercer in 
their resolute attacks against the march to death. They 
had struggled for hours under a fierce sun, and they were 
not yet weary. But all at once there came a cloud, and 
then a slight breeze, and with this some scattering of the 
dust. The heroic people who had maintained the fight so 
nobly and so long, dispersed in an instant. They fled in all 
directions and in utter silence. Their rage was extinguished 
by the rain which began to fall in torrents. "He who 
knows Paris," says the Count de Vigny, " will understand 
this." It is true ; from the days of Eichelieu and of Car- 
dinal de Eetz, down to the empire of Louis Napoleon, 
a Paris mob that will endure bravely a pitiless pelting of 
grape, has never yet been known to endure the pelting of 
a shower of rain. At one of the most critical moments of 
the old monarchy, when the Cardinal de Kichelieu was one 
night up and watching for its safety, he turned away from a 



akdb£ CHiiriEB. 85 

^window he had just opened, saying; ^ Gentlemen, let us to 
"bed ; there will be no conspiracy to-night ; it rains." 

So at the execution of Ch6nier and his companions, there 
was no rescue, because of the wet. The hitherto heroic 
people fled rapidly and silently. The officers of the law pro- 
fited by this moment, and the guiUotine slowly raised its 
terrible and sanguinary arm. Thirty-three times it rose 
and fell, and at each time a deed was done against which 
GK>d had established his canon, forbidding murder. As it 
ascended for the thirty-fourth time, Andre Chenier arose, 
and stood for a moment erect in his grey coat ; he looked 
once calmly to heaven and earth ; the next moment he was 
bound and prostrate; that irresistible arm again fell, and 
with his life was extinguished a talent, the product and the 
proofs of which literary France now holds among her dear- 
est treasures. 

Those treasures long lay concealed. France knew of their 
existence, but was debarred of their enjoyment. They 
were, for the most part, in manuscript. Their "where- 
about" was known to two of Chenier' s brothers, but these 
brothers were in a revolutionary dungeon, and their rela- 
tives, although the guillotine was resting from its bloody 
work, dreaded to agitate a name whose utterance seemed 
provocative of woe. They gained their liberty only to stand 
by their father's grave, into which the old man descended 
after a ten months' agony for his murdered son. The mo- 
ther endured an agony as acute, but more cruelly lasting ; 
and not until fourteen years of such anguish as bereaved 
mothers alone experience, did she calmly die in the arms of 
her son Joseph. Time passed inexorably on, and nothing 
yet had been done to collect the manuscripts, which had 
become scattered, and the recovery of which was every 
day invested with greater difficulty. A quarter of a cen- 
tury wellnigh elapsed before the pious mission was accom- 
plished. The impediments to success were many, but zeal 



86 KEW PICTUBBS A^TD OLD PAKELS. 

and affection surmounted them all, and Chemer^s poems 
first appeared in print in 1819. They at once established 
him at that eleyation of which rumour had long pronounced 
him worthy, and Andre took a position among the sons of 
song, in which the severest criticism has only served to fix 
him with more unassailable security. 

His works consist of idyls, elegies (which do not belong 
to what we popularly understand by elegiac poetry), epis- 
tles, odes, poems (rather noble fragments like 'Hyperion' 
than complete achievements), patriotic hymns, odes, and a^^ 
few iambics full of majestic melancholy, suiting an inspira- 
tion bom of the dungeons of St. Lazare. Anonymous 
critics in obscure papers have either ''damned with faint 
praise" or openly attacked what they would aspire to equal 
in vain. But the finest intellects in Erauce are agreed as 
one man upon the rare ability and the rare originality of 
Andre Chenier. To this we know no exception; Thiers, 
St. Beuve, and Victor Hugo, have praised his glorious lines 
in language rivalling the beauty of that used by the poet 
whom they crowned. A few years ago, no one could have 
challenged either of these names as not bearing with it war- 
rant to pronounce. We are however ready to acknowledge 
that Victor Hugo's praises ring less pleasantly in our ear 
since we caught the echo of his eulogy sung over the grave 
of Balzac, where the indiscriminate laudation poured over 
the novelist's bier, made no distinction between the chaste 
severity of the ' Eecherche de T Absolue,' and the crapulous 
obscenity of ' La Cousine Bette.' 

In the poems of Andre Chenier there are not above half- 
a-dozen lines which we could have desired the editor to ex- 
punge. They will give no offence to a classical reader, but 
a rigid philosopher would object, perhaps, to the possibility 
of their suggestive action upon youthful minds. After all, 
if "to the pure all things are pure," the few and scattered 
lines to which we have alluded may well be permitted to re- 



Aidmi OHiinxB. 87 

main. The yotmg actord at "WeBtminster and the young 
students at Eton construe more dangerous lines every day 
of their lives ; and we do not forget that, in a late prologue 
delivered on a classic stage of the former locality, a warm 
and most ingenious defence was made of the system which 
Surrendered Terence and Ovid, unmntilated and utiveiled, 
to the contemplation of youth. Ch^nier is twice as pure 
as either. He treats of immortal gods and mortal nymphs 
and rustic swains with the spirit of one bom amid flowers 
.watered by HeUcon. His nymphs especially are gloriously 
seductive creations. They stand before you pure and re- 
served as the lily ; or they bound into your presence with 
Tempo's roses mantling on their cheeks, sparkling with 
laughter, and fresh with the morning breath of Arcadia. 
Swains and nymphs occasionally stray into perilous pre- 
cincts, it is true ; but the swains are tempered to refine- 
ment, while the nymphs put off" no purity with their zones ; 
and, even unveiled, they are clothed with dignity. 

The majority of Chenier's pieces, however, are severely 
grand. His graphic poetical picture of Europa and the 
Bull may rank with that glorious piece of lyric limning by 
Keats, describing the coming of Bacchus to Ariadne. His 
dialogue on Liberty, between the slave shepherd and the 
free herdsman of the goats, is as epigrammatic and polished 
as anything in Gray. His Homer in Sycos is worthy of 
Pope ; while the graceful story and the philosophic moral 
attached to the poem of Cleotas in the House of Lycus re- 
mind us forcibly of the Lake poet who sang of Dion, and 
pictured Laodamia exhibiting her profound love for the 
shadowy Protesilaus. 

And what of the poet's love ? "What of the young girl 
whose youth, beauty, and childlike innocence gave sunlight 
to the gloom of St. Lazare? Mile, de Coigny survived 
the terrors of that temple of the doomed. On her re-ap- 
pearance in a world of liberty she attracted countless ad- 



88 ISEW PIGTUBES AND OLD FAKELS. 

mirers. From among the crowd she selected, not for his 
apparent rank, but for his seeming worth, the young Due de 
rieuirus. She sadly erred. After a brief assumption of the 
coronet of a duchess, she surrendered it for ever ; and with 
it her husband's name and title. She returned to her father's 
house, resumed the paternal name, and, finally, died in the 
year 1820, having lived long enough to witness the fame 
of him who had sung ' La Jeune Captive ;' and in the en* 
joyment of such testimony she descended to her rest with 
majestic resignation. 



89 



PORTRAIT OF A MORE SUCCESSFUL 
STRUGGLER FOR FAME. 

On another occasion, when the artists and their lay friend 
were again assembled, the conversation turned on the luck- 
less struggler, whose story has just been sketched. Young 
Nielsen, a student of art from Copenhagen, gave a new sub- 
ject for discussion at the present conversazione, by producing 
the portrait of a successful soldier in the battle of life. It 
represented a pleased, placid, thoroughly happy man, — who 
had struggled for a great prize, had obtained it, and was 
ready to lay it down at the bidding of the Inevitable Angel. 
The autobiography of the individual limned, and some odd 
volumes of his works were looked into, and gave life to the 
conversation. It is one that need not be reported, save in 
the form which Mr. Mee Aughton gave to it as he wrote out 
the story, between midnight and dawn, in his well-kept 
journal. 

In the last quarter of the bygone century, a poor harpsi- 
chord player from Holstein, named Oehlenschlager, with a 
merry heart and much merry music in it, married a thought- 
ful, loving girl from Jutland. The young couple were 
richly endowed with hope, and, with that as a portion 
whereon to meet the troubles of life, they established them- 
selves in the suburbs of Frederiksborg, near Copenhagen, 
where they waited upon Providence, without anxiety. 

By dint of playing the organ, looking after the church? 
teaching the harpsichord, and fulfilling other little offices' 



90 NEW FICTUBEB AND OLD PANELS. 

the manly and light-hearted Holsteiner made a happy hearth 
in Erederiksborg. A son was soon bom, but also soon 
taken ; a welcome daughter succeeded to his short-lived in- 
heritance of lore ; and on the 14th of November, 1779, a 
third child, another boy, appeared to claim and receive his 
birthright of care and affection. He was named Adam. 
His birth excited no sensation in the royal suburb : his 
death set a whole empire weeping. Eight years ago, Den- 
mark stood gazing mournfully into his grave, and all Scan- 
dinavia deplored the loss of her poet-king. 

The family was a joyous and Qod-fearing family ; strug- 
gling in content to maintain its modest position, and finally 
achieving all the greatness of which it thought itself capable, 
when Adam's father became inspector-general of the sub- 
urban palace. With increased means, the stout inspector 
exhibited increased benevolence. His poor fiiends hailed 
with gladness his good fortune; and well they might, for 
they profited largely by it. The Jutland matron smiled 
placidly in the eyes of her vivacious partner, and thanked 
God that the father of her children thought not only of 
them and of her, but of the sons and daughters whose cold 
hearth was in the house of affiction. 

At a very early age Adam was sent for some hours daily 
to pick up what instruction he could beneath the academic 
shade of an old lady with a very susceptible temper. This 
ancient dame indulged her antipathies by spitefully knock- 
ing the heads of more aristocratic pupils with her thimble- 
armed finger ; the skulls of the vulgar she unscrupulously 
belaboured with a stick. This discipline was made all the 
more severe by attending circumstances. Movement of body 
or exercise of voice brought down terrible penalties on the 
offender. The school sat all silent, gazing into a poultry- 
yard, and envying its denizens strutting in the dirt and 
crowing impudently at pleasure. But the stringent crone 
possessed a pictorial Bible. Out of it little Adam learned 



X STBVOGLEB FOB FAME. 91 

his nameskke's history; read breathlessly of Moses and 
BaTid and Solomon; loved Joseph; perused with tender 
delight the record of the childhood of Jesus, and felt his 
whole heart dissolve in inexpressible anguish at the awful 
sacrifice of the Saviour of mankind. The boy was charmed 
with tkarrative ; and when in the organ-gallery he led his 
father's choir, he listened vrith eager ear to the lessons of 
the day ; but no sooner had the preacher uttered the word 
"division," and pronounced his "firstly," than Adam and 
his co-mates disappeared. The seceders assembled behind 
the organ, and, believing they should not understand what 
they might hear, betook themselves to read what they could 
understand. 

From thimble and stick of his aged governess Adam passed 
under the ferule of a sexton who kept a school and com- 
mitted the conduct of it to a most exemplary usher. The 
latter was idle, fat, and fond of smoking. From him the 
boys could derive neither precept nor example worth follow- 
ing. He walked the school vrith his morning-gown hanging 
loosely about him, and in his mouth the everlasting pipe. 
The pupils were not required to do anything, but they were 
now and then severely punished if they were idle. Adam 
took to verse-making, and wrote a psalm; the fat usher 
puffed scornfully at the metre ; and lighted the calumet of 
indignation when the little urchin of nine years old proved 
that his prosody was unassailable. 

His home was saddened by the premature death of a 
second sister, a blow from which the stricken mother never 
entirely recovered. His father was a man of many offices, 
and did not possess the leisure to be grieved. The brother 
and surviving sister were left much to themselves, and strong 
love knit their young hearts together. Hand in hand, but 
accompanied by a faithful servant, the two roamed abroad, 
in palace, and park, and garden, and wood, and field. The 
suburb was gay with fashion, and music, and festivity, when 



92 NSW FICTUBES ASH OLD PAKELS. 

the Bojalty of Copenliagen sojourned there for a season. 
All that was noble and renowned then passed before the 
eyes of the observant little spectators. When those had 
disappeared with the coming of autumn, fresh pleasures 
were found in the society of the artisans who came down to 
give new beauty to the palace and the grounds. From the 
pulpit of the royal chapel Adam once delivered a sermon to 
his sister, whose edification was hardly equal to that of the 
delighted minister, who was by chance in the vestry. The 
winter evenings at home would have afforded " interiors" 
that Mieris might have painted and Ealzac have described. 
They were made up of readings, laughter, prayer, and glad 
hearts. Adam learned little, but read much. It was for 
the most part matter of little worth in itself ; but matters 
of little worth often form a basis on which is reared a supier- 
structure destined to endure. At one time his young de- 
light was devoted to " horrors ;" the indulgence at length 
looked for reality rather than description, and Adam, with 
his sister, gladly accompanied a half-frightened maid who 
had proposed to take them to see the public rack and 
gallows. Copenhagen in its criminal policy possessed the 
spirit of Adam's old schoolmistress, and punished '^ with a 
difference." To satisfy the pride of the burghers, a promi- 
nent stone gallows was erected in a field of doom, and the 
wheel stood hard by. These were expressly for the use of 
the well-to-do citizens. Ignoble vagabonds were fain to be 
content with being run up to a wooden beam. A stone 
gibbet was too much honour for your obscure scoundrel ! 
The same pride long distinguished the turbulent cities of 
Flanders ; and a pride similar in quality, but more excessive 
in degree, prevailed till lately, and perhaps still prevails, in 
Hungary. In the latter country, no town of note would care 
to exist without its own peculiar hangman. A criminal might 
live without even the clergyman ; but how could he possibly 
die without the executioner ? It once happened, we are 



A 8TBT7GGLEB 70B FAME. 93 

told, that tbe inhabitants of Kesmarkt, in the Zips, sent to 
the authorities of Lutshan, begging the loan of their hang- 
man. " We will do nothing of the sort," said the indignant 
magistrates to the messenger. " Go back and tell your 
masters that we keep our hangman for ottrselves and our 
children; and not for the people of Kesmarkt ! " 

In Denmark the gallows at least had equal honour ; and 
this piece of popular machinery, with a burgher on it, was a 
sight long wished for, and now to be beheld by the anxious 
Adam. When the little party, at the close of a dull, cold, 
autumnal evening, drew near the solemn field, Adam's sister 
and maid refused to proceed ; Adam himself pushed boldly 
on, but with his eyes bent on the ground ; and, at length, 
he found himself at the foot of the dark, weather-beaten 
gibbet. He looked up ; a pale, bloody head grinned down 
upon him ; a human hand lay at his feet. On the wheel lay 
extended a headless trunk, the arms hanging motionless ; 
worsted stockings were on the legs. The sickened spectator 
soon had enough of horrors ; he turned, and took to his 
heels as though the hangman were upon him, and he never 
fetched breath till he had reached his sister and the maid, 
who tarried for him in fear on the highway. 

Adam's father left the care of his son's education to the 
boy's teachers; the teachers left the boy to himself; and 
the boy occupied himself only with novels, comedies, and 
biographies ; varying his reading by visits to the theatre, 
into which he sought admission by any and every means. 
His bark might now have foundered but for his meeting, in 
his twelfth year, with a poet and schoolmaster of Copen- 
hagen, named Storm, who undertook to teach him gratui- 
tously, his parents paying only for his board. He studied 
with some diligence, wrote comedies with a diligence still 
more marked, acted them with his young friends in an 
empty dining-room of the royal palace, and -was neither 
rendered vain by applause, nor discouraged by sarc^tic 



94 KEW FICTUBEB AITD OLD PiJfELS. 

compliment. The little he learned he fixed in his memory 
by teaching it to his sister. He had a benevolent master 
in good old Storm, but he found little kindness in his 
schoolfeUows. Their want of charity was founded on hia 
want or abuse of costume. The poverty of his Jbmily cer- 
tainly bestowed on him a garment of ridicule ; little Adam 
went daily to school attired in a cast-off scarlet coat which 
had belonged to the Crown Prince, with the riding-boots of 
the Eang, and nether garments fashioned out of the well- 
worn cloth of a royal billiard table ! The father's perquisites 
brought the son much perplexity, and unextinguishable 
laughter attended him wherever he went. He checked the 
mirth at last by power of the strong hand. When every 
one who smiled found that he must not only %ht but en- 
dure defeat after punishment, reverence took place of ridi- 
cule, and Adam's motley was treated with a gravity worthy 
of the majesty whence the motley itself took its derivation. 

He was nearly sixteen when he quitted school. Storm 
had been long dead, and the boys had paid him fitting 
honour. On the day of the funeral they abandoned the 
class which the mathematical master insisted on keeping in 
activity, and went to meet the body on the way £rom the 
hospital, where poor Storm had died, to bis own residence. 
They entered the house with it, and standing round, as the 
face was uncovered they all wept aloud, while Adam took 
the unconscious hand, and blessed the memory of the juaster 
whom the children loved. 

And so his school-life ended ; And then came some labo- 
rious trifling, short flights in literature, and a passion for 
the stage. His acting in private had gained such approba- 
tion from distinguished actors who had witnessed it, iltfbt 
he became fired with a desire to appear ip puUic. Aftsr 
some delay his easy father gave his consent, and Aitam 
Oehlenschlager became one of the royal company, l|ia;i]Bit 
appearance being deferred until bo had acquired all 



A STBreOLEXt FOS FAME. 95 

Barj skill in singing, dancing, and fencing. He studied all 
three with more diligence than he had ever given to Latin. 
In fencing, he avowed his preference of the broadsword to 
the rapier, of striking and cutting to stabbing ; in the for- 
mer he saw heroism, in the latter murder effected hj cold- 
blooded cunning. Achilles, Siegfried, and Thor hewed 
away like heroes. As for thrusting or stabbing, he desig- 
nated it as a modern French invention which Bayard would 
have deeply disdained. 

Bayard no stabber ! Then tell us, gentle shade of Don 
Alonso de Sotomayor, why thy painful spirit perambulates 
the groves of Elysium with a scented handkerchief alter- 
nately applied to the hole in thy throat, and the gash in thy 
face P Is it not that with cruel subtlety of fence. Bayard 
ran his rapier into thy neck " four good finger-breadths ;" 
and when thou wert past resistance did he not thrust his 
dagger into thy nostrils, crying the while, "Yield thee. 
Signer Alonzo, or thou diest P" The shade of the slashed 
Spaniard bows its head in mournful acquiescence, and a faint 
sound seems to float to us upon the air, out of which we 
distinguish an echo of " the field cut Monerpyne .'" 

When Oehlenschlager £airly took his place among the 
Copenhagen actors, he was dubbed by them " :the man with 
the hidden talents." He remained on the stage two years, 
his father witnessing his debut, his mother and sister re- 
maining at home in an agony of suspense, and the whole 
feunily rejoicing when the experiment was ultimately aban- 
doned. His social .position suffered nothing by it ; sons of 
the first flEunilies, and children of the clergy, frequently 
taking to the stage for a few seasons. He was rather dis- 
appointed by the melancholy prose of ^the profession behind 
the curtain; was disgusted with the managers, who en- 
trusted him with but few leading parts ; but, inconsistently 
enough, he detested committing them to memory when he 
was cast for them. 



96 NEW PICTURES AWD OLD PAITELS. 

A visit with the good brothers Oerstedt, one of whom 
married his sister, to the library at Copenhagen, decided 
his future career for a time. In the books and his two 
studious friends he saw metal more attractive than any the 
stage could allure him with. He determined to follow the 
law; he applied himself with moderate zeal to the preli- 
minary studies of Latin and jurisprudence, and scrambled 
through an examination successfully, but without eclat. 
He was now in his nineteenth year, and in it he endured 
the first great sorrow of his life, in the loss of his gentle, 
loving mother. He mourned her sincerely, the more, sub- 
sequently, when he had won his imperishable laurels, and 
thought of the joy which would have visited her heart had 
she been spared to witness the great glory he achieved. 
The vacancy in his own heart was supplied by nature and 
by love. He met, on a visit, with Christiana Heger, a 
lovely girl of seventeen, of noble carriage, fair complexion, 
large blue eyes, and with such luxuriance of hair, that when 
the long fair tresses were unbound they completely con- 
cealed her person. When he first saw her she was weaving 
a garland of corn-flowers as blue as her eyes. He kept the 
garland till his death, and he loved the weaver of it full as 
long. The love was told with the hesitation of youth, and 
listened to with the maiden archness bom of expectation ; 
the father quietly joined their hands, and bade them love on 
and wait in peace. 

But love, study, and a life of some joyousness, received a 
ofrave check when Parker and Nelson entered the Baltic, 
and the latter would not see the signal of his superior 
officer recalling him from the strife wherein he was resolved 
to be the victor. Oehlenschlager, in his autobiography, 
recounts the history of the attack in the spirit of the lion 
who had turned painter. He protests that the Danes 
scoffed at the ^English, that the Danish floating batteries 
were uninjured, and that the English. fleet was entirely 



A STBUOOLEB FOB FAME. 97 

ruined — ^^ganz ruinirt.^' It is treating the battle poetically, 
but we think that truthful and honest prose tells us, how, 
after four hours' hard fighting with our gallant foe, the 
greater part of the Danish line had ceased to fire ; how the 
* Dannebrog,' in flames, was drifting, and spreading terror 
among her own line; how, when she blew up, her noble 
crew owed rescue to English sailors ; how seven sail of the 
line and ten floating batteries were sunk, burnt, or taken ; 
how the English vessels were crippled indeed, but not ^'ganz 
rumirt;*' and how Nelson succeeded in the mission for 
which the fleet was sent, and the conduct of which he boldlj 
assumed and successfully carried out. Denmark was sepa- 
rated from the naval coalition which threatened England, 
and the latter had one enemy the less to contend with upon 
the ocean. 

When the sounds of war had died away, Oehlenschlager 
again betook himself to study, not so much of the law as of 
things more germane to the poet than the lawyer. The 
ancient mythology occupied much of his time, and he 
studied Icelandic under a gratuitous teacher named Amdt, 
who was a learned and dirty oddity. For everything mo- 
dem, Amdt had the most profound contempt. He was a 
native of Altona, went about filthily dressed, wore two old 
greasy coats, and let his long and still greasier hair hang 
down his back between them. He was a miracle of ancient 
learning. He had been a great botanist, but plants and. 
flowers were too clean, pretty, and modem for his taste. 
He cared only for old ruins, old manuscripts, old legends, 
and old languages. He lived in Europe. His home was 
nowhere. He was once copying Runic inscriptions beyond 
Dronthiem, when he suddenly walked off to Venice in search 
of some Qreek lines under a statue there, which he thought 
would illustrate the Runic epigraphs. He was a perfect 
cosmopolite, taking up his residence where he chose, and 
often getting turned out-of-doors, and perhaps beaten into 

F 



98 NEW FICTUBES AKD OLD PAKELS. 

the bargain, for his uncleanliness of speech and habit. He 
carried his manuscripts in his numberless pockets until the 
burden was too heavy for him, and then, haying no home 
nor friend, he would conceal them under hedges, in the 
nooks and comers of old ruins, or beneath heaps of stones. 
He was a hideously dirty philosopher, with no single attrac- 
tion save his profound knowledge of antiquity, and particu- 
larly of the literature and manners of old northern heroic 
times. It was this knowledge that rendered this mass of 
learned dirt and savageness useful for a season to students 
like Oehlenschlager. Between this period and that in which 
he reached his twenty-fifth year, his love for poetry became 
daily more intense, his aptitude for the law daily less. He 
had been long like one looking into the promised land, but 
he determined to enter as well as gaze upon it. He mani- 
fested his resolution by the production of his ' Feast of the 
Eve of St. John' and his ' Gospel of the Seasons ;' and the 
public acknowledged the reality of his claims when he gave 
to them that exquisite inspiration, bom of his love for his 
mother, the dramatic poem of 'Aladdin.* He began to 
feel the true fire within him, yet hardly knew how to obey 
its impulses further than to make triumph result from 
boldly daring. When it was sorrowingly noticed, in a circle 
of which he was one, that the good old vigorous Danish 
poesy lay in its grave, he started up, and not only declared 
that it should rise again, but he swore it with an energy 
that would have gladdened Emulphus. 

And now he sat at the feet of the wise, and there gathered 
golden instruction; from Steffens particularly he learned 
how to shape reality out of resolution, and through him it 
was that he first tried his flight on a German Pegasus, and 
wrote a ballad that would have been approved at Weimar. 
The course was now taken from which he was never again 
to deviate. He hated the law, and no longer cared to hear 
the chimes at midnight with the gay Shallows of the capital. 



A STBT7eGLE:ft FOB VAME. 99 

Gbristiana with the azure eyes smiled with delight at his 
determinatioQ to abaDdon both, and henceforth to surrender 
himself wholly to the lyre and love. But absence was to 
render his homage to each more exalted and lasting ; and, 
furnished with a hundred thalers from the paternal purse, 
and an annual supply promised him by the Crown Prince 
from the funds devoted to the public use, he left Copenhagen 
in August, 1805, and proceeded on his pilgrimage to study 
men, manners, morals, and metrical cunning. 

His pilgrimage lasted four years and a half, during which 
he proved that the public money had not been royally be- 
stowed on him to a profitless purpose. The first shrine at 
which he paused was at Halle, where Steffens again gave 
him rich counsel, where he kissed with proud devotion the 
hand of the imposing and manly Goethe, where Yon Eaumer 
delighted him with historical legends, and where the pious 
scholar Schleiermacher taught him heavenly wisdom, and 
gave him a love for the varieties of Greek prosody which he 
subsequently turned to excellent accoimt in his, if we may 
so call it, musctdar tragedy of 'Baldur the Good.' The 
next halting-place was Berlin, where the philosophers were 
in martial harness, and Amdt (not him of Altona) was at the 
head of them, inspiring the nations against the invincibility 
of Napoleon. Fichte, who was his chief Mentor here, was 
his own most enthusiastic follower, and used to declare that 
his broad shoulders and stout calves were the mere natural 
results of his robust and healthy maxims. 

Leaving Berlin he passed on to pleasant Weimar, the 
princely hearth of the intellectual great, where nobility of 
soul presided in the ducal chair, and held a court in which 
rank was measured by power of brain. Half the renown of 
Germany there kept house, and though Herder and Schiller 
were dead, their spirits still shed gentle inspiration over the 
circle of poets and philosophers who made the sunny little 
city perpetually glad. Among them, primus inter primes, 

T 2 



100 iTEw picnntES ahd old paitels. 

was Goethe, and young Yoss at his side, who discoyered the 
seven-footed hexameter in G-oethe's * Hermann and Doro- 
thea.' The poet, however, would not amend the faulty line; 
his answer to Yoss's intimation was, substantially, this — 

** Oertainlj, 't is as you say, and Yoss is an excellent critic ; 

But, since the beast has got in, there w6 will let him remain." 

From "Weimar, the city of the Muses, Oehlenschlager jour- 
neyed to Dresden, the Florence of Germany. It was a 
happy stage in l^is pilgrimage. In the noble gallery there 
of pictorial confusion he selected the masterpieces, and sat 
before them to steep his soul in their beauties. His emo- 
tions were profoundly stirred by many, but chief of all he 
recognized in the heart-touching Correggio those influences 
over his poetical spirit which took harmonious shape at a 
future period. To Tieck, whose library was so profanely 
scattered after his death, he read his 'Hakon Jarl,' his 

* Gospel of the Seasons,' and portions of his * Aladdin.' 
Tieck gave them the valuable tribute of his admiration, and 
their author the advantage of his friendship, two boons 
which did not, however, subsequently prevent him from 
mercilessly criticizing the young poet when the latter gave 
to the world one of the finest of his tragedies, his graceful 

* Correggio.' 

Weimar had attractions enough to induce him to revisit 
it, and the pilgrim turned to his favourite shrine, once more 
to enjoy the perpetual sunshine which, in his fancy, ever 
poured down on it. But he had not been long there before 
he found himself locked in by war, and one universal gloom 
darkening the once happy locality. The kingly fortunes of 
Prussia Tiad gone down at Jena before the eagles of France; 
and Weimar was filled with wailing at the past and terror 
for the future. First rode in the scared fugitives ; and after 
them, in bloody haste, the triumphant victors. With them 
came rapine, and fire, and cruelty, and the innocent inhabi- 



A STBUaOLEB VOB FAHS. 101 

tants lay at the capricious mercy of a heated foe, who wan- 
tonly put flame to peaceful dwellings, plundered for plun- 
der's sake, and committed fearful violence with an air of gay 
ferocity and bloody mirth. Amid all the terrors of those 
terrible hours which preceded the arrival of Napoleon, who 
stayed the robbers when they had grown weary with their 
vocation, the circumstances of human life went on, never- 
theless, with a solemn regularity that partakes of the ridi- 
culous. It is perhaps hardly permitted to record among the 
circumstances of life that death held wide court, and that 
the brave lay around d3dng of their wounds, and the timid 
of their fears. However this may be, we may state, among 
such circumstances, that when terror was at its greatest, 
Goethe got quietly, yet somewhat hurriedly, married ; and 
the young wife of Facius, the lapidary, with two children in 
her arms, and one under her uncomplaining, God-confiding 
hearty sought refuge from French brutality in the crowded 
dweUing of Madame Schopenhauer, where to the sound of 
dread artillery she gave birth to a little daughter, aptly 
named Angelica BeUona, who now lives honoured and loved 
in the foremost rank of the artists of Germany. 

Oehlenschlager was glad to escape from the theatre of 
war, and he hurried from it to take up his residence in the 
capital of him who had' evoked the demon. In Paris he 
sojourned a year and a half, not eating the bread of idleness. 
He was his country's pensioner, and he proved himself wor- 
thy of its fostering benevolence by displaying the growth 
and the power of his genius in the tragedy which he com- 
posed in the French metropolis, and which made Copen- 
hagen ecstatic, under the title of * Palmatoke.' For Ger- 
many he translated his * Aladdin,' *Hakon Jarl,' and se- 
lections from his minor poems. His hours of relaxation 
were given to admiration of the glories of the then glorious 
stage of the capital, to sweet homage and converse sweet at 
the side of Corinne, and to profitable intercourse with all 



102 SVW HCTUBKB ASI^ OUI XAVXI-S. 

the learned celebrities dragged horn Tarioiis comerB of Eu- 
rope, like other plunder, and whose office it was to sing the 
laudatory song of eternal sameness in h(Hiour of the imperial 
diTinitj who ruled for the hour. BJ^re too onoe again he 
fell in with that antique anatom j Amdt, who was still of 
the opinion of the man in the old eomedj, ^that nastiness 
gaye him a title to knowledge." The unclean phantom was 
howeyer as restless as erer, and the spirit <^ strong savour 
went off some half thousand miles' distance to consult a va- 
luable manuscript which he had carefully put away beneath 
a heap of stones in a secluded spot near Liibeck. His end 
was characteristic of the man. He was one morning found 
near Moscow, lying at the bottom of a ditch, stiff dead, and 
dirtier than ever. 

With aid from Denmark the poet now left Fans for 
Switzerland, passing through Germany, and on his way sell- 
ing his works to Cotta for a price which poets do not often 
realize. Switzerland to him was a hitherto undiscovered 
world of beauty ; the hills were epics, the zephyrs breathed 
in measured poetry, and the voice of nature rang on his 
enchanted ear in new and intoxicating melody. The poet 
schooled himself beneath the shadow of the mountains, and 
his spirit grew in strength as he contemplated their ever- 
lasting tops. Where beauty dwelt, there was his home for 
awhile, and where wisdom lodged, there did he sojourn. He 
conversed with De Stael, and he listened to Sismondi. Of 
the former he relates that at table her servant always placed 
a twig of evergreen, a flower, or a blossoming shrub, beside 
her knife and fork. She generally held it as she spoke, and 
it appears to have been to her what the leg^idary thread 
was to the fabulous advocate's argument. 

The spring of 1809 found him in Italy, and he stood by 
the cradle of poetry when it was thickest surrounded by 
flowers. Prom city to city he passed on in rapt admiration ; 
nature and art equally winning the expression of his devout 



JL STBUOOLSB 70B FAJME. 103 

and prayerful wonder. Everywhere, however, the spirit of 
Correggio seems most to have beguiled him. What Titian 
revered and Bomano praised was worthy of his homage ; 
and he has put a prayer upon record, offered up by him in 
the church of San G-iovanni in Parma, wherein he petitions 
to live after death, even as this Antonio AUegri, and that it 
might be given to the poet, as it had been to the painter, 
afber he was dust, to quicken and inspire youthful hearts 
by his productions. And thereon, he wrote his * Correggio,' 
fitting homage to the heart-wrung Allegri slain by those 
cruel Canons of Parma ! The piece was, as we have said, 
reviewed vrith merciless severity by his friend Tieck, just as 
St. Beuve more recently reviewed * The English Eevolution* 
of his bosom friend G-uizot. 

More space is left to enumerate what he did not see in 
Bome than to teU the contrary. He saw the Eternal City, 
he heard the proclamation which made of Eome a provincia] 
town in the empire of Gaul, but he did not see the Pope. 
At that moment the dethroned pontiff was on his way to hia 
imprisonment, with just tenpence in his pocket, and Cardi- 
nal Pacca was helping the maid-servant to make his bed in 
the little inn at Badicofani. 

At length Oehlenschlager embraced Thorvaldsen, and set 
out on his return to the north, where Copenhagen was pre- 
pared to greet his arrival by performing in his presence his 
new and stirring tragedy ' Axel und Walburg.' He reached 
bis native shores, and his country nobly welcomed its dar- 
ling son, one who had accomplished much, and who was 
destined to achieve more. The Eoyal family sat delighted 
listeners to his ' Correggio,' and amid the honours which 
descended on him he received none with a more satisfied 
spirit than the extraordinary professorship of aesthetics in 
the TJni verity of Copenhagen. Fortune was now at his feet, 
and he was worthy of her favours. Christiana's heart had 
leaped at his coming ; her lover had gone away a candidate 



104 KEW PICTUBXS AKD OLD PUTELS. 

for fame, and retiimed the favoured child of a European 
reputation. " Count Schimmerman," says the loving poet, 
as true-hearted and simple-minded as loving, '' had a delight- 
ful house called Christiansholm, about a mile and a half 
from the city, where during the first summer he invited me 
to reside. Adjacent to this is Gjentofli, a pretty village on 
the banks of a little lake. To the church of this village one 
fair spring morning I and my betrothed walked, quite alone. 
We found there a third person, according to appointment — 
the clergyman. He united us ; and we walked back to Chris- 
tiansholm, man and wife!*' There were those who looked 
upon marriage as the grave of poetic inspiration. Sir Joshua 
Eeynolds did so. When Elaxman married Anne Denman, 
Eeynolds told him that he was ruined as an artist. " Plax- 
man," as Allan Cunningham told the story, "went home, 
sat down by the side of his wife, took her hand, and said 
with a smile, * I am ruined for an artist !' * John,' said she, 
* how has this happened, and who has done it ? ' * It hap- 
pened,' said he, ' in the church, and Anne Denman has done 
it.' " The result proved that Eeynolds was no prophet, 
and so in the case of Oehlenschlager and his Christiana, the 
union of two hearts strong in love and steady in wisdom 
only gave additional strength to his poetic fire. 

Happiness dwelt at the hearth of the son of the old harp- 
sichord-player, and a group that Correggio might have 
painted, grew up in loveliness round Adam and Christiana. 
One son he named William, out of express reverence for the 
memory of our own Shakespeare. The King knighted him, 
the people honoured him, and men of little genius envied 
the powers which they affected to deny. His lectures were 
attended by admiring crowds ; his home was the loadstone 
of a multitudinous friendship. Sweden sent him a grand 
cross of chivalry, Norway followed the example, and perhaps 
the climax of his honours was in the circumstance of his 
crowning, when Bishop Tegner, the renowned Swedish poet, 



A STBV&GLEB FOB FAME. 105 

solemnly set the laurel wreath upon his brow, in the cathe- 
dral of Lund, and proclaimed him poet-kiug of Scandinavia ! 

His labours terminated but with his life, and his old-age 
was the calm evening of a fair day. He attained threescore 
years and ten, in November, 1849, and all the greatness and 
virtue of Dehmark sent their delegates to grace the banquet 
given to him in honour of the occasion. The festival was a 
farewell to life. Early in January, 1850, he was stricken with 
apoplexy, and the fine old man went down like a gallant 
vessel, full of pride and stateliness, before the thunderbolt. 
As he lay motionless between time and eternity, one of his 
sons, repeated aloud the lines from his ' Socrates,' wherein 
the sage speaks of the immortality of the soul. The dying 
poet gave ear to the imperishable truth, exerted himself to 
speak, and, expressing his unshaken faith in the resurrection 
and an everlasting future, he fell back, dead. 

And instantly all sound of joy was hushed within the 
capital. The three theatres kept their curtains down upon 
each mimic stage, and neither there nor in any other public 
place of amusement, as long as the body of Oehlenschlager 
remained on earth, was admission sought or given. Abovp 
twenty thousand persons followed him to the graveside; 
around it assembled in tears a multitude embracing every 
degree, from Eoyalty downwards; and the whole city assumed 
spontaneously an aspect of woe, — black flags bordered by 
silver suspended from the houses typifying the general sor- 
row. He descended into the grave laurel-crowned, as be- 
came a monarch of the realms of rhyme. Equally becoming 
was the circumstance of his death itself, dying not like the 
swan singing his own dirge, but, most fitting for Christian 
poet, to the music of his own harmonious truth which told 
of future glory abiding with God. With him departed the 
poetic greatness of Denmark ; its history belongs to the past, 
for never again can its roll be emblazoned with a name whose 
lustre shall equal that of honest Adam Oehlenschlager. 

f3 



106 



PICTURES AND PAINTERS IN THE 
RUE ST. DENIS. 

" That was a pleasant picture of the Dane which formed 
the text of our discourse when we last met," said the Italian, 
Carlo Pompilio. " Can you match it for pleasant interest, in 
France, Alexandre ? " 

The patriotic Frenchman, of course, averred that it was 
to be excelled both for interest and variety, in one single 
street in Paris. Saying this, he flung on the board of green 
cloth some architectural photographs of the Rue St. Denis ; 
and therewith a portrait of Carl Vanloo gazing with intense 
agony on a young girl occupied at an easel. On the same 
sheet as the last, Alexandre pointed laughingly to a group, 
consisting of a fair but sorrow-stricken woman endeavour- 
ing vainly to carry a rubicund young tipsy artist up a flight 
of stairs. 

" Street, houses, and inhabitants," said Alexandre, " have 
their respective stories. Approach ye ignorant, and listen 
to the expounder." And off he rattled, occasionally refer- 
ring to his sketches, — as might be done by a lecturer. 

" There was," he said, " one street in Paris which Vol- 
taire hated above all others, and that was the Rue St. Denis. 
The Duchess de Richelieu had composed some indifferent 
verses. Voltaire, then a lad of seventeen years of age, had 
polished them into something like brilliancy, and the lady 
had rewarded his handiwork with a purse of a hundred 
louis. The ambitious youth resolved to set up for a noble. 
Passing through the Rue St. Denis, he saw the carriage 



PI0TVBE9 AXD PADTTESS HT THX BUS ST. DENIS. 107 

aad horses of a deceased owner being sold by auction. He 
made a successful bid, purchased the entire equipage, hired 
the coachman, and at once drove off. Before he had reached 
the corner of the street his horses ran away, his carriage 
was overturned, and the philosopher in his teens was rolled 
into the mud. He resold his purchase the next day at a 
loss, resolved tojgo afoot for awhile longer, and cursed the 
Bue St. Denis to the day of his death. 

'' At the time in question, gentlemen, the Eue St. Denis 
was the most fiishionable street in Paris. It now abounds 
with grocers and mercers, and two things which never fail 
there are nutmegs and nightcaps !" 

We laughed. 

'* The inhabitants," he continued, *' are a money-making 
and a religious people ; but it is said that they only worship 
two saints, namely, St. Egoism and St. Economy ! These 
are the saints who, properly propitiated, build fortunes in 
the city, and country villas in the suburbs. 

** In the olden time, when kings passed this way to be 
crowned or to be buried, and when there was more of nobi- 
Uty about it than can be found now, the Cemetery of the 
Innocents was the busiest and the gayest place in the vici- 
nity. Sharp dealers turned the tombs into counters by day, 
and young lovers or mirthful musicians made seats of them 
by night. There was more *fun' in the burying-ground 
than there was ever in the market which subsequently took 
its place. ^ A night among the tombs' implied assurance of 
a merry series of hours, from sunset till dawn. In 1484, 
when the English were masters of Paris, they celebrated 
the event by a splendid festival in this charming cemetery. 
Some of them drank till they were nearly as dead, and were 
quite as senseless, as the dead men they had been previously 
dancing over. Just three centuries later the old ball- and 
burying-groimd was converted into a market. The utile 
permanently succeeded to the dulce. 



108 K£W PIGTVBES AKD OLD PAITELS. 

" The main street is full of strange and * clashing' asso- 
ciations. There is the antique church of St. Leu St. Gilles. 
The Chapel of the Tomb, beneath it, was built by the 
Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. Chapel and church be- 
came the property of a couple of Jews, who bought them 
' for a song,' at the period of the great Eevolution, and con- 
verted the building into one huge warehouse for saltpetre. 
Wliat they did with the relics of the canonized Queen Clo- 
tilde, or with those of the imperial St. Helena, I am unable 
to say. The infidel proprietors, however, made excellent 
profit of their purchase. When France condescended once 
more to believe in God, the Jews let the edifice at a high 
rent, and increased the latter every year, till permanent terms 
of agreement were signed by both contracting parties. 

" Let me add, to the honour of the clergy of this church, 
that they had the courage to celebrate a mass for the repose 
of the soul of the Princess de Lamballe, murdered in the 
streets by the sovereign people. The church may be said 
to have been constituted at an earlier period, that is, in the 
seventeenth century, a temple of Virtue. The body of the 
once celebrated Madame de Lamoignon was deposited here, 
against her own testamentary directions. The poor of the 
district, to whom she had been a succouring angel, could 
not bear the thought of losing her, and, as the inscription 
on her monument told the story, they took possession of 
her corpse, and interred it beneath the stones upon which 
they were accustomed to kneel. A son of hers prayed to be 
permitted, when dead, to lie at his mother's feet ; and a 
pompous grandson, who had become a very grand personage 
under the reign of Louis XV., left in his will a commcmd to 
the poor to treat his remains with the same honours they 
had paid to those of his grandmother ; and that was the sole 
legacy he left them. 

•" The old glories of the district, the abbey of St. Magloire 
and the church and hospital of St. Jacques, have now entirely 



PICTURES AJSTD PAIKTEBS OT THE BUE ST. DEIHES. 109 

disappeared. The 'Magdalen' was attached to the old 
abbey, the female inmates of which took the name of * Filles 
Dieu.' One part of their duties, down to a ver j late period, 
was of a painful nature. They had to receive aU the cri- 
minals who were on their way to the permanent gibbet at 
Montfaucon. They presented to each doomed captive the 
crucifix to kiss, sprinkled him with holy water, led him to a 
table, and served him with his last repast — a little wine and 
bread. This done, they sent him on his dreary way, with a 
few words of encouragement and hope. The sad memories 
of the faubourg are indeed numberless. There is the Place 
Gtistine, which commemorates the wealthy Huguenot mer- 
chant of the Rue St. Denis, who was burnt alive for daring 
to read his Bible in society with some friends. The house 
in which they assembled was rased to the ground. A couple 
of centuries later the emancipated people strung up Catholic 
priests and Catholic nobles to the lamps which swung by 
cords across this * Place.' The fashion of politics, religion, 
and capital punishments had undergone mutation without 
improvement. 

" But perhaps the most extraordinary feature of the dis- 
trict of St. Denis was to be found in its long-popular thea- 
trical-religious mysteries. These constituted the * opera' of 
the fifteenth century. Near the spot where the old hospital 
and church of the Holy Sepulchre had stood, and not far 
from the old gate of St. Denis, was to be seen the ' Hotel of 
the Trinity.' This was the sacred theatre in question. It 
was the only one possessed by the citizens of the capital 
four centuries ago, and it was crowded nightly. The pro- 
prietors were licensed, and the actors protected by the go- 
vernment. They were authorized to represent aU the scenes 
and incidents of the New Testament, from the Annunciation 
to the itevelation. The neighbouring church furnished the 
properties and the music; and when vespers were con- 
cluded, the worshipers sprang from their knees, and ran in 
crowds to get good places at the edifying ' spectacle.' 



110 KEW PICTUBES AJTD OLD PAVXIiS. 

'' M. Aroene Houssaje, who once held the sceptre of the 
Th^tre Eran9ais, has, in one of his literary sketches, quoted 
largely firom St. Beuve's * History of the French Stage,* 
when treating of this religio-dramatic entertainment. From 
this we learn that the spiritual theatre consisted of several 
floors. On the ground-floor, the spectators were enter- 
tained with a representation of Hell ; the Earth was up one 
pair of stairs ; and Paradise was to be seen in the second 
story. The back-scene of the Paradise was painted by 
Guyon le Doux. The simple-minded artist was so struck 
by the excellence of his work, that, when he had finished it, 
he gazed on it with rapture, and at last he exclaimed, ' In 
this world or the next you will never see a Paradise half so 
beautiful.* On the stage, St. Beuve tells us, that, if there 
was unity of place, there was not always unity of time. The 
same mystery represented the Holy Nativity and the Mar- 
tyrdom of St. Denis. The latter saint walked off", gaily 
singing, with his head in his hand. * In the mystery of the 
Apocalypse,' says the historian of the French Stage, ' the 
agents of Domitian embark at Rome for Ephesus, where St. 
John is heard preaching to the multitude. While they are 
on their way, the stage direction informs us that Hell will 
speak ; namely, Lucifer, Astaroth, Satan, etc., whom the ap- 
proach of a religious persecution sets in a state of gay de- 
light. As soon as they have laid hands on St. John, they 
re-embark with him for Bome. Here, while they journey on, 
Paradise will speak ; . that is to say, the representatives of 
the Father, Son, and Virgin Mary.* The whole was re- 
ceived nightly with the most unbounded demonstrations of 
approbation. 

" I have named Guyon le Doux. He was the first of 
many painters who have made the £ue St. Denis and the 
parts adjacent famous by their taking up their residence in 
the district. Hence * Painters' Alley,' which still exists. 
The artists seem to have lived here that they might be as 



PICTUBSS ISTD PADfTEBS Ilf THE BUI ST. PEIQS. Ill 

near as possible to the gates of the city, through which 
their monarchs passed in triumph, and which the artists were 
called upon to decorate with coloured glories in honour of 
the occasions. The professicm probably protested against the 
new &shion adopted by the municipality to greet the arrival 
of Louis XI. That grim monarch was welcomed by a dozen 
or two of Parisian beauties, who looked down upon him &om 
a gallery, and who were disguised as Sirens ; that is, wore no 
clothing at alL The artists would have had no objection to 
have painted scores of beauties in similar disguise, but they 
professed to be scandalized at the real thing ; and indeed 
the entertainment was not repeated. 

'' But, of all the artists who have shed glory on the street 
and district, Carl Yanloo stands pre-eminent. There are 
half-a-dozen of the name who, like Hannibal, were ' pretty 
fellows in their time.' There was old John Vanloo, the 
Dutch — and distinguished — father of James Vanloo of 
81uys. The latter, in the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury was, what Etty was in later days, famous for his nude 
figures. These were admired more, perhaps, in Paris than 
in Holland ; and in the Prench capital James Yanloo found 
ready purchasers for his bathing Dianas, his detected Ca- 
Hstos, and his undraped nymphs generally. His son Louis 
was less erotic ; he took to portrait and historical painting, 
and chose Aix, in Provence, for his abiding-place. In that 
locality was bom his elder son, John Baptist ; and at Nice, 
in 1706, his still more famous son Carl (the * Chevalier 
Carlo') or Charles Andrew Vanloo. John Baptist was a 
painstaking artist, who found ready patrons in the clergy 
and nobility ; and who finished the achieving of a splendid 
fortune in the service of the most generous of royal patrons, 
the l^^ing of Sardinia. John Baptist, possessing much, co- 
veted more. He left Savoy for Paris, speculated largely in 
the Mississippi scheme, and found himself one morning 
'not worth a ducat.* But he had his palette, and pencils, 



112 K£W PICTVBES AIO) OLD PAJSTELS. 

and power to use them; and not only was he largely pa- 
tronized in Paris, but lie became for a season or two the 
rage in London, painted actors — particularly that very illus- 
trious gentleman Colley Cibber, — and gained goodwill and 
something better from Sir Eobert Walpole. He rapidly re- 
constructed his fortune, as was to be expected of an artist 
who could finish three portraits in one day, — ^left nothing in 
them that could be objected to on the score of bad taste, 
bad colouring, or duU execution, — and who was handsomely 
paid for his pictures. He died at Aix, in 1746, richer than 
all the counts in the province. 

" Carl Vanloo was the pupil, as weU as brother, of hearty 
John Baptist. He, indeed, studied also under Italian 
masters ; and with such effect, that, when only eighteen 
years of age, he carried off the first prize for historical com- 
position in Paris ; and was engaged, with his brother, to 
repair the paintings of Primaticcio, at Pontainebleau. Never 
did artist labour more ardently and conscientiously than 
Carl. Never did painter so readily look for and acknow- 
ledge his own defects. The Pope, in a fit of transported 
delight, made him a knight ; but Carl did not accept the 
distinction as an infallible warrant of his own perfection. 
So little did his opinion of himself correspond with that en- 
tertained of him by the Pontiff, that, after his picture, " Love 
binding the Graces in Chains,'* had been publicly exhibited 
in the Louvre, he took it to his studio, sat down before it, 
pronounced his dissatisfaction, and, with calm resolution, 
destroyed it on the spot ! His own approval of the Apollo 
flaying Marsyas, and his Marriage of the Virgin, only gave 
additional value to those famous productions; and Carl 
Jcnew himself to be a * foremost man' among artists, before 
Louis XY. made him ' state painter,' and created him Knight 
of St. Michael. 

" In Carl's house, in the Eue St. Denis, there was one of 
the happiest circles that could be found in the capital. He 



PICTVBES AlTD PATETTEBS TS THE BTJX ST. DSITIS. 113 

had brought thither for wife the 'Nightingale of Italj,' 
Cattrina Somis. A daughter and two sons were the issue 
of this marriage ; and, if man ever worshiped human crea- 
ture, Carl worshiped his fair and graceful, his blue-ejed, 
dark-haired, his intellectual and angelic-minded daughter 
Caroline. He would sit looking at her by the hour, as she 
was sketching on canvas; and as she worked on, uncon- 
scious of the admiration she had evoked, the happy father 
was sometimes heard to murmur, ' O Eaphael ! Baphael ! ' 
as if he was thinking how happy the great one of Urbino 
would have been to have looked on a face so divine of ex- 
pression as that of the unparalleled Caroline Yanloo. 

'' But there was something singular and indescribable 
about Caroline. The artists called her ' Carl's angel,' and all 
who looked at her were struck as at the aspect of an un- 
earthly be^iuty. She, in truth, only half-belonged to this 
world. They who spoke of her transparent beauty, only thus 
signified that Caroline was like a delicate flower, fragile, 
tender, sweet, but destined to be short-lived. Books were 
her only pleasure. Between these and profound thought she 
passed her hours, chiefly at her father's side, to whose re- 
marks she often repb'ed, in silence, with a smile. And Carl 
would look at the smile till he could not see it for his tears. 

'^ She was as pure, as pale, and as fragile as alabaster. She 
loved her home, had a distaste for worldly pleasures, and, if 
led reluctantly to where feet were twinkling in the dance, 
she would smile on the dancers, but would not share in their 
pastime. As she grew in years, still remaining young, her me- 
lancholy grew with her. On her it hung as a peculiar and 
irresistible charm. One would have thought it as natural 
for an angel to break into rude laughter as for this fair 
young student to have looked up from her books with any- 
thing more strongly hilarious than a smile. 

" One morning she entered Carl's studio alone. She was 
more pale, more superbly melancholy, more thoughtful than 



114 K£W FICTUBES AJSD OLD PAKXLEk 

ordinary. She sat down in the artist's unoccupied chair, 
before a canvas already prepared, but as yet undrawn upon. 
After a moment or two she arose with a sigh, took a pencil 
and commenced sketching. Carl had watched her, and from 
behind one of his own large pictures in the studio he endea- 
voured to overlook her design. * She is a true Vanloo,' said 
Carl, * and the pencil falls naturally into her fingers.' At the 
same moment the young girl laid down her pencil, and moved 
back a step or two to see the effect of her sketch. Carl hur- 
riedly stepped forward for the same purpose. She started, 
half-screamed, out of pure nervousness, and then faintly 
murmured, as she extended her hand to him, * Eather, you 
frightened me ! ' 

" The father was, in truth, much more frightened himself. 
He shook with emotion as he gazed at the canvas. On it 
he saw gracefully and touchingly sketched the figure of 
shrouded Death, imder a female form, and the features 
bearing an unmistakable likeness to those of Caroline 
herself. 

*' Carl suppressed as he best could his terrible emotion. 
He even tried to smile as he said, with broken utterance, 
yet feigning gaiety, * Incorrect ! incorrect ! Mademoiselle ; I 
will show you what you wanted to do, and how you ought 
to have done it. I will give you a lesson.' 

" The ' master' took his pencil and his palette, altered the 
outlines, converted the shroud into a drapery of cloud, and 
touching the cold face of the young Death, gave it colour, 
made it smile, added to it the apparent tips of two bright 
wings, and metamorphosed it into the form and figure of 
young Love. 

" * There, Caroline,' said the poor father, again attempting 
to smile, * is not that exactly what you intended ? ' 

" She put her band on his arm, looked steadily in his fwe 
for a moment, and then, drooping her head, answered, * No, 
Father, that is not what I intended.' 



FICTU&E9 ASB PAI3TTBB8 HT THE BITB ST. DIESIS. 115 

" Carl saw that she was paler than usual, and, folding his 
arms about her, he lifted her &om the ground, and carried 
her, weeping as he went^ into the apartment of Madame 
Yanloo. 

*^ The daught^ fell on the mother's breast, uttering no 
other words than 'Death! Death! It was Death I was 
thinking of.' These were the last words she ever uttered, 
except wild phrases in a wild delirium, through which she 
passed before she breathed her last. This agonj endured 
many days and nights, not one moment of which was spent 
by iDarl away from his daughter's side. The attack was in- 
explicable to the medical faculty, and the disease baffled 
eyery attempt made and remedy applied to cure it. The 
painter neither sighed, nor wept, nor uttered a word during 
this terrible watching. He simply gazed fixedly, like a 
figure of stone representing silent despair. His eyes were 
riveted upon her lips, and, when he saw that the breath had 
passed between them for the last time, he uttered a wild 
shriek, flung himself upon the body, and would not be com- 
forted, 

^ ' My life has gone with Caroline 1 ' he used to say ; and 
indeed he was never the same man after her death. He 
worked, but he worked mechanically, though well. He 
felt no inspiration, he said, and no delight. He could 
not look upon a book without an expression of hatred 
passing over his features. Poor Carl was not a reading 
man, and 'Books,' he would bitterly remark, 'killed my 
Caroline ! ' 

I have said that he had been appointed state painter by 
Louis XY . Carl was often at Court in that capacity. But 
he was never seen to smile. Many years afterwards he was 
standing, silent and sad as usual, amid a gay and bnlliant 
throng in the gallery at Versailles. ' Why do you look so 
gloomy, Vanloo ? ' asked the thoughtless Dauphin. ' Oh, 
Monseigneur ! ' exclaimed Carl, with the tears &»t spring- 



1L6 KEW PICTUBEB ASB OLD PAIHSLS. 

ing to his eyes, * I am in mourning for my only daughter.' 
The canvas on which Caroline had made her last sketch was 
preserved as a memorial of her, by her father. Under the 
alteration made in the figure by the latter may still be 
traced, it is said, the outline of the * Young Death' designed 
so strangely by the daughter. 

" The sons of Vanloo are not known to fame as their sire 
is ; but John Michael Vanloo, a son of Carl's brother, and 
Master John Baptist, worthily upheld the family reputation 
in various parts of the world. Just ninety- three years ago he 
was a great favourite in London, as his father had been some 
thirty years previously. It was during the residence of John 
Michael in London (1765) that his uncle Carl died in Paris. 
It is there that the masterpieces of the poor father of Caro- 
line may yet be seen. They wiU secure admiration for the 
artist, as his story will sympathy for the parent. 

" An artist of quite another stamp once made the Rue 
St. Denis joyous. I allude to (in one sense) the French 
Morland, — gay, dissolute, tippling, and inimitable Lantara. 
The death of one he loved paralyzed Lantara as it had done 
Vanloo. In other respects, however, the cases were dis- 
similar. Lantara was a painter of country scenes, and these 
he executed amid the din and dirt of the noisiest and dirtiest 
parts of Paris. He loved nature much, but the bottle more ; 
and he drank the deeper because he could not see more of 
nature. His soul was a bright gem, and his body was its 
very coarse and ugly setting. He was for ever expatiating 
on the loveliness of the country, imagining or painting its 
beauties, and he the while was tipsily lounging before his 
palette, or uproariously descanting in dark taverns, or warmly 
making love to some laughing fruit-seller, whom he loved the 
more, he said, because she dealt in natural productions. This 
tipsiest of painters met with the very pearl of fruit-dealers, 
in a certain Jacqueline, whose voice was like a bird's, and 
whose smile was like nothing on earth, but— as the wine- 



PICTUBES AKD PAIKTEBS OT THE BUI ST. DENIS. 117 

loving artist was wotkt to remark — ^but in its bright promise, 
onlj like the rainbow in heaven. 

** Jacqueline was the friend, mistress, and guardian angel 
of the painter. She lived in the lower part of the house, in 
the attic of which the desolate artist had a refuge rather than 
a home. He was a sohtarj man without &milj or kin, and 
Jacqueline, who reverenced him when sober, and pitied him 
when drunk, loved and helped him, with aU his merits and 
defects. He would have died of starvation but for the poor 
fruit-girl, who saw him descend shivering and hungry from 
his garret, and was delighted to share with him, what he 
was never very reluctant to take, her sowpe, bouillie, and 
Ktre of wine. For dessert poor Jacqueline bestowed on her 
illustrious and vagabond friend the rarest fruit which she 
had in her shop. The poor girl strained her very utmost 
to make Lantara prefer her back-parlour to the public- 
house, and the careless feUow had just begun to appreciate 
each according to its real value, when Jacqueline suddenly 
died. Lantara plunged for consolation into the nearest 
wine-shop in the street. 

" Under his repulsive and fiery exterior there was still 
some tenderness of sentiment. No pressure of thirst could 
induce the drunkard to part with a landscape which he had 
painted on one of his sober days, while Jacqueline caroUed 
one of her rustic lays at his side. In the garret next to 
that in which Lantara passed his last days there lived an old 
opera-dancer, abnost as drunken, and quite as desolate, as 
the painter. She saw him one morning crying over this 
landscape in question. * I wonder,' said she, * that you do 
not sell that country-piece ! ' * Sell it ! ' cried Lantara, not 
too tipsy to be unsentimental, * never ! never ! I can hear 
Jacqueline's voice in it, coming to me through the foliage.' 

" He drank on till wine kiUed him. In his last illness he 
was carried to the * H6pital de la Charite.' A confessor 
stood by his bedside, administering what consolation he 



118 NEW PICTIJEEB A-HTD OLD PAITELS. 

could. * Eejoice, my son,' said the priest, * you are on the 
road to Paradise, where, as long as eternity lasts, you will 
behold the Almighty face to face.' * Face to face ! ' muttered 
the broken-down artist — and he did not mean it pro&nely, — 
* fece to face ! what, never in profile ? ' — and with this artistic 
query poor Lantara died." 



119 



$k panels riprtstiiting '§tli^ms Siilrjttts. 

I. 

VENUS APPEARING TO ASPASIA. 

"ToTTR Caroline Vanloo," said a Greek artist, or student 
of art, at our next gathering, " reminds me in her graceful- 
ness of the Aspasia to whom Venus once appeared, — a re- 
presentation of which, from a painting in a stucco panel at 
Phocias, I produce as my contribution of the erening. The 
story, you will remember, is m ^Elian." 
" jElian !" exclaimed Smith, "who is ^lian ?" 
Mee Aughton, ashamed of his ignorance, quoted the 
poetess. — 

"'Theopbrast 
Grew tender with the memorj of his eyes ; 
And ^lian nuide mine wet/ — 

is a remark which Mrs. Browning puts into the mouth of 
her last heroine, Aurora Leigh. The epithets, however, do 
not apply to the respective authors named ; for Theophrast 
is not remarkable for his tenderness, nor is there a line in 
.Xlian calculated to win or exact a tear. But the one mav 
be softening and the other tear-compelling when our me- 
mories of their study are connected with loved companions, 
pleasant incidents, and happy times, which all alike have for 
ever perished. And so it was here. But in other respects 
there is no more agreeable comrade for a lone man on a 
December evening, or indeed on any evening, than this 
same iBliim. With Gesner's old folio edition of his works, 



120 KEW PICTXTBES AKD OLD PAIHSLS. 

or Fleming's quaint and racy translation of his * Various 
Anecdotes,' duly accompanied by pale sherry, a plate of wal- 
nuts, a bright fire, and a luxurious consciousness of owing 
no man either money or time, — with all these, why, Qray's 
' novel and a sofa,' as an antepast of Paradise, assumes the 
form and feature of the most insipid of Limbos." 

" He could never have been of reputation, or I must have 
heard of him," said Smith. 

" Q-reat as was the reputation of ^ian among his con- 
temporaries and their successors," continued Mee Aughton, 
" his entire works found no editor till the year 1545, when 
an edition appeared at Some. Since that period, he has 
been a favourite with all who know how to esteem a man 
who has a thousand things to tell, and narrates them all 
agreeably. His authority has been quoted by StobsBus and 
Stephen of Byzantium, by Eustathia, Philostratus, and 
Suidas ; and his life has been commented on by Casaubon, 
Scheffer, and Le Fevre, by Kuhnius, Perizonius, and Q-ro- 
novius. Added to these, a portion of his works has been 
translated by Fleming and by Dacier. The version of the 
old Englishman is as sprightly as the canary that he loved ; 
but the ' rendering ' of Dacier is as dead as a champagne- 
bottle whose spirit has been three days defunct. 

" To this same ^Sllian," continued the critic, " has been 
assigned the authorship of a military treatise, and some 
pretty letters, — notes, rather, — ^which came from the pen of 
a namesake. Enough remains of his own to authorize any 
one to ask something about the writer, and to justify an idle 
man in devoting a half-hour to partly satisfy the inquiry." 

"Tell us, then, shortly, something about the man, and 
cease to be critical," said Smith. 

Mee Aughton thus resumed : " Claudius ^lianus was a 
merry bachelor of Praeneste, and the favourite of a wide 
and joyous circle. He was a Sophist, and the pupil of 
Pausanias, whom he surpassed in liveliness, if in nothing 



YXHVS APPSAsnra to aspasia. 12i 

else. He was bom in the second, and be wrote in the third, 

century, in the jolly — rather too jolly — days of Heliogabalus; 

he was skilled in medical practice ; and as Latin was then 

vernacular and vulgar, while Greek was in fashion with 

scbolairs and gentlemen, he cultivated the latter language 

with such effect as to write it with the idiomatic power and 

fluency of a native. There were no * reviews ' in those days ; 

nevertheless there were critics who exercised their vocation 

with admirable acumen. One of these, a certaia Fhilo- 

stratus, treating of the Sophists, showered laudation on the 

style of the Italian who wrote Greek so exquisitely, and he 

distinguished the author by titles most flattering to authors' 

ears. The sweetness of expression in jElian earned for him 

from Suidas the epithet of /AcXtyAdxro-os, or fi€Xi<t>Ooyyos, the 

* honey-toDgued writer,' — an epithet which was by no means 
ill-applied. 

" Of this cheerful author with the honey- tongue there have 
descended to us seventeen brief books of the history of ani- 
mals ; and fourteen pleasant books or chapters which are 
put together as * Various Stories,' and which are modestly 
and appropriately named. These are so pleasant as to make 
US regret that we have lost the essay Jlcpi Upovolag (On 
Providence), and the Kanfyopia tov ydwiJ^os, or * Accusation 
against an effeminate Tyrant.' The loss is the more to be 
deplored, as i^Jian was a high-priest, though no one knows 
of what deity ; and we should be curious to discover how 
the clerical gentleman in the service of a heathen god, and 
the orthoaox denouncer of Epicurus, treated the subject of 
a Providence generally. Not less curious would it be to see 
with what wit, vigour, or indignation, a subject of such a 
terrible youth as the imperial Heliogabalus would dare to 
attack effeminacy in a sovereign ruler. 

" .£lian," continued the speaker, amid some impatience, 
and opening a copy of the works of the writer he had 
named, ''was a 'home-keeping youth,' and in some sense 

a 



122 VIKW PICTUBES JlSTD OLD PAITSLS. 

possessed the homely wit which is said to be the charac- 
teristic of such indiYiduals. He had never travelled out of 
Italy, nor was ever upon the water, certunly never at sea, 
during the whole course of his life. He is therefore, as 
may be supposed, a trifle superstitious, and not a hM^e 
credulous. How gravely he asserts the fiEu;t that polypi 
assume the colour of the rocks near which they lie, in order 
the easier to catch the silly fish ! He thoroughly believes 
that the dogs on the banks of the Nile run as they drink, 
lest they should be snapped up by the crocodiles. As for 
that still odder animal, the sea-fox, he knows very well 
that after the greedy fellow has swallowed the bait, hook, 
and half the line (which he has bitten in two) of the angler, 
he often feels incommoded by the barbed weapon sticking 
in the coats of the stomach. But the sea-fox does not allow 
it to incommode him long ; he simply turns himself inside 
out, and gets rid of the hook by the accompanying shaking. 
The wild-boars, too, of Mian's time are quadrupeds of vast 
discretion. If one makes himself mortally sick by inadver- 
tently eating henbane, he just trots somewhat rapidly down 
to the seaside, and cures himself by a diet of freshly-caught 
crabs. Sick licms, on the other hand, know that nothing 
will cure them but a feast on a tender young monkey. In- 
• valid stags turn to wild com, as a specific for cervine ail- 
ments ; and Cretan goats stanch their bleeding wounds by 
nibbling the herb Dicfamnus I With so much credulity, it is 
astonishing that jElian has any doubts touching the singing 
of a dying swan. He has never heard one sing himself, he 
says ; an assertion which leads you to render more xeady 
credence to what he asserts without a caveat. One is even 
half-inclined to accept as indubitable what he tells us of the 
water-snakes and frogs in Egypt. The former have, he in- 
forms us, a passionate liking for frogs, that is, for devour- 
ing and digesting them. No one knows this better than 
liie frog ; and accordingly, when the two meet in a pond 



TBNUB APPSABIKa TO ABPASIA. 123 

wond^^fiil ia the cunning which ensues. Your water-snake 
glides up as if intentionless of evil, but our other slimy 
Mend is quite aware of the designs of the passionless-look- 
ing snake. He makes for the nearest twig, seizes it, and 
carries it across his mouth, and then fearlessly approaches 
the Hydra. The latter now makes at the frog with open 
jaws ; but the twig across the frog's mouth is much wid^r 
than the jaws of the snake, and he can by no possibility 
swallow the much-desired frog. The latter looks down his 
enemy's throat from the outside, holds fJEist by the protect- 
ing twig, and laughs. The water-snake tries again and 
again ; he glides round his anticipated victim, but the frog 
always contrives to keep him in view ; and the end of every 
attempt is, that the foiled snake finds the bar carried by his 
anticipatdry victim lying across his own open jaws, and the 
frog once more laughing down his throat. The Hydra at 
length gives it up in despair ; and ' froggy,' plumping into 
a safe spot, where he knows his kindred are assembled, teUs 
his exciting tale, and raises a very din of croaking congratu- 
latiomu 

" Let me add," said Mee Aughton, " that some of ^Hian's 
ladies are as wonderful as th^ most marvellous of his animals; 
witness that delicate creature, Aglais, who played on the 
trumpet and wore a wig, was altogether a strong-minded 
woman, and, indeed, a strong-stomached, too; for at her 
delicious conversational little suppers she contrived to get 
tibough twelve pounds of meat, eight pounds of bread, and 
half-a-dozen pints of wine ! He must have been a bold man 
who, after that, would have ventured to hold a controversy 
with her on the subject of metaphysics or the last new poet 
of the unintelligible school. 

"I do not know which contains the most astounding 
stories, the book on natural history, or the book of anecdotes. 
They are books which, had there been railroads in those 
days, would have been placarded at the book-stalls of every 

o2 



124 VRW PICTUBES AND OLD PAKBL8. 

station. I am entirely at a loss bow better to describe tbeni 
than by saying they are a compound of Mr. Jesse and our 
old acquaintance Baron Munchausen. Perhaps the prettiest 
of his stories is that Hepl 'AoTrao-iW." 

" And that is the story of my picture here," said the art- 
student from Greece, " which, if my friends will permit, I 
will recount in my own way." 

As every one was tired of listening to the long-winded 
Mee Aughton, this proposal was received with universal 
satisfaction. And thus ran the story of Aspasia, Venus, 
and the Wart. 

The birth of Aspasia, the daughter of Hermotimus of 
Phocias, cost her mother her life. The childhood of the 
orphan girl was one of poverty and virtuous instruction. 
The brightest portion of it was her sleeping-time ; for then 
she for ever dreamt of being married to a noble youth of 
wealth and power. The dream, however, seemed to have 
little chance of being fulfilled ; for there appeared beneath 
the chin of- the tender maiden a "wart," which, to her eyes, 
took the figure of a wen ; and was, in the eyes of her spe- 
culative father, a monstrous deformity. The perplexed Her- 
motimus conducted the much-vexed Aspasia to the most 
fashionable medical man of his day, whose specialite was 
"wens." On these, their cause and cure, he had written a 
treatise, and sent copies of it over all Greece. The fashion- 
able doctor looked at the girl, fingered the wart, declared 
the case grave, veri^ grSfVe ; but undertook a certain and 
speedy cure on the payment of a fee of three staters, — a sum 
about equalling a couple of guineas. The fact will serve to 
show that the heathen medici were twice as dear as their 
Christian successors, who make twice the promises for half 
the money. 

"Three staters!" exclaimed Hermotimus. "You might 
as well ask me for three golden talents. Will you take half 
a stater and a basket of figs ?" 



TBinjs APPEABDra to abpabia. 125 

The wealthy physician looked on the speaker with scorn. 
He glanced for a minute or two at the maiden, but finally 
and abruptly declared, that without fee there was no treat- 
ment ; and he whistled aloud for his servant to introduce 
more respectable patients. 

Hermotimus and his pretty daughter returned home to- 
gether. " O Zeus ! " growled the former, " who will marry 
a girl with a growing wart under her chin ?" Aspasiawent 
on silently ; but soft and silver showers of tears descended 
from her incomparable eyes. She touched nothing of the 
frugal supper prepared that night ; and in place of going to 
bed, she sat disconsolate, with a mirror in her lap, contem- 
plating this unwelcome wart, which, after all, an erotic poet 
or an admiring youth would have eulogized in lines of un- 
exceptionable measure and loose morality, " O Venus Ana- 
dyomene-! O Venus Ericyne ! O Mother of Beauty and of 
liOve ! are my prospects to be crushed by this dreadful de- 
formity P*' 

It was the prettiest picture in the world to see this fair- 
est of girls looking at the mirror in her lap, and smiling 
through her tears at the consciousness that her beauty 
and purity of heart might well excuse so trifling a blot as 
this wart under the chin. ". If it were only a little mole," 
said Aspasia, " there would not be much to complain of; for 
there is one on the cheek of Chloris, the priestess of Venus ; 
and the temple is never so crowded as when Chloris oflS- 
ciates and leads the dance." Therewith, however, the girl 
looked again, sighed, acknowledged it was no mere " beauty- 
spot," and sank off sighingly to sleep, looking as she lay a 
perfect " lapse of loveliness." 

'' I cannot sleep," said Aspasia, after a few minutes had 
gone by, — " I cannot sleep for that pretty dove that has got 
into the room, and makes such pleasant fluttering with its 
wings." The next minute her eyes were fixed in wonder on 
the bird. She started up, half-reclining on one elbow, half- 



126 low PICTUBSB AlTD OCD PAITSXS. 

leaning forward ; and then, with an exclamation of profound 
reverence and delight, she sprang from the conch, erossed 
her fair arms over her fairer bosom, and sinldng on her 
knees, prayed that she might not be slain by excess of 
ecstasy. 

The prayer of Aspasia was not ill-founded, for theve stood 
before her a gracious and graceful presence. The dove had 
disappeared, and the mother of Love herself was looking 
down in all her radiant beauty upon the trembling Aspasia. 
She bade the latter look up ; and when the Fhocian girl, 
shading her dazzled eyes with one hand, while the other 
was outstretched in supplication, essayed to look upon the 
ineffable brightness, Yenus smiled and bade her be of good 
heart, for that she had come to serve the prettiest and the 
most virtuous girl in all Greece. ^ Leave the quacks, my 
charming daughter," said the smiling goddess ;•'' leave them, 
with their powders and potions and washes and panaceas, 
by which nothing is cured, and trust to me. Eepair to my 
shrine at sunrise ; take a handful of the roses in the conse- 
crated wreaths that lie upon the shrine, and apply them to 
that which troubleth thee beneath thy chin. The remedy is 
sovereign for the evil ; and so, farewell ! " 

Aspasia, at early dawn, could not well determine whether 
she had been dreaming or indulging in waking fancies ; 
nevertheless, at 'sunrise she stood by the altar of the irre- 
sistible goddess, carried off a handful of roses, kissed them 
heartily, and then, holding them close beneath her chin, ran 
home breathless and hopeful. She passed her wondering 
sire at the door, glided swiftly into her chamber, looked 
into the mirror as she let the roses drop into her bosom, 
and lo ! all was as smooth and polished as a newly-fashioned 
statue from the hands of the most accomplished of sculptors. 
For every rose-leaf she had plucked from the shrine, she 
hung up a whole garland in acknowledgment of her grati- 
tude. "Sister Vermilion," said the young, curled, and 



TMSVB APFSABIFG TO ABPASTA. 127 

faigUy-flceated priest^ who stood bj the altar with his dainty 
fingeni just lightly resting on the pale-blue zone of Chloris, 
— "pretty sister Yermilion, — ^for such the colour in thy 
cheeks warrants thee to be called, — for what service rendered 
by the goddess do you hang up such splendid wreaths P" 
" For service inexpressible and heartily prayed for," mur- 
muved the maiden, as she turned away, somewhat abashed, 
from the irreverent look of the reverend youthful gentlemaa 
who had the " cure" of the temple. The priest watched A»- 
pasia as she descended the white marble steps which led to 
the street below ; and then looking archly at Chloris, simply 
remadked, " A fair girl, and as modest as she is fair." " She 
is ^ b<dd minx," said the coadjutrix of Yenus's fashionable 
minister; " and I warrant as disreputable as she is bold." 
Thereupon a lively discussion- ensued, during which they 
pelted one another with roses, and then, "early service" 
being concluded, the pious pair went behind the altar to 
breakfast. 

The beauty of Aspasia would have been fatal to her, afber 
all, bad it not been that she possessed ^alities which are 
more atlaractive than beauty. The dream of her childhood 
was not exactly fulfilled as she had expected, when the for- 
tune of war flung the most beautiful girl of her time in the 
power of the victorious Cyrus. The proud young conqueror 
was at supper, when Aspasia and four or five other, and 
almost as beautiful, captive girls were introduced to their 
lord. A Persian supper was perhaps the most unseemly 
festival ever held by man ; and Aspasia stood petrified by 
disgust and amazement as she beheld the royal and noble 
drunkards, some prostrate' on the ground, some lying like 
corpses bent across the couches, and others yet sitting up- 
right and looking like madmen. The Fhocian girl stood at 
the entrance of the royal tent in which the banquet was 
held, disregarding the invitation to go forward, which her 
companions in captivity obeyed with an alacrity which was 



128 KXW PICTTJBES AKD OLD PAITBLS. 

rewarded by smiles from tbe King, and by peals of applauise 
from such of tbe revellers as were sober enough to clap 
their hands or raise a shout. All compliments paid to these 
forward beauties, — and some of them were rudely expressed 
and put in action, — ^were received by them with a giggle of 
delight. But Cyrus at last grew weary of the brilliant but 
mindless group of captive girls who hung about his couch, 
and, with finger imperiously raised, beckoned to Aspasia. 
The Phocian moved not a step. She merely crossed her 
hands on her breast, looked up, and murmured a prayer for 
protection from the Lady of the Dove. She wore an air of 
unresisting meekness ; but when a Satrap, looking extremely 
gallant and dreadfully tipsy, was about to lay his huge fin- 
gers on her ivory shoulder, in order to urge her towards the 
great King, the girl raised both her arms in the air, ^nd pro- 
tested that she would smite the first man who dared lay 
hands upon her. Cyrus was charmed at this pretty audacity, 
and, to the profound stupor of all beholders, he himself arose 
fend approached Aspasia. The maiden extended her arm 
towards the monarch, partly in supplication, partly to keep 
him at a distance ; and within a few minutes she delivered 
to him so cogent and delicate an argument touching the 
duty of a true-hearted man towards a defenceless girl, that 
Cyrus, treating her with a world more of respect than he 
would have shown to his own sister, declared that her virtue 
had impressed him even more deeply than her beauty; and 
that from thenceforward she should be his consort, coun- 
sellor, and guide. Perhaps the highest proof of the discre- 
tion of Aspasia in her new capacity is to be discovered in the 
fact that she managed to keep on the most friendly of terms 
with her mother-in-law ; and we all know that the mother 
of Cyrus was not altogether a helle-mere to whom a young 
wife would pay homage, without a certain measure of mental 
reserve. 

Of all the ladies of the royal household, Aspasia was the 



.TBKXrg APPEABIFa TO ASPASIA. 12d 

only one who could rule the uncertain humour of her lord. 
The season of felicity, however, came to an end, when the 
fatal day of Cunaxa left Cyrus dead on the field, and As- 
pasia the captive of Artaxerxes. In her altered position she 
stiU deserved and retained the name of Aspasia the Wise ; 
and even as the wife of Artaxerxes she wore the mourning 
which she had assumed after the death of her benefactor 
Cyrus. 

One day, when Artaxerxes was in a rare fit of good hu- 
mour, he told his son Darius that he might get anew turban 
made with the great crest. Darius was beside himself with 
delight ; for by this form he was declared the successor of 
his sire, as well as his coadjutor in the government. Ano- 
ther custom was, that when a reigning king thus erected 
the peak of his son's headpiece, he was bound also to grant 
the first request made by the new heir. Darius claimed 
performance of the old rule ; and no sooner had his claim 
been allowed than he struck his father into ungovernable 
rage by demanding of him that Aspasia might be bestowed 
upon the newly-recognized heir-apparent. We have had 
family quarrels enough in royal households since the period 
in question ; but never was domestic dissension followed by 
such terrible consequences as in this case. Artaxerxes made 
the person of Aspasia sacred by creating her a priestess, 
either of Diana or of the Sun. In the temple of either deity 
she was safe from outrage, and free from any chance of ef- 
fecting her escape. Darius, therefore, turned all his rage 
against his sire ; but his treason being defeated, he was put 
to death with as little ceremony and as much cruelty as 
were common in the Persian Court when the Sovereign was 
angry. 

Aspasia was seated by the altar of the deity whom she 
was doomed to serve, her mind floating away on old and 
sunny memories, when she heard of the catastrophe in the 
household of Artaxerxes. " After all, then," she said, " I 

g3 



180 KIW FIOTTISiES ASJ> OLD PjUTSLS. 

have been a fool ; I have broiigfat iH-luck to others, and am 
punislied for mj yanitj. Had I had patience to endure a 
pimple, and been content with mj lot, I should not hare 
known my splendid misery. And jet I foUowed the light 
that was offered me, and I trusted to my goddess. Goddess,** 
she repeated with an air of proud scorn ; '' have I not de- 
ceived myself P" And the beautiful priestess, striking in 
two her gilt wand on the angle of the altar, as though she 
defied the £Edse diyinity to whom it was raised, sank to the 
ground in tears, weepiog in painful perplexity, feeling that 
there must be somewhere a more powerful deity, but un- 
knowing where to seek or how to invoke Him. 



181 



II. 

OUR LADY OF BOULOGNE. 

AFTEB A CAKVING BY ST. LUKE. 

Ik contrast with the old spirit of pictures and details con- 
nected with the manifestation of celestial beings to earthly 
creatures, the following legend descriptive of the once 
famous work of art, and of the consequences of setting it 
up, was the next evening's contribution of the over-zealous 
Mee AughtoB, who thus ran through the eventful and little- 
known storj. 

It is exactly twelve hundred and sixty-two years ago, since 
Clotaire II. compounded for the commission of '' sins he was 
inclined to,'* by erecting on the shores of the sea at Bou- 
logne, a little church (which bore no comparison with the 
amount of its ^Dunder's failings), in honour of Our Lady, 
and the royal builder's own and unusual liberality. The 
liberality was of a very equivocal character it must be con- 
fessed, for the rough monarch robbed his subjects of the 
money wherewith he sought to illustrate the intensity of 
his own religious feelings. 

The edifice was raised, but for upwards of a quarter of 
a century its chief glory, or rather what should have been 
its chief glory, was wanting. The chapel, or church, con- 
tained no counterfeit presentment, no eikon, of the sacred 
object especially sought to be honoured. Connected with 
this want was the determination of the King to erect no 
image over the altar he had raised that bore not with it 
warrant of a " speaking likeness " of the original. The ori- 



132 FEW PICTTJSES AKD OLD PAKELS. 

summation so desired was not compassed in the lifetime of 
Clotaire. " Dagobert of the turned hose " was safe upon 
his throne, and St. Eloie was discussing with him some 
pleasant matters that did not concern the papacy, when 
the news first reached the French Court that the desire 
of Clotaire was accomplished. It appears that one ruddy 
evening in autumn, one of those evenings when the golden 
set of the weary sun "gives token of a goodly day to- 
morrow,*' the worshipers of Our Lady were assembled 
beneath the bullrushes wherewith the little church was 
thatched, when their religious service suflfered interruption 
from the sudden presence among them of a transparently- 
clad female. Such divinity did hedge her form that the 
congregation were not slow to make acclaim that among 
them stood the Virgin herself. The acclaim was ratified by 
the object of it, who, further, graciously and with some 
lengthiness of detail that smacked much of tedious mortal 
birth, informed the rapt audience that she was no less than 
that for which they took her, and that she had come among 
them on no idle errand. The shout of welcome that en- 
sued was oddly hushed by the cure's impressive solicitations 
for silence. When that was obtained, the Lady proceeded 
to say that she had just arrived off the port in a vessel, — 
whence she had come was not intimated; perhaps from 
Shakespeare's celebrated "sea-port in Bohemia;" and on 
board that there was the very richest of freights, nothing 
less than a statue of the Virgin, carved in wood by St. 
Luke, and of the fidelity of the likeness of which to the 
original they would be able to judge. Her desire was, in 
return, that the statue should be raised on the spot where 
she then stood. One other stipulation was made, to the 
effect that the congregation should urge on those who had 
the means, the necessity of erecting a structure of more 
grandeur than the original building of Clotaire, which, as 
was confessed, had a very fishy smell; and of increasing 



Otm LADY OF BOTTLOGKE. 133 

tbe stipends of those who served therein to a degree spe- 
cified and agreed upon. Indeed the people were in a con- 
dition to agree to anything. In their ecstasy, they rushed 
down to the shore, boarded the mysterious ship, found the 
figure as described ; it was three feet and a half in height, 
and held the Infant in its arms, the which, embracing in 
their enthusiasm, they carried away, and reverentially de- 
posited in the spot assigned for it. The monitress who 
heralded this miraculous coming had disappeared ; but the 
last words uttered by her was a charge to remember her 
injunctions respecting the new church, and a recommenda- 
tion to " fouir" if they would speedily accomplish it. The 
cacophonous dissyllable signifies to "poke into," and the 
word " pockets " was delicately left to be understood " per 
ellipsin.'* 

The church was erected and the shrine was raised, and 
marvellous was the confluence that set in irresistible tide 
thitherward. The treasure amassed in consequence was 
wonderful too ; but, wonderful as it was, the keepers of the 
shrine were not altogether satisfied therewith. The cause 
of the dissatisfaction may be traced to the circumstance of 
there being at the same time in Boulogne other shrines, en- 
riched with relics which brought to their respective owners 
a wealth which was ver}' much coveted by those who watched 
and thrived at the altar of Our Lady. 

A consequence ensued that was considered, by the party 
who profited therefrom, as nothing short of miraculous. 
The Normans paid to the Boulonnais one of their very un- 
welcome visits. Their coming had been no sooner expected 
than Arnold, Count of Flanders and Boulogne, one morning 
carried off from the town every holy relic it possessed, and 
swept clean every shrine save that of Our Lady, which 
was declared from the first to be inviolable. He took the 
sacred* treasures with him to Ghent, where they were de- 
posited for better security. The raid was not accomplished 



184 WW PICTITBXS AKD OLD PAHSLS. 

witbeut opposition on the part of some of tbe inhaiiteiite 
of ihi9 town, who appeared in arms, and wko established in 
the matter a "nodus vindice dignns," — ^a dilemma to wliiek 
was found a fitting solution in the declaration of a maldea 
named Torcile, and who affirmed that she was commanded 
hj Our Lady of Boulogne to intimate that the object of 
Count Arnold was one which met with her especial appro- 
bation. Thereon all impediment ceased, and the ruthless 
Flemish commander conveyed to the city of three hundred 
bridges the spoils of more than thirty shrines. They were 
" rich and rare." Among them are enumerated the bodies 
of four Saints with very painful names ; a piece of the true 
cross ; memorials of the condemnation, passion, and death 
of our Saviour ; a portion of one of the pitchers in which, 
at Gana, the water was changed into wine (this ^gmentary 
pitcher, if I remember rightly, is now at Cologne) ; a branch 
of the tree into which Zaccheus climbed when he would 
see the Lord pass beneath ; a bed and cloak which once be- 
longed to St. Peter ; and finally one or two fingers of St. 
Killian. The inhabitants of Boulogne followed the relics as 
far as the hill of Audemberg, and then left them to go on 
their way, with some ceremony of anthem and of prayer. 
I have not transcribed the entire catalogue, but of those I 
have named I may say, with the historian of the imperial 
and hard-drinking Macedonian, " Equidem plus transcribe 
quam credo." 

The result of this proceeding was increase of fame and 
fortune to the inviolable shrine of Our Lady of Boulogne. 
For seven hundred years its reputation grew, and with its 
growth brought profit. Its miracles attracted the infirm 
wealthy, even from the distant east ; and these celebrated 
their recovery by founding hospitals in the vicinity, for the 
accommodation of poor pilgrims visiting the shrine. For 
pilgrims from England there was erected a house at St. 
Inglevert, near Calais ; some vestiges oi it yet remain. The 



Oirm lABT OS BaiTlidGKE. 136 

convent of the Annoneiades, in the " upper town **^ at Bou- 
logne, occupies the site of the old hospital of St. Katharine, 
ereeied for the use of sick visitants ; while the *^ house ** at 
Andisque was founded by a married lady who had reason to 
feel i^nnpathy for such female pilgrims as might be suddenly 
summoned, whHe on their way, to endure what an inexperi- 
enced poet has been pleased to call " the pleasing pains that 
women bear;*' 

In the year 1099, Godfrey of Boulogne deposited as a 
gift upon the altar the crown which he had worn as King 
of Jerusalem. The shrine was also resorted to by criminals 
of state. These visits were compulsory on those who made 
them, being paid in obedience to orders from offended poten- 
tates. Thus William of Nogaret was condemned by Cle- 
ment V. to go in penitential pilgrimage to this shrine, and 
leave there a specified offering of no trifling worth. His 
offence was some alleged shortcoming of respect, of which he 
had been guilty, towards Pope Boniface VIII. What Boni- 
face had condoned, Clement would not look over, and Nogaret 
paid one Pope a very heavy penalty for an offence pardoned 
by another. These penal visits, if I may so call them, con- 
tinued down to the age of the French Bevolution of 1789. 
Some of otir grandfathers may have contemplated the figure 
that was contemporary with Dagobert. 

The monks who had the care of the shrine of Our Lady 
continued to flourish for a long season without opposition. 
The latter was occasionally threatened, but no harm resulted. 
The community had rather powerful protectors, and few 
cared to attack the wealthy men of peace who possessed 
what would be called in Ireland " a very good back," that 
is, an abundance of friends with prodigality of strength, and 
unlimited goodwill to use it when called upon. Mischief, 
however, came at last. It fell out through a lady with ex- 
pectations, and a somewhat unscrupulous gentleman, cap- 
tured by " les beaux yeux de sa cassette," and desirous of 



136 KEW PICTURES AJSTD OLD FAKELS. 

espousing the owner. The story, briefly told, runs after this 
fashion. 

"William, Count of Boulogne, was slain at Toulouse in 1169. 
With him the male line of his house became extinct. He 
was blessed in one fsdr sister, and pious as fair. This was 
the Lady Mary, Abbess of the solemn sisterhood of Homsey 
in England. Her vows and her dignity were obstacles to 
her succession to the rank and fortune of her sire. The 
lady, being a nun, belonged to the Church, and all that she 
might inherit passed over to that ownership ^so. Matthew 
of Alsace, a man of great rank and small means, fell to pon- 
dering on this subject, and, being a person of expedients, he 
soon discovered how he might save the property, serve the 
lady, and benefit himself. He resolved upon secularizing 
the Abbess by running off with her ; and, this accomplished, 
the property, he argued, would follow the lady's condition — 
become secularized too, when it might be justly taken pos- 
session of by the owner, or her representative in right of 
marriage. I do not know if the ballad of *Le Comte Ory' 
was extant at this time, as its editors aver it to have been, 
but there is a certainty of Count Matthew having been in as 
much perplexity as the gallant gentleman who wanted to get 
into the abbey of Farmoutier, and waited for love to show 
him the way. 

" HoUk., mon page, venez me conseiller ; 
L' amour me berce, je ne puis sommeiller ; 
Comment m*y prendre, pour dans ce convent entrer?'* 

" Sire," said the page, — 

" Sire, il faut prendre quatorze chevaliers." 
And this was precisely what was done by Matthew of Alsace; 
he took fourteen stout gentlemen-at-arms, crossed the Chan- 
nel, sent herald of his coming to the lady " nothing loath," 
and carried her off while the moon smiled above them, and 
the cavaliers stood by to keep off intruders. It was a merry 
ride back to the coast, and if the parties turned pale for a 



OUB LADT 07 BOULOGKE. 137 

season wHile crossing the Channel it was certainly not for 
remorse at what they had done. All was joyous again when 
they shook their feathers and smoothed their silks as they 
once more stood on firm ground within the territory of the 
Boulonnais. Matthew of Alsace took his bride to the chapel 
of Our Lady, but the wooden presentment there shook with 
virtuous indignation at the sight of a married Abbess, and 
was so overcome as to be unable to perform any miracles 
while the unblushing runaway remained in the vicinity. The 
young couple betook themselves to St.Wilmer, but that male 
Saint, through the priests who waited on him, manifested a 
less forgiving spirit even than the powers who presided at 
the chief shrine in Boulogne. Finally, Sanson, Archbishop 
of Sheims, excommunicated the pair, and declared that he 
did so upon representation of their unrighteous doings made 
to him by the ecclesiastical authorities in the Boulonnais. 
Matthew of Alsace, now boldly calling himself Count of 
Boulogne in right of his wife, no sooner found himself so 
scurvily treated by the Church than he resolved to practise 
retaliation. He summarily ejected the monks from their 
homesteads, shut up the monasteries, boarded up the shrines, 
and openly defied the Church. He defied, however, a power 
which he could not vanquish, and, after maintaining the 
struggle for three years, during which two daughters were 
bom to the disputed inheritance, he was compelled to sur- 
render, confess himself in the wrong, "mm maxvmd culpd,^^ 
and betake himself to a wandering life. He soon after 
perished at the siege of Neufchatel, in Normandy. The 
mother was as severely dealt with. She was cloistered up 
for life in the convent of St. Austrebertha, at Montreuil, 
while the Church kindly took care of the two daughters and 
their patrimony. The former were secured in a nunnery, 
and the latter in the treasury of St. Peter. 

When these irreligious people had been thus satisfactorily 
disposed of, the miracles that had been so long suspended 



188 lETEW FICTintXS AlTD 0L9 PAVELS. 

again begui to be performedy and that with an abmuehince 
and an increase that compensated for all lost time. The 
shrine recovered its pristine glory, and wealthy palmm re- 
sorted to it so commonly that the roadsides for miles round 
were beset with sturdy beggars who categorically asked for 
alms at the butt-end of an escapette. As people natmrally 
love excitement, these perils of the way formed additional 
attractire reasons for its being taken, and one result was 
that shrines were multiplied in the Boulonnais in propcnrtioB 
with the increased number of dupes. Each shrinet eould 
boast of miracles warranted as genurue as those performed 
at the proto-altar, and no doubt they were ; while for the 
accommodation of such Mahomets as could not come to the 
mountain, the mountain was removed to them ; thait is to 
say, a double of the Boulogne shrine was opened at the vil- 
lage of Mences, near Paris. The village thereon took the 
name of Boulogne, a name which, with its famous wood, it 
still retains. The first pilgrimages thither were those of 
Longchamps. Those pilgrimages continue under the ancient 
appellation unto this day, although the old object has long 
ceased to exist. Where penitents once walked in gloomy, 
never-ending lines, the Corydons and Chloes of the capital 
now are borne in gay barouches, and the vows now paid in 
the classical vicinity have only this similarity with those of 
old, in their being quite as speedily broken. 

In presence of the original shrine in Ficardy a mamage 
ceremony took place, of importance in itself and of singular 
interest to those who were allowed to view the gorgeous 
celebration. I allude to the royal nuptials of our unhappy 
Edward II. and that somewhat warm-tempered lady the 
Princess Isabella of France. Seldom has a royal marriage 
been performed in presence of so many representatives of 
royalty. On this occasion three queens lent encouragement 
to the bride, and four kings, with fourteen princes of the 
blood royal, swelled the gallant train of the happy bride* 



OITB LADY OW BOULOOlfE. 189 

groom. Tbft proiorb sajra that ^ liappy is the wooing that 
18 Bot long a-doing.'' Tbere is ui exception, howeyer, to 
ev&ej tvAbj and we meet with one here hj way of illustra- 
tion. Isabella was by no means so bad as her enemies have 
painted her ; but, in spite of so much being inrged in her 
favour, the legends of Berkeley and of '* Mortimer's Hole" 
beneath old Nottingham Castle are not without some founda- 
tion in truth. The result of tins marriage, by whomsoever 
caused, mi^t well have deterred many other lovers, royal, 
noble,or plebeian, from seeking this particular shrine whereat 
to find most perfect union and most probable felicity after 
it. The reputation of the shrine, however, continued imdi- 
minished. To ask favours, lovers flocked to it in never-end- 
ing pairs, but they were seldom found, it is mischievously 
said, returning to it to offer expressions of gratitude. The 
shrine grew richer and richer nevertheless, and there ap- 
peared no possible limit to the growing increase, until one 
fine morning in May — ^the very " Month of Mary" too — in- 
telHgence reached the keepers of the shrine that the wicked 
English at Cabds were talking very loudly and irreligiously 
of rifling the treasures and carrying off the image. The 
priests, however, were confident in the power of the image 
not only to protect itself, but also the town and all con- 
tained therein. They would not surrender the conviction 
till the battery at Marquetra rendered their vicinity thereto 
particularly unpleasant ; but they had hardly confessed to 
the disagreeable &ct, when those horrid English were in the 
town, their flag flying on the ramparts, and a roystering 
camp pitched upon the spot occupied later by the theatre 
and adjacent streets. These perfidious sons of Albion had 
no respect for Yirgins. They accordingly seized Our Lady 
of Boulogne, and, with the clock and organ of the great 
church, carried their spoil over to Canterbury, and set the 
whole up in the cathedral there, as a trophy of victory. 
How long the timepiece and the music were retained at 



140 l^W FICTITBBB AJSTD OLD PAVELS. 

Canterbury I have not been able to discover. The image of 
the Virgin was soon restored. The French king purchased 
tbe^town of Henry YIII., and the English monarch cour«> 
teously threw the miraculous figure into the bargain, with- 
out its being stipulated for. 

The glory of the shrine was all the brighter for the tem- 
porary eclipse, and an auriferous Factolus seemed to be con- 
tinually bearing gold to its feet. One of the most liberal 
contributors was that very pious lady, Catherine de' Medici. 
She deposited at the shrine " a chapel," or a model of one, 
made of solid gold. She at another time gave a silver lamp, 
dresses for the priests, of splendid texture, and altar-decora- 
tions of such magnificence as to make the dazzled eyes wink 
that dared to look at them. The privileges conferred upon 
the royal lady in return are to be traced in her deeds, and 
in the chronicles thereof. There is an old epitaph on this 
princess, composed by I know not whom, and never en- 
graved upon her tomb, but it is so graphically correct, and 
so just in its award of praise and blame, that it might have 
found favour even with a Spartan government, whose ob- 
jection to the TroXvfwOa raxf>a, or " talkative tombstones," I 
need not call to the remembrance of classical scholars. 
In the case before us, the eloquent epitaph-writer rather re- 
sembles the Athenians, who indulged in long descriptions 
of character, till the indulgence went beyond all reason, and 
was checked by the law of Demetrius Phalareus, which ab- 
breviated laudation by setting a limit to the measurement 
of the tombstone. The epitaph proposed for Catherine rims, 
upon translation, thus : — 

" Here lieth a Queen who was angel and devil, 
One who knew what was good, and who did what was evil. 
Who supported the state, yet the kingdom destroyed, 
Who reconciled friends, and who friendships alloyed ; 
Who brought forth three kings, thrice endangered the crown, 
Built palaces up and threw capitals down ; 



.OUB UiDX OF BOULOaiTE. 141 

She made some good laws, many bad ones as well. 
And merited richly both heaven and hell." 

The next lady whom 1 detect as making an offering, out 
of that species of gratitude which is pithily said to exist in a 
sense of favours to come, is the famous, or the contrary, 
Diana of Poictiers. She presented a silver lamp, and found 
her reward in being able, at the mature age of forty-seven, 
to subdue the somewhat unimpressionable Henri II. 

The silver lamp was a favourite oblation. One was offered 
by the gallant Francis of Lorraine, Duke of Guise. It was 
presented in grateful acknowledgment of his escape from 
the expected consequences of a grievous wound received by 
him in one of the stricken fields of Picardy. The Marquis 
de Bouill^, in his History of the Dukes of Guise, does not 
mention the offering (of which there is record by the local 
historians), but he chronicles the wound. The latter is cir- 
cumstantially detailed by the duke's surgeon Ambrose Paris, 
who had as little love for battle-fields as could be felt by one 
who was compelled to be in them constantly. " My good 
lord the Duke of Guise," he says, "was wounded before 
Boulogne by a thrust from a lance, which, entering above 
the right eye, descended towards the nose, and came out on 
the other side between the nape of the neck and the ear. 
He was struck with such violence that the iron head of the 
lance, with a portion of the wooden staff, was broken off and 
remained in the head, from which it could be extracted only 
by employing unmense violence, and making use of a far- 
rier's pincers. But, notwithstanding this unheard of vio^ 
lence, as there was no fracture of bones, nor rupture of any 
nerves, veins, arteries, or any other part, the grace of God 
conferred an entire cure on my said good Lord, who being 
always accustomed to go into battle with his face uncovered, 
thus afforded a passage to the lance to pierce him through 
and through." 

Subsequently to this miraculous cure, the image one 



142 irSW FI0TUBB8 AKD OLD PAITELS. 

morning was suddenly missed from the shrine. For forty 
years there was consternation in the town, for ill luck 
reigned where Our Lady used to bring fortune. At length 
a sick old Huguenot, who had turned Bomanist, confessed 
on his death-bed to having stolen the graven image, and 
flung it down the well of his chateau of Honvault. There 
it was found and identified by a scar on the nose, dealt it by 
a heretic English soldier. The only persons who did not 
rejoice when it was restored to its old greatness, w&re the 
monks of St. Wilmer, who had long been passing off a figure 
of their own as the original Virgin, but who were satis- 
factorily proved to be impostors by a sound cudgelling ad- 
ministered to them by the brethren of Our Lady. 

The Huguenot's well, however, had damped the ardour 
of worshipers, as well as damaged the beauty of the very 
ancient work of St. Luke ; and the figure of Our Lady re- 
mained in complete neglect until the year 1793, when it 
was only noticed for the sake of devoting it to destruction. 
The Bevolutionists of this period took it down &om the 
shrine, and tying it to a stake erected in the market-place, 
they there burned it to ashes amid a chorus of howls that 
was intended by the performers as a Hymn to Beasonl 

Such was the end of Our Lady of Boulogne, the handi- 
work of St. Luke ; and it must be acknowledged that if the 
figure was set up by power of a pious fraud, the zeal that 
tore it down was based upon a lie tenfold as destructive to 
the sold. And so condudeth this little-known legend of 
Our Lady of Boulogne. 



143 



III. 

THE UNGRACIOUS ROOD OF GRACE; 

PROFILES OF ST. GBIMBALD AND ST. ROBEET. 

WiTK an illustrated Lambarde, sketches of .the Eood, and 
small proxies of the Saints, \?ith golden glories, as if their 
heads rested on old two-guinea pieces, the presiding officer 
at the artistic meeting thus illustrated the English portrai- 
ture of divine and earthly creatures, brought together for 
the nonce. 

Lambarde, in his * Perambulations of Kent,' says truly 
enough, that " abbaies do beget one another." Thus Boxley, 
founded in 1146, was the '* daughter " of Clairvaux, and, in 
1172, became the mother of the abbey of Eobertsbridge, in 
Sussex. The white monks of Boxley acknowledged as their 
founder a gallant captain of King Stephen, named William 
de Ipr^, to whose liberality they were rudebted for the 
handsome yearly revenue of two hundred and four pounds. 

Boxley remained for some time in the enjoyment of its 
income, and of much peaceful obscurity therewith. The 
period however arrived when it would fain achieve distinc- 
tion, and this it effected in something of a marvellous 
manner. It happened that an English carpenter, serving in 
our early wars with the French, was taken prisoner, and in 
order to lighten the heavy hours of his captivity, and accom- 
plish an end that should purchase his ransom, he bent his 
ingenuity to the task, and, after much labour, '* compacted 
of woode, wyer, paste, and paper, a roode of suche exquisite 



14i4t K£W PICTURES AND OLD FAITELS. 

arte and workmanship that it not onelj matched in eomely- 
nesse and due proportion of the partes the beste of the 
common sorte, but in straunge motion, varietie of gesture, 
and nymblenesse of ioyntes, passed all other that before had 
beene scene." This wonderful rood, if it could not carry on 
an argument like the Androide of Albertus Magnus, which 
logically foiled Thomas Aquinas, — could do all but that. 
It could raise or seat itself, could hold head erect or move 
with body bent. The oflSce of motion was familiar to every 
limb. It could roll the eyes, " wagge the chappes," frown 
portentously when displeased, or smile mirthful as sunshine 
when the cloud had passed. Scorn, contempt, indifference, 
earnestness, joy, sorrow, anger, or content, all sped over its 
face in successive phases of emotion, according as temper 
marked the time. 

The cunning artificer of this dainty work not only com- 
passed his liberty, but took with him into freedom and his 
native land the wonderful image itself. He journeyed 
therewith through the smiling fields of Kent. A sorry 
jade bore the marvellous rood on its back ; while the author 
of the work followed his production humbly afoot. There 
was good ale to be. had in Eochester in those days; and 
when the weary and thirsty carpenter had arrived in that 
city, he entered a well-reputed inn, without intent of tarry- 
ing longer than would suffice for him to get at the bottom 
of a tankard. In the meanwhile he lefb sorry steed and 
glorious burden to wend slowly on their western way 
through the admiring city. The horse, however, was no 
sooner committed to his own responsibility than he adopted 
an independent course. Suddenly turning southward, he 
broke ruto a miraculous gallop, and never stopped till he 
had reached the abbey-church-door at Boxley. He assailed 
the gates there with such vigorous application of his heels, 
that the entire brotherhood, afber an exclamation of inquiring 
astonishment, rushed to the portals. There they were 



THE rKGBJLCIOTJS BOOB OF aBAOE. 145 

nearly all ridden over, as the horse charged through them, 
brought himself up, with a congratulatory neigh, at the foot 
of a pillar, and intimated thereby that he had selected that 
spot whereon the rood should be at once raised to challenge 
the general wonder and enrich the fraternity. The monks 
thereon addressed themselves to their assigned work with 
alacrity, and they were in the act of unloading the carpen- 
ter's steed, when the owner himself rushed impetuously into 
the church, clamorously claimed his own, and went to log- 
gerheads with the monks, who disputed the fact of his pro- 
prietorship. Being at length satisfied upon this head, they 
bade him take his own, if he could, and depart therewith. 
The smile on their radiant faces interpreted an inward con- 
viction that there had been a miraculous transfer of pro- 
prietorship, and that the saints above, who had witnessed 
the transaction, would support them in their question of 
right. The carpenter, meanwhile, troubling himself not at 
all with subtleties of any quality whatever, quickly strapped 
his handiwork on to the back of the horse, and forthwith, by 
tugging at the bridle, showering down encouraging, depre- 
cating, menacing, or blaspheming epithets, endeavoured to 
pull brute and burden to the portal. But the brute refused 
to stir, and the burden urged it to maintain its obstinate 
resolution. The artificer then unstrapped the figure from 
the beast's back, thinking so to carry it out of the church, 
and then to return and lead his horse into the high-road. 
But when he had placed the image on its feet upon the 
ground, it woidd no longer consent to be moved at all. All 
the united and persuasive strength of the owner and the 
monks, who affected to do their utmost in seconding the 
efforts of the carpenter, availed nothing. Thereupon the 
good brothers asked if the owner could any longer resist 
belief in what before was sufficiently palpable, namely, that 
the divine figure had ridden down to Boxley church of its 
own accord, — yet divinely impelled ? The carpenter shook 

H 



146 vxw Ficnmss ajtd olb pahxlb. 

liifl liead with a rerj sceptical air, and was little moYed by 
the appeals made to his religious sensibilitj. Logical con- 
Tiction, however, descended upon him when the Abbot put 
into his glad palm a purse full of new-minted coin. He at 
once thereupon saw and beliered ; and he readily left the 
work of his hands to stand and exact reverence as ^Hhe 
great god of Boxley ." Such is the legend of the Carpenter's 
Sood. 

To few shrines was there greater resort than to what 
in after-years became known as the '' Ungracious Eood of 
Grace." This epithet was especially attached to it, less out 
of disrespect, than as illustrating the difficulty by which it 
might be approached, and the cost at which alone &vour 
at its hands might be purchased by visitors. 

Access to the rood was only permitted to those who were 
of pure life. The necessary ordeal to prove this purity 
was a strange one. It was one that seldom allowed sub- 
stantiation of proof but to those endowed with substance of 
purse, and liberality to dispense it. The rood only smiled 
upon the wealthy. The more humble and destitute sinner 
was fain to be content with hearing of the miracles which 
he was not worthy to witness. 

The mission of testing the claims of those who hoped to 
gain advantage &om worshiping before the rood at Boxley 
was confided to St. Sumbald and a confederate ; and between 
the two it was performed to perfection. 

Bumbald, Sumwald, Eombault, Eaimbaud, or as the 
English were more given to call him, Grimbald, was the 
son of a Northumbrian king, with a name ftill of hv/rrs. 
His another was the daughter of Penda, King of the Mer- 
cians. The Northumbrian prince was a heathen, and ob- 
stinate to boot. His wife was a Christian, and in obstinacy 
was a perfect match for her husband. So long as he per- 
sisted in his heathenism, the lady who had condescended to 
espouse him maintained a haughty reserve, a mensd et thoro. 



THB UKGBJLOIOVS BOOP OT GBAOE. 147 

Thiis course haying conyinced the King as to the excellence 
of his consort's faith, the result was satisfactorily illustrated 
by the birth of Bumbald, whose little eyes no sooner beheld 
the light than, according to his biographers, he clapped his 
little hands, and startled all the people of Sutton by crying 
cheerily aloud, ^ Christianus sum ! Christianus sum !" The 
gossips stood looking on in admiring perplexity, which was 
not diminished when the '^ parlous" infant bade them be 
stirring, and bring to him a huge stone that stood near (for 
his premature birth took place by the roadside), and which 
he would fashion into a font in which he might be baptized. 
The standers-by bent themselves to their work with hearty 
goodwill and abundant faith, but the ponderous mass re- 
fused to move. The child gazed at their fruitless efforts, 
with a smile, and then hilariously ordering them to stand 
aside, he walked to the stone, lifted it with ease, gave it a 
toss or two, out of very wantonness and exuberance of 
spirits, into the air, and finally, when tired of his sport, 
turned the stone into a font, wherein he was forthwith bap- 
tized by Bishop Widerin, who happened to be at hand, one 
of whose attendant priests, named Eadwold, served, for the 
nonce, as godfather. This Eadwold deposited in an early 
grave the boy for whom he had stood sponsor at^ the miracu- 
lously provided font. The child had intimated his desire 
that his body should remain for the space of one year at 
Sutton, two at Brackley in Northamptonshire, and perma- 
nently, after the expiration of the latter period, in the town 
of Buckingham. This was done according to his desire. 
"Widerin translated his remains to Brackley, where the 
woolstaplers who lived among the hrakes held the Saint in 
especial esteem. The entire county of Buckingham paid 
him no less honour ; and consoled itself for being without 
a city, upon the plea that the relics of the deceased were 
worth a wilderness of living bishops. 
To the shrine of St. Eumbald, in the county town, pil- 

H 2 



148 mSW PICTTJBBB AKD OLD PAITELS. 

grimages were made tbat Walsingham might have envied. 
The ** hundreds " sent up their devotees. Princes visited 
it from Brill, and lordly friars from pleasant Bumham. 
The Colne sang its eulogy in flowing murmurs, and Ouse 
and Ousel rippled perpetual praise. Long Crendon gene- 
rally, and Notley Abbey in particular, resounded with 
ecstatic acknowledgment of the merits of the Saint. The 
Cistercians at Medmenham took up the theme, the Augus- 
tine canons of Great Missenden joined in the chorus ; the 
rich brothers at Asheridge helped to swell the strain ; and 
the Benedictines of Wyrardisbury, when their time came, 
kept alive the renown of the grandson of Penda, by unspar- 
ing panegyric. 

The community of Boxley, ever famous for being wide 
awake to its own individual interests, at an early period of 
its existence raised within its precincts a figure of this St. 
Brumbald, on which they conferred a power of working 
miracles such as would have become the Saint himself; and 
all those who were desirous of passing into the presence of 
the Bood of Grace had first to undergo an ordeal before the 
image of St. Rumbald. This ordeal consisted in moving the 
figure of the Saint from a heavy stone to which it was at- 
tached. Thp figure was neither high nor heavy. They who 
were able to remove it were pronounced pure. They who 
failed were sent away in disgrace. A child would often 
succeed where strong men strove in vain; and notorious 
sinners lifted the Saint, when honest maidens, upon failure, 
were driven from it in blushes and in tears. The cause of 
this seeming caprice in the Saint lay in the priest who stood 
by to regulate the turn of those who came to the ordeal. 
All who approached for that purpose were called upon, at 
three several barriers, to pay a triple fee. They who gave 
of their substance liberally, invariably succeeded at the or- 
deal, while churlish givers tugged in vain ; the image was 
as little to be moved as the mother of Eumbald herself 



THS TOraBAOIOUS BOOD OF GBACE. 149 

when her heathen consort failed to stir the Christian heart 
of his reserved and orthodox bride. The priest who pre- 
sided at the ceremony looked carefully to the proper working 
of these several results, all of which were accomplished ac- 
cording as his hand or foot loosened or fastened the spring 
by which the mute and counterfeit presentment was held to 
the stone. The secret was not discovered till that daylight 
broke in upon Boxley which dispersed other superstitions 
as little able to endure the invasion. When this occurred, 
the Kentish Men and the Men of Kent severally maintained, 
amid inextinguishable laughter, that the delusion had been 
too strong for the one party and had been long seen through 
by the other. Each side attributed to itself the wisdom, 
and to the opposite side the folly. Both agreed as to the 
community against which the charge of knavery might be 
laid without gainsaying. 

With regard to the relics of St. Eumbald, part of the re- 
mains of a saint of that name now lie gorgeously enshrined 
above the chief altar in the cathedral church at Mechlin. 
Some assert that these are the remains of the English saint, 
bom at Sutton. Whether this be so or not, I am not able 
to assert. An ancient custom of the married women of 
Mechlin would seem to support the idea. The custom to 
which I allude was this. For many years the wives of 
Mechlin, when the time of their confinement was near, used 
to pass into the territory of Brabant that the birth might 
take place when, like the mother of Eumbald, they were 
absent from home. I suspect, however, that the privileges 
attached to. being a bom Braban9on might have had some- 
thing to do with this custom. The moving fashion, on the 
other hand, was extended to other ladies besides the married 
ones, who resided in the " city of pigs' feet and costly lace," 
under the guardianship of St. Eumbald. Thus in the old 
convent which formerly stood near the gate of Saint Katha- 
rine, there was then a sisterhood of not less than fifteen 



150 irSW PIGTVBES ATn> OLD PANELS. 

hundred nuns ; with a pupilhood, if I may so speak, of nearly 
five thousand boarders. The sisters of this monastery en- 
joyed the privilege of receiving and paying visits, within or 
without the monastery, and at whatever hour it so pleased 
them. They could lodge in the town, if they were so in- 
clined, and might marry, if proposals were made which they 
chose to accept. I do not know if this was the convent 
which broke out into open revolt when the government de- 
prived it of the privilege of having soldiers quartered upon 
it; but that such revolt has occurred more than once is 
matter which may not be denied. 

St. Eumbald in England is found under his more popular 
appellation of Grimbald, in Grimbald Crag, a rock which 
overhangs the Widd exactly opposite to St. Bobert's cave, 
where Eugene Aram and John Houseman, in 1745, mur- 
dered Daniel Clarke, some half-mile from Knaresborough, 
in Yorkshire. The crag is said to have been the residence 
of a saint, but I think he must have been too old for Eum- 
bald of Sutton, and I am not inclined to believe that he is 
to be identified with that Grimbald whose memory is cele- 
brated in the old English calendar on the 10th of July, who 
was living in 882, and whose grave in the Abbey of Win- 
chester was near that of King Alfred himself. The festival 
of Rumbald of Sutton is kept on the 3rd of November. 
Brackley has not even yet quite forgotten the anniversary of 
the translation of the Saint's remains, on the 26th of August. 

There were few localities more picturesque and more 
suited for meditation than those selected on the banks of 
the Nidd by the Yorkshire Grimbald and his brather-hermit 
St. Eobert. The crag itself is a majestic portion of a pic- 
ture where the majesty of beauty abounds, a beauty which 
varies with the seasons, but which ever exists. There is in- 
spiration to be caught from such a spot, though I am far 
from saying that I have succeeded in seizing that of a suit- 
able quality in the following lines bom of the memories of 
the scene. 



THE VFGBACIOITS BOOD 07 GBACS. 151 

Hail, noble crag! the honours of thy brow, 

When wreath'd with yerdure, or when crown'd with snow, 

Still shine the same ; half solemn and half sweet, 

As when the rippling Nidd first kiss'd thy feet. 

How many a weary year since then hath shown 

Its varied gifts to man ; while passing on 

Far into Time's wide ocean ; like the wave 

That hast'neth past thee, and can scarcely lave 

Thy rocky base, ere — ^type of human lot — 

'T is lost in wider streams, and there forgot ! 

Still changing but in hue, unchanged in form, 
Thou smilest with the sunshine ; while the storm 
Draws from thee but a beauty more severe, 
When the wild thunder leaps in his career. 
But ever beautifiil thou art ; and he 
Who stands to contemplate thy majesty, 
Might aknost dream he saw thee, smiling, greet 
Each playful wave that breaks against thy feet, 
As Cathay's tuneful shores, they say, once gave 
Payment in song for kisses from each wave. 

Yes, beautiful ; and eloquent, though mute ! 

Almost defying Time : what sense acute 

Feds not emotion in the breast of man 

Who thinks how many their short race have ran 

(All record of them being that they died) 

Since here thou 'st stood ; now full of strength and pride 

As when the storm first thundered o'er thy head, 

Or on thee Summer h^ first glories shed ! 

Think then, O thou who tumest from this scene, 

Man's chequered life how brief; himself how mean ! 

Of the saint who has given his name to the cave, and to 
the chapel a little higher up the river, on the side opposite 
to that where beetles Grimbald Crag, I will add a few words 
by way of conclusion. St. Bobert of the Nidd did not, like 
his namesake of Brittany, drive courtesans to church or 
queens into nunneries ; nor, like Eobert of Auvergne, build 
monasteries, though like him he loved retirement ; nor was 
he noble, Kke Eobert of Molesme, who founded the Cister- 
cians ; nor was he the Bobert who was the Abbot of New* 



152 KEW PICTUBEB AKD OLD PAKELS. 

minster^ near Morpeth, and who died in 1159. To this last 
Eobert, Butler has assigned some of the circumstances that 
belong to the biography of Eobert of the Nidd. The latter 
is known to have been visited by King John (after "Robert 
of iN'ewminster was dead) in the beginning of the thirteenth 
century. He was probably a younger brother of the Abbot 
of Newroinster, where there were assturedly two brothers of 
the name of Ploure, and, though they could not both have 
borne the same Christian name, it is certain that the two 
men have been diversely celebrated under one name. Tock- 
lese Floure was a tradesman in, and mayor of, York. His 
wife's name was Sminceria. Robert of the Nidd, their son, 
entered the church, became a sub-deacon, and at Whitby 
gratified the nuns of " High Whitby's cloister'd pile" by 
his various exercises, religious or otherwise. He was after- 
wards a member of the Cistercian brotherhood at Newmin- 
ster, of which I believe his own brother to have been abbot. 
He subsequently wandered about from one community to 
another, edifying all by his piety, his meekness, and his 
mortifications. He was particularly popular at Spoffbrth 
and Rofarlington ; but, self-denying as legend asserts him 
to have been, there is evidence, yet extant, of his having been 
as Hamlet says, " spacious in the possession of dirt,'* — in 
other words, a landed proprietor. His " banks were all fur- 
nished with bees," and his bams with corn. He maintained 
four serving-men, who alike looked after his farm, his in- 
terests, and their own. He had a sharp eye after land. 
William Bstoteville, lord of the forest of Knaresborough, 
had designated him as "the protector of thieves," and there- 
on Robert contrived to terrify him into the surrender of all 
the land which now lies between St. Robert's cell and Grim- 
bald Crag. He rescued his mother from purgatory, foiled 
the Evil One in various encounters, and was visited with 
the religious indignation of the unwashed and more ortho- 
dox hermits, because he practised the comfortable virtue of 



THB UKeBAOIOFB BOOD OF GBACS. 153 

cleanliness. His own valet, if a saint could have such an 
officer, was a Jew ! and master and man used occasionally 
to quarrel after the most mundane fashion. The chapel and 
cell, cut out of the rock hy the Nidd, possess little architec- 
tural decoration, yet they are not without a certain beauty, 
always excepting the three heads said to be emblematical of 
the Trinity, and a sculptured portrait of St. John the Bap- 
tist, which is a startling libel upon humanity. Bobert died 
in the full odour of sanctity, and the monks of Fountains 
endeavoured in vain to get possession of his remains. From 
his grave there flowed, it is averred, a medicinal oil that 
would have made the fortunes of half the unsuccessful quacks 
of this degenerate age. Many a story is told of its miracu- 
lous effects, and the virtues of the saints of the Nidd are 
still talked of at the hearths in the vicinity of St. Bobert's 
chapel and St. Grimbald's Crag. 



h3 



154 



IV. 

THE FLOWERY LEGEND OF OUR LADY OF 

GUADALUPE. 

"What did your Eood of Grace resemble," iSaid Juan 
Triarte, a Spanish votary, "after the days of the Refor- 
mation?" 

"A sorry picture it made," was the reply of a guest. 
" They who are curious in that matter may consult the Re- 
ports of the Commissioners to Henry VIII. ; and they who 
find access to such reports difficult, will do just as well, and 
learn as much, if they look into Mr. Murray's * Handbook 
of Kent and Sussex.' " 

"Well," said Triarte, and he uncovered the picture of an 
exquisite Madonna, surrounded by flowers that seemed to 
live, " here is something more graceful than your heathen 
Anadyomenes, your French Madonnas, and your lumbering 
English Eoods, — look at that, — * Our Lady of Guadalupe 
the Proud.' " 

"Why 'the Proud'?" asked Smith. 

" Ah ! for a reason ! Tou see that almost* all localities 
are rich in some quality attached to their name, or some 
proverbial allusion ; all, except England. For example, ' See 
Kaples and then die ! ' shows the Italian pride. Russia is 
not far behind in pride when she writes on the gates of one 
of her cities, 'Who can resist God and Novgorod the great?' 
It is the people of Lombardy who have applied to Genoa 
the stereotyped phrase that there are * men without faith, 



LEGEITD OE OTJB LADY OE OVJlDALVFE. 155 

women without virtue, sea without fish, and hills without 
trees.'" 

" Well," said Smith, " in a more self-laudatory sense, the 
natives of Kilkenny say of their city that in it are to he 
found * fire without smoke, air without fog, water without 
mud, few women without heauty, and a town paved with 
marhle.' " 

" Pray Cujuello," continued Triarte, " has declared of his 
heloved native town, that * when the curse was laid upon 
the earth, heaven excepted the five miles round Valencia.' 
Other Spaniards have showered other epigrams upon the 
hrow of the Iberian city. * It is,' says one, * full of every- 
thing but substance.' Of the people, sings a second, * As 
light in head as in body.' While a third more sweepingly 
declares that at Valencia ' the meat is grass, the grass water, 
the men women, and the women nothing.' " 

"He might have said of the latter," remarked Smith, 
" that they were proud, as an epigrammatist has said of the 
citizens of Wewry, in this distich : — 

'High church and low steeple. 
Dirty streets and proud people.' " 

" Ah ! for pride, I know nothing," resumed Juan, " that 

goes beyond the Persian inscription, which declares of one 

of its capitals that ' Ispahan is half the world ! ' But this 

is not much less modest than the topographer's lines on 

Seville : — 

' Quien no ha visto Sevilla, 
No ha visto maravilla.* 

Which may be roughly translated into — 

' Who has not in Seville been, 
Has never yet a wonder seen.* 

" For this one saying on Seville, the capital of the king- 
dom has a triad. First there is * Donde esta Madrid, calle 
el mundo,' or * Where Madrid is, let the world be silent.' 
The calm, deadly air of that city sometimes makes half of 



156 l^W PICTTJBES Al^D OLD PANELS. 

its own citizens silent. Exemplification thereof is to be 
found in the popular dictum that ' the air of Madrid kills a 
man, when it does not extinguish a candle.' The city ap- 
pears to me to have been more equitably treated bj the witty 
Pedro da Costa Perestulta, who said — 

* Quien te quiera no te sabe, 
Quin te sabe no te quiera.' 

Literally — 

' He who likes thee does not know thee ; 
He who knows thee does not like thee.' " 

" Which,*' said Alexandre, " I hold to be truer than the 
mural inscription once proposed for a statue of the City of 
Paris, and which intimated that he who had not seen that 
city had seen nothing : * Qui n'a vu Paris n'a rien vu !' " 

"How much more modest," remarked Mee Aughton, 
proud for the honour of England, " is the Scotch device for 
the city of St. Mungo, *Let Glasgow flourish!' And how 
savage must have been the writer of the old book on the 
rural suburbs of London, who affixed to a Kentish village 
a saying, which has never ceased to be applied to it, and 
which alliteratively describes it as ' long, lean, lousy, lazy, 
lanky Lewisham l' Erom such a district it is pleasant to 
get away, and travelling westward, hear a native say, * As 
sure as God is in Gloucestershire,' a very popular saying 
when monasteries were plentiful there, but not the more 
applicable on that account — not more so than *the Paris 
of the Levant' is applicable to Smyrna, or *the Elower 
of the Levant ' is applicable to Scio. 

" Old Fuller will show what local proverbs we have in 
England," continued Mee Aughton, "and Murray's Hand- 
books, those of our counties respectively. 1 find the cha- 
racteristics of eight of them set down in half as many lines : 

* Derbyshire for lead, Devonshire for tin, 
Wiltshire for plains, Middlesex for sin ; 
Cheshire for men, Berkshire for dogs, 
Bedfordshire for flesh, and Lincolnshire for hogs/ 



LEGSm) OF OUB LADY OX* GUADALUPE. 157 

"Poor Middlesex is scurvily treated in this quatrain, 
written when malefactors used to be drawn by the half- 
dozen every Monday from Newgate to Tyburn. But even at 
that day the greatest thieves were not always those who 
stood outside the shop- windows. Then, as now, the splen- 
did insolvents who drank champagne and rode in carriages 
while they cheated their creditors, were worse than the 
petty-larceny rascals on the pave, and not to be .mentioned 
with the Arab who lives by plunder — upon principle." 

■Amid general conversation it was then remarked that 
" Manchester weather " is known to mean rain ; and Benares 
is called " the lotus-tree of the world," because it is always 
pleasant (which it is not) to reside therein. !N'ot unlike 
Manchester are two Prench towns, of whom a disgusted 
military officer has said — 

" Dieu me garde de gamison 
A GraTelines ou Besan9on." 

"It were pleasanter," said a guest, "for a man to be in Dres- 
den, * the Florence of Germany ; ' and even were he in Bembouk 
be might console himself by the thought that he was in what 
rather imaginative topographers have designated as 'the 
Peru of Western Africa.* And talking of Peru reminds me 
that it was a native thereof with whom originated the re- 
mark, ' Strip a Spaniard of all his virtues, and you make a 
Portuguese of him!' And of all Spaniards, few, perhaps, 
were ever so irredeemably wicked as those of a place where 
wickedness is illustrated in the Andalusian proverb of ' Kill 
your man and fly to Olbera.' There is another epigram of 
comparison between the peninsular people, which says, * If 
to a Spaniard's vices you add hypocrisy, you make of him a 
perfect Portuguese ! ' Spain, however, if it has not much to 
boast of in the way of innocence, rejoices in one locality 
fiEimous for its salubrity, and touching which it is descrip- 
tively said that * At Eonda a man of eighty is a boy !' This 



158 KEW PICTUBES JLSTD OLD PAIITSLS. 

Bounds like an eclio of the Bedouin proverb touching the 
district wherein once dwelt the tribe of Beuben, ' You shall 
never find any country so good as the Balka ! ' wherefore, 
one cannot say ; for the wise saw is not so succinctly expla- 
natory as that which says of Shiraz that it is ' the Gtkte of 
Science,' or of Khorassan that it is * the Sword of Persia,' or 
of Algiers that it is * Algiers the warlike,' or conquering. 
As to the profession most popular there, down to a compa- 
ratively recent period, it is sufficiently hintod at in the local 
proverb, which says, that * K Algiers were at peace with all 
the world, its inhabitants would die of hunger.' " 

" Enough, enough !" cried Triarte, " gaze now enraptured 
on my * Lady of Plowers,' and lend ear to the droll legend 
therewith connected." There was silence, and he began. 

" The city of Mexico has often been called * the city of 
the Virgin of the Guadalupe,' and the origin of this name 
I am about to explain by narrating the tradition from which 
it has sprung. Not only the city, but very many men as 
well as women in the old city of the Aztecs, bear the name 
of Ghmdalvfe^ and how this name became so popular I 
will now briefly tell. 

" There is, about a league to the north of Mexico, the ma^ 
melon of a ridge of hills looking towards the city, and which 
once bore the unmusical name of Tepeyacar. It is a rugged 
bluff, difficult of access, yet more frequently climbed than 
any other height in the vicinity. 

"In old days an altar to the Mexican Juno or Venus 
stood here. It was rather the former, for she was called 
the * Mother of the Gods.' It has been replaced by one 
in honour of * the Mother of God.' So in old Borne, the 
shrine of Venus Victrix was converted into one in honour 
of the Virgin Triumphant. The story of the Mexican trans- 
formation is so evidently that on which the Virgin of La 
Salette was recently founded that it is worth the telling, 
were it only to fix the plagiary. 



I.EOEin> 07 OTTR LABT 07 OTTJlDALITPE. 159 

" On the 9th of December, 1681, at early dawn, a con- 
verted Indian labourer, known as Juan Diego, was on his 
waj to first Mass, when on crossing the mountains he heard 
a celestial concert from invisible birds in the clouds above 
him. Juan stood (like your Aspasia) with face upraised in 
ecstasy; and his surprise was not diminished on perceiving 
a small, brilliant light in the distant heavens, which in- 
creased as it came closer, and which almost blinded him by 
the resplendent power of its glory. Wow Juan Diego not 
only saw, but heard. He heard a voice calling him by name, 
and when he again, with both hands raised to shade his 
dazzled eyes, looked upwards, he was conscious of the pre- 
sence in the air of a self-supporting lady, dressed in white 
robes which shed a more than electric light, and who came 
sliding down towards the hard-set earth, afber the pretty 
manner of what i9 histrionically known as a 'femme vo- 
lante.' 

" Juan Diego prepared to run for it, but the sweetest voice 
in the world bidding him remain, he held his breath and his 
position, and awaited in a sort of rapt patience, the pleasure 
of the Lady of Light. She soon dispelled his fears, for who 
could be a&aid when the voice speaking was sweeter than 
the very music of the spheres ? The command conveyed by 
it was that Juan Diego should repair to the Bishop and 
other ecclesiastical authorities, and inform them that it was 
her wish that an altar in her honour should be erected where 
once stood that in honour of the mother of the Mexican 
deities. Juan thought that he was but an unworthy carrier 
to be charged with the porterage of such a command, but 
the Lady of the Silver Tongue told him he was as fit for the 
office as though he had been a Hidalgo — which was very 
true ; and, on being further assured that if he went forth- 
with upon his mission, Heaven would not be hard in strik- 
ing a balance of his accounts, away sped Juan Diego, and 
told the whole matter to the Bishop. 



160 KSW FIOTVBES AJSTD OLD PAinSI^S. 

^' But Don Francisco de Zumerraga was, for the moment, 
as careless about the honour of the Church as Mr. Bright 
and his patriotic school are for the honour of England. 
The wish expressed to him by the Virgin was as much 
worth as if she had suggested his own canonization. Well, 
he dismissed Juan Diego with as little ceremony as En- 
glish Government-officials dismiss men. who offer invalu- 
able service. He was told that the matter would be ' taken 
into consideration.' 

'' Juan flew back to the mountain with the speed of a 
winged Mercury, lighter of foot than the vivacious valet of 
Fortunatus. He found the lady waiting for him ; and, with 
something of anger in his voice, he recounted his scurvy re- 
ception, adding his suggestion that if a better-dressed man 
were employed, he probably would be more readily believed. 
' As for me,' said the modest Juan, ' I am as ugly and ill- 
shaped as one of Montezuma's pet dwarfs. I wonder your 
Ladyship should have pitched upon such a poor dev — -.* 

" * What is to be done ?' asked the perplexed spirit. 

" * Done ! ' exclaimed Juan ; * send a member of any of 
the governing families in Mexico, and, though he were the 
biggest ass that ever came from Spain, he will be heeded.' 

" ' That 's true,' murmured the lady ; ' but we are still in- 
clined to think you the most fitting agent. The reigning 
families have neither grace, wisdom, nor understanding, and 
yet the Church prays for the triple gift daily. And you, 
my good Juan,' she added, * you certainly look but a sorry 
messenger. Yet what can otherwise be done ?' 

" Juan, astounded at his own audacity in presuming to 
render advice where it could not be wanted, remarked, with 
some diffidence, that ' Perhaps if the lady would speak to 
the Bishop herself — ' 

" But no ; for some reason or other, no doubt sufficient 
and satisfactory, the visionary lady would not hear of it. It 
was decided that Juan should once more bear the original 
message. 



LEaSHD OF OVB LADY 07 GUADALUPE. 161 

" ' I will wait here, to learn the reply,' said she. 

" * Is your slave wiser than the Queen and Star of the 
Sea?' asked Juan. * Await to learn the reply! Why I 
already know what answer I shall bring hack. The Bishop 
has no more regard for the glory and welfare — ' and here 
he went muttering on his way ; but his comparison was as 
irreverent and not to be disputed as if one were to afi&rm 
that the Bishop cared for the glory and welfare of his 
Church no more than the men who, not being place- 
hunters, trade on patriotism, care for the fame, prosperity, 
honour, and safety of England. 

" The following day, being Sunday, Juan waited patiently 
till Mass was over, and then presented himself for admission 
at the gates of the episcopal palace. He intimated that he 
was the bearer of a suggestion which would be the making 
of the Church in that district. He was dismissed as rudely 
as if he had gone to a First Lord of the Admiralty with an 
infallible specific for the destruction of an enemy's flotilla. 

" But Juan Diego was a persevering — ^the Bishop called 
him an obstinate — man. Not a foot would he move except 
in a forward direction towards the room in which- the pre- 
late was sitting. He was admitted, as the easiest means of 
finally getting rid of him ; and he was no sooner in the dio- 
cesan's presence than once more he told his wondrous story, 
and put it at once to Don Francisco, if he saw anything 
more difficult therein than was to be found in any page of 
the Church's annals P 

" Don Francisco would not answer in the affirmative, but 
he was not, on that account, any the more inclined to accept 
the story told him by a wretched Indian. 

" * Go back, good fellow,' said he, ' go back to this won- 
derful lady, and if thy tale be a true one, she will, at my 
asking, give you a sign, whereby I and all men shall know 
that she is Our Lady indeed — a queen, whose commands it 
is a privilege to obey.' 



162 ITEW PI0TVRB8 AND OLD PAJTELd. 

" * Suppose,' said Juan, ' your gracious Beyerence weare to 
accompany me to the illustrious lady, yourself?' Now, this 
request, from such a vagrant, to so exalted a personage, was 
as incongruous as if the Fulham beadle were to ask the 
Bishop of London to occupy the pulpit of a Banters' meet- 
ing-house, — and accordingly, in wrath, the prelate bade him 
without further ceremony go to — ^the divine messenger firom 
whom he professed to have received his credentials. The 
Indian obeyed. He had no sooner disappeared than Don 
Francisco made the same exclamation uttered by the Bishop 
of Ferns, after reading * Gulliver's Travels.' * I don't be- 
lieve,' said he, * I don't believe one-half this fellow teUs so 
plausibly.' Thereupon he blew shrilly upon his silver whis- 
tle, and the signal was obeyed by a couple of young gen- 
tlemen who had been playing at dice in the antechamber, 
and who were studying for the Church. 

" * Follow that vagabond Indian,* said his uncourteous 
lordship to them, * and see with whom he holds converse on 
the hill of Tepeyacar. Hear, if possible, what passes be- 
tween them ; have memories as long as your ears, and return 
forthwith and report all you see and hear.* 

" The brace of aspiring students rushed forth, like grey- 
hounds from the slips. They never stopped to recover 
breath till they had surmounted the hiU in question, and 
having got there they looked round and saw nothing. 

" The lady had, of course, caught Juan Diego up into a 
cloud ; but this natural and simple conclusion never struck 
two gentlemen, otherwise irreproachably orthodox. They 
returned to the episcopal palace with their personal tes- 
timony that Juan was a knave who deserved whipping. 

" As they were descending the hill, on their way home- 
ward, the cloud opened, and the lady let the Indian lightly 
drop upon the earth. * These calves,' said she, in allusion 
to the curates-expectant, * have detained us till it is too late. 
Come hither to-morrow, and the Bishop shall have ^igns 



XEGSIO) 07 OUB LAST OF OVADALITPE. 163 

enough by way of warrant for our authenticity.' The In- 
dian thought that a long time was being employed for so 
small a matter, but neyertheless, and although the next day 
was Monday, and a holiday, he promised to attend. 

" But promises are proverbially made, with other things, 
to be broken. On the Monday, Juan's uncle, Bernardino, 
was taken grievously ill, and if there be any analogy be- 
tween the unpleasantness of his disease and the Indian 
name for it, his inward man must have ached indeed. He 
. was afflicted with the Caoolixth, and no wonder a malady 
with such a name defied the doctors, who cannot cure much 
more simply-catalogued diseases, and that a priest was soon 
required to shrive him to whom the medical men could 
bring no relief. Juan had spent a whole day and night by 
his side, for his uncle had something to leave, and now on 
the Tuesday mom he was hurrying along a bye-path, in 
order to avoid his lightly-robed friend, in search of the holy 
man in question. 

" On his way there was a fountain playing, and on the 
summit of its diamond columns Juan saw the lady dancing, 
just as smaller figures do upon* the tiny jets in Mr. Lips- 
combe's warehouse. ^I am caught,' thought the Indian. 
* You are only encountered,' said the lady, who knew his 
thoughts ; * uncle Bernardino is now no longer iU — ' 

" * No longer ill !' murmured the disappointed nephew. 

" * He is even now gone afield,' said the lady, * and needs 
no further help. And now for the sign called for by the 
Bishop. Juan, run up the hill, and fill your blanket with 
the flowers you find growing there.' 

"* Flowers!' exclaimed Juan, * why there is not an inch 
of mould on that hard rock for flowers to grow in.' 

" * Go forth, and pluck freely,' was the reply, * and bring 
what you gather, here to my feet, beneath this palm, and 
learn further.' 

" Juan hastened to obey. He found the summit, which 



164 XBW PICTUBSS AKD OLD PAKELS. 

was twice as hard and almost as arid as the mounts of 
Nineveh in winter, as gay, fresh, and glorious with flowers 
of every description, as the same mounts, with their pecu* 
liarly petalled denizens, in the bright time of spring. He 
rolled himself in them with delight. They were wet with 
dew, and when he arose he was better washed and more 
pleasantly odorous than he had ever been in his lifetime 
before. He filled his tilma, or blanket, with the precious 
flowers, and hastened with them to the lady beneath the 
palms. 

** She smiled, expressed her satisfaction, and, saying that 
that was sign enough, she bade him go boldly therewith 
to the palace of Don Francisco. Joyfully did Juan obey, 
boldly did he demand admission, and rudely was he re- 
pulsed. 

" * The fellow smells ! ' said a monk not remarkable for a 
celestial ichor, ' as if he had been drinking. Sirrah, what 
dost thou carry in thy blanket ?' 

" A gift for his Eminence,' said Juan, who sought in vain 
to keep his flowery tribute hidden in his garment. The at- 
tendants at last tore it open, and were lost in ecstasy at the 
sight and scent which were before them. To see and to 
smell was followed by resolution to possess, and they thrust 
their hands into the rich heap with a felonious intent which 
met with signal failure. The flowers ranged themselves on 
the sides of the blanket, and the Indian's garment looked, 
for all the world, as if it were of a floral pattern, the gayest 
that ever issued from the School of Design. If the astonish- 
ment of all was great, it grew into something more inde- 
scribable, when, in the very centre of the blanket, amidst 
surrounding flowers, appeared impressed the daguerreotyped 
portrait of the lady herself. The admiration was so loud- 
tongued, that the Bishop rushed forth, and, beholding what 
had caused it, began to shout as admiringly as the rest. 

^' He then reverently took the blanket from the neck of 



IiEOSin) OE OITB LADY 07 OITABALUPE. 165 

the Indian, and, in proof that the whole stoiy is true, this 
hlanket, with the portrait and flowers painted thereon, is 
still to be seen in the church of Santa Maria de Guadal^pa. 
For the church, of course, was erected, and Bernardino was 
the architect, at the express commaud of the lady who had, 
or who had not, been seen by Juan Diego. The Bishop was 
a little nettled that he had not been permitted to hold com- 
mnnication with the principal ; and he was a little puzzled 
at beholding painted, rather than real, flowers. But, on the 
other baud, Juan protested they had once been real, the 
Bishop's own servants indorsed the protest, and Ber- 
nardino, the architect, asserted that the lady had not only 
expressed a wish that a church should be built, but that 
\e should be the builder. Taken altogether, nothing could 
be more conclusive for those who like to jump to con- 
clusions, and never was saint more warmly acknowledged, 
or shrine more multitudinously attended, than that of Our 
Lady of Guadalupe. 

" Half Mexico will tell you that the sacred edifice was 
reared within a fortnight. Others declare that the church 
was not built within two years and five months. These 
latter, however, I fear were sceptical persons. As if there 
were any more difficulty in believing that the structure 
which now contains the miraculously -flowered blanket was 
raised in a fortnight than that the flowers painted on the 
blanket were once real, and the face that glows among them 
was the 'presentment' of a divine lady. Surely one story 
is as worthy of belief as the other. 

" That thousands do yield credence to the tale is proved 
by the multitudes who ascend to the church on the hill, 
on the return of every second of December. That day is 
one of the high festivals in the old land of the old Aztecs. 
The blanket and the holy spring are then visited by citizens 
of all classes, from the highest in the land to the lowest in 
condition. If there be folly in the act, there may be in the 



166 VEW PICTUBES AJSiD OLD PANELS. 

motive a sincerity worthy of being respected. At all events, 
it seems that & good-humour reigns there that may be fairly 
enyed ; and when an assembly is more than ordinarily joy- 
ous, it is spoken of as being as mirthful as a meeting on 
the hill of Tepeyacar." 



167 



A PICTURE OF ENGLAND A CENTURY AGO. 

" I AM weary of your old panellings, your roods, and your 
Madonnas," said Smith ; " let us get back to London. Here 
I have been turning over Sylvanus Urban, of 1752, being 
minded to detect a flaw, if possible, in your " Picture in 
Three Panels." 

Mee Aughton, to whom this was addressed, smiled as if 
he defied Smith, or was indifferent whether flaws could be 
pointed out in his sketches, or not. 

" I see you are right," added Smith, " touching Wesley 
and the conversion of the New "Wells Theatre into a chapel. 
But the volume contains some more touches of English life 
than that." 

Without asking whether we were willing or not to view 
his word-pictures of England a century ago, he continued, 
sometimes speaking, at other times reading, after this de- 
sultory fashion. — 

During the first quarter of the year in which Mr. Wesley 
first preached at the New Wells Theatre (1752), the En- 
glish public appear to have been very considerably occupied 
with two terrible murders, and with some lively Methodist 
riots at Norwich. Both the murders alluded to were com- 
mitted allegedly for " love," but assuredly for " money," — a 
feust which renders them barbarously prosaic. In the first 
case. Miss Blandy, of Beading, " rather plump than slender," 
and with "sprightly black eyes," killed her "papa," by poison- 
ing his gruel. She had fallen in love with Captain Crans- 
toun, ^' an officer in the army, a sort of people who live in 



168 NEW PICTURES Ain) OLD PA17ELS. 

an eternal state of real hostility with the female sex." The 

• 

Captain was no Adonis : " his stature is low, his fsLce freckled 
and pitted with the small-pox, his eyes small and weak, his 
eyehrows sandy, and his shape no ways genteel, and, as a 
diurnal writer ohserves, he has nothing in the least elegant 
in his manner." Upon the desires of this pair the father 
looked favourably enough, and used to boast that he might 
yet die the grandsire of a lord. Till his death, however, there 
was to be no dowry, and the Highland Captain declined 
accepting the lady unless she brought with her a fortune 
equal in amount to what she was expected to inherit at her 
father's demise. The lovers accordingly grew impatient, 
and unwisely thought to expedite matters by drugging the 
paternal potion. The Captain sent a packet of powders fi^m 
Scotland " for cleaning pebbles." The lady chose to con- 
sider them as a love-elixir, and dropped them into her sire's 
gruel, for the innocent purpose of compelling his affection to 
bend towards the man she loved, and who very much loved 
her prospective fortune. The harmless end was not accom- 
plished ; the father died, the Captain evaporated, and' the 
lady was transferred to close keeping in Oxford Castle. 
She was tried, condemned, and executed. I am not about to 
talk out of the Newgate Calendar (said Smith), and there- 
fore avoid details ; but I select circumstances which will 
serve to show that there was something highly Fieldingian 
in the quality of the society of the period. Her first attor- 
ney does not appear to have been at all shocked at the cir- 
cumstance of the murder, but he very incautiously expressed 
his surprise to her that she should have committed such a 
deed for the sake of such an ugly little rascal as the Captain. 
This aspersion on the lady's taste nettled her, particularly 
as it came from a man who was quite as ill-favoured, low- 
statured, and, as she intimated, even more of a rascal than 
the Captain. Thereupon the officious attorney was dis- 
missed, and a rival lawyer summoned to her assistance^ 



A PIOrrSE OE SNGLAKJ) A OENTUBY AGO. 169 

Miss Blandy's spiritual counsellor was a thorough-bred gaol 
chaplain, after the fashion of their portraiture limned by the 
author of the * True History of Jonathan Wild the Great.' 
This official was named Swiuton. To him the wretched 
criminal confessed that there were sins of her early days 
which came rushing into her memory in that, her supreme 
hour. Mr. Swinton at once administered an emollient, " by 
telling her that the devil frequently presented former sins 
as much more heinous than they really were, to even some 
of the best of Christians when they were upon the confines 
of eternity, in order to ruffle and discompose them, and that 
therefore, probably, the scone that at present seemed to disturb 
her was nothing more than some of his illusions ! " The chap- 
lain was not even original in the composition of his emollient. 
The "Gospel Preachers*' — an early offshoot from the Wesley- 
ans — were much given to this style of soothing over-anxious 
souls, and the trouble they gave to John and Charles "Wesley 
was a matter of laughter to the Beverend Mr. Dodd. 
Like Mr. Chaplain Swinton, they had a salve for bruised 
sinners, even for those who had fallen from a pretended per- 
fection, and they called by the name " animal nature" what 
had been more correctly designated as " animal devil." I 
may add that Miss Blandy was hanged, " dressed extremely 
neat in a black bombazine short sack and petticoat, with her 
arms and hands tied with black paduasoy ribbon." As she 
ascended the ladder she said, " Gentlemen, don't hang me 
high for the sake of decency." She asserted her innocence, 
did not shed a tear, and, as she stood on the rounds of the 
ladder, merely expressed a fear lest she should fall. Up to 
the day of her death, she took much interest in the fate of 
Miss Jeffreys, the heroine of the second murder I have 
alluded to. This last lady lived with her uncle, a wealthy 
retired tradesman, at Walthamstow. She was what she 
called " in love" with the servant lad ; and the two murdered 
the man who stood, as they thought, between them and a 

I 



170 NEW PTOTITEES AND OLD PANELS. 

rich inheritance, when, in truth, bjr their own act, they only 
removed him to find that he had stood between them a&d 
the gaUows. 

I have just spoken to you of the Oospel JPreiwhers. Let 
me now as briefly speak of the terrible riots that were (in 
1792) devastating Norwich. The chief of these preachers 
was the cause of these riots, and in the record of the 
illegality of the rioters, no mention is made of the im- 
morality of the greater ofionder. His name was 'Wheatley. 
He was at the head of a party which had not indeed sepa- 
rated from Wesley, but which had been in constant opposi- 
tion against him. The Gospel preachers called the true 
Wesleyans the "legal wretches," because they had some re- 
spect for the Church established by law. Wheatley went 
down to Norwich to preach. His success was immense with 
the women, but he rendered the men ferocious and frantic. 
He was a spiritual mesmerizer, and his first object was to 
fling into profound sleep the moral faculties and sensitive- 
ness of his female hearers. He was of the - class of men 
against whom the apostle cautions Timothy : " Of this sort 
are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly 
women, laden with sins, led away by divers lusts." He 
argued vrith women as Tartufio did with Mmire : 

** Le ciel defend de yrai certains conientemonts ; 
Maia on trouve avec loi des accoimnodements." 

He was a luscious preacher, quite of the Chatband school. 
He quieted fears that he might awaken love, a love of a very 
particular and objectionable sort. If he professedly Culti- 
vated the sympathies for virtue, he said nothing to maintain 
antipathies against sin. He was full of the promises, but 
was silent upon the threatenings ; and he held that " love one 
another" was an apostolic injunction which only concerned 
himself and his individual female followers, married or single, 
good-looking and under forty. When I read Mr. Urban's 
record of the riots cansed by this crafty hypocrite in Nor- 



A PICTURB or EITGLAKD A CENTUBY AGO. 171 

wich, I wonder not that the rioters did so much, but that 
their well-founded and healthy rage did not impel them to 
something more. The husbands, fathers, brothers, and true- 
hearted lovers of Norwich were simply indignant against a 
villain who had, in return for hospitality, endeavoured to cor- 
rupt every woman in the town who came in his way and had 
but ordinary attractions. Charles Wesley declared that he 
had done more to prevent for ever the reception of the 
GK>ftpel in that locality than if Satan himself had occupied 
the. place with a legion of unclean angels. He was an un- 
savoury traitor against society and its laws, and if ever the 
ungodly united in fury against him, he got but his deserts. 
Wesley himself hastened to expel him from the community 
which his talents might have adorned, but which his vices 
disgraced. It was the excesses of Wheatley which stirred 
up the people of Denbigh also to serious rioting. These, 
Ruling to hang the Methodist ministers who went among 
them to teach a knowledge that was sadly lacking then in 
Wales, executed a couple of the " Grospel preachers" in eflfigy. 
It is amusing to find that in 1752 churchmen were as 
divided on the question of Convocation as they are now^ 
and that all men are as unanimous now as they were then in 
the reasonableness of taxing anybody but themselves. The 
aggrieved taxpayers then forwarded their petitions to a mys- 
terious power hinted at as " St. Steph. Ch-p-1." A century 
ago Bamsgate Harbour was in its first course of construc- 
tion, and the '' many were of opinion that the labour and ex? 
penBe will be thrown away ;" a singularly unlucky opinion, 
as we now well know. At the former period our prisons 
were crowded not only with criminal, but with acquitted 
persons, proved innocent, but kept in durance till they could 
pay their gaolers' fees ! As for the criminals, a suggestion 
was made to decrease their number by suppressing diversions 
and shutting up infamous houses : a suggestion against the 
first half of which Mr. Urban very decidedly protests. But 

I 2 



172 NEW PICTUEES AND OLD PANELS. 

criminals themselves must have been puzzled with the logic 
of the law which executed on the same gallows "Rachel 
Beacham, for the murder of a girl four years old, by inhu- 
manly cutting her throat out of revenge to the mother, with 
whom she had a quarrel ;" and luckless John Dickenson, a 
petty larceny rascal who robbed his master of a handful of 
money, and might as well have murdered him, for any the 
worse the law would have visited the offender. 

Mr. TJrban's Chronicle for 1752 further shows that 
society was then, if possible, deeper sunken in iniquity. 
When we read that a nobleman's ears are cut off by a friend 
whom he had criminally assaulted, and that serious essays 
are written against a practice which called down destroying 
fire from heaven upon two cities of old, we see that vice 
reigned sovereign over virtue in the land. The consequences 
of vice were never more frightfully illustrated than by the 
details given of the condition of the Lock HospitaL It 
was half filled with children, but the nature of the hellish 
superstition which brought them there I really have not the 
heart to tell. Mr. Urban and his public of 1752 had far 
stronger stomachs than they have now. 

In a subsequent number, a correspondent states that the 
Algerine Turks, unclean and vicious as they might be in 
some things, never " presumed to take the name of God in 
vain, nor add it by way of decoration to their ribaldry." 
He adds, that they never gamble, but play chess " for coffee, 
sherbet, or some such trifle;" and he thinks that a know- 
ledge of these facts may be serviceable to such Christian 
readers as Mr. Urban may happen to possess. 

A hundred years ago country ladies had a fine time of it 
at charity sermons; the contributions were gathered from 
pew to pew, but the box was never offered to the fair sex. 
This exemption from charitable impost excited the ire of a 
man of Kent, and perhaps to him is owing the innovation of 
general collections. It was a year, however, when universal 



A PICTUBE OP £lV(]^LAT!rD JL CENTUBY AGK). 173 

England was, for the most part, aghast at the very idea ot 
innovation. "A country gentleman," for instance, is in a 
fever of indignation at the idea of inoculation for the small- 
pox. " It has lately become a practice in my neighbour- 
hood (Kent) to cut a hole in the flesh of young children, 
and inject poison, in order to produce small-pox." He has 
himself, he says, "three pretty young girls," whom he will 
not lightly submit to the new system. I have no doubt 
that they all were allowed to take the disease in the natural 
way, and that after being kept in a heated room, drenched 
with mulled port, and swathed in scarlet flannel, they duly 
died, to the melancholy satisfaction of their father, the 
"country gentleman," who was not inhuman enough to 
have " a hole cut in their flesh " and poison therein injected! 
And common men were to the full as disinclined for all im- 
provement as their betters. In the December number for 
1752, 1 find a very earnest paper on the execrability of the 
old huge ruts called roads, and the advantages of mending 

the ways generally. "The M ^gh coachman" (as the 

Marlborough whip is designated, as though he were a mem- 
ber of " the H — se of L — ds") resolutely refused to take to 
the new turnpike road, by which he might have driven some 
forty miles in nine hours, but stuck to and in the old " wag- 
gon track called Bamshury,^* He lost half his passengers, 
but still he kept on dragging through the slush. " He was 
an old man,'' he said, " and relished not new fantasies. His 
grandfather and father had driven the aforesaid way before 
him, and he would continue in the old track till death !" 
Staunch old conservative ! How vexed must his obese 
spirit be if it happen to visit the pale glimpses of the moon 
when an " express " is rushing down the Great "Western. 
Why, in the days of the M gh coachman a London citi- 
zen, as Mr. Urban tells us, thought as little of travelling 
into the far west for mere pleasure as he would of going to 
the deserts of Nubia. For the few of gentle blood who 



174 OLD PIOTUBSS AlTD FEW PANELS. 

went tottering- in huge family coacliea along the waggon 
tracks, and who made their journey to London after the 
fashion of the Wronghead family, for these even the slow, 
and stolid waggoner had a profound measure of contempt. 
What does the Blandford waggoner say on the question of 
roads P Why, '' that roads had but one object, nam^y, wag- 
gon driving. That he required but five feet width in a lane, 
and all the rest might go to the devil! That the gentry 
ought to stay at home and be d — d, and not run gossiping«up 
and down the country. But," added Jack, " we will soon 
cure them, for my brethren have made a vow^ giinoe the 
new Act, to run our wheels into the coach quarter^ .... No 
turnpikes ! No improvement of .roads ! The Scripture is 
for me; Jeremiah, vi. 16." Anxious to see upon what au- 
thority Jack of Blandford supported his opinion, that 
people, as he would then have expressed himself, "didn't a 
oua;bt for to done what they didn't use to did!" — Smith 
turned to the Prophet, and there found that the Blandford 
waggoner was an astute theologian : ex,gra, " Thus saith the 
Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see and ask for the old 
paths where is the good way, and walk therein; and ye 
shall find rest for your souls.'* The waggoner, no doubt, 
compared the gentry who declined the old way, to the chil- 
dren of Benjamin, who answered to the above injunction, 
** We will not walk therein." Mee Aughton took thtf oppor- 
tunity of noticing that this chapter had been made to serve 
before this period the purposes of political prophecy. In 
"the '45" country clergymen held that in the first verse, 
the words, " Evil appeareth out of the North, and great 
destruction," had evident reference to the Pretender and 
his march into England ! It was not a worse application of 
Scripture, said he, which, during our wara with France, read 
the destruction of our Gallic adversary in the assurance 
that Heaven would " cast down Mauwi' Seir ! " 

Smith was not correct in stating that all innovations in 



A PICTUBE. OP El^LA^DA GSNTUBY AGO. 175- 

1752 were met. with hostilitj. Gfurrick made one that waa. 
at least partially approved, and which was also noticed. 
hjv M^e Aughton. On thQ ninth, of November (Lord. 
Mayor's day), at Covent Garden was represented, accord- 
ing- to immemorial custom, 'Hha,t scandalous piece^" 'The 
Londou Cuckalds,' but G-^rick;, at I^rigy. I,iape, first broke 
tiarottgh the usOy aud gave ' The Merchant of Venice.' Mr. 
Urban commends Gturrick, but adds nothing by way of 
ezplapation. It is well known that the city authorities, 
had. ever been on angry terms with the players. T))q 
dramatists uiuted with the actors, and not only did every 
new piece ei^hibit a citizei^ husband who was anything but 
a cocu imc^inaire, but this express piece exhibited on Lord 
Mayor's Day held up every London husband as being as 
badly off as "Georges Dandin" himself. The play was 
coarse enough to call up a- blush on the face even of 
Etherege^ but our great-grandmothers in their youth lis- 
tened to- it from behind their masks, and laughed con- 
sumedly ! The satirists however were the first to give way, 
aod the citizens reimftined. masters, of the field. At this. day 
there is not a theatre in the cit^ of London ; and even if 
the players in the city of Westminster were to carry on, as 
they did down to G^rrick's days, the dramatic vendetta be- 
queathed them by their predecessors, the satire would be 
susceptible neither of relish nor application. 

Smith now rapidly turned over the volume, and as ra- 
pidly commented thereon. Still more rapidly let us make 
a summary for him, and, remark on the chief points in thip 
picture of 1752. Take the law. In February it is recorded 
that a robbery was committed near Chester by five Irish- 
men. No sooner was the robbery known to the Cheshire 
and Lancashire magistrates, than they made a seizure of 
all the unlucky Irishmen upon whom they could lay hands, 
through their deputies the constables, — and such of the 
astounded captives as could not prove their respectability 



176 OLD piorrsEs ajstd new pajtels. 

were soundly scourged and thrown into prison, " there to re- 
main until they be transported !" This was justices' justice 
with a vengeance ! No word of indignant surprise follows 
on the heels of the record. It seems like satire to find a 
gentleman in the succeeding number jauntily discoursing 
upon the corruption of ancient times ! Yet this is somewhat 
mended by a second correspondent, who, with an eye to 
the then modem times, had come to the conclusion that 
Isaiah iv. 9, was applicable to his contemporaries, among 
whom there was more a desire to pass fo^ than to act like 
Christians. But all society seemed to have been in some 
confusion ; or would the inhabitants of Selby, in Yorkshire, 
have been summoned, one May morning, by the public bell- 
man, to bring their hatchets and axes at midnight, '^ to cut 
down the turnpike erected there by Act of Parliament"? 
The thing was done, and, when done, the magistrates began 
to look to it. Where there was such disrespect for law and 
parliament we need not wonder at finding scant reverence for 
Mr. Urban himself. One of the writers in this very number 
addresses him with the blustering familiarity of " Dear 8yl.!" 
One would as soon think of addressing the Lord High Chan- 
cellor in open court as " Dear Pred ! " That there were 
men abroad desirous of reforming irregularities of all sorts 
may be seen perhaps in a simple entry, the fact relating to 
which was noticed in the * Picture in Three Panels.' It is as 
follows : — " Sunday 17, the theatrical edifice called the J^ew 
Wells, near the London Spaw, was preached in for the first 
time by a clergyman Methodist, it being taken by the Rev. 
John Wesley for a tabernacle." The old house is still well' 
frequented. 

The number for June, 1752, is curious, as giving an ac- 
count of proceedings which had occurred in Parliament (a 
word which Mr. Urban dared not print in full) early in 
1751. It is communicated as a great favour by "A. B.," 
who warrants his report as <' not such an imposition upon 



A PIOTUBE OF EirGLAlTD A CEKTITBT AGO. 177 

the speakers and the public as some that have appeared in 
other monthly collections. The report is that of two speeches 
of W. Th — nt — n, Esq., against* a standing army, and in 
favonr of a militia, which speeches A. 6. is anxious should 
reach the honourable gentleman's constituents through Mr. 
Urban. They are brief, sensible addresses, but the follow- 
ing paragraph is that in which there is most interest : " He 
believed it true, plaid waistcoats had been worn by some 
wrong-heads in the country ; but in the parts where he lived 
he saw no occasion for an army to correct them ; for some 
that had attempted it had been heartily thrashed for doing 
so." — Such were the last expiring efforts made by Jaco- 
bitism. 

A more striking illustration of the times (and yet such 
illustrations are furnished by men in all times) is afforded 
us by a writer who asserts that inoculation for the small- 
pox is irreligious ! The illustrious obscure author main- 
tains that Providence had wisely ordained small-pox to be 
fatal, and human science to be unavailable against it ! The 
greatness of His power was thus contrasted vnth the weak- 
ness of our £rames ! Small-pox, as this conservative gentle- 
man conjectures, ''amongst other purposes, is sent as a 
severe memento of mortality, and a close and seasonahle check 
to th&t pride and overfondness with which a beautiful feice is 
too apt to inspire the giddy owner; and also to teach the 
boasted sons of science, humility and reverence !" Such is 
the argument, italics included, vnth which the pious advo- 
cate for small-pox according to nature inveighs against the 
inoculators. He holds that inoculation is a human scheme 
in opposition to the wise designs and dispensations of Pro- 
vidence both general and particular, " which all Christians, 
and especially instructors of youth, should prudently avoid." 
K this writer survived till the period of Jenner and vaccina- 
tion, he was probably the author of the caricature which re- 
presented Jenner's young patients all becoming calf-headed \ 

i3 



IflrS*' OU> TC0TUBB8 AKD VSW PAinBLS. 

If this shows one sort of midsummer madness, we hare a 
sftmple of another species recorded under the head of Thora- 
day, June 4. On that day there was an installation^ of 
Sjughts of the Oarter at Windsor, followed in the ey^ning 
by a grand dinner and a ball. In connection witii jibe 
former we have the following delicious trait of manners and 
customs at court. " The populace attempted several times 
to force their way into the hall where the Knights were at 
dinner, against the Guards, on which some were cut and 
wounded, and the Guards fired- several, times on them with 
powder to deter them, but without effect, until they had 
orders to load with ball, which made them desist." When 
Douglas Jerrold's play was presented at Windsor before 
the Queen, what a sensation would have been raised had a 
London audience rushed down and insisted upon being ad- 
mitted to witness " a first representation," and had they 
been repulsed by Captain Augustus Lane Fox at the head 
of a party with loaded barrels and fixed bayonets ! 

But abroad, as well as at home, it was the fiEi.shion to act 
with murderous vigour ; so here we read of a young gentle- 
man of Montpellier being hanged by order of the Popish 
authorities for attending a Protestant religious assembly ; 
and of a poor nun solemnly devoted to hell in her dying 
hour, because she was suspected of Jansenism, of reading 
the Scriptures on the strength of her own private judg- 
ment, and because she would not declare damnable the 101 
propositions of Pather Quesnel condemned by the Fope. 
She might have pleaded guilty to the first two, but with 
regard to the last, she had no more read the propositions 
than had the Pontiff" who pronounced them " hellish and 
worthy of damnation." The propositions condemned are not 
to be found in Quesnel's book. But it was the idle custom 
of the day for pontiffs and prelates to affix their signa- 
tures to declarations and addresses of which they were in- 
capable of being the authors. " Have you read my last 



A PIOTUSX OE SKGLAKD A OXlTTnilT AGO. 179 

charge to my clergy ?" said the Archbishop of Paris once 
to Piron. " Nq, my lord," answered that wicked wit, " have 

While the Eomish clergy abroad were braving Parliament 
and tiie law, at home the law was severely visiting the clergy. 
In, the number for July we are told that "a clergyman of 
Essex has lately paid the penalty of £100 with costs of suit 
into the Stamp Office, for marrying without a license, ac- 
cording to the Act 10 Anne for preventing clandestine mar- 
riages." There would appear to haye been a distaste agaipst 
pnoceeding too rapidly in anything at this time. Not only 
must not persons marry in a hurry, but they must not die 
in a hurry. A humane correspondent deprecates the genei^l 
custom of summarily smothering in hydrophobia in. order 
to prevent further mischief. The disease may be incurable, 
but bei discerns a. lack of courtesy in so despatching the 
patient. Our fathers too had been characteristically slow 
in giving credit to " Mr. Eranklin's project for emptying 
clouds of their thunder," but now, " learned gentlemen of 
the Academy assure us that the experiment had been very 
lately tried "with success." The matter is discussed in se- 
veral numbers, and a faint and dreamy idea prevailed that 
electricity would one day be available for some purpose or 
another; but there is a delightful uncertainty as to what. 
No one was then insanely wicked enough to conceive the 
electric telegraph, or to suppose that Shakspeare and Puck 
could be beaten, and that if the latter could put a girdle 
round about the earth in forty minutes, a time was coming 
when man would be able to accomplish the feat more rapidly 
atdll. If it cannot be said of 1752 that then " everything had 
done happening," it may in some respects be asserted that 
there was nothing moving but stagnation ! 

We must not, however, flatter ourselves that we have in 
all things progressed as we certainly have in some. In the 
latter numbers of the * Gentleman's Magazine' for 1752, tlie 



180 WEW PICTURES AKD OLD FAITELS. 

question touching Convocation was again being discussed, 
and the question itself stands now precisely where it did 
then. Some are with Hoadlej and his friends, while others 
follow Sherlock and his disciples. Another subject which 
seriously troubled our great-grandfathers, as it is now doing 
their descendants, was as to what was to be done with con- 
victed felons. The Australia which we have overstocked was 
not then thought of. An ingenious philanthropist, however, 
suggested a remedy. He proposed that our felons should 
be sent to Barbary and exchanged for Christian slaves. He 
does not fix a tariff, but probably would have consented to 
have given at least three thieves as the " small change " for 
one honest man. 

Another question common to the people of both periods 
is the com question. A hundred years ago we produced ten 
times the quantity of wheat we could consume ! So it is 
certified by Mr. Urban. As long previous as the reign of 
the Emperor Julian, English ships carried rich freights of 
com to the cities on the Ehine, but it may be doubted if, 
even then, the difference between what we produced and 
what we consumed was so great as it is stated to have been 
in 1752. It is, however, a very singular fact that prices 
were about the same under Julian as they were under Anne, 
G^eorge I., and George II. In the time of the philosophic 
and dirty Soman Emperor, English com was sold at the rate 
of thirty-two shillings a quarter, and that was the average 
price during the first sixty-four years of the last century. In 
1752 objection was made to exportation, as cheapening bread 
to foreigners and raising the prices of it at home. How dif- 
ferent is the case a hundred years later, and how seemingly 
strange under that difference are present prices ! • We im- 
port now to almost the extent we exported then, and yet 
average prices are not much higher now than they were then. 
Indeed, if we as purchasers take into account the difference 
in the value of money, we are buying bread at a far lower rate 



A PTCmrRE or XVGLATD a CEyTUEY AGO. 181 

than onr great-grandsires sold it at. We may also confess 
to being struck with the singularity of a remark made by 
" Mark Landlove," to the effect that the French landed-in- 
terest might well be the envy of Englishmen. He is one of 
those very aAxious to shift all taxes from land to fund- 
holders, partly out of disgust that the national debt had 
reached the ''monstrous and alarming" fig^e of eighty 
millions I It is now about eight hundred millions ! and we 
are, in fact, none the poorer for having such an account 
upon' our books. Further, in 1752 we were exporting gold 
and silver bullion to the Continent, not indeed at the rate 
we are now importing it, especially the former, but stiU in 
quantities that seem almost incredible. The metal-import 
question, as it stood then, excites a smile in those who read 
it now; as, for example, in the case mentioned thus: — 
" A parcel of waistcoats, embroidered with foreign gold and 
silver (which were lately seized at a tailor's house, who 
must pay the penalty of £100 pursuant to Act of Parlia- 
ment) were publicly burnt in the presence of the custom- 
house officers and others." 

This strange application of stranger laws must have puz- 
zled the people almost as much as the change then effected 
from the " old style " to the " new." " I went to bed last 
night," says one perplexed correspondent, " it was "Wednes- 
day, September 2nd, and the first thing I cast my eyes upon 
this morning at the top of a paper was Thursday, September 
14th. I did not go to bed till between one and two. Have 
I slept away eleven days in seven hours, or how is it ? For 
my part, I don't find I'm any more refreshed than after a 
common night's sleep !" The confusion that temporarily 
ensued is pleasantly narrated, and there is something novel 
in the suggestion whereby it might have been obviated. 
" February has been scratched off a day or two these many 
years ; suppose you apply to have the eleven days added to 
the end of that month, and so, for once, make it consist of 



182 KEW PICTITBES AlTD OLD PAITXLS. 

nine-and-tbirtj or forty : it's only caUing them the 3id, 4th, 
etc. of September, and we are all right again!" 

Mr. Urban's correspondents in October seem to have suc- 
cessfully exerted themselves to provide variety for his readers. 
One tells how that electricity had: so farprogras8ed,a9 to be 
made available in cases of ague and in mining. Philosophy, 
divinity, agriculture, and criticism each has its sepairate 
place. We are entertained by some writers who treat of 
the effects of eating walnuts, by others who touch upon the 
state of husbandry, the fisheries, or who deal with Linn^E^us 
or Shakspeare ; who attack the thirty-nine articles, suggest 
reformations in the Liturgy, and explain how to kill bugs and 
make a lithontriptic. The medical correspondents were, 
particularly in the fall of the year, as numerous as the theo- 
logical; and while the one showed what medicines were 
most efficacious in numerous diseases, — how a horse's cough 
might be most quickly cured, — and how the British race was 
degenerating because even low-born mothers were adopting 
the high-bom fashion of not suckling their children, which 
was a species of murder, — the other class of correspondents 
fought sturdily for or against the Hutchinsonian opinions, 
showed how church authority was abused, and decried, as 
heartily as if they were living in 1852, the system of plurali- 
ties. That the canons are defective is admitted, but Mother 
Church is well cared for, — and an essay to show that the 
inspired Liturgy is not to be mended by human abilities, fol- 
lows characteristically upon the method of brewing good 
October, and directions for making unexceptionable cider^ — 
matters upon which as many of the clergy of 1752 were in- 
terested as they were upon the questions of grace, free-will, 
and original sin. The mixed character of much of the 
divinity (or rather of many of the divines) of that time 
perhaps influenced the productions of the laureate, Colley 
Gibber. At all events, in the concluding lines to hig. ode 
on the King's birthday, we discover a little of the spirit of 
piety, but more of that of potation ; — 



A PIOTVBS OV BKOI.Ajn> A OEKTUET AGO. 183 

'* l%at long his days high Hearen may spare 
Is out first fdrrent morning prayer ; 
To this we quaff the evening bowl, 
Till suns beneaUi our ocean. roll, — " 

When one would imagine, tlie poet and his cantatores must 
have heen in a rolling condition too, or they would hardly 
have seen more suns than the almanac and custom daily 
authorize. However, as Dry den said when a friend remarked 
that he thought Durfey could never write a worse play than 
his last, " You do not know what Tom can do in that way," 
— so Cibher might have declared that, if his ode was execra- 
ble, !Eiusden, when engaged in " eking out Blackmore's use- 
less line," and ere he " slept with the dull of ancient days," 
had written others doubly detestable. 

In the number for December, 1752, the opening article 
on Tillotson may still be read with pleasure. The following 
anecdote told of him, is worth repeating : — " Though he used 
what in his time waa called conceived prayer, and greatly ex- 
celled for the readiness and pertinence of his expression, 
yet, as if this was really a peculiar gift, he could never preach 
but by reading ; and, having once attempted to deliver an 
extempore discourse on the most copious text he could select, 
* We inust all appe^ before the judgment-seat of Christ,' he 
was obliged to leave the pulpit, after spending ten minutes 
in hesitation, repetition, blushes, and confusion." The suc- 
ceeding articles treat upon Welsh lead, the Jansenist dis- 
putes between the French clergy and parliaments, horizontal 
windmills, the cherubim, Sunday hymns, and English high- 
ways. The paper next in succession touches on the alleged 
miracle at Bishop Pisher's grave, namely, that grass would 
not grow around it. The writer easily accounts for so 
facile a miracle: — "Thus, we are told, the popish priests 
in King Henry VIII.'s time, poured sope-ashes on Mr. 
Petit* s grave in the churchyard, to prove him an heretick, 
affirming that God would not suflfer grass to grow on an 



184 Vl&Vr PIOTUBES i.KD OLD FAKSLS. 

lieretick's grave. (Stiype's Memor. vol. i. p. 203.)" Be- 
tween the disquisition on Fisher and a phi* o ophical descrip- 
tion of Mount Vesuvius, we have a recipe for curing the 
glanders in horses ; and a similar literary sandwich is served 
up in a Yorkshire anecdote of dolorous tragedy which is 
spread between an essay on electricity and a heavy artide 
defending the bounty on exported com. Magnets, orreries, 
and the grinding of concave glasses— touching which latter 
we know something more than is vouchsafed by our friend 
of a century ago, — theories on the aurora, observations on 
ecHpses, glances at contemporary satire, reviews of new ideas 
on natural philosophy and the stone, with some music of 
merit, some poetry without it, and some notices in the His- 
torical Chronicle that have a peculiar interest, — ^these form 
the staple of the number that was issued above one hundred 
years ago, "by E. Cave, jun., at St. John's Gate." In the 
Miscellaneous department there is "A Literary Bill of Mor- 
tality for 1762," which, if it be witty enough to be composed 
by Swift, is also filthy enough in part to have been from his 
pen, or to have raised his excessive laughter. Mr. Urban 
would not admit it now, however lightly he may have thought 
of it in his younger days ; but 

** The bard to purer feme may soar, 
When first youth 'b past," — 

and that reputation has been gained by our venerable friend. 
The list referred to affects to give the " casualties among 
books in 1752." Among them we have " Abortive, 7000 ; 
stillborn, 3000 ; old age, 0." 320 are set down as dying 
suddenly ; and the trunkmaker, sky-rockets, pastrycook, and 
worms are chronicled as having destroyed between three and 
four thousand. Not less than 2079 are recorded as having 
perished in a way and by a malady that only Swift would 
have thought of, and an admirer approvingly have copied. 
The casualties of the year among authors show as much wit 
as those among books, They are numbei*ed as close upon 



A PICTUEB OF EITGLAITD A OEKTUEY AGO. 185 

three thousand, more than a third of whom are disposed of 
under the head " Lunacy." A still greater numher, some 
twelve hundred, are entered as " Starved." Seventeen were 
killed by the hangman, and fifteen by a hardly more respect- 
able person, themselves. Mad dogs, vipers, and mortification 
swept off a goodly number. Five pastoral poets died of 
" Fistula," and under the head of " Surfeit" we find a zero, 
which contrasts strongly with the numbers said to have been 
starved. 

Altogether, an artist might have a worse subject than an 
interior of 1752, with a quaint reader admiringly looking 
over his * Sylvanus Urban.' 



186 



PICTURES OF ENGLAND BY FOREIGN 

SKETCHERS. 

" Thb next curious thing to contemplating a picture of 
England by English artists a century ago, is to look at 
sketches of England of the present day, as drawn by foreign 
sketchers." 

To this observation of one of our company, the Oerman 
artist expressed a conviction that foreigners generally, and 
Germans in particular, described the appearance, manners, 
and morals of England, better than the English themselves. 
— But though we do not always understand ourselves, we 
are assuredly less understood by strangers. 

A short time previous to the first arrival of Mr. Layard at 
Nineveh, the locality had been visited by a well-known and 
highly esteemed clergyman of the Church of England, the 
Rev. J. P. Fletcher. This worthy minister found himself 
one day in the house of a Yezidee, or " Devil "Worshiper," 
where the conversation of host and guest was interrupted 
by the appearance of a crowd of visitors, at the head of 
whom was the priest of the Papal Syrians. The leader of 
the invasion was rich in self-sufficiency. He was lengthy of 
speech, short of stature, and about as pompous as a pumpkin. 
The visitors were no sooner seated on the ground, than they 
began to describe to the astonished Englishman the man- 
ners and customs of his own countrymen. " They have no 
religion; wonderful to say!'* exclaimed one. A second and 
more enlightened stranger questioned this assertion, except 



PIOTUBES OF EiraLArKD BY POBEIGK SKETCHEBS. 187 

in a»far as it f^plied to " not believing in our Father the 
Pope." " At all events," remarked a third, " they have no 
churches!" The Yezidee, master of the house, here cour- 
teously struck in to the assistance of his foreign guest, by 
asserting that he had seen our service performed in the 
British chapel at Mosul; where, he said, there was conse- 
cration every Sunday, and prayers every day ; and he bad 
read in a book, he added, that the English also fasted occa- 
sionally. The general chorus of visitors shouted that even 
if it were so, there was a bad object at the end of it. The 
Yezidee was afraid of offending the priest, at whom he 
looked timidly while he ventured to make the apologetic 
remark, that "they are a good people!" At this observa- 
tion, the pipe departed from betwoen the lips of the priest ; 
at which sign of approaching oracular eloquence all were 
silent, for all felt that the priest, having been in Europe, 
could "speak by the card;" and as he was. well versed in 
Arabic, Syriac, Chaldee, and Kurdish, he was of course, and 
as a necessary consequence, well skilled also in all that con- 
cerned those far-off infidels, the Britons ; and this was his 
daguerreotyped description of our very worthy selves. 

"The English,'' said he, ^^ a/re Christians, and have 
churches ; but they only go to them once a month, and take 
the Lord's Supper once in twenty years. On the latter 
occasion," he continued, " the priest stands on a high place 
that he may not be torn in pieces by the crowd, who rush 
tumultuously forward, snatch the consecrated bread out of 
his hands, and scramble for it. They are also allowed," 
said this faithful depictor of our morals, " to marry as many 
wives as they please^ and some of them have more than 
twenty. They are a poor and beggarly people, and have a 
heavy debt, which they are unable to pay. They are obliged 
to borrow large sums of the King of France, who has ob- 
tained by tUs means a kind of dominion over them." And 
he clinched this rough nail, driven through our reputation 



188 NEW PICTURES AND OLD PANELS. 

by cooUj turning to Mr. Fletcher, and asking, " Jfa hu 
saheck /" — " Is it not true ?" The English minister calmly 
took his pipe from his mouth, and replied, " It is a great 
falsehood!" An assertion which by no means disposed the 
majority of the company to put faith in it. 

" That is an amusing instance," said Smith, " of an English 
portrait painted by a Syrian hand. For such an artist some 
allowances may be made; but what excuse can be offered 
by travellers nearer home who profess to draw English por- 
traits and English landscapes from nature, and who do in 
one sense draw them a very great way indeed from nature ?" 

One instance occurs in the case of M. Alexandre Dumas, 
an accomplished gentleman who gilds refined gold, paints 
the lily, alters the catastrophes of Shakspeare's plays, and 
enriches ' Hamlet ' with a new and original (very much so 
indeed !) fifth Act ! 

" Take care!" said Alexandre, "think of De Mirecourt's 
pistol at the head of the Newcastle editor!" 

" M. Dumas," continued Smith, " is the author of a story 
called * Pauline,' a story which has been translated and 
dramatized in England. It is exciting, dramatic, and impro- 
bable ; the heroine therein is married to a gentleman who is 
a compound of Eaust and Mephistopheles, of Juan, Charles 
Moore, Werther, and the Corsair; who is half savage, half 
soft, and who rejoices in the name of Horace de Beauzinval. 
He is a delicate creature who kills tigers, slays wild boars, 
sings rumblingly in bass, thriUingly in counter-tenor, and 
who, though in Paris the glass of fashion and the mould of 
form, occasionally retires to an old dilapidated chS,teau in 
Normandy, where, in conjunction with two friends, Henry 
and Max, he contrives to play the brigand and murderer 
without detection. Pauline, in feminine alarm at a some- 
what protracted absence of her husband, determines to leave 
Paris and look for him in Normandy. Her unexpected 
arrival leads to a chaos of incidents, among which the two 



PIOTUBES or £KGLAKD BY fOBEiaST SKETCHEBS. 189 

fearful nights of her sojourn, the sorcerer-like attendance of 
the wild Malay, and the scenes of debauchery and assassi- 
nation which reveal to her the true occupation of her bus- 
band, are told with a power familiar to the readers of the 
most highly-spiced of M. Dumas's romances. 

" Horace, dreading betrayal on the part of his wife, shuts 
her up in a vault with * a cup of cold poison,' and a civil 
letter of apology. He gives out that she has been assassi- 
nated; and he buries in her stead the body of a young 
English lady whom he shoots for that especial purpose. 
Pauline is discovered by an old lover, Alfred de Nerval, who 
carries her to England as his sister, and who returns tempo- 
rarily to Erance to kill Horace in a duel, for having dared 
to aspire to the hand of a kinswoman of Alired's. Pauline 
lingers on in iU health, and does not allow her own mother 
to be conscious of an existence which she feels must soon 
terminate, — and by a knowledge of which her mother would 
only have to mourn a second time. She finally dies in 
Italy. 

" Now the comicality in this story of horrors lies in the 
grave portion of it which has England for its scene, and only 
some twenty-four years ago for its period. The lovers conceal 
themselves in a cottage om6 in Piccadilly ! They have the 
good fortune to find in that retired spot, * a pretty little 
house, very simple, and quite isolated.' It is ' a charming, 
little cot, with green blinds, a little garden full of flowers, 
an exquisite lawn, gravelled walks encircling* all; and a 
^ banc au-dessous d'un platane magnifique qui couvroit de 
sa tente de feuiUage une partie du jardin ! ! !' All this, it 
must be remembered, is described as existing in Piccadilly 
in 1834, within view of a person turning out of St. James's 
Street, and which latter circumstance would fix the precise 
locality of this isolated cottage as somewhere about the soli- 
tary purlieus of the romantic White Horse Cellar, or the pic- 
turesque and uninhabited wilderness tenanted by ' the Black 



190 NEW PICTUBES AND OLD PAKELS. 

Bear.' An absurdity scarcely less remarkable on the part 
of M. Dumas is that of fixing the residence of a very hard- 
working apothecary in one of the patrician mansions in 
Grosvenor Square ! And yet the author has been in Lon- 
don, and has even, like Voltaire, commented upon our 
language. The sum, indeed, of his observations thereon 
amounts to the fact that Englishmen have abandoned the 
old expletive of * Godam,' and that their throats are now 
generally engaged with discharging the cacophonous echoes 
of* Oh, ah!' 

" The French dramatists use us very little better — in many 
instances worse — than the novelists. They sell ladies by 
public auction in Smithfield Market, while half the house of 
Peers stand by to witness the sale, and celebrate its conclu- 
sion by a conglomerated hornpipe. A French feuilletonist 
who came among us taking notes, in the year of the Exhi- 
bition, gravely certified to his countrywomen that the gin- 
palaces of England were mainly supported by the middle- 
aged and elderly Peeresses of the realm. There is on the 
French stage a drama, the scene of which is laid in the moun- 
tainous region that lies somewhere between Hyde Park and 
Bichmond. In this piece there is an ancient castle, with a 
very wicked lord, who maintains his evil eminence by the 
power and produce of forgery, and whose fair daughter, on 

.her saint's day, is presented with bouquets presented to her 
processionally by all the grateful people of Brentford and 
Kew. The ruined chateau itself is on the romantic banks 
of the *St. George Canal,' and near it is a village, the 
inhabitants of which have the laws interpreted to them by 
an alderman of London, who is made ruler of the district by 
the special appointment conferred on him by * His Excel- 
lency the Lor' Maire.' " 

Smith having run himself out of breath, Mee Aughton 
remarked that a certain Max Schlesinger was a limner of 

\ another quality. " He has seen what he describes ; and he 

\ 



PIOTTJBXS OF EKaLAKD BY EOBEION SKBTCHEBS. 191 

paints well that which he has observed with the mental as 
well as the visual eye. Accordingly, he does not, like 
Prench littirateurs, represent us as something different 
from all other existing human nature. We may not always 
feel flattered by his portrait, but we cannot deny the resem- 
blance, nor the good-humoured spirit which influenced the 
hand by which it is drawn." 

" It is something pleasant," said Smith, " to turn from the 
misrepresentations of writers, however temporarily amusing 
they may be, to contemplate portraits of ourselves dashingly 
and good-humouredly, philosophically -and candidly sketched 
by wch an artist as Max Schlesinger, in his < Saunterings 
in and about London.' There is originality in the dramatic 
form in which many of the author's raciest observations are 
made. A Doctor Kief is generally charged with the duty of 
cutting us up; and on one occasion, when something 
stronger than usual is required to be flung at us, a French 
gentleman performs the office with a vigour and an ab- 
sence of veracity that are highly entertaining. Schlesinger, 
however, does not appear to have employed this form be- 
cause he had suspicions of our being an over-sensitive 
people, for he now and then hits us smartly and stingingly, 
severely and deservedly enougli. He has adopted the form 
because it gave him latitude of observation and expression. 
One thing is certain, that there is no nation under the sun 
that so good-humouredly bears being laughed at as our 
own. The heartiest enjoyers of * Les Anglaises pour Eire,' 
have ever been those at whom the satire was levelled ; and 
throughout Grermany the broadest grins called up by Kotze- 
bue's * Sir John,' mantle on the faces of British auditors, 
who are perhaps more tickled by comic evidences of ignorance 
than by the wit levelled at their own habits and morals." 

" The Saunterer," said Mee Aughton, " paints both our 
in and out-door life with, generally speaking, very great cor- 
rectness. And this general correctness cannot be gainsaid. 



192 KXW PICTUBES AJSJ) OLD PANELS, 

because he often looks upon us and our doings from a point 
of view whence we have never considered them ourselves. 
A determined difference of opinion often, indeed, springs up 
in the mind of the reader ; but when he has meditated for a 
moment upon the light in which the artist has limned his 
picture, he is compelled to conclude that the details are not 
exaggerated, and that the light in which they are shown does 
sometimes illumine them, and is more likely to be seen by 
a stranger than by ourselves, who are less curious on the 
matter." 

"Perhaps," remarked a Tory professor of History, "it 
is with the author's political sentiments that we should be 
least inclined to agree. When he insinuates that the Con- 
tinental revolutionists, who in 1848 advocated license and 
thought it was liberty, were men who were performing as 
patriotic a duty as that performed by Eussell when he 
gloriously conspired against an illegal government, it is 
only the ultra-radicals among his readers who will indorse 
the sentiment. They who made an accomplished fact of 
our Revolution never perilled the general liberty which 
they sought to establish. They who in 1848 let loose the 
deluge against the thrones of Europe, swept away with it 
the freedom which they professed to support ; not that there 
was not among them many a bold and honest, hopeful and 
enduring heart, whose aspirations were for that liberty 
which allows unconstrained action for all, save where it may 
be injurious to any. Max Schlesinger very aptly meets one 
objection made in England by a remark which is worth 
quoting : — * These English sages,' he says, * do not con- 
sider how much easier it was for their ancestors to bring 
the contest with the power of the Crown to a successful 
issue. The English patriots were not opposed by large 
standing armies. The contest lay between them and a 
single family and its faction, and — this is a point which has 
never been sufficiently dwelt upon — they had no reason to 



PICTXJBES OF EKOLAKD BY FOfiEIOK SESTOHEBS. 193 

fear a foreign intervention.' This is true, yet not wboUy 
BO. It is, however, sufficiently correct to be allowed to pass 
unquestioned. The author compares liberty as it is ab- 
stractedly viewed by English, French, and German. The 
first resolved to possess, and have manfully held by and pro- 
gressed under it. The second seize it, let it slip through 
their fingers, and recapture it only again to lose what they 
shed oceans of blood to obtain. The Germans, he evidently 
thinks, would accomplish ail that the English have done had 
they but our advantages — insular position, and security 
from external false friends as well as declared foes. This 
reminds one of how the same three people are described by 
Heyne as estimating liberty, and which description may be 
thus abridged, to edification: — 

''The Englishman loves freedom as he does his lawful 
wife. He possesses her, and if he does not treat her with 
any ostentatious show of tenderness, yjet does he know, 
should the case require it, how to defend her like a man. 
Then, woe-betide the intruder into her holy chamber of rest, 
be it as gallant or be it as knave. The Frenchman loves 
freedom as he doth his betrothed bride. He glows for her. 
He bums for h^r. He throws himself at her feet with the 
most exaggerated adjurations. He fights for her, despising 
death for her sake ; and in her name he commits no end 
of follies. But the German loves freedom as he does his 
venerable grandmother ! . . . The splenetic Briton perhaps 
wearies of his wife, and disposes of her in the market-place ; 
a halter round her neck, and Smithfield the locality. The 
fluttering Frenchman probably turns faithless to his bride, 
and goes dancing and singing after some court lady in the 
royal palace. But the German will jiever turn his vene- 
rable grandmother into the street ; he will ever grant her a 
corner by the hearth, where she may tell to his listening 
children her old wife's tales for ever." 

By this it is clear that Heyne reproaches his countrymen 



194 VBW FICTUBES AND OLD PAKEL8. 

as possessing a superabundance of sentiment and lacking the 
spirit of action. Max Schlesinger, on the other hand, ap- 
pears to think that they want nothing but opportunity. 
The two opinions, however apparently incompatible, may 
nevertheless be reconciled. But let us go with the Sauntercr 
from politics to the Battle of Waterloo, as it is fought by 
the light companies, on a gala night at Yauxhall. Here are 
the author's opinions upon what he saw, put into the ever- 
conveniently-open mouth of Dr. Kief. 

" National prejudice is like a pig-tail; you can't see it in 
Iront. It is scandalous how they teach history in your 
schools. This new friend of mine is a well-bred man, but he 
has never heard of Blucher. We looked at the Duke of Wel- 
lington riding over the field of Waterloo, and I said, * Couldn't 
you find a place for our Blucher ? ' * Blutsher ! ' said he, 
* who is Blutsher? ' He knew nothing whatever of Blucher 
and the Prussian army ; and when I told him, but for tbe 
Prussians, Wellington would have been made minced-meat 
of at Waterloo, he actually laughed in my face ! Now tell 
me how do they teach history in your schools ? " 

It may be answered that history is taught after another 
fashion than Dr. Kief and prejudice would require. La- 
martine, Jules Maurel, and, moreover. Baron Miiffling, 
have done justice to Wellington and the completeness of 
his victory ere the indeed long-wished-for Prussians arrived 
to pursue the routed columns of the Gkul. And as to 
Blucher' s name not being known in this country, it is im- 
mortalized in one way among us, exactly as Wellington's 
has been, by giving a distinctive appellation to a certain 
form of British boot. To deny the Duke the undoubted 
merit of his great deed is only to treat him as he has been 
treated by that stricken wit Heyne, who says of him, with 
incredible profanity and malice, that the name of Welling- 
ton, in connection with that of Napoleon, will go down to 
posterity as that of Pontius Pilate in connection with Jesus 



PIOTUBSS OF XKeLANB BY FOBEIOIT BKETCKEBS. 195 

Christ. This is worse than our merely forgetting Blucher, 
eyen if we had been so ungrateful. But this we were not.. 
When the allied monarchs arriyed in England in July, 1814, 
Blucher was (as far as our public was concerned) '* the king 
amang them a'." The popular enthusiasm of the people for 
him who had boldly faced the common enemy of Europe 
when others had fled before that foe, was so intense, that 
when the hero set foot on shore at Doyer, he was nearly suf- 
focated with embraces, and his cloak was torn into frag- 
ments. The excitement of ladies in the capital was not 
inferior to that whidi reigned in the proyinces. Moore, in 
his * Fudge Family,' has incidentally noticed this agitation 
of loye in the letter wherein Miss Biddy informs her friend 
Dorothy that she has found a suitor who was 

*' No less than the great King of Prussia, 
Who 's here now incog. — He who made such a fiiss jou 
Bemember in London, with Blucher and Flato£^ 
When Sal was near kissing <dd Blucher's cravat off" 

And the last-mentioned lady was but one of a thousand 
who contended for the honours of a kiss from the pipe- 
flayoured lips of the yeteran. At Oxford, he was created 
Doctor of Laws, in full conyocation ; and to the old soldier's 
yery greafc astonishment. '* If they make me a Doctor," said 
he, " they are bound to make Gneisenau (the general of 
artallery) an apothecary; for, if I wrote the prescription, 
he certainly made up the pills ! '* After Waterloo, Blucher 
pronounced a candid criticism on himself^ which posterity will 
receiye vdth respect. " For what do you commend me ? " 
said he to 1^ flatterer, whose praise disgusted him. ^' It was 
my recklessness, Grneisenau's cautiousness, and the great 
God's loying-kindness !" 

But leaying the consideration of this subject, let us see 
how Schlesinger and Heyne can paint a street-scene, in 
Cheapside. Here is what the first thinks of that place where 
people most do congregate : — 

K 2 



196 msw ptcTUBSs ijn> old paksls. 

'' Friend stranger, stand for an hour or two, leaning against 
tbe iron gates of Bow Church in Cheapside, or take up your 
position on the steps of the Eoyal Exchange. Let the waves 
of the great city rush past you, now munnuringly, now 
thunderingly ; now fEut, now slow, as crowds press on crowds, 
and vehicles on vehicles, as the streams of traffic break 
against every street-comer, and spread through the arterial 
system of the lanes and alleys ; as the knot of men, horses, 
and vehicles get entangled almost at every point where the 
large streets join and cross, to move, and heave, and spin 
round, and get disentangled again, and again entangled. 
After such a review only can you realize the idea of the 
greatness of London. It is this which, after a prolonged 
stay in London, so moves our admiration, that there is no 
stop, no rest, no pause in the street-life throughout the 
busy day." 

Heyne's painting is something to the same purpose, but 
with a dash more, perhaps, of the picturesque : — 

"As I, aroused from my meditation, again looked out 
upon the roaring street, where a varied knot of men, women, 
children, horses, coaches (and among them a hearse), made 
their way to and fro, swearing, crying, creaking, and groan- 
ing, then it seemed to me so as if all London was a large 
Beresina bridge, where every one, in frantic anxiety about 
nis own little bit of life, sought to force his own way onward ; 
where the bold rider tramples down the poor fellow afoot ; 
where he who falls to the ground is for ever lost ; where the 
hitherto truest comrades become selfish, and climb over each 
other. There thousands faint to death, and bleeding cling 
vainly to the planks of the bridge, only to drop off into the 
cold abyss of death below." 

Bisk Allah, in his * Thistle and the Cedar of Lebanon,' 
paints in similar tone and colouring, street-life in London : — 

" What are all these people come out to see ? is your first 
natural inquiry. Is there a ^e ? or has there been an earth- 



PIGTITBES OF EH^GLAITD BY F0BEI6N SKETCHEBS. 197 

quake ? or are all the suburban villages and towns pouring 
in their multitudes to witness some grand spectacle ? Wal- 
lah yah efendem. If Stamboul were in flames, and all the 
Sultan's harem burning, there could not be a greater con- 
course of people than may every day be encountered between 
the hours of three and five in one single street of London ; 
and all the other hundred streets are almost equally well 
filled." 

Assaad y Kaylat, in his * Voice from Lebanon,' sketches 
full as vividly the pave sights and incidents of London. 
There is, too, some delicate painting in his picture of Ken- 
sington Palace. He was delighted with his reception there 
by the then heiress to the throne and her goodly company ; 
but he will not administer to the public curiosity thereon. 
" I will rather," he says, " follow the advice of the Oriental 
proverb : — * He who enters the presence of kings should go 
in blind and come out dumb.' " 

Max Schlesinger, in painting the English people, will by 
no means allow of their being considered as, in any way, a 
musical people — ^that is, as a people producing great com- 
posers ; — all the great names, from Purcell to Balfe, " to the 
contrary notwithstanding." This is a very vulgar error. 
We think less of our heroes than do the Erench, and less of 
our musicians than do the G-ermans. But we are as plen- 
tifully provided with both as our good frieuds who protest 
to the contrary. "We only talk less about them. It could 
never be remarked of us as a Prussian student once said 
of his own country, that, ** in Berlin, people talked only of 
Thalberg and Grodl" We have other ways of viewing 
religion and music, — though we may be inferior in both, 
nevertheless, to those who view them differently. 



198 



HISTORICAL PORTRAITS BY ROMANTIC 

PAINTERS. 

" The register of the destiny of authors, the last touch in 
the picture of England a century ago, and what has heen 
said on the peculiarities of foreign sketchers of English cha- 
racteristics, reminds me," said Mee Aughton, on a subsequent 
circle-night, " of the way in which both English and foreign 
romancers have treated real personages in touching and re- 
touching them for the purposes of their historical pictures." 

" The Eeal !" said the German. 

"Romance !'* cried the Spaniard. 

" Eomance and Eeality are very good things in their way. 
"What about them, most learned Theban ?" asked Smith. 

" This much," answered Mee Aughton, first addressing 
himself to the French artist, Alexandre. " In discussing 
the question of romance either as the amuser or the instruc- 
tor of mankind, your countryman, Boussel, rather sweep- 
ingly remarked that romances, by depicting man with ex- 
aggerated features, only prepared readers to be inevitably 
disgusted with life. The logic does not seem sound ; and, 
if the description of what romance itself causes be not in- 
correct, its alleged effects may be very reasonably disputed. 
At one time the reading of romances was considered as the 
occupation of those who had nothing to do ; the business of 
those who had none. Certainly, if young people looked 
into romances only to make study of life, the authors 
were bound not to mislead them. But taking the old ro- 



HISTORICAL POBTRiJrrS BY BOMANTIC PAHfTBBS. 199 

mances for wbateyer writers or readers accounted tbem, 
thej could not be otherwise than dangerous. There was 
peril in the exhalations of vice and corruption which arose 
from them ; and there was peril equally great in the phan- 
toms of ideal life which they presented to the imagina- 
tive and the impressionable. The true romance reader was 
not a citizen of this world ; he belonged to another sphere. 
Either Mr. Edgeworth or his daughter has somewhere re- 
marked, that a -woman who has her head full of romances, 
fancies that she wiU be able to find the heroes of them in 
society. This saying was applied to the old social romance. 
As for the historical romance, a French author has truly 
said, that it was bom of truth violated by a Ue. 

'' Our good Queen Charlotte had a profound contempt for 
romances. It was her majesty's maxim that the mind once 
surrendered to the charms of the imaginative, never cared 
for what was serious and real. She had a suspicion, or 
rather a dislike, of romance writers ; and yet, so inconsis- 
tent are, ay even queens, that the royal lady, who hated 
romances and their writers, could very complacently sit sur- 
rounded by her daughters, and listen to Miss Bumey read^ 
ing aloud that dirty farce by the elder Colman, called 'Polly 
Honeycombe.' 

'' It was objected against the old romances that the read- 
ing thereof could enrich a man neither with knowledge 
nor wisdom. The more modem historical romance (if that 
can be called modem of which there are so many in old 
classical literature, and of which the most splendid, though 
not by far the most ancient example, is that brilliant book 
which its author, Quintus Curtius, chose to caU a ' Life of 
Alexander the Great') — the more modem historical ro- 
mance yields however but little knowledge, and is not cal- 
culated to produce wisdom. Indeed the latter treasure 
comes not by reading, but by meditation over the know- 
ledge acquired through reading. But more than meditation 



200 NEW PICrtJBES JLND OLD TA3SELH. 

is required. Lord Bacon recognized what * more ' was re- 
quisite, when he said, that ^Keading maketh a full man, 
conference a ready man, and writing a correct man. And 
therefore, if a man write little, he had need of a great me- 
mory J if he confer little, he need have a present wit ; and 
if he read little, he need have much cunning to seem to 
know that he doth not.* 

" Jeremy Collier, whose canons of criticism however I 
am not at all inclined to indorse without some reserve, has 
one undeniably true remark upon the uses and abuses of 
reading. ' A man,' he says, * may as weU expect to grow 
stronger by always eating, as wiser by always reading. Too 
much overcharges nature, and turns more into disease than 
nourishment. It is thought and digestion which makes 
books serviceable, and gives health and vigour to the mind. 
Books well chosen,' he adds, — and he had no bowels for 
aught but what was real, — 'neither dull the appetite nor 
strain the memory ; but refresh the inclinations, strengthen 
the powers, and improve uuder experiments. By reading, a 
man does as it were antedate his life, and makes himself 
contemporary with past ages.' Jeremy was alluding to his- 
tory, and not to romance. 

" The early writers of romance were probably as purely- 
intentioned as Iilrs. Barbauld herself when she composed 
her * Lessons' for young . children. Indeed, even in these 
matter-of-fact lessons there is much of the manner of the 
romances, inasmuch as that the latter affected to te-ach one 
thing by the description of another ; by allegory, in fact. 
So Mrs. Barbauld employs a false image very often to con- 
vey a distinctly different thing. The Edgeworths very rea- 
sonably object to her romance of the boy who, having tor- 
mented the robins, was devoured by a bear. But this lesson 
was given in days when young people had not yet ceased to 
peruse the * Seven Champions of Christendom,' and similar 
probable histories. The Edgeworths, in their work on Edu- 



HISTOBIOAL POBTBAITS BY BOMAITTIC PAINTEBS. 201 

cation, are perhaps too carping or too strict against poor 
Mrs. Barbauld in some of her phrases, but they acutely 
•enough discern the romantic instead of the real, in such ex- 
pressions as, ' The moon shines at night, when the sun is 
gone to bed.' The latter part of the sentence undoubtedly 
conveys a false idea, and it is condemned accordingly. Such 
a style is truly the first step towards making romance 
readers. K Mrs. Barbauld's pupils could be brought to 
believe that the sun went to bed, they might easily, at a 
later period, see in St. George the nurse-child of the witch 
Kalyb, the slayer of the dragon, and forget therein the clever 
bacon*dealer and the popularly-elected Bishop of Alexandria. 
The young lady in the * Children's Friend,' whose nurse had 
told her stories of hobgoblins, of course screamed herself 
hoarse at the sight of a chimney-sweeper. 

" But the writers of old romances have inflicted less in- 
justice upon individuals than harm to their readers gene^ 
rally. My meaning will, perhaps, be better understood, if 
I say that, while they have imagined incidents for imaginary 
heroes, they have not applied to one person a real glory be- 
longing to another. The authors of historical romances 
have been far less careful. A striking example of how the 
merits of one person are made over to another, is to be 
found in Mr. James's novel *Eichelieu.' Few who have 
read that work will have forgotten Pauline de Beaumont ; 
and these, perhaps, will not like to be told that, instead of 
being the imexceptionable young lady of the novel, she was 
an exceedingly mischievous and ndbchief-making maid of 
honour. Mr. James, moreover, has attributed to her an 
action of merit which was really performed, and that most 
disinterestedly, by another person. 

"It may be recollected that Pauline de Beaumont, in 
* Bichelieu,' executes the perilous mission of disguising her- 
self, and taking a letter to be delivered to a prisoner in the 
Bastille. In the novel, that prisoner is the Count de 



202 NEW PICTUBES AND OLD PANELS. 

Blenau, the lover of Pauline herself. Many spirited young 
ladies would, under the circumstances, have done as much. 

"She who really accomplished this then desperate feat 
was impelled, however, only by duty. The person in ques- 
tion was Mademoiselle de Hautefort. The Queen, Anne of 
Austria, was placed in a position of serious difficulty by the 
imprisonment of her faithful servant Laporte ; and when 
the idea was first entertained of conveying a letter to him, 
with instructions from his royal mistress, the few persons 
who were in the Queen's confidence recoiled from the dan- 
gers attendant upon any attempt to realize the royal idea. 
Mademoiselle de Hautefort alone experienced no fears, and 
boldly offered to assiune a disguise, and bear the missive 
from the Queen to her confidential servant. The ofler was 
accepted, the feat was most successfully performed, and the 
life of Laporte was saved in consequence. 

" The above is an example of the wrongs which reality 
sometimes endures at the hands of romance. Many other 
instances might be cited, but I will confine myself to an 
example of another sort of error, as it wiU afford me time 
to notice one or two matters which are illustrative of past 
times, acts, and actors. To do this I go back to a work which 
appeared some years previous to that of Mr. James, but 
which treats of the same period, and has portraits of many 
of the same personages that are to be found in ' Sichelieu.' 

"As a misrepresentation, both of fact and character, I 
know nothing equal to that achieved by Alfred de Vigny, in 
his portrait of Marie de Gonzague, the heroine of the ro- 
mantic novel, * Cinq-Mars.' The readers of that now tole- 
rably well-known work will remember that the Marie of the 
author is a gentle young lady, fairly wooed and pleasantly 
won by Cinq-Mars ; she is faithful to him amid terrible 
trial, and after his execution compelled, sorely against her 
will, to marry a man whom she had never seen, and for 
whom she of course had no particle of affection — ^namely, 
the King of Poland. 



HISTOBICAI^ POBTBAIT8 BY BOMAXTIC PAnTTEBS. 203 

'* But if realitj be put against this romance, what do we 
discover? One or two historical incidents that may be 
worth reproducing. 

" In the month of October, 1645, the French Queen, Anne 
of Austria, repaired to Fontainebleau, with a splendid retinue 
of ladies, to vritness a marriage which had been long in pre- 
paration, and which was expected to be more than ordinafilj 
jojous, seeing that the two principal personages concerned 
were of royal condition or extraction. 

^ The old King of Poland, an elective monarch, and who 
was at the period in question heir to the crown of Sweden, 
had offered his hand to ' Mademoiselle.' The latter imperi- 
oua princess had treated with great scorn an offer which 
came to her from a gouty, purblind, aged prince, whose per- 
son was the reverse of attractive, and whose country was 
considered, in France, a mere nation of barbarians. The 
rejected king turned to Mademoiselle de Guise, who was 
somewhat patsseCj but who was blooming youth itself, com- 
pared with her wooer. She was, however, averse to the 
match ; but, had she been as much inclined to it as she was 
otherwise, the marriage would not have taken place, for it 
was opposed by the Q^een and the all-powerful Cardinal. 
The perplexed King of the Poles then bethought him of the 
daughter of the deceased Duke of Mantua, Marie de Gt)n- 
zague. She had, in earlier days, been promised to him by 
her fiftther ; and his majesty, refused elsewhere, submitted 
himself to woo again the betrothed of Cinq-Mars. His offer 
was received with a grateful acknowledgment which demon- 
strated the alacrity of her who made it. 

^ Marie de Gronzague was at this time by no means so 
young as she is represented to us in the novel, when the 
Queen exclaims, * Ma pauvre enfant, vous etes reine de Po- 
logne.' The bloom was very decidedly off the peach. She 
had been the object of the adoration of Gaston, Duke of 
Orleans ; and this love-passage was the talk of the whole 



2(M. lf£W PICTITKES AKD OLD PANELS. 

court. The duke was then heir-presumptive to tbe crown, 
and the lady was not insensible to such a wooer. The Queen, 
Marie de Medicis, however, took another view of the sub- 
ject, and to further that view poor Marie de Gonzague was 
shut up in the castle of Yincennes, and Gaston had alto- 
gether forgotten her before she came out again. "When the 
prisoner recovered her freedom, she hated her old lover im- 
placably, and she would gladly have accepted the King of 
Poland then, out of mere spite, but that sovereign, not caring 
to wait for her when she exhibited some symptoms of dally- 
ing, rendered the match impossible by uniting himself to a 
German princess. 

" Marie de Gtonz&gae would not break her heart for any 
man. She was at heart her own mistress ; and she lived a 
gay life in Paris, although she had but a small fortune. Her 
wit and manners caused many to pay her homage, but no- 
thing presented itself in the shape of a husband. Every 
one liked her charming suppers, but no man cared to make 
himself responsible for the payment of them, till Cinq-Mars, 
the master of the horse to the King, offered her his hand, 
and was at once accepted. 

" Such was the fashionable and somewh&t fanee lady who, 
as the beloved of Cinq-Mars in the novel, is painted as 
a miracle of simplicity, reserve, youth, beauty, and over- 
abounding love. She was proud, for her father had been 
sovereign Duke of Mantua ; and Cinq-Mars was partly the 
victim of that pride, for it urged him on to great designs 
against men in power, and made him aspire to be Constable 
of France, that he might be more on an equality with the 
daughter of a sovereign prince. Cinq-Mars, however, was 
simply a conspirator, and he lost his head on the scaffold. 
His liaison with Marie de Gonzague was looked upon as 
a derogation on the part of the lady, and caused a little 
scandal. She perhaps cared for Cinq-Mars more than she 
did for any other of her lovers ; but, despite her attachment, 



HISTOBICAL POBTBAITS BY BOMAKTIC PAINTEBS. 205 

she was yerj soon comforted after his death, and assuredly 
thought the prospect, which now opened to her, of heing 
Queen of Poland, as one very pleasant to contemplate, and 
not again to be missed. 

*' Cardinal Mazarin was resolved to be rid of a lady who 
was a little addicted to dabble in politics, in a way not com- 
patible with his interests ; who was, moreover, poor ; some- 
what depressed ; had squabbles with her old lover Gaston, 
between whom and herself a mutual and intense hatred 
existed ; and who wore a mourning air, out of compliment to 
Cinq-Mars, who had been executed in the days of Bichelieu, 
and to think of whom was ridiculous in the days of Mazarin. 
The Cardinal, accordingly, despatched ambassadors to Poland, 
and the royal widower there sent his envoys in return to 
bear his compliments and affectionate greetings to the lady 
of many lovers. 

" The first homage was, however, rendered to the Queen, 
Anne of Austria ; and it was at Eontainebleau that the am- 
bassadors were received with all the gorgeous ceremony that 
could be devised by the solemn officers charged with such 
matters. 

" The scene was a singular one. The representatives of 
the Polish king came ostensibly to ask for the hand of ' the 
Princess Mary,' as she was called. Etiquette required that 
she should not be present ; but she was naturally curious to 
hear the speech, see the sight, and enjoy the conclusion. 
When the address had been uttered by the envoys, who ap- 
peared as thoroughly French as any gallant in court, one 
ambassador asked the other where the Princess Mary was. 
A gentleman in the suite, who had been in Paris before, and 
knew the lady by sight, recognized her standing behind a 
royal duchess, where, like a gentleman ' below the bar,' she 
formed no part of the illustrious assembly, but could see and 
hear all that passed. As the ambassadors and their suite re- 
tired, they distinguished the half-concealed lady by making 



206 KEW PICTUBES AND OLD PANELS. 

the very lowest bows in the direction in which she stood y 
and they even treated her with a 'your majesty* as they 
murmured their homage in passing near her. 

" Thenceforward, public homage was rendered to her by 
all parties, particularly afber the signing of the contract. 
This necessary form was gone through without much cere- 
mony, but at night the ambassadors were entertained at 
supper by the young king. I suppose there had previously 
been some jollity in the kitchen, with much obliviousness, 
for when the guests sat down to table it was discovered that 
the chief dishes had been forgotten. There was neither 
soufe nor houilli ; and the banquet was a failure. Nor was 
this all. When the ambassadors retired, they were con- 
ducted by the chief officers of the court to the grand stair- 
case ; but on reaching that honourable passage it was found 
all in darkness, and the ambassadors and gentleman-ushers 
had to grope their way to the bottom, cursing the lamypistes 
who had neglected to illumine them. The queen-mother 
was disconcerted at first on hearing of this misadventure, 
but she afterwards laughed heartily ; declaring that Erance 
never managed matters rightly, either in great things or 
small ; but that the only remedy was patience. 

" These shortcomings put the Poles on their mettle. In 
the following winter, the Palatine of Posen and the Bishop 
of Wermia, despatched by the King of Poland to execute 
the marriage by proxy, with a gorgeous gathering of Sar- 
matian nobles, all in their national costume, entered Paris, 
and by the grandeur of their equipments and carriages quite 
extinguished the complimentary deputation sent to receive 
them. 

" Madame de Motteville, in her Memoirs, speaks of this 
entry into Paris with the ecstasy of a lady fond of grand 
sights. The ambassadorial procession entered, she tells 
us, — * by the gate of St. Antoine, with abundance of so- 
lemnity, and the best decorum in the world. First ,and 



HISTORICAL POBTBAITS BY BOMANTIC PATNTEES. 207 

foremost came a company of foot-guards, dressed in red and 
yellow, with great gold loops upon their clothes. They were 
commanded by two or three officers richly apparelled and 
very well mounted. Their habits were very fine vests, after 
the Turkish manner, over which they wore a great cloak 
with long sleeves, which they let fall loosely by their 
horses' sides. The buttons of both their vests and cloaks 
were rubies, diamonds, and pearls; and their cloaks were 
lined with the same as their vests. After this company 
there came another in the same order, commanded by officers 
whose habits were richer than the former. Their vests and 
mantles were of the colour of their heydukes, of green and 
gold. We saw two other companies on horseback, with the 
same liveries as those which were on foot, one of which was 
red and yellow, and the other gold and green ; only those 
wore richer stuffs, the harness of their horses was finer, and 
they had more precious stones.* 

" Madame de Motteville proceeds to say that the French 
Academicians followed this fine and foreign array. The 
lady is very severe upon the savants, who, she says, went 
out to do honour to the strangers, but dishonour to them- 
selves. They must, indeed, have looked very Hke moun- 
tebanks, for they wore shabbily-gay dresses, covered with 
ribbons, had feathers in their hats, and were mounted on 
sorry hackneys, which they hardly knew how to manage. 
They contrasted with the body of Polish noblemen who fol- 
lowed: these were attired in dresses of stiff brocade and 
silver, were splendidly mounted, and each was attended 
by a man in uniform. ' Their stuffs were so rich, so fine,' 
writes the lady already quoted, ' and their colours so lively, 
that nothing in the world was so agreeable. Their vests 
glittered, too, with diamonds ; yet,' adds the true French 
lady, ' for all their richness, it must be confessed there is 
something in their magnificence which looks very savage.' 
It was not in the magnificence, however, in which, to our 



208 ITEW PIOTITBES AND OLD PANELS. 

thinking, the * savageness' consisted. We rather detect the 
' barbarian' in a subsequent passage, which says of these 
splendidly attired Poles that * they wear no linen, and do 
not lie in sheets like other Europeans, but wrap themselves 
up in furs. Their caps,' she adds, ' are furred, their heads 
shaved, except a lock upon their crown, which hangs down 
behind. They are for the most part so fat and slovenly that 
they are loathsome.' Some of them appear, nevertheless, to 
have been extraordinarily attractive iu the eyes of this lady, 
who particularly admired the Polish officers of a superior 
grade, who wore three cock's feathers in their caps, and the 
heads of whose horses were made gay with the same dis- 
tinctive adornment. Some of their horses, like Mr. Martin 
Van Butcher s pony that was a Sunday spectacle in the 
park some half-century ago, were painted, chiefly red. The 
lady very justly caUs this an odd fashion, but yet * not a dis- 
agreeable sight.' 

" The Palatine of Posen and the Bishop of Wermia came 
last, surrounded by Polish and French nobles, all on horse- 
back, brilliant as finery could make them, and followed by 
the carriages of the palatine and bishop — handsome equi- 
pages, having silver wherever iron was employed in French 
carriages, and looking, with the fine plump steeds which 
drew them, not in the least as if they had made the long 
journey from Poland. 

"All Paris was afoot early to see the entry, and even 
the young king and queen-mother placed themselves at a 
window of their palace to see them pass. But before the 
procession reached that point darkness had set in, and 
the sight-seers, royal and noble, gentle and simple, were 
disappointed, and blamed the blameless; just as many did 
at the entry of Queen Victoria into the French capital. 
The ambassadorial party was lodged and boarded at the 
king's expense, in the palace of the exiled Duke de Ven- 
d6me. 



UISTOBICAL P0BTSAIT8 BY BOMAHTIC PAI9TXBS. 209 

'' If there was disconte^it at tlie entry, there was still 
more at the marriage. There was an intention to perform 
this ceremony with every possible splendour, but there arose 
such acrid dissensions resting on points of precedency, every 
prince and noble claiming to be better than aU others, and 
these dissensions were accompanied by such intemperance of 
speech and action, that the Queen finally determined that 
there should be no public marriage at all. The renewed 
disappointment was universal ; but it was not heeded, and 
the ceremony took place privately, with scarcely any one 
present but the bride, the representative of the * groom,' 
and court officials. 

*' It was well that this was the case, for there was some- 
thing indecorous in the appearance of the black-eyed, black- 
haired, and still handsome bride. She originally designed 
to wear the royal Polish mantle, white, covered with 

* flames of gold,' over a robe corresponding therewith. The 
ceremony being, however, a private one, the Queen insisted 
that the mantle should not be worn. Thereupon Marie de 
Gonzague also laid aside the robe, and appeared at the altar 
in her ' corset' and petticoat, * which being made,' says Ma^ 
dame de Motteville, * to wear under another, was too short, 
and not grave enough for the occasion.' 

" Singular as she must have looked, the Poles who saw 
her cross a terrace to proceed to the Queen's apartment, 
previous to the marriage, shouted for joy at the sight of 
their own future queen. She did not want for brilliancy 
of adornment ; for Anne of Austria had covered her with 
crown jewels, lent for the occasion. The service would pro- 
bably have been all the more gratefully acknowledged if 
Anne had not forbidden Marie to wear the closed crown 
until after the ceremony was concluded. The * forbidding' 
should, perhaps, be rather called a 'counselling,' but, 

* Mfen%e* or *at?w,' it was obeyed, and the marriage was at 
length concluded in due form. Although Madame de Motte- 



210 l^SW PICTURES AND OLD PANELS. 

ville says there was nobody at it, she enumerates sucli a 
number of the royal family and attendants as must hare 
constituted a very nimierous company. She especially no- 
tices the presence of the Duke of Orleans, the old lover of 
Marie ; and she evidently thinks that the form which made 
a queen of the latter in presence of an old admirer, must 
have been wormwood to the duke, and something sweeter 
than all Hybla to the lady; indeed, the latter had more 
triumphs than this on the eventful day in question. She 
took, or rather was allowed, precedence of the Queen of 
Prance during a brief portion of the day ; and Madame de 
Motteville, to whom such privileges seemed an antepast of 
paradise, thought that the bride must have been raised 
thereby to a condition of ecstatic delight which it would be 
impossible to describe. 

" The banquet which followed the ceremony was a stately, 
lengthy, and tedious affair, and, as it appears to me, very 
dull when compared with the smart things that were said, . 
not at, but after it. There was no lack of aids to wit, in the 
form of ' creature comforts ' and sparkling wines, but there 
was little mirth although much magnificence, and perhaps 
because of much magnificence. In the evening the bride 
was conducted, as became a queen, to her residence in Paris, 
where her escort of princes and nobles took leave of her, 
each with a separate compliment. The lady's ex-lover, the 
Duke of Orleans, was not there, but he was represented by 
the Abb6 de Eiviere. When this gentleman approached to 
take leave, he maliciously whispered that he' thought she 
had done better if she had remained in France with the 
simple title of * Madame ;' meaning ' Duchess' of Orleans. 
* God,' said the Queen of Poland, * has given me that of 
Majesty, and therewith I am very well content.' 

" The brilliancy of the court balls on this occasion made 
compensation for the disappointment caused by the late 
entry of the Poles into Paris, and the privately-celebrated 



HISTOBIOAIi POBTBAITS BY BOMANTIO PAINTEBS. 211 

marriage of Marie with the proxy of the royal husbaud, who 
was quietly expecting her arrival at Warsaw. The new 
queen was the * Cynthia of the minute.' Crowds followed 
her in the streets, as if she were a great stranger, and not 
one whose face was familiarly known to most, at least, of 
those who hurried to gaze upon her. She was unchanged 
by her fortune ; and the fact of her being Queen of Poland, 
or of her having danced with the then young King of 
France, caused no difference in her towards her friends. 
This is spoken of as something highly meritorious on her 
part. 

" The journey, through Flanders and Germany, into Po- 
land was a glorious ovation, and the last which she enjoyed. 
When she reached Warsaw there was scarcely any one in 
waiting to greet her; there was no state reception, no pri- 
vate happy welcome: and when she was led into the pre- 
sence of the old king, fretful at the time from a sharper 
than ordinary attack of the gout, both parties were dis- 
appointed. The king did not think her so handsome as he 
had foimd her pictures represent her to be ; and poor Marie, 
looking upon a man as old and twice as iU-looking as the 
* Konig in Thule,' shuddered at her lot. 

'* The scene was altogether an extraordinary one. The 
meeting took place in the cathedral. The old king was 
seated in a chair, and when Marie approached and knelt, 
and kissed his hand, he neither rose to receive her nor 
stooped to raise her, but, turning to one of the French gen- 
tlemen, he said, roughly and aloud, ' Is this the great wonder 
of which you have made so much to me ?' Never was there 
a more melancholy marriage. Each party seemed to wish 
to avoid the other. Not a word was said by either but what 
the ceremony required ; and, when the sorry ceremony itself 
was concluded, the poor queen sank into a chair quite un- 
able to thank the king, as was expected, for the great 
honour he had done her. 



212 KXW PICTUBE3 AND OLD PAKSLS. 

" The banquet which followed disgusted the gastronomic 
French. There was nothing there, they said, but what was 
disagreeable ; and the indifferent festival was construed al- 
most into an insult to France. Later in the evening, the 
unhappy queen whispered to Madame de G-uebriant that 
she wished to heaven she could return with her to France. 
At length, weary and vexed, she was conducted to her soli- 
tary chamber ; and the king, when he had seen the banquet 
fairly to a close, was carried to his own apartment, in another 
part of the palace. 

" What the French ladies thought of the ungallantry of 
the king may be seen in Madame de Motteville. Suffice it 
here to say, that they talked high and loudly, for days, of 
the honour of France; and they succeeded so well that 
everybody at last was satisfied that the honour of France 
had been properly regarded. 

" It was but a three years' splendid misery, and all was 
over : not for Marie, but her harsh old husband, who died in 
1648. He left a wealthy widow, however, who was, in her 
very weeds, courted most assiduously by a younger brother 
of the late king. Marie had little interest now in France, 
and the prospect of helping her lover, by her wealth, to 
be elected King of Poland, and sharing the throne with 
him, was one which affected her most agreeably. There 
were many difficulties in the way ; but these were all sur- 
mounted. Even the obstacle presented by the parties being 
within the forbidden degrees was easily got rid of, and 
money purchased from Eome a license to break the eccle- 
siastical law. AD ends were thus accomplished. The lover 
was elected king, and the widow of the old king became the 
bride of the new. He was not so ungracious a consort as 
the defunct monarch, but he did not scruple to speak of the 
wife whose money had bought his election to the crown, 
as a very estimable person indeed, yet one by marrying 
whom he had sacrificed a good deal, and materially injured 



HISTOBICAL POBTBAITS BY EOMANTIC PAINTEES. 213 

his prospects. He was an ungrateful fellow ; but probably 
did not mean all that he said. Be this as it may, Marie wa« 
' as happy as a queen' could be ; though no one who reads 
her history will recognize in this clever woman the simple 
little piece of prettiness who is the heroine of De Vigny's 
* Cinq-Mars,' and whose portrait, as * the wife of two 
brothers,' is still to be seen in more than one collection in 
Polske." 



214 



FOREI&N SCENES DRAWN BY 
ENGLISH HANDS. 

" Atjthoes who build up stories out of the Bomance of 
History are like landscape and indeed portrait-painters also, 
they only copy nature as far as it pleases them ; they throw 
in * high art ' and * effects,' for the sake of reputation and 
profit. Now," said the Briton Smith, " I too have been in 
Arcadia," — and here, to the profound horror of the club, who 
thought he was about to read his own verses, he took out 
a manuscript volume, which proved, however, to be only a 
diary. " Here," added Smith, " are an Englishman's sketches 
of foreign scenes. Will you look at or listen to them'P" 

" Turn over the leaves, and give us of the briefest, if not 
of the best," cried various members of the club, as they lit 
their cigars, and with their mind's eye contemplated the 
scenes and incidents unfolded in Smith's Diary. 

Igliui. 
I was quietly one morning, and, for the fiftieth time, 
enjoying the wonders of the Imperial Zeughaus at Vienna ; 
I had glanced at the suit of armour of that little hero, the 
second Louis of Hungary, he who came into this breathing 
world some months before he was welcome, and who sup- 
ported his character for precocity by marrying at twelve, 
and becoming legitimate owner of all the honours of pater- 
nity just as he entered his teens ; who, moreover, maintained 
his consistency by turning a grey old man at sixteen ; and. 



TOBXIOK SOElTEfi DBAWK BY ETTOLISH HAKBS. 215 

finally, terminated Hs ephemeral course on the field of bat- 
tle before he became of age. I had turned from this imma- 
ture hero to the riper warrior who fell at Lutzen, and, as I 
looked with increasing interest at the buff elk-skin coat of 
the great G^ustavus, and marked, with a sigh, the inlet and 
the issue of the assassin pistol-shot which dismissed a soul 
to the haQ of heroes, and gaye an impetus to theological 
controversy, I heard the voices of two pretty German friends 
inviting me to approach and contemplate a splendid panoply 
of steel which had never hitherto excited my particular ad- 
miration. 

" Did you ever see such a shoe ?" said Lottchen. 

" Or ever hear of such a woman ?" asked Alvina. 

** It is a very remarkable shoe indeed," said I ; " and I 
have no doubt that the fair but stalwart wearer of it, who 
did not disdain to stand upon a very considerable portion of 
ground, was a no less remarkable woman." 

" She invented all the riddles that we asked you yesterday 
at Durrenstein," said the lively Lottchen. 

" And had more lovers than there are days in the year," 
sighed the pensive Alvina. 

"Sundays and all included!" exclaimed the yoimger 
sister. 

• " And she loved fighting, building, hunting, coursing, 
thieving, law-making, wool-work, the violin, and drinking," 
cried the biographical elder. 

" And her name," said I, " was Libussa : we know her by 
those signs. And that very long dagger-like point to her 
shoe was placed there for a very lady-like purpose. This 
Amazon general of an army of virgins possessed the hearts 
and slew the bodies of more than four hundred lovers. The 
opposition lady who lived in the Tour de Nesle and de- 
spatched a fresh lover and her breakfast at every returning 
dawn, was incarnate innocence compared with this romantic 
and powerful butcheress." 



216 XBW PIOTTTESS AlH) OLD PAITELB. 

"Achy du lieber GhUP^ cried my young friends simulta- 
neously. 

" "When a knight-errant,'' continued I, " became captive 
to the bright eyes and the general charms of this magni- 
ficent she-wolf, his errantry was consummated, and his 
knighthood crumbling into the grave. The usual course of 
events was for the lady to invite the chevalier to her castle 
or bower, for she lived before the period of nerves, morals, 
or your Q-erman Mrs. Chapone; and he was welcomed by 
groups of beauties all attired in ' very thin clothing, and but 
little of it,' such as received Sir Arthur in the Bridal of 
Triermain; and he bathed luxuriously in rose-water; and 
he fared sumptuously at the banquet ; and he drank deeply, 
after the fashion of his age ; and he saluted Libussa re- 
peatedly ; and he swore to love her everlastingly ; and, in 
short, like a knight, he behaved very improperly, slept after 
a heavy supper very uneasily, awoke swearing consumedly, 
drank Seltzer water immeasurably, took his breakfast hur- 
riedly, walked out immediately, and then disappeared un- 
accountably and invariably," 

" And," said Lottchen, " it was discovered subsequently?" 

"Even as you know," I resumed. "The lady was wont 
to conduct the knight to the edge of a precipice that hung 
over a yawning abyss. While standing there together, she 
would point out to him the diversified beauties of the view 
lying, like a lapse of loveliness, at their feet ; the steamer 
running up to Prague, — or that would have been running 
had steamers then been invented ; but this couldn't be, be- 
cause it was otherwise. But she would engage him in con- 
versation on all the most approved topics of the day, — infant- 
schools, the new opera, Le Journal des Modes, and young 
Napoleon; and then, while the unsuspecting youth was 
thrown off his guard, the cruel inconstant would hurl him 
into the abyss below by a single kick in the side from that 
dagger-pointed shoe ; leaving him an example, young ladies, 



rOBEIOK SCENES DBAWN BY ENGLISH HANDS. 217 



• 



and me a moral for my tale, illustrating the evil conse- 
quences that are likely to fall on young gentlemen who stay 
out at nights !" 

Now, if I have stepped back from this little frontier town 
to talk of the masculine Queen Libussa, it was done in order 
that you might not be entirely unacquainted with the sove- 
reign lady who once held undisputed sway over the country 
into which I have just stepped with a light knapsack, a 
cherry-stick pipe, some half-dozen score of thalers, and an 
ambitious desire of doing the pedestrian. 



I was about writing the name of the village in which I 
pen this ; but, after many fruitless attempts, 1 abandon an 
undertaking so rash. Every one here, that is to say, the 
three persons who can write, spells it after a fashion of his 
own. It is a name in which the vowels and consonants 
are at issue ; and the nearest approximation you will make 
towards pronouncing it is by sneezing five times, and then 
adding iski ! 

I am here located for a few days in the comfortable 
quarters of a worthy priest whom I met at Iglau ; and 
who, seeing a foreigner looking on at the rapid way in 
which com and hemp were being sold in the spacious 
market-place of that town, entered into conversation with 
him, and, finally, invited him to his cottage in this utterly 
unpronounceable place. He is a healthy, happy old man, 
of " cheerful yesterdays and confident to-morrows ;" a man 
who, while he is bold enough to relish Zadig, is also per- 
severing enough to have read the 568 sermons of Balthasar 
Kemer. He showed me two folio volumes by that inde- 
fatigable writer, which actually contained 364 sermons on 
the brief scriptural history of Tobias. I also counted 
thirty-four on the short Epistle of Jude, and sixty on that 
of St. James. Another volume contained thirty-two on 

L 



218 SEW PICTTJBES AND OLD PANELS. 

Butb ; and a rather gaily-bound tome enclosed a hundred 
and five Marriage Pearls, as they were called, being as 
many sermons preached at the marriage ceremony, when 
it is customary for the bride to furnish the preacher with 
a special text for the occasion. 

How unlike the Yorkshire clergyman, of whom poor 
Morritt once told us, who, having composed the mystic 
triple three, or nine sermons, preached his small sample 
over and over about twelve times in the course of the year ! 

" I hope," said my good host, as we were together look- 
ing over the ponderous sermonist, "that old Kemer wiU^ 
not be exposed in the next world to the fate which, ac- 
cording to tradition, all mortal authors must undergo." 

" What is that ?" I inquired. 

" Why, they say," he replied, " that there exists a special 
purgatory for authors, where all their works go with them ; 
and they no sooner enter than all the types are changed 
into gnats, which prey upon them with a violence in pro- 
portion to the ennui which their victim inflicted on his 
patient public." 

"Well," I observed, " that is a retribution of mere fea- 
ther-weight compared with that which is to visit inactive 
clergymen.'' 

" Ah, ah !" exclaimed my friend with an inquiring smile, 
" pray what may that be ?" 

" The unrighteous ministers of all denominations will be 
condemned in the next world to pass their time in reading 
all the bad sermons which have been written in this !" 

And my host very naturally turned pale, as he remarked, 
that such a penalty was beyond anything human to b^ur. 

" But," said he, " it is only that witty infidel Heyne who 
says so." 

" Nay," said I, " Heyne expressly declares that Satan 
told him so." 

"Oh!" cried the priest, somewhat irreveraitly, as I 



rOBEIGN SGEKES DEAWK BY ENGLISH HANDS. 219 

thought, " Satan is by far too well-bred a person to enter- 
tain so nnreasonable an idea !" 

Teutsch Brod. 

Bohemia is like an old soldier, but not the comfortable, 
healthy, and soberly joyous veteran that may pass for the 
allegory of other places. Bohemia, after centuries of war- 
fare, and still abounding as she does in agates, topazes, and 
emeralds, more nearly resembles the man-at-arms who has. 
stoutly slain his foes, but who is himself lying on the field 
of battle, decked in all his bravery, and dying of the wounds 
which he has received in the fray. In so poor a condition 
is Bohemia, and so little is done for her in her need. The 
emperor, indeed, occasionally rides to Prague, and then 
forthwith rides back again to Vienna ; but Bohemia derives 
no advantage from this brief imperial curative process ; the 
exhausted warrior does not recover at the mere sight of the 
doctor. 

This country possesses, however, one thing in uncommon 
abundance — a respect for titles. This is carried to an extent 
beyond anything I ever witnessed in any other country. I 
asked a man yesterday, whom I met on the road, how far I 
was from Stecken, and his reply was, " Saving your title ! 
about two miles;" meaning thereby, "As I have not the 
honour to be acquainted with your rank, excuse me if I 
do not call you Allerdu/rchlaiichtigst und Unubermndlichst 
— exceedingly serene and very invincible ! — or you mcM/ be 
Oro99machtig9t und Gnddig — uncommonly powerful and 
tolerably gracious ; but, as there is nothing of that quality 
apparent about you, excuse me if I do not expressly name 
it ; nevertheless, you are about two miles from Stecken." 

In the same spirit inns announce " Good accommodation 
for [P. T.] travellers ;" the letters in brackets doing duty 
for prwter tituhs ! and impljring, " Pardon me, all you who 
are highnioble bom, immeasurably worthy, widely command- 
ing, much beloved, very fevourable, greatly to be honoured^ 

L 2 



220 STEM PICTTJBES JlSB OLD PANELS. 

high and worthily esteemed, or simply, gracious sir,* pardon 
me if I do not distinguish such travellers by their titles; 
but you are all, notwithstanding, welcome to the Dun Cow 
and Muckslush Heath!" Lord Burleigh's celebrated dra- 
matic nod bore not half so much meaning in it as do the 
letters P. T. on the signboard of a Bohemian inn. 

Such is the feeling here for titles, things which resemble 
village ghosts ; every one knows there is nothing in them, 
and yet bumpkins and children stand open-mouthed in their 
presence. 

In support of my statement that life in Teutsch Brod is 
of much the same quality and hue as in other provincial 
towns, I send you a specimen of the local scandal of our 
petite ville. 

Gottlieb Sacks is a miller, well to do in the world, with 
his mill, his mansion, and his hopes, all fixed on the Sazawa 
river. In his mill are three honest men and an abundance 
of grist ; in his mansion a pretty young wife, who brought 
him a fortune with some additional gentility; and in his 
hopes there was nothing that a thriving miller might be 
ashamed of. His mill went round merrily, his house was 
the abode of cheerfulness, and his hopes were all gradually 
realizing themselves, when the arrival of a philandering 
young abbe, remarkable for his love of lobster-salad and 
clean linen, brought a change over the spirit of the dream of 
Gottlieb Sacks. The miQer was a rough, honest, rich fel- 
low, ignorant of the entire universe outside his own parish. 
The abbe had been to Paris, could speak Prench, and 
condescended to talk to Prau Sacks of Biarritz and the 
Empress Eugenie. Now Prau Sacks, having a soul, like 
the negro's, considerably above buttons, soon began to expe- 
rience more pleasure in listening to the abba's stories of the 

* Hochedelgeboren, hochwiirdigst, hdchstgebietend, yielgeliebt, hoch- 
geneigt, insonders geehrt, hoch-und-werthgeBchlitzt, gnfidiger Herr, etc. 



roBEiair scenes dbawk by English hands. 221 

Tuileries, Yersailles, and Montalembert, than to the un- 
interesting details that were occasionally imparted to her by 
her husband, touching markets, merchandise, and military 
masses at Prague. The yisits of the abb6 to the lady, in the 
absence of her lord, became more numerous and of longer 
duration ; and though a few of the good-natured Frduleins 
of the vicinity maintained, on the strength of their innocent 
ignorance, that these yisits were entirely spiritual, and for 
the soul's good of Frau Sacks, the older ladies of the neigh- 
bourhood declared that they boded no good to any of the 
parties, and that they were especially threatening to the 
peace of mind and worldly welfare of the honest miller. As 
for the men, they were as much divided in opinion as were 
their wives and Oeliehten ; the bachelors looked upon the 
abb6 as a bold, impudent young feUow, whose gown covered 
a multitude of things of which the church takes no cogni- 
sance, or only notices to condemn ; the married men, on the 
other hand, laughed at the treason, but hated the traitor ; 
and as the poet's '' damned good-natured friends" abound 
on the Sazawa, even as they do on more homely streams, 
so honest Gt)tt]ieb soon found himself bewildered by hints, 
innuendoes, fierce alLusions, counsels to keep his heart up, 
and a load of gratuitous advice to keep his choler down ; and 
then such meaning smiles met him at house-doors, and he 
encountered such expressive looks at street comers, and 
such low whispers of grave import reached him from cottage 
windows, that the jolly miller suddenly and unerpectedly 
found himself labouring under a disorder, two of the symp- 
toms of which were a strong mistrust of connubial fidelity 
and an overpowering suspicion of the virtue and respecta- 
bility of the Catholic Church. 

At all the suburban parties of Teutsch Brod, extra muros, 
the abb6 was the lion invited ; the miller, simply the miller^ 
tolerated; Frau Sacks, the cynosure of the small circle, 
amiable because she was rich, and sought after because of 



222 IfXW PIGTTJBES Al^B OLD PAITELS. 

her own self-declared superiority to every earthly thing and 
sublunary mortal that found themselyes in her neighbour- 
hood. In truth, poor Sacks was a man to be pitied. 

*' Semper habet litee, altemaque jturgia, lectus 
lu quo nupta jaoet/' 

He had married a fortune, which is certainly no subject 
for commiseration ; he had done his best to increase it, in 
which there is still less cause for pity ; his wife, moreover, 
was descended, or would have you believe so, from Charle- 
magne, and this might have been a source of some pride, 
but it was so everlastingly rung in Gottlieb's ears that he at 
last knew her pedigree better than his paternoster^ and pro- 
foundly anathematized the great German Kaiser, as well as 
every branch of his imperial genealogy. But it was in thi% 
respect that Sacks was the son of tribulation, and worthy of 
the sympathy of his contemporaries, as well as of all pos- 
terity ; his lady was in one thing a perfect domestic fiend, 
who, having discovered the most sensitive part of Sacks's 
mental person, never missed the opportunity of scratching 
it with a rusty nail whenever she deemed herself provoked, 
and this was in wounding his pride and self-esteem by teU- 
ing him, with an insufferable air of conviction, that her 
money had made a gentleman of him, and that there was not 
a spoke in the wheels of any one of his waggons that did not 
come out of her pocket. When this draught of wormwood 
was offered him he swallowed it, it is true, but not without 
a volley of those expletive remonstrances which are only 
bom in the excited bubbles that run riot in the veins of 
Germans and Irishmen. It was after one of these occiu*- 
rences which light up homes with a fiendish glare, and 
where a suspicion of brimstone takes place of the perfume 
of domestic felicity, that Gottlieb and his chain-companion 
attended a sovree, marked, as all those intellect-slaying 
things are, by cold tea, small talk, bad music, worse singing, 
lying compliments, and an impatience to go home again. 



70BEIGN SCENES DSAWK BY EXOLISH HAXBS. 223 

And there, too, was the abb6, all smiles and smooth chin, — 
his attentions becoming divided between administering them 
in small doses to the married ladies generally ; and in verj 
full measure, according to old physical practice, to Frau 
Sacks in particular. 

The miller wished himself a very damp body, three days 
old, at the bottom of his own mill-dam. 

And then he reflected, that, as everything was wisely 
ordained, it was, doubtless, better that he was not lying on 
his back in the mill-dam ; and that Heaven had probably 
preserved him from such a locality, in order that he might 
live to horsewhip the abbe. 

Now Sacks scorned to take an undue advantage of any 
man ; and, becoming religiously convinced that Providence 
had destined him to be the instrument of castigation to the 
priest, he took the opportunity of whispering the same into 
his ear, as the latter was engaged in whispering something 
more tender, and less terrible, into the ear of the lady of 
the mill. 

The abb6 turned upon the miller a glance like that which 
the archangel Michael vouchsafes towards his former friend 
Lucifer, in G-uido's picture of the rebellious angels, — a look 
which seems to say, " I'm sorry for you ; but you would 
have it ! It is with extreme regret thal^ I lend you this 
irresistible and undeniable kick ; but why did you disturb 
me ? You have come across my path, and, upon my honour, 
it is my intention to thoroughly beat you, in consequence.*' 

Sacks felt that quite as much as this was legible in the 
cool, contemptuous, and decided look of the tonsured Love- 
lace ; but he sought to arm himself by thinking of every 
wronged miller in history, and how their biographers declare 
that they avenged themselves. His course of reading, how- 
ever, not supplying him with examples, he went home with 
his wife, and a fixed determination to fashion a precedent 
for himself. 



224 ITEW PICTUBES AJSTD OLD PAKELS. 

Sacks's ideas of precedents do not appear to have had 
much affinity with those which you may purchase at Mr. 
Butterworth's Law Library: they turned rather towards 
shaping a crabstick, not according to the line of beauty, 
which is said to be a graceful curve, and which certainly 
does not apply to backs, but in a menacing, rigid, straight 
line, such as Nature abhors ; not merely the lady so called, 
but that peccant, personal nature of the man who sees a 
weapon, and is conscious that he merits chastisement. 

Having done this Sacks put his precedent up the chimney 
of his best stove, to season it. 

And then the gods who cause extremes to meet, and who 
had been for some time watching the course of events, of 
which Sacks was the centre, speedily effected a proximation, 
and finally a conjunction, between the offended virtue of the 
miller and the impudent boldness of the abbe ; while Frau 
Sacks looked on at the collision with the feeling of a railroad 
constable who sees two trains run into each other, knows 
that it has happened through his own neglect, and is un- 
comfortably certain that the consequences will fall upon his 
own head. 

Li spitC/ of the miller's innuendo, the young abb6 still 
resorted to the zweytes Friihstuck, the luncheon, the lobster- 
salad, and the Hungarian wine of Sacks's wife ; but, whatever 
gloss he affected to give to these morning calls, and however 
quietly and fiirtively they were resorted to in the absence of 
Sacks himself, the future cardinal could as little conceal 
from himself as from the vigilant public of the vicinity that 
he was most uncomfortably in love, and did not know how 
to extricate himself. 

But Fate and the miller lent each a hand to help him out 
of his difficulties. 

One pleasant morning, when Sacks and the sun were both 
out, — the former supposed to be halfway on his road to 
Prague, and the latter felt to be looking out from his home 



TOBEIGK SOEKES DBA.WI7 BY ENGLISH HAITDS. 225 

just over their heads, the priest and the lady were seen cross- 
ing an '' English garden/' as they call such places here, but 
in reality an enclosure, which, for want of a better com- 
parison, I may say very closely resembled Sion Park. The 
abb6 was in adyance of the lady, far enough off to induce 
unobservant persons to imagine that he was on horseback 
with regard to principles, yet near enough to converse with 
the post equitem fair one, — a curious arrangement of \^ha- 
racter, but you must remember that one of the dramatis 
persona was a son of the church, and that such a person 
ought to recoil from all dangerous bits of muslin, a^ I did 
ten days since from the bed to which I was shown by an 
obsequious waiter of a village inn, who informed me that it 
was perfectly clean, as no one had slept in it but his own 
grandmother, an old crone of ninety-two, whom I had noticed 
sitting in the sun at the door, struggling with dirt, disease, 
lengthened days, and threatening death. 

While the half-happy, half-frightened pair were thus 
crossing the park, another couple. Sacks and his crabstick, 
were reclining against a tree with evident symptoms of agi- 
tation about both of them. The only steady portion of the 
proper person of the miller was his eyes, tod these were 
fixed with a basilisk gleam upon his " Poll and his partner 
Joe." He was no sooner seen than the priest telegraphed 
the lady to go back ; and as this signal denoted a foregone 
conclusion, was miching mallecTio, as Hamlet says, and meant 
mischief. Sacks at one bound was at the side of the abb6, 
his crabstick on the side of the abbe's head, and the abbe 
himself on his side upon the ground. The lady shrieked, 
called her husband a brute, and then tenderly adjured him, 
by her virtue, to desist, and for her baby's sake not to agi- 
tate her ; but the miller made a reply which, if interpreted, 
would signify that she had not any, used with a reference 
less to babies than to virtue. In the meantime the abbe, 
who was no Sir Geoffrey Hudson, having resumed the per- 

L 3 



226 KEW FICTUBES AJSTD OLD FAl^LS. 

pendicular, gaye his antagonist a taste of the horusontal; 
but Sacks was up again like a cork, and away thej went at 
it like French Falconers. The " femme malheureuse, inno- 
cente et persecut^e" rushed between; but mortal women 
do not come off from such interferences more successfully 
than goddesses ; and as Venus herself was wounded by that 
^tolian gentleman whose wife ^giale was a mythological 
Frau Sacks, so the latter retired from the struggle de- 
spoiled of a portion of her woman's finery and three false 
curls. The abb6 picked Up the latter, kissed them, and 
fled; the miller, well contented with his victory, turned 
down to his mill ; and the lady hired a chaise deposte, and 
started in high indignation and damp straw to Trautenau. 
She had not, however, proceeded a league when a strong in- 
clination possessed her to indulge in hysterics ; but, reflect- 
ing that there was no one by to witness her performance, she 
ordered the chaise back, with the intention of getting up a 
strictly private family exhibition at home. On her arrival 
there, she found the children in bed, and her husband not 
returned; and then came another reflection, that the place 
looked so comfortable, and the babies so rosy, that it would 
be a pity to leave them ; whereupon she put her feet in 
warm water, drank a comfortable lait de poule, and went to 
bed, with the fixed determination of acknowledging to her 
Ueher Mcmn, that she had been more foolish than criminal, 
and was heartily sorry for it. And this determination ap- 
pears to have been followed by salutary effects ; and it was 
quite exemplary to see the bearing of the reconciled couple 
next morning at mass, which was celebrated neither by the 
abb6 nor in his presence. He has been formally denied ac- 
cess to the church ; and a pious Serzoginn of the vicinity 
has declared that she will withdraw her patronage from di- 
vine service should he ever appear there again. His eccle- 
siastical principal is kind-hearted enough to be desirous of 
copying the forgiving propensities of the miller ; but, not- 



70BEIGl!r SCSHE8 DBAWK BY ENGLISH HANDS. 327 

withstanding this, the young abb6 will be ruined ; for his 
superior is of that order, that he dare not run counter to 
the commands of a duchess : he is a grave, excellent man? 
and fond of the church, but so under the slipper of the Her- 
zoginn, that, were she to require it, he would stand on his 
head on the steeple, throw a summerset three times, and 
grin through a horse-coUar. 

HHnfiki. 

I have come thus &r out of my way to hear a mass, a 
distance something short of that performed by the Iberian 
who went on foot from Spain to Padua, only for the purpose 
of looking upon old Titus Livius. The companion of my jour- 
ney was a stout young descendant of that mysterious tribe 
which a few centuries back inundated Europe, — coming 
men knew not where, and going themselves knew not 
whither; a tribe which, like our old familiar friend the 
crow, is the visitor, the wayfarer, or the dweller in all lands, 
and yet is unlike honest John Corvus in never having trod- 
den down a blade of grass throughout the whole length and 
breadth of that happy Hibernia which '' rose from out the 
azure main," with an innate antipathv to frogs, toads, ser- 
pente. gipsies, modesty, and Saxons. * 

A stalwart, honest, good-humoured labourer was mj 
young gipsy. K he loved anything supereminently, it was 
schnapps ; next to that, he had an affection for a pretty girl 
called Zulnicq, who came from Hungary, and who, having 
never lived in a house, was fearful of uniting her fate with 
my friend Czatoschek, who possessed a hut with a roof to it, 
lest the confinement, and the new habits of life attendant 
on it, should cause her death. 

Czatoschek amused me greatly with his description ot 
Zulnicq ; but he interested me still more by his tales and 
reminiscences of old gipsy life. The number of his brethren 
in Bohemia is now but small ; in his grandfather's time they 
formed a very large and menacing body. [Plena omnia 



228 mSW PI0T1TBE8 AKD OLD PAITELS. 

gypsof] One of their very strange metbods of taking pos- 
session of a district was to appear in it totally naked, and 
thus drive the more delicate inhabitants from the neighbour- 
hood; they would thus brave the terrors of a Bohemian 
winter, as hardy as the monks in Russia mentioned by the 
great Lord Bacon, who, for penance, woidd sit a whole night 
of mid-winter in a vessel full of water, till they were more 
inextricably frozen in it than was the brewer of Brentford's 
steamer in Boothia Felix. 

"Strangers who saw them at early dawn," said Czato- 
schek, " rising thus naked from their couch on the bare 
ground, thought that the Besurrection had commenced ; so 
gaunt, grisly, and ghastly was the appearance they made. 
But they soon convinced," added he, "those who tarried to 
watch them, that their business was more at present to com- 
mit violence than to be judged for it ; and the curious often 
paid dearly enough for what they saw or strove to see." 

" And I conclude," said I, " that such a life was death to 
them." 

"Death!" exclaimed the gipsy ; "they would never have 
died, had not the accursed law slain them." 

He thrust his hand deep into the bosom of an undervest, 
and, taking thence a soiled piece of leather, which enclosed 
a time- coloured and time-worn square of paper, he placed 
the latter in my hands. 

" There," said he, " is the instrument which cleared Bo- 
hemia and Saxony of my ancestors, the sons of the spirit. 
My own great-grandfather tore it from the church-door, 
when he was liable to be shot like a wolf for simply appear- 
ing there ; as it was, they only chopped his hands off, and 
burnt him alive, for having touched their temple with his 
polluted fingers. May misery cling, to the last generation, 
round the souls and bodies of the descendants of all who 
were concerned in conceiving or executing the wrong that 
was done to my fathers !" 



TOBEIGIir SCSITES DRAWS BY ENGLISH HAITDS. 229 

I took the paper from the hand of mj not too Christian- 
like companion, and I thought he might have put an addi- 
tional qualifying adjective before his grandfather, as I read 
the words and date, "Most gracious decree, a. d. 1722." 
This decree, so styled, went on to inform the Saxons, that a 
band of gipsies, amounting to 1500 men, had lately withdrawn 
from Hesse, and taken refuge in the Thuringian forest. 

" These," said the exceedingly gracious decree, " with all 
their possessions and valuables, are not only given up as 
prizes, prey, and plunder, to all Christian men, but all good 
Saxon subjects are strictly enjoined to shoot them down 
wherever they may be found, or in any otherwise slay them ; 
and for this no man shall call any of our loving subjects in 
question. On the contrary, wherever and whenever these 
robbers appear, we command all good men and true imme- 
diately to strike the church and alarum bells, that the militia 
and Jagerey may assemble, and unite with all faithful citi- 
zens, in hunting down, and doing these heathen bandits to 
death." 

" And this was done, too," cried Czatoschek, as I finished 
reading ; and he looked at me as if he would fain ask what 
I thought of it. 

"A most savage and inhuman decree!" said I. " Your 
ancestors might have been reclaimed by gentler means. 
However, the severe remedy has been productive of its good 
results; for, if you be less in numbers, you have the in- 
creased enjoyments of civilization." 

"Ah!" exclaimed the gipsy, with 'a grim smile, "that's 
true! we have gained by civilization, — famine, taxes, con- 
tempt, and the conscription. Before we were civilized, we 
had plenty, for we took it. We owed no man tribute, for 
we levied it. We incurred no contempt, for we inspired 
fear. And they needed no conscription who were willing 
soldiers against all who looked defiance at them, and the 
foes of all men whose fathers had despoiled us, by leaving 



230 ITEW PIOTUBES AISB OLD PAl^ELS. 

their sons more wealth than was healthy for them8d.Ye8, or 
right in the eye of gipsy law.*' 

" Well," thought I, as we came in view of this little town, 
'' there are two classes with whom there is no arguing ; the 
half-educated, who are too conceited to be convinced, and 
the half-savage, whose truths are more than half-drunken, 
and cannot be wholly gainsaid.'' 

Hlmski 

Czatoschek and X took our way leisurely to this place, 
where we arrived just in time to be present at the mass, the 
assisting at which was the purpose of my journey. I say 
we, but the truth is that the gipsy was engaged in an occu- 
pation that would have shocked Father Mathew, and the 
entire convent at Hammersmith, while I was attending a 
celebration in honour of St. Apollonia and her teeth. At 
the great church, I found an unusually full attendance, 
made in honour of a saint who, properly invoked, can shame 
the powers of Gregorian paste in her well-attested cures of 
the toothache, and before whom whole hogsheads of soothing 
elixirs become powerless compared with what this canonized 
lady can do in relieving pains which have taken up a po- 
sition in that hollow membranous portion of the human 
frame divine, which is placed mostly in the left hjrpochron- 
drium, immediately under the diaphragm, and in an oblique 
position between the liver and the spleen. I hardly thought 
it astonishing that a defunct lady, who engages to effect bo 
much as the fair Apollonia does, for the small outlay of a 
few paternosters and a, little faith, should be honoured by 
such a train of supplicating followers. They who had had 
the toothache during the preceding year, and had recovered 
therefrom, went to bless the lady for their recovery. They 
who had never grinned beneath that pleasant infliction went 
to thank the saint for their happy exemption. While the 
actual suflferers, with venomed anguish, cheek swollen, and 



POBKIGK SCEinSS DKAWN BY El^GLISH HANDS. 281 

gum throbbing, groaned forth their impatient prayers for 
deliyery, and perspired with pain, out of the two millions, 
three thousand, and four hundred pores which perforate the 
becullendered sur&ce of us and our fellow-men. 

It was a thing to smile at, to hear the service begin with 
the " Domine Misereatur," and some two thousand victims, 
naturally cry, as they gnashed their incisors, " O Lord, have 
mercy ! " That none might forget the object of their prayers, 
a figure of St. Apollonia was exhibited in the body of the 
church. This representative of the lady of Alexandria was 
a wax doll of some four feet in height, painted and dressed 
as nothing of humanity ever was painted and dressed, — ex- 
cept, perhaps, the aristocracy of those demoiselles in Paris, 
whose names are inscribed at the dep6t of the prefecture, 
and who look like figures from the *■ Journal des Modes' run 
mad with exaggeration. The face was painted up to the 
eyes of a brickdust vermilion, and the eyes had a leer in 
them very unbecoming a saint. The dress consisted of a 
bright yellow poplin skirt, — the gift, perhaps, of some Irish 
sufferer, who had tried creosote in vain. From the hem of 
the skirt to the height of the knees ran a border of gigantic 
sky-blue, light green, and scarlet flowers ; the body was of 
bright cherry -eoloured satin, covered with dust, and coming 
down in 'front to a point, like the boddice of our old friend 
Mrs. Quickly, of the Boar's Head, Eastcheap ; and there 
was sham lace enough at the top of it to fill half-a-dozen 
pairs of wide-spreading buskins of even Lauzun himself, 
when he was at the very high top-gallant of his foppery. A 
coquettish cap surmounted the head. ^ In one hand she bore 
what may have been a sword, or a leek, it imitated nature 
so abominably ; the other held an awful forceps, grasping a 
still more awftd tooth. With this graphic curiosity addressed 
to the eyes, and with a distinctly delivered biographical ser- 
mon addressed to the ear, and which served as a running 
commentary on the counterfeit representation, I contrived 



232 FEW PICTUBBS AKD OLD PAHBL8. 

to learn that the original of the figure before us was a native 
of Alexandria, and that she was by no means to be con- 
founded with the Apollonia of Borne, who was gifted with 
no power in cases of dental anguish, and with whose esta- 
blishment the dark Egyptian wished it to be expressly xm- 
derstood there was no connection whatever. Neither was 
she to be mistaken for the modest young saint of Cologne? 
one of the ten thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine who 
perished with St. Ursula, rather than connect themselves with 
their Hunnish admirers by a species of marriage which had 
as little of holiness about it as a modem union vamped up 
in a Whig registry office. 

In the year 252, according to the best authorities, said 
our rotund little preacher, were the heathens of Alexandria 
incited, by a devil's messenger of a sorcerer, to rise and ex- 
terminate the large number of Christians, who then openly 
professed their faith in that celebrated city. Among the 
number of the latter was our Apollonia, whose pious father 
had been previously hacked in pieces, and afterwards supere- 
rogatorily, as it seemed to me, stoned to death, her mother 
having experienced an equally comfortable end at the hands 
of her fanatic persecutors. By these parents, who were of 
noble condition, the young candidate for canonization was 
educated in that faith which, in those days, generally brought 
death with it to its professors. When her hour of trial had 
arrived, her residence was attacked by a furious mob, who 
burnt the house, plundered the property, and carried the 
mistress into painful captivity. Here, as she cursed their 
gods, and refused to acknowledge any but Christ the Lord, 
they attacked her with stones, struck her with clenched fists, 
and used her otherwise so tmmenschlichy as the preacher de- 
clared her biographers to assert, that her lips swelled mon- 
strously, the blood flowed from her mouth and nostrils, her 
eyes were beaten black and blue, and her teeth were loosened 
in their sockets. After a pause to refresh their zeal, these 



rOBEIGK SCEITES DBAWK BY ENGLISH HANDS. 233 

amiable upholders of their own faith renewed their argu- 
ments to proye the soundness of their opinions, by tearing 
open her lips and cheeks ; her teeth were knocked out of 
their gums, some, as wtB were gravely told, being driven 
down her throat, and some falling out on the ground ; and, 
at this moment, with her mouth and lips in such an undeni- 
able condition for singing, she struck up " mit frohlochender 
Stimm," a cheerful hymn of defiance to her enemies, and 
glory to God. 

As she still continued recusant and obstinate, a stake was 
erected, and a fire kindled ; but Apollonia, anticipating the 
intentions of her merciless tormentors, and recommending 
to God all who should thenceforward call upon her name 
leaped into the fiames, and died, like the phoBnix, to rise 
still more gloriously out of her ashes. 

If only half this story were true, such a victim would de- 
serve, at least, the respect of posterity ; but the Eomish 
Church founds its honour of the saint rather in what fol- 
lowed her death than on what they say preceded it. Accord- 
ing to Valentinus Leucthius, her friends found her body, 
perfectly uninjured, among the remains of the fire ; — and, if 
they did, they were well justified in their admiration there- 
upon, though they treated it themselves with less regard 
than had been shown by the discriminating fiames, for they 
cut off the head and despatched it to Eome, while her teeth 
were distributed among a score of religious houses and 
churches in various parts of Europe, among which the holy 
Boman empire was presented with two, an incisor and a 
grinder ; the foretooth I had the felicity of seeing at Bonn . 
the dens molar makes Hlinski for ever, and still after, glorious. 
This once useful and ornamental occupier of a portion of the 
alveolar process of the young Alexandrian was, on the ter- 
mination of the sermon, solemnly exhibited to the faithful 
and the suffering, who had assembled to do honour to the 
festival of the saint. In front of the figure stood a young 



234 K£W PICTUBES iJrD OLD PIXELS. 

priest with the sacred relic, properly protected, in his hand ; 
and the whole of the congregation, reverently passing be- 
tween the doll and the deacon, kissed the glass chaste in 
which the tooth lay, the priest raising it to the lips of the 
worshipers with his left hand, and, after each kiss of hope, 
gratitude, or deprecation, gently wiping the surface with a 
napkin which he held in his right. And so the assembly 
separated, in full confidence that a lady, who could not pre- 
serve her own teeth, is perfectly capable of preserving those 
of other people. Bollandus even says that she is an infallible 
stomachic corroborative ; and if all the cures he cites be well 
attested, all that I have finally to remark is, that galangals 
and pimpinella are nothing to her. A good word from her 
is more effective than canella alba, or cardamoms; If &he 
be but propitious, carduus benedictus and the four carmina- 
tive seeds are leather and prunella in comparison ; and if she 
smile, you need purchase neither daucus creticus nor sweet 
nitre, nor will you be called upon to borrow from a neigh- 
bour any of the soothing compounds, whether essences, 
tinctures, sal volatile sylvii, or the real stomachic elixir. 
Another of her profound biographers declares that she may 
be very safely invoked in cases of headache, as well as in 
other afflictions, which I do not choose to mention; and 
that she c^n cure them as easily as she can the pains of a 
raging tooth, — and, truly, I believe she may ! 

Prague. 
My journey from Hlinski to Prague was, after all, not 
performed in pedestrian fashion. Being afraid of growing 
over-luxurious, I engaged a place in a public vehicle, which 
I suppose is patronized by the Eoman Catholic government 
of Boliemia, that its subjects may perform penance without 
losing time. There is not a country in the world so primi- 
tive in its travelling arrangements as Bohemia ; roads, inns, 
vehicles, and horses, are all as they were two centuries ago ; 



FOBEiair SCEKES DBAWK BY ENGLISH HANDS. 235 

nothing has flourished in old Bohmerland but the manufac- 
ture of glass and a hatred towards Austria. As long back 
as 1571, the authorities undertook to improve trayelling, but 
the undertaking has never been carried into effect; and 
vrhere a few advantages have crept in, it has been owing to 
the chapter of accidents and the spread of civilization. In 
the good bj-gone days, public carriages ran (no, not ran, for 
of that enormity a German conveyance was never guilty), 
crawled rather, but at the periods of the great fairs of Frank- 
fort and Leipzig. And then the departure was a scene in- 
deed. Even now the starting of Teutonic trains of travellers 
has something exciting and mysterious about it ; but, a cen- 
tury or two back, there was only the assembling and march- 
ing of a somewhat undisciplined army that could be com- 
pared to it. At the periods to which I refer, the respective 
governments of Germany paternally undertook to see their 
subjects safe to the great emporiums of commerce; they 
defended them from peril as long as they travelled on busi- 
ness, but they left them exposed to the dangers of the route 
■whenever they were unwise enough to leave their stove-sides 
and roam over the land, for pleasure. Now, fancy a morn- 
ing near fair time, of any year between 1571 and 1806, the 
Leipzig or Frankfort visitors all assembled at a given hour, 
and having paid their debts at the inn, and their dues to the 
landlord's voluminously petticoated womankind, congregated 
in front of the Palace of the Fiirst, to whom they owed alle- 
giance, or thanks for safe conduct. While standing about 
in knots, and groups, and all other ways into which crowds 
are apt and accustomed to divide, a very portly troop of 
over-fed horses and plethoric dragoons, who had been pre- 
scribed equestrianism for their health's sake, rode on to the 
Platz, and looked down with a very sufficient and reasonable 
degree of contempt on the honest people for whose escort 
they had been chosen, and in whose behalf they were bound 
to draw their swords, provided only that their horses would 



236 HEW PICTDBES AKD OLD PANELS. 

stand steady, and their short arms could get far enough 
round their punchy bodies to enable them to extricate, by 
dint of good pulling, the dreaded weapons from their vener- 
able sheaths. These military gentlemen having taken their 
places, and recovered their breath after five minutes' trot- 
ting from the stables, general attention and reverence were 
excited by the appearance of the fat, asthmatic waggon- 
coaches advancing with all their honourable last year's dust 
upon them, and, afber perambulating the grand square, to 
the great admiration of the civilians, and the professional in- 
difference of the pursy Paladins, settling down with great 
gravity and some difficulty, beneath the very windows of 
the father of his people. And then ensued a solemn mo- 
ment! The bedroom-window of the good-natured prince 
was seen to open, and that august individual himself stood 
in the presence of his people, anxious sympathy in his heart, 
and a white cotton nightcap, tied round with a cherry- 
coloured ribbon, on his head. By his side stood the people's 
mamma, equally primitive, both in costume and feelings . 
while the olive-branches of the family were peering through 
the blinds of an upper window, all wonder and delight at 
the magnificence of the family to which they belonged, and 
the multitude of subjects over which that family exercised 
its paternal sway. A momentary silence ensued, after which 
the adventurous travellers took their seats, with due observ- 
ance of precedency, and the prince having given them a 
paternal blessing, and bidden them a friendly adieu, the 
caravan set but with grave enthusiasm for its destination. 

In the personal journey of which I am now to speak, we 
had much fun. A very joyous company we were, though 
some among us were invalids. We formed a train of five 
stout-built, heavily laden diligences ; we exchanged civilities, 
grapes, books, puns, and newspapers, on the road ; we were 
as good-natured neighbours when driving gently by each 
other J we became acquaintances when we all dismounted to 



FOBEIGN SCENES DRAWN BT EOBEIGN HANDS. 237 

ascend some hill, more discernible to the eyes of our taaselled, 
feathered, and be-bugled postilions than to ourselves ; ac- 
quaintances ripened into intimacies before we resumed our 
-well-worn places ; and when we all met at midday to dine, 
-we were as old friends meeting after a long separation ; and 
-we had snatches of song in all tongues, and jokes in a thou- 
sand dialects, and mysterious communings with hostesses, 
and smiles from the mddchens, and good humour from the 
liosts, who invariably slapped him on the shoulder whose 
Teutonic power of speaking was smaD in itself, and execrable 
in manner, swearing that he spoke G-erman like the very 
angels, who, as is well known in Deutschland, speak nothing 
else. 

Of the half-dozen individuals who occupied the interior 
and quorum para (intermediate) fui, two were English ; one 
was from Hungary ; the fourth was a Jew, who knew every 
stone of every city in Europe, and was cousin to all Duke's 
Place, with a touch of consanguinity not far removed from 
St. Bevis Marks ; the fifth was a pretty, talkative girl of 
eighteen, journeying to Leipzig, with good will, equal quali- 
fications, and a score of golden Fredericks, to undertake the 
office of governess in a family distinguished by the un- 
doubted von, and untarnished by a suspicion of the genuine- 
ness of its nobility. The sixth person was a slender young 
man, attired, like Hamlet, in a suit of sables, cut in theatri- 
cal fiishion. He was a most amusing companion, for he had 
not only been everywhere, but he recollected all about it ; 
he had read everything, and remembered it; and seemed 
equally conversant with every subject, from the architecture 
of the heavens to the raising of artichokes. He was pretty 
severely tried too, particularly by the Hungarian, whom, on 
getting into the co^h, I took for a runaway journeyman tailor, 
who had committed some horrid crime, and, in his eagerness 
to escape, had forgotten to condescend to the vulgarity of 
washing himself. I never had been more mistaken, for the 



238 NEW PICTUBES AND OLD PANELS. 

wretched, sickly-looking being was a professor in a German 
college, and had a mind as brilliant as the case in which it 
was enshrined was begrimed, unseemly, and worthless. He 
seemed to be familiar with all languages ; to know every 
written history ; to have imbibed, and to have been men- 
tally nourished by, every philosophy; to have loved the 
poetry of all nations, as well as the citizens who dwelt in 
them. He quoted Horace with as much fluency, gusto, 
and rapturous delight, as James Hannay ; he sang whole 
odes in ecstatic enthusiasm ; he seemed, indeed, to have 
a passion for the old Eoman tongue, for in the course 
of one day he sang not less than some hundred lays, princi- 
pally touching the Falemian and the fair ones, and from 
sources of every degree of inspiration. 

I shall never forget the scene which occurred at the door 
of an inn between Kuttemberg and Kolin. Just as our 
carriage halted, he was yet singing a modem Latin anacre-t 
ontic, that has been for years the delight of all Grerman 
students. A group of these very scholars were assembled 
in front of the inn, watching our arrival ; they no sooner 
heard the well-known lay, than their voices were instantly 
raised in chorus. They rushed to the carriage, from the 
window of which the cAe^ Hungarian had thrust himself 
that he might salute as he sang. To tear open the door, 
carry him out, and seat him at their table, was but the work 
of a moment. The ^ve diligences were tenantless in an 
instant; the company within the house thronged to take 
part in the scene without. A glass was now in every hand, 
corks were flying in every direction, wine was sparkling in 
every glass ; the toast was given (" Es lebe Deutschland ! — 
Deutschland soil leben, hoch!") — the wine was quafled — 
the song was renewed — ^the host was paid, and within five 
minutes we were all again in our carriages, which departed 
under a salutation of choruses (fired from on all sides) of 
the song which had given rise to the joyous episode. We 



rOBEIGN SCEKES DBAW^ BY ENGLISH HANDS. 239 

were far on our way when we could still hear its echoes, 
and we raised our own voices in answer to them, shouting — 

'* Ghiudeamus igitur juyenes dmn sumus ! 

Post jucandam juyentutem, , 

Poet molestam senectutem, 
Nob habebit, nos habebit, nos habebit tumulus ! " 

The excitement must have continued for a long time on the 
side of our young friends, for when we had got about a 
league on our way, we heard the song approaching, and 
shortly after some dozen of these madcaps galloped up on 
horses they had possibly seized for the very freak, and after 
shouting the gaudeamus igitur till their delight seemed 
perfectly uncontrollable, they darted ahead, once more re- 
turned, and finally left us with a feu-de-joie of salutations. 
" Yivat Pannonia! " was screamed at the very top of their 
glad voices, in honour of our Hungarian ; "Yivat Britannia!" 
was awarded as loudly to my humble self; and we having 
duly acknowledged the compliment by making the expected 
reply, " Vivat mater Germania!" the troop rode away, after 
looking oiir Hamlet-attired companion steadily in the face, 
and shouting, " It is lie! — it is he ! May the king of his art 
live for ever!^* 

If our theatrical-looking friend had been the object of our 
speculations before, he of course was doubly so now ; and 
our curiosity about him was certainly excited to a high 
pitch. But he evaded all the attempts we could, consistent 
with civility, make ; till at length, in our despair, and tired 
of trying innuendo in vain, 1 charged him openly with being 
Madame Dudevant ; but a very senseless, gross, and ground- 
less accusation was comprised in such a charge, — for our 
fellow-traveller was modest, and neither smoked nor indulged 
in any of the refined coarseness by which we are apt to dis- 
tinguish the femme errante, who loves to make virtue look 
like vice, and after composing pages of magnificent senti- 
ment, counteracted by more stupendous vice, unblushingly 



240 NEW PICTUBES AJSTD OLD PANELS. 

signs her venomous production with the name of George 
Sand. 

My " Great Unknown" did not even negatively shake his 
head ; but he quietly smiled, as you have often seen him 
smile : and he smiled still more, but enlightened us nothing, 
as we pronounced him in turn to be Abd-el-Kader, the 
President of the United States, Mr. Gladstone, going to the 
Ionian Islands, or the patriarch of Constantinople. But 
all was useless, and we were fain to be satisfied with the 
assurance, that before we reached Prague he would afford us 
some solid reason for guessing more narrowly at the identity 
of one who had evidently been the object of a wager among 
the gay sons of study who had lately ridden after us to con- 
vince themselves, by once more looking upon him. After 
this assurance, we again fell into our old course of alter- 
nately talking, reading, singing, asking riddles, and pro- 
foundly bowing, while we uttered the word Prosit ! when 
any one of our little society indulged in the pleasant extra- 
vagance of a sneeze. It was then that, taking advantage of 
a lull in the conversation, the pseudo-Dane addressed him- 
self to the young lady who was going to Leipzig ; and, after 
speaking with her on different and indifferent subjects, he, 
by a natural course of converse, got upon the much-vexed 
questions of the various coins in Germany, and the loss 
incurred by taking them into states where they were not 
current. The dialogue terminated by the young lady exhi- 
biting her stock of gold Fredericks, and asking him his 
opinion as to her probable gain or loss by taking them into 
Saxony. He looked gravely at them for a moment, as they 
lay in her lap, and then, taking up a dozen, as gravely pro- 
nounced them to be perfectly worthless ; an oracular senti- 
ment which was followed by his (even more gravely still, if 
that were possible) flinging them, one after the other, out 
of the window, into the road. If the lady was so thunder- 
struck that she could not scream, we, on our parts, were 



It)R£IGK SCEKES DRkWST BY ENGLISH HANDS. 241 

SO astounded, that we saw the dazzling pieces pass by our 
eyes on to the highway without an attempt to check him. 
Grave as he was, this atrocious act was performed with some 
rapidity ; yet every piece was thrown out singly, and counted 
as it flew. Our surprise and our silence were great, but 
both bad an ^id ; and then the unfortunate lady screamed 
in such earnest, and we ourselves stormed so loudly, that 
the coupe was startled from its propriety. The whole train 
of coaches stopped, and the passengers poured out with 
inquiring sympathy and short pipes to know the cause of 
the turmoil. The scene was impayahle : we were all so 
agitated by various impulses and emotions, that the truth 
was imparted to the inquirers only by jerks, as it were ; and 
our agitation was not diminished by the fact, that when it 
was at its greatest, and we could scarcely find utterance, the 
felon himself quietly put in a sort of prompting word to 
help us on with our story. Babel was nothing to the uproar 
which ensued ; some stormed, some threatened the rascal 
with the police, some offered the lady eau de Cologne ; one 
presented her with a peach (the impudent criminal himself 
committed this aggravating piece of gallantry), and others 
were occupied groping on the dusty road for the lost coin. 
No money, however, was to be found ; but in exchange 
there was a great deal of indignation ; the gentlemen talked 
of summary vengeance ; the Hungarian recommended some- 
thing in every language, but was not intelligible in any ; the 
poor lady sobbed aloud, and in a fit of grief, thoughtlessness, 
and thirst, took a bite at the peach, which she had hitherto 
held unconsciously in her hand. In an instant her mouth 
was full of Fredericks, and unimaginable expletives of joy; 
she nearly swallowed two in her surprise, though the latter 
was not so great but that, amid the roars of laughter which 
pealed and echoed around, she found time to count her 
store, and with a doubtful look, half fear, half fun, she 
pronounced four missing. All eyes were turned upon the 



242 VZW PICTTTSES UTD OLD PAIOBLS. 

necromancer, who dramaticallj pointed to a pursy little 
gentleman who had been loudest in expressing his indigna- 
tion, and bade us shake him. GThis we did with right good 
will, and down dropped the fugitive pieces firom the legs of 
his lower dress. The laughter did not overturn the coaches, 
but it was quite loud enough to have shaken Olympus. The 
magician asked us what we deserved for having stopped a 
quiet traveller like him on his way ; and we answered by 
unanimously condemning ourselves to a penalty of cham- 
pagne at our dinner quarters ; solemnly inflicting a double 
fine upon the stumpy gentleman upon whose person the 
Predericks had been discovered. 

And oh ! the joyous dinner that followed this freak ! the 
droll things that were said ! the more wonderful ones that 
were done ! the champagne-wisdom of our explanations to 
account for the ocular deception of having seen the money 
flying out of the window ! and the sagacious folly of ac- 
counting for its presence in the unbroken peach, or in the 
pursy little gentleman's trousers ! On one thing, however, 
we were agreed, with a unanimity that would have done 
honour to the dramatis personce of the ' Critic,' and that was, 
that this feat we had witnessed could only have been per- 
formed by one being out of Germany, and by one man in it, 
— the former is the spirit who has more aliases than an Old 
BaUey initiate, the latter the then wonder-working Dobler. 

Loudly we toasted the wonder-worker by the latter proper 
name ; but he modestly shook his head, and only returned 
thafnks, on our quaffing our pickle-dishes of champagne in 
honour of " the king of his art." 

" It was Dobler," said the little man to me, as we met a 
day or two afterwards in Prague. 

" Or Cagliostro," said I, " or Julius Agrippa, or Albertus 
Magnus — " 

" Or the devil!" interrupted he. 

" Most likely of all," said I ; " and when we go to see 



I'OEEIGIT SCSlinBS DBAWK BY EK&LISH HAITDS. 243 

him to-night at the Schauspielhaus, we will clear up the 
doubt by the shape of his hoofs and the fashion of his tail.'* 

When a traveller begins to fall short in the article of 
adventure, the next best thing that can possibly happen to 
him is to meet with those who have been more fortunate. 
This is somewhat my case since I have been in Prague; 
events have been scarce, but I have those around me who 
have experienced a more abundant share. Two brother- 
wanderers who have been botanizing in Dalmatia are my 
fellow-lodgers, and we dine daily at the table of our land- 
lord, who is a sort of barber-surgeon by profession, and who 
was bom vdth a double endowment from the hands of that 
fairy who is said to preside at the birth of every Bohemian. 
It is customary, on the recurrence of family events so in- 
teresting as the latter, for the said sprite to endow the young 
stranger at once with intelligence; and having done this, 
and made him capable of comprehending the alternative 
about to be submitted to him, she gravely shows him a violin 
in one hand, and a purse in the other. According to the 
choice made, so does the newly-born BoJimer become a thief 
or a musician ; stays at home to filch purses, or in course of 
time goes over to the Philharmonic in London, and buries 
for a time all the Ernsts, Potts, Joachims, and Prospere 
Saintons in temporary oblivion. But our host showed him- 
self at his birth a Bohemian of ambitious spirit ; he seized 
both purse and fiddle ; and Guxzaia (for so is he called) has 
been ever since a continually improving and most rascally 
genius. Pull of contradictions is the fellow; he is tall, 
lean, close-cropped, and as ugly as the ci-devant city cham- 
berlain ; and yet, like that incarnation of horror, he is, par 
excellence, an admirer of the fair sex, and lays his devoirs at 
their feet with all the grace of a donkey. . He is called a 
magister or patron of surgery ; high-sounding terms which 
are given to the very lowest practitioners. Law as his 

M 2 



24A K£W PICTUBES AND OLD PAKELS. 

degree is, it puzzles any one but himself to know how he 
reached it ; and I yerily believe that even he is puzzled to 
know how he maintains it. It was but the other day he 
pronounced an old lady to have died of asthma ; on opening 
the body, it proved to be something with a deceptive name, 
tending to apoplexy. " Apoplexy or asthma," said this self- 
possessed man of science to his medical colleague, — "apoplexy 
or asthma is precisely the same thing ; laborious respiration, 
disturbance of circulation, danger of suffocation, wiU equally 
render the types of one or the other ; and he who dies of 
pulmonic asthma may be said to be deceased of apoplexy 
also ; antepileptics, antihysterics, and antispasmodics, are of 
as little use to the moribund dying of the one as arteriotomy, 
scarification of the occiput, and the actual cautery, are to. 
an individual dying of the other, — er^o, the conclusion is 
evident, that apoplexy and asthma differ but in name." The 
medical colleague smiled; and as Guxzaia, with a look of 
infinite meaning, remarked that he (the colleague) would say 
nothing to the friends of the deceased of apoplexy, as he 
had first uttered the word asthma, my friend wished him a 
good morning. Guxzaia was nothing abashed; he coolly 
reiterated, " They are the same thing ; but the prejudices of 
ignorant people are worse than both." 

His knowledge of the fine arts is about equal to that he 
possesses of the sciences. He has, by some means or other, 
obtained a Berretini ; according to his own style of reason- 
ing, there is very little doubt about the matter, and it is as 
much a Berretini as apoplexy is asthma. It is a large pic- 
ture, perfectly invisible to the delighted eye of the amateur, 
the subject of which might be called anything by everybody. 
But Guxzaia maintains it to be a Berretini, and by ad- 
mirable logic ; as, for example, all Berretinis are in a dila- 
pidated condition : this is very dilapidated ; consequently, 
this is an excellent Berretini. Now our patron barber- 
surgeon, under the impression that he can cover canvas 



FOBEIOK SOEITBS DBAWIT Bt EKGLISH HANDS. 246 

more advantageously, has, ever since he has been in posses- 
sion of the so-named production of the great artist of Cor- 
tona, been smitten with an idea that he can excel him. He 
has certainly outdone himself, and several times too ; for, 
having but one canvas to paint upon, he has no sooner 
covered one, given it a name, and exposed it for a month to 
the wide-mouthed approbation of the cognoscenti^ than he 
paints it out, and commences another subject. The ' Eape 
of the Sabines' has given way to the * Battle of Alex- 
ander;' and if the latter had not the ease of honest Peter, 
the former went far beyond him in freedom. The king of 
Sardinia has no such * Annunciation of the Virgin' (fortu- 
nately) as Guxzaia summoned me and my fellow-wanderers 
to admire, nor would any one hesitate between the * Flight 
into Egypt* of the latter, and that which the Principe della 
Torre was wont so amiably to exhibit to the ecstasy of his 
!Ne£^olitan friends. You will recollect that the church of 
the Capuchins at Borne has Berretini*s ' Eestoration of 
Sight to Paul by Ananias : ' you may take my word for it, 
that it is not the least like Guxzaia's ! 

Mediocrity of talent and marked plainness of person are 
too often accompanied by no inconsiderable share of conceit. 
In this characteristic Guxzaia is by no means deficient. 
His ruling idea is, that he is l^ndsome ; his conviction, that 
he cannot help it ; and his inward feeling, that the ladies 
find it irresistible. A physiological treatise on the female 
heart would, I believe, puzzle all the philosophers who ever 
wrote. Certainly the mystery of that particular organ is as 
profound in Germany as anywhere else ; and 1 am at a loss 
to account for the influence which my very ugly friend evi- 
dently exercised over his little circle of female acquaintances. 
Perhaps his very ugliness was considered by the fair portion 
of German creation as a preventive to scandal; and that 
where there was nothing handsome, there could be nothing 
suspicious. However this may be, he had not a female 



^46 NEW PICTXJBE8 AND OLD PANELS. 

who, according to liis own report, was not raost inconve- 
niently atta^jhed to him. There is not a house nor a purse 
under female dominion of which he is not entirely free to 
use or abuse. His intrigues are as complicated as worsted- 
work, and twice as ingenious. We ourselves witnessed the 
termination of one, in which the gaunt Lothario had well- 
nigh wrecked his fortunes. He was at the same moment 
engaged in making serious love to two women, — one the 
widow of a cavalry Obrist, the other a lady who had never 
been married. His inclinations were with the latter; the 
more solid advantages were promised by a union with the 
former. The widow had more years, but she had more 
thalers also. Her rival was younger, but poorer besides. 
Ouxzaia wavered between the two, till he had nearly lost 
both. His romance inclined for youth, his reality for sub- 
stantial profit; and he opportunely pronounced for the 
widow just as the latter was about to fling herself into the 
arms of an oberburgmeister of a neighbouring town. The 
unmarried lady saved her honour by dismissing her mer- 
cenary suitor before he resigned, and she has philosophy 
enough to look upon the preparations for the approaching 
nuptials of her mature rival and her faithless satyr with ex- 
emplary equanimity. Guxzaia is grievously oflended at this 
absence of feeling, and he hag just adopted a very eflectual 
method of making her remember the love-passages that 
have passed between them, by charging his wooing visits as 
medical calls ! 



As small applause followed Smith's reading, he directed 
the conversation back to the subject of Marie do Gk>nzague, 
and this led to a new series of pictures, in a group of Queens 
unqueened. 



247 



A GROUP OF aUEENS UNQUEENED. 

" These was sometbing like Eomance, indeed, in the Reality 
of the life of Marie de Gonzague," remarked Smith, — " a 
private lady becoming queen almost in spite of herself! 
But the Reality and the Romance may be surpassed in pic- 
tures of the lives of some of our English queens, who have 
voluntarily descended to the condition of private ladies." 

Saying this, he exhibited a fanciful group, said to have 
been sketched by Richardson, the favourite painter of 
Greorge 11. and Caroline, in which a number of ladies were 
seated at table, like Candide's group of monarchs retired 
from business, at the table d'hote at Venice; — and every 
lady had a crown for a footstool. The exhibition gave 
rise to an animated conversation, the substance of which, 
" Queens unqueened" being the text, is given below. 

" Les reines ont et6 vues pleurant comme de simples 
personnes," says Chateaubriand, — " Queens have been seen 
weeping like common women." Why not ? Happy for them 
that they have one thing in common with women gene- 
rally — ^the privilege of tears. It is a privilege which the 
sisterhood have often converted into a perilous weapon, and 
many a king, and many a commoner, have yielded to tears 
what smiles could never win. 

"We associate tears with misfortune ; but as loss of great- 
ness is not invariably a calamity, so has it often been ac- 
cepted with no other resistance or reproof than a vain sigh. 
Such of our queens, — and let us include good Mrs. Cromwell 



248 KEW PICTUBES AND OLD FAJfXLS. 

among them, — such of our queens as have lived to exchange 

the sceptre for the distaff have been dignifiedly resigned or 

cheerfully submissive. They appear to have accepted the 

sentiment in Marlowe's * Jew of Malta,' and to have been 

perfectly aware that 

" Things past recoTery 
Are hardly cured by exclamation.** 

Of the queens-consort of England, always including brave 
and buxom Mrs. Cromwell, wife of as sovereign a master as 
ever dated a decree from an English palace, not less than 
fourteen lived to see themselves unqueened. Of these, five 
voluntarily descended from the royal estate to re-marry in 
a degree below them. Two were divorced. Three died in 
exile. Two voluntarily cloistered themselves up, and one 
was imprisoned in spite of herself. Mrs. Cromwell was by 
no means treated like a lady by those at whose mercy she 
lay ; while Caroline of Brunswick, like Sophia Dorothea, 
never shared the throne of her husband, and therefore 
neither princess is included in the roll of fourteen un- 
queened queens. They were simply crownless consorts, 
and they stand alone, enjoying a sorry distinction. 

Our queens who passed from the sides of their deceased 
lords to wed with men less in degree than the defunct 
CsBsar, were Adelicia of Louvain, relict of Henry I. ; Isa- 
bella of Angoul^me, the widow of John ; Isabella of Valois, 
who had been the little sister rather than wife of the luck- 
less Eichard II. ; Katharine of Valois, who took as suc- 
cessor to her late lord, Henry V., honest Owen Tudor ; and 
Katharine Parr, who, having grown sick of administering 
lotions and applying poultices to the legs of Henry VIII., 
was glad to seek repose, and disappointed not to find it, on 
the bosom of Sir Thomas Seymour, the great Lord Admiral. 
The above record may be amended by stating that the 
second husband of Adelicia of Louvain was Sir "William de 
Albini, a gentleman who bore the rather impressive sur- 



A GBOXTP OF QUIEKS UNQUEENED. 249 

name of" StroDg-i-th'-arm," or Ibrtenhras; Isabella of An- 
goul^me remarried with a gentleman " spacious in the pos- 
session of dirt," a Sir Hugh de Lusignan ; and her charm- 
ing namesake of Yalois, not stooping quite so low, became 
Duchess of Origans, and was as miserable under a coronet 
as beneath a crown. 

Let us glance, briefly, at these royal ladies who volun- 
tarily made sacrifice of their dowager-royalty. It may be 
said of them that their first matches were matters of con- 
straint, their second were more in consequence of their own 
tastes and of the force of honest wooing. They were not so 
fickle as Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle, who was faith- 
less alike in love and loyalty, was with the crown to-day and 
the commonwealth to-morrow, and slumbered with equal 
satisfaction in the arms of royalist Strafford, or on the bosom 
of republican Pym. 

As the condition of these ladies regards us only in its 
imcrowned capacity, we need to touch but lightly upon the 
earlier portions of their respective histories. Adelicia, 
the Fair Maid of Brabant, was as proud as a princess had a 
right to be in whose veins ran the blood of Charlemagne. 
She was the second wife of Henry I., who became so ad- 
dicted to swearing, after the death of his first consort Ma- 
tilda, and the destruction of his children at sea, that, to 
relieve himself and those around him from the peculiar and 
little agreeable expression of his grief, he was counselled to 
marry " Alix la Belle," as she is called by some of her con- 
temporaries. The king consented, the marriage was cele- 
brated in the year 1120, and luckily, as political matters 
then stood, it brought no heirs to the inheritance of Henry. 
During the fifteen years of its continuance, Adelicia enjoyed 
moderate happiness, and was sufficiently proud of her hus- 
band to project a completion of his biography, as the work 
of her widowhood. But, like some other widows, meeting 
with more grateful solace, she forgot her old sorrows, and 

m3 



260 NEW PICTURES AlTD OLD FAIFELS. 

gave up the bio&;raphical vocation with an alacrity that was 
quite remarkable. 

Who knows pleasant Wilton knows a more than ordi- 
narily pleasant place. There Adelicia wore her earliest 
weeds ; but she was lady too of Arundel Castle, the pos- 
session of which alone, it is popularly said, carries with it 
an earl's coronet. Castle and chdtelame soon attracted the 
eyes of the strong-headed William de Albini, Lord of Buck- 
enham, and the warmth of his wooing soon dried what tears 
may be supposed to have lingered on the lids of Adelicia. 
The lovers were speedily plighted, but not so speedily wed. 
Three years were allowed to intervene between the demise 
of the royal husband and the second marriage with the 
knight. Meanwhile, the latter visited Paris, and was so at- 
tractive a gentleman that he won the regards of another 
Adelicia, the queen-dowager of France. That lively lady 
was bold enough to woo the knight ; but the cupbearer of 
England excused himself, on the ground that he was en- 
gaged to a mistress of equal rank, then awaiting him in her 
bower at Arundel. Three years after the death of the royal 
" Beauclerc,*' AHelicia and William the cupbearer were 
espoused, and two persons were made supremely happy. 
Adelicia became a country lady, and kept such a quiet 
house that there was little to vary the routine of the course, 
save the nearly annual arrival of the "monthly nurse." 
Seven times, during the eleven years which this second 
marriage lasted, did that eminent official render successful 
service, and gave first welcome into this bustling world to 
four sons and three daughters. 

Adelicia never condescended to visit the court of Stephen; 
but that prompt-spirited and ill- appreciated monarch once 
paid a sudden and unwelcome visit to the castle of Adelicia. 
She was entertaining there her stepdaughter Matilda ; and 
Stephen, very naturally concluding that there was peril to 
his throne when such a claimant as " Maud" was holding 



A GROUP OP QXTEENS TTTTQUEEKED. 251 

intercourse with her father's second wife, demanded the 
surrender of her person. The demand had weight given to 
it by the presence of an armed force ; but Adelicia, nothing 
daunted, protested that it was shameful thus for two ladies' 
so related to be annoyed, and declared that the required sur- 
render would never be made but under compulsion. Ulti- 
mately there was a compromise, and, the visit over, Matilda 
Was escorted by Stephen's own guard to Bristol. 

At the age of forty-eight, Adelicia took a step which 
astonished the unmarried ladies of England, who longed to 
have castles of their own, or rather under lords. She had a 
brother who was a monk in the monastery of Afflingium, in 
Elanders ; and to the nunnery connected with his monastery 
Adelicia herself retired, — ^her husband cheerfully consent- 
ing. Had a shadow fallen upon the household of Arundel ? 
"Was the knight " gay," or the lady ill-tempered ? Eecord 
does not enlighten ms, "We only know that, quiet as Ade- 
licia was, she would occasionally mix herself up with the po- 
litical questions of her time ; and we suspect that William, 
her husband, compelled her to observe a silence there- 
upon, especially in his presence. Did she leave him because 
she could not speak her mind? Was he content to lose 
her rather than listen to it? Something of this may be 
the case, for the Lion of Louvain, adopted by William, has 
been a tongueless lion since the period in question, and re- 
mains so to this day on the shield of the Howards, lords of 
Arundel. 

The second unqueened queen, Isabella of AifOorLEME, 
was of the class of strong-minded women. John first beheld 
her in France, when she was betrothed to Hugh de Lusignan, 
and, as she happened to please that contemptible monarch, 
he forthwith carried her off, little loath. He was but a 
scurvy husband, despite his admiration ; and ladies will feel 
nothing but scorn for him when they hear that the beau- 
tiful Isabella of Angouleme never asked for a moidore to 



252 VEW PICTUBES Ain> OLD PANELS. 

pay a milliner's bill, without being churlishly refused, or 
having to endure a " scene." John, indeed, was by no 
means gentle in any of his ways ; but he was jealous, and 
exceedingly unpleasant in the demonstration of his jealousy. 
Thus, two gentlemen having paid some courteous attention 
to Isabella (nothing of any moment ; perhaps offered her 
some hjrpocras, and conversed with her while she sipped it), 
the king had them both killed the same night ; and when 
Isabella retired to her dormitory she was prepared for plea- 
sant sleep by the sight of the two bodies hanging above her 
bed. When John himself passed violently away, Isabella 
only wept for fashion's sake. At that time her old lover 
Hugh was betrothed to her own little daughter. Isabella 
was still a fine woman, and a clever one. She posted to 
France, had an interview with her old adorer, talked to him 
of old times, convinced him that she was worth a dozen such 
dolls as her daughter, and forthwith married him, without 
the privity or consent of the King of England, her son. The 
latter, Henry III., a precocious boy, some fourteen years 
pld, was delighted at the opportunity this step afforded him 
to deprive his mother of her dowry. He stripped her of 
every possession upon which he could lay his hands ; and 
then urgently implored the Pope to do him the little favour 
of excommunicating his mother. The family quarrel was 
not adjusted without difficulty ; but Isabella called Heaven 
to witness, as married widows are apt to do, that she was 
induced to accept a second husband, not for her own plea- 
sure, but for the sake of her darling boy. The peace that 
was within her reach was destroyed by her own ambition. 
The Countess de la Marche, as she was called, was, like a 
dowager-duchess who marries a major, for ever descanting 
on her former greatness: and she was permanently mor- 
tified that pert princesses took precedence of her who had 
been a crowned queen. By quarrels with the King of 
France, her husband lost all his landed property, and Henry 



A. GBorp or QUEENS rNQUEEinsD. 253 

III. suffered ingloriously by intermeddling in the fray. 
Finally, the sainfc-king Louis received them into his grace ; 
whereupon the La Marches made an attempt upon his life 
by poison. The lady, perhaps, alone was implicated, but 
she put a bold face upon the matter ; and, when a sort of 
trial was proceeding without her presence, she would. impu- 
dently trot her palfrey up to the court door, and inquire 
how they were getting on. It was on one of these occa- 
sions that she caught sight of a witness whom she thought 
had been otherwise disposed of. Before he had given his 
evidence, she had pushed her pony safely beneath the portals 
of the sanctuary of Eontevraud, a refuge from which she 
never again issued, for she found a grave within its walls. 

And now we come to the pretty little Isabella or Va- 
LOis, the daughter of Charles VI. of France. This princess 
was married to our Bichard II., when the bride was scarcely 
nine years of age, and the bridegroom was about four times 
as much. Bichard espoused her for the sake of the alliance 
with France ; and he treated her paternally, petting her like 
a lamb, giving her sweetmeats, and telling her fairy tales. 
He was fond of the child, and she of the gentle and melan- 
choly king. When he departed from Windsor, on the out- 
break of the rebellion of Bolingbroke, he left a kiss upon 
her brow that was impressed with the profound sadness of 
a father, separating perhaps for ever from a beloved daugh- 
ter. It was with the feverish partiality of a child that Isa- 
bella espoused his cause ; and afber death descended on him 
so terribly, and she was taken back to France, it was long 
before she could lay down the trappings of her woe, or allow 
her young heart to be consoled for the loss of her old pro- 
tector. Questions of state, however, again made of her a 
wife. In 1436, when she was only in her fourteenth year, 
her hand was given to Charles, the Poet Duke of Orleans, 
then only eleven years of age. Three years subsequently, 
she gave birth to a daughter, and at the same time yielded 
up her own life, — that brief life, the happier for its brevity. 



254 NEW PICTTJBES JlSTD OLD PANELS. 

Of Kathaetne of Valois, if Shakspeare has not enlight- 
ened us much upon her early calamities, he has been over- 
liberal in showing how she was, or was not, wooed by the 
conquering Henry V. The very honeymoon of this royal 
pair was obscured by the smoke and affected by the thunders 
of the battle-field. The married life of Henry and Katha- 
rine, its incidents, its glories, and its woes, need not here 
be recapitulated. Henry had conquered France : its crown 
was the dower of Katharine ; and how strange the result ! 
England was soon after stripped of her possessions in France ; 
the son of Henry lost his life and the crown of England ; 
and the throne was ultimately occupied by a descendant 
of the French princess Katharine through her marriage 
with Owen Tudor, a brewer of Beaumaris ! Our English 
line had been unjust to, and triumphant over, France and 
Wales ; but, in the person of Henry VII. the descendant of 
the Welsh Owen and the Gallic Katharine ascended the 
English throne, and the sovereignty of England was trans- 
ferred in this case, indeed, "with a vengeance." 

Owen Tudor was a brewer, according to tradition, but, 
being Welsh, he was in no want of a lineage. He was de- 
scended from the mountain-prince Theodore, whose cor- 
rupted appellation of Tudor has given a name to the reigns 
of five sovereigns. His father, the younger son of a younger 
son, carried a shield in the service of the Bishop of Bangor, 
— for even in those days bishops stood in need of some 
protection. The father of Owen fell into some trouble 
through the small matter of slaying a man, and being 
obliged, with his wife, to fly for it. Owen may be said to 
have been bom in a very vagabond condition. However, 
he had Owen Glendower for a godfather, was, of course, 
brought up to live by the sword, and he thwacked so lustily 
with it at Agincourt, that Henry V. made him a " squire ; " 
and, in course of time, Henry's queen first saw him mount- 
ing guard at Windsor, over the cradle of a child (Henry VI.), 
who was cursed that he did not die in it. 



JL OBOTTF OF QTTEEITS TJNQUEEITED. 255 

Wben the qaeen was first sensible of an interest in the 
handsome guardsman is not known ; but she had not long 
been queen-dowager when Owen, who was famous for 
" making a leg," was summoned to dance before the court at 
Windsor. In doing so, with more zeal than caution, he 
slipped, and fell into the queen's lap ; and Katharine ex- 
cused the lapse of manliness with such graceful emphasis, 
that her ladies, as the favour increased, warned her against 
such degradation, and qualified poor Owen as an awkward 
sayage, who •had no more ancestry than Melchizedek. 
"When the enrapt queen-dowager noticed this alleged fault 
in his pedigree to the Welsh guardsman, the latter not only- 
declared that he was a gentleman by descent, but had no 
lack of gentle relatives to keep him in countenance. " Up 
with a brace of them to court, Owen," said the queen ; and 
in a month the descendant of Theodore introduced two of 
his cousins. They were gigantic young fellows, with long 
names, about as stout and accomplished as a couple of 
"navvies," save that they could not speak English. Welsh 
was their only tongue, and nobody was able to dispute with 
them upon the question of their genealogy. Katharine was 
content, and Owen was clearly gentleman enough to be 
gazetted as "clerk of her wardrobe." Without entering 
into details as a foundation for such a course, a law was 
soon after passed, denouncing terrible penalties against 
any man who should dare to many a queen-dowager without 
the consent of the king and council. Owen and Katharine 
smiled : they were already married ; but when, where, how, 
by whom, or in what company, has never been ascertained. 
Suspicion seems to have been slowly aroused by the succes- 
sive birth of three sons ; but as the queen-dowager chose to 
observe some measure of concealment, and to make very 
little remark, whatever was thought, little was said ; and the 
clerk of the wardrobe continued to serve her majesty in all 
things pertaining to his office. Time went on, and a little 



256 NEW PICTTTBES AWD OLD PAVELS. 

princess, Margaret, had just breathed, been baptized, and 
died, when Katharine was suddenly immured in the convent 
at Bermondsey, and Owen clapped into Newgate. This 
blow killed the queen-dowager, principally because it was 
attended by the separation from her of her children. She 
speedily died, bequeathing a hope to her son that he would 
act " according to his noble discretion and her intents." He 
probably did both, by his subsequent care of her three sons. 
Meanwhile, Owen broke prison, fled to Wales, was enticed 
up to London on safe-conduct, very hesitatingly quitted 
sanctuary at Westminster to hold an interview with the 
king, and finally effected a reconciliation. He was, how- 
ever, recaptured without the king's knowledge, and after 
again and again breaking prison, with the dexterity of Jack 
Sheppard, and with little respect for the body of his gaoler, 
King Henry once more became his friend, and appointed 
him, like a worn-out soldier, park-keeper in the royal de- 
mesne at Denbigh. Two of the sons of Katharine and 
Owen were ennobled. Edmund was named Earl of Bich- 
mond, and Henry married him to Margaret Beaufort, the 
heiress of the house of Somerset. It was their son who 
picked up and wore the crown which the usurping, but able, 
Eichard dropped on the field at Bosworth. The second son, 
Jasper, was created Earl of Pembroke ; and Owen, the third, 
as a sort of scapegoat, was compelled to be a monk. Henry 
found faithful servants itf his " left-handed " relatives. Ed- 
mund indeed died early ; but Jasper fought nobly on the 
Lancastrian side in the wars of the Eoses : and the elder 
Owen left his park-keeping to take up arms on the same 
side. Less fortunate than Jasper, the Yorkists captured 
the old soldier, and beheaded him in the market-place at 
Hereford. Awaiting a monument, the loose-covered stone 
coffin of Katharine remained in Westminster Abbey un- 
buried until the year 1793. The body could be seen by 
those who would disburse a brace of copper coins for the 



A. GBOITP OT QITEEKS XJlTQirEEinSD. 207 

enjoyment of such a sight. Samuel Pepys, at the cost of 
twopence, kissed the lips that had heen kissed hy Henry of 
Monmouth ; and many of our fathers, at as small an outlay, 
have pinched the cheek that had once heen pressed hy the 
conqueror of Agincourt. 

Kathabike Pabb was the wife of many hushands. She 
was a learned young lady, with some sprinkling of royal 
blood in her ; and was wooed by Lord Scrope, married to 
Lord Borough, and became a widow before she had com- 
pleted her fifteenth year. Neville Lord Latimer admired 
her, her understanding, and her needlework, and forthwith 
espoused her, to speedily leave her again a widow. The 
handsome Sir Thomas Seymour, most gallant of admirals, 
next offered himself for the acceptance of this accomplished 
young lady, but his pretensions were set aside by the irre- 
sistible courtship of a king who had divorced two wives, be- 
headed two more, and killed a fifth by his cruelty. She had 
no choice, but to take thankfully the terrible gift imposed 
upon her ; and Katharine became the last and the luckiest, 
and perhaps the wisest, of the wives of Henry. She was a 
tender mother to his children, an incomparable nurse to 
himself, and was so esteemed by him that she only nearly 
lost her head. She had touched upon religious questions, 
and probably, had not the king recollected that it would be 
difficult for him to find her match at rubbing in a lotion, all 
her submissiveness would not have saved her from the scaf- 
fold. What a happy woman she must have been when she 
again became a widow, and her old lover, Seymour, once 
more came with the ofier of his hand ! Katharine accepted 
it because she thought that there was not only a hand, but 
a heart in it. What a jovial wooing must that have been 
when Seymour hurried down to Katharine's suburban pa- 
lace on Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, and beneath the trees in 
the secluded garden there persuaded her that he had re- 
mained a bachelor for her sake, and induced her to consent 



258 NEir piOTrBBS akd old panels. 

to wed him, before her royal husband was well buried at 
Windsor ! The lovers had to keep the matter secret for a 
good half-year. At the end of that time, weary, perhaps, 
of the little restraint which they were compelled to observe, 
Seymour addressed a note to the Princess Mary, praying 
for permission to marry with the queen-dowager. Mary 
replied with a fair 'admixture of dignity, satire, and good 
humour. She affected to believe that interference in such 
matters little became her as a maiden ; presumed to imagine 
that Katharine herself might have too lively a recollection 
of whose spouse she had been to care to wed with an inferior 
mate : and finally left the enamoured pair to follow their 
own inclinations, as she very well knew they had already 
done, with her blessing or good wishes upon any conclusion 
which they might honestly arrive at. The private marriage 
was soon after made public, and Seymour, with his fine 
person, heavy embroidery, and light head, had no further 
occasion to creep to the postern at Chelsea by sunrise, and 
leave it again, all his day's wooing completed, by seven 
o'clock P.M. 

The marriage was not a happy one ; and the first trouble 
was about money. The Protector Somerset, brother of Sey- 
mour, withheld the ex-queen's jewels, and sublet her lands, 
to the great disgust of the bridegroom, who, with marital 
complacency, looked upon these things as his own. Further, 
Katharine was made to feel her altered condition by the 
proud Duchess of Somerset, who refused any longer to bear 
the train of one who was now only her sister-in-law, wife 
of her husband's younger brother. The haughty duchess 
talked of teaching " Lady Seymour" better manners, and, 
in short, the two ladies kept up so unwearied a quarrel, that 
all people prophesied that ill would come of it. The brothers 
themselves were at as bitter antagonism as their wives. 

It was not a very godly house which Katharine kept at 
Chelsea ; but this circumstance was not exactly Katharine'9 



A OKOTJP or QITEKS^S UWQTTEB:!rED. 259 

fault. She had resident with her the Princess Elizabeth, 
then a lively young lady in her sixteenth year. At first the 
ex-queen encouraged her husband to rather boisterous play 
with that by no means reluctant young lady. But she grew 
jealous as she found the play running to extremities which 
she had not contemplated. From romping in the garden, 
the admiral and Elizabeth got to romping and hiding in the 
house. Thus we hear of tickling-matches, and a world of 
consequent laughter and screaming. Seymour grew so fond 
of this sport that he would rush into Elizabeth's sleeping- 
chamber ere she had risen, tickle her till she was speechless, 
and then kiss her to keep her from complaining. Occasion- 
ally she would conceal herself, or her attendants would re- 
monstrate, whereupon he would revenge himself by chasing, 
tickling, and embracing the maids. Altogether, such a 
household was a scandal to Chelsea, and Katharine did well 
when she got rid of Elizabeth, and, with Lady Jane Grey in 
her company, went down to Gloucestershire to inhabit 
Sudeley Castle. Her chief occupations here were in making 
splendid preparations for the little heir that had been pro- 
mised her by the star-readers, and in observing a grave de- 
meanour. She had prayers twice a day, to the great disgust 
of her husband, whose union with her in this respect was as 
ill assorted as would have been a marriage between Lord 
Chesterfield and Lady Huntingdon. "While Parkhurst was 
reading prayers, Seymour was winking at the dairy-maids, 
and poor Katharine was sorely vexed at the ungodliness of 
her mate. At length a girl was bom, shaming the sooth- 
sayers, and bringing death to her mother. That mother left 
all she possessed to her very graceless spouse, with some 
hints, natural to a wife who had been so tried, that such 
generosity on her part was more than he deserved. And so 
ended the year-and-a-halfs unqueened condition of Katha- 
rine Parr. In another half-year the admiral himself had 
passed under the axe of the executioner, his brother the 



260 NEW FICTUBEB AJSTD OLD FAKELB. 

Protector having driven him thereto under the double per- 
suasion that Seymour was a very bad man, and that Somerset 
was virtuous enough to be his heir. Latimer appears to 
have thought so too, for he said as much, or rather much 
more, in a sermon before King Edward, for which he has 
been censured by Milton and Miss Strickland, each of whom 
seems to have forgotten that Seymour was the greatest 
libertine in England, and that Latimer had good groimd 
for the hard truths uttered by him. 

Let me add a word of little Mary Seymour, the only 
child of Katharine and the admiral. By her mother's for- 
getfulness and her father's treason, the poor, tender orphan 
found herself stripped of her inheritance. Her relatives, 
however, exhibited a great alacrity, not to serve her, but to 
cast the little burden each upon the other. The only re- 
luctance they felt was in extending charity to her. She 
was grudgingly entertained by a harsh grandmother, and 
was scurvily treated by a close-fisted uncle. But, amid the 
trials of a gloomy youth-time, the little bud went on grow- 
ing into full bloom, till finally attracting the eyes and affec- 
tions of one who cared for her far more than any kinsman, 
the daughter of Queen Katharine married a Sir Edward 
Bushel, and settled quietly down into (we hope) a happy 
country lady. The grave of her mother at Sudeley has been 
disturbed more than once ; but Death has conferred upon 
the unconscious queen a crown of his own, — and yet, not 
Death, but Life. The irresistible ivy has penetrat-ed into 
the royal coffin, and wound a verdant coronet about the 
brows of her who sleeps therein. 

Our divorced queens were wives of the same husband, 
Henry VIII. The two whose divorces were not made com- 
plete by the axe were Katharine of Arragon and Anne of 
Cleves, women as opposite in character as they were in at- 
tractions. When, after a union of more than twenty years, 
Katharine was ordered by her imperious husband one June 



A GROUP or QUEENS UNQVEENED. 26l 

xhoming of 1531 to quit Windsor, she obeyed without fear 
as to worse following. When Anne of Cleves, in 1546, 
after less than half a year of wedded life, was informed that 
she had outgrown her consort's liking, she was prostrated 
with terror. Katharine retired to Ampthill, and concerned 
herself about the education and welfare of that daughter, 
Mary, whom she was not permitted to see even when iU. 
Anne still kept court at Bichmond, and there had this same 
Mary for her little companion. When the divorce of Ka- 
tharine and Henry was completed in 1533, the former re- 
fused to accept the conclusion, scorned to be called Princess 
Dowager of Wales, and, refusing the title given to her of 
the king's beloved sister, declared that she was nothing less 
than his lawful wife, and would receive no service at the 
hands of her attendants but what were offered to her as 
queen. Not so the Flemish lady. She returned thanks for 
every indignity ; resigned greatness with alacrity ; stripped 
herself of her titles with eagerness ; was extremely grateful 
for a pension granted to her as the first lady in the land, 
after the royal family ; and sent back her wedding-ring to 
Henry with such a quick and joyful obedience as to rather 
nettle the monarch, who thought much of his own merits, 
and considered himself an Adonis not to be resigned with- 
out a sigh. 

The Spanish princess, leaving Ampthill, spent some 
months at insalubrious Buckden, where she led a monastic 
life, worked like Dorcas, spoke of Anne Boleyn with pity, 
looked after the poor, and was beloved by the people. When 
she desired to remove from Buckden, she was peremptorily 
ordered to reside at Fotheringay. The latter place was less 
healthy than the former, and she intimated that she would 
never go thither unless she were dragged there by ropes. 
Of course Suffolk and the other ministers of Henry's will 
called her the most pestilently obstinate woman they had 
ever encountered. But she was too much for them, and 



262 ITEW PICTITBSS ASD OLD PAITBLS. 

tbey were fain to agree to a compromise, and the nnqueened 
lady, protesting the while that she alone was queen and wife 
in England, was sent to Kimbolton. Once there, as much 
of vengeance was inflicted on her as Henry could well fling 
at the only woman in the world, save his mother, for whom 
he entertained a grain of esteem. He detained her gar- 
ments, diminished her annuity, paid the decreased allowance 
irregularly, dismissed half her servants, stole her jewels, im- 
prisoned her priests, and burned her confessor. She bore 
all, not without remonstrance or protest, but still with 
dignity ; and when she died, in 1537, she left behind her 
a memory which Henry himself could not blacken, but of 
which he would have despoiled her if he had been able. 
Failing in this, he defrauded her heirs, by seizing as much 
of her property as he could lay his lawless hands on. 

IMatters went quite otherwise with the placid Anne of 
Cleves. She did all she could to meet the wishes of her 
ex-husbaud, renounced family and country, and became an 
English lady with landed property. Henry was so de- 
lighted, that, instead of executing her, he paid her cozy 
little evening visits, even after he had married tier succes- 
sor, and the divorced pair had merry little suppers together, 
and abundance of jollity. Still Henry could not entirely 
give up the indulgence of certain foibles, and, being in too 
charming a humour to kill his ex-wife, he only beheaded 
Cromwell and burned Barnes, who had counselled him to 
marry her. Against this proceeding Anne had nothing to 
say, but continued to entertain Henry whenever he chose 
to look in upon her at Richmond, until Henry himself 
ceased to visit her, owing to the jokes made by the lady's- 
maids, and the reports that went floating about touching the 
issue of such pleasant meetings. Anne was still resigned ; 
the same resignation was evinced by her when she heard of 
Henry's death. She then removed to the old palace at 
Chelsea, and there and at one or two country residences 



A &BOW or QUSEirs iriTQITEEirSD. 263 

she spent her time in the exercise of good housewifery, efn- 
liyening her dull hours by private cooking. Like the old 
puchess of Orleans, she had a delicate stomach, that could 
only he set right hy sausages ; and, like Caroline of Bruns- 
wick, when in Italy, she could eat with douhle relish the 
dish which she had herself cooked. Anne died, as she had 
lived, placidly, and in a matter-of-fact way, at Chelsea, in 
1557. She made no parade of sentiment, and appeared to 
he desirous of passing away without making or exciting re- 
mark. She had appeared occasionally at young Edward's 
court, hut she had not heen seen in puhlic since the coro- 
nation of Mary, to which ceremony she and the Princess 
Elisabeth rode in the same coach. The Lady Anne caused 
more '' talk " after death than she had done living, for, by 
her will, it was found that CromweU's Protestant princess 
had become a professed Papist. 

The cloistered queens hardly come into the category of 
unqueened ladies, for honours little short of what was 
due to royalty, and greater than were usually paid in con- 
vents, appear to have been rendered to them. Mrs. Crom- 
well was as good a queen and ex-queen as any of them. 
When she fled, after the downfall of her son Eichard, she 
Carried off a few valuables, to which the Crown laid claim, 
as " his Majesty's goods," and seized ijvithout ceremony at a 
finiiterer's warehouse in Thames Street. 

There have been not only queens unqueened by marriage, 
but many royal marriages which must have increased the 
number of heraldic anomalies. Thus Charlemagne had two 
consorts, but neither of them was raised to the rank of 
empress ; and Mary Stuart, the widow of Francis II., mar- 
ried two gentlemen, neither of whom was king. The mother 
of Francis I., Louisa of Savoy, in her widowhood, espoused 
Sabaudange, her own maitre (T hotel; and Queen Elizabeth 
would have been very glad of an excuse to marry her own 
Master of the Horse. But these could not be described as 



264 KEW FICTUBEB AND OLD PAKEL8. 

such mesalliances as kings have entered into. Thus Chris- 
tian IV. of Denmark married Christina Monek, and made 
her Duchess of Holstein ; Frederick IV. made a queen of 
the " demoiselle " Savenalm. Denmark affords other exam- 
ples, and that very recently, of similar connections. Victor 
Amadeus, too, espoused a Marchioness of St. Sebastian; 
and similar instances might be cited from other countries. 

It was at a pause which ensued that Alexandre mur- 
mured the words "Maria Louisa;" and, in truth, when 
unqueened queens are being spoken of, it were unjust to 
pass over that eminent lady, — she who was bom in the 
purple and became the bride of Napoleon — who reigned 
Empress of the French, and who, without a sigh, descended 
to exchange her dignity, on the fall of her husband, for that 
of imperial duchess of three cheese-making districts in Italy. 
She could not have sunk to a lower antipodes had she be- 
come only Queen of Man ; or shared with the Donegals the 
high-sounding appellation of " Sovereign of Belfast." 

But Maria Louisa ever manifested an alacrity in sinking. 
At the overthrow of the heroic Corsican, she flung from her 
brow the imperial crown, and she curtsied when there was 
thrown to her, in return, a copper ducal coronet. So, no 
sooner had the breath of life flown from the lips of the 
father of her child, the young and guiltless King of Eome, 
than, in the character of wife, she hurriedly entered the 
humble household of an undistinguished German soldier. 
The Teutonic man-at-arms was something like Mark An- 
thony — he accepted, with modest thankfulness, the " cold 
piece left dead on Caesar's trencher." 

In person, as in dignity, there is a corresponding change. 
To see the unintellectual, ill-dressed, and solitary woman 
moving moodily, as she was often seen, among the motley 
yet noble crowd at the baths of Ischl, it is with difficulty 
one can believe that to such a complexion could have 



4l GB0I7P or QUEENS TJKQUESKED. 265 

. come, at any time, the original of that marble divinity, which 
the courtly Canoya created, and before which the world of 
art stood breathless and admiring. 

She was yet a girl at Schonbrunn, and with something 
more than the common loveliness of mere youth about her 
too, when the modem Charlemagne planted his eagles be- 
fore Vienna, and threatened with annihilation not only the 
imperial city but the dynasty. The warlike Dukes of that 
dynasty swore to bury themselves beneath the ruins of the 
ramparts rather than surrender ; and, with discreet valour, 
they forgot their vow. But while the ruin was enacting, 
the young Duchess, Maria Louisa, kept her retirement in 
calm fidgidity at Schonbrunn ; and, that the imperial dove 
might not be fluttered, the rough wooer, who was working 
the destruction of her father, ordered the brazen throats of 
his artiUery to maintain but a sotto voce chorus near the 
locality inhabited by the self-possessed daughter of the 
German CsBsar. K her impassible heart were ever touched, 
we may suppose it to have been so by this rude attention ; 
for, soon after, she was on her way to share that glittering 
couch which Napoleon had spread for her out of the mar- 
riage-bed of the humble Josephine. 

From that hour the Empress neither knew greatness worth 
enjoying, nor the Emperor triumphs worth their cost. Had 
the former died, as she so nearly did, in giving birth to the 
King of Rome, she would have descended to the grave se- 
cure of the sympathies and of the grateful memories of 
mankind ; but she lived long enough to forfeit both. Her 
nature was not equal to the high position in which she 
had been placed by the accident of her own birth. The 
character entrusted to her on life's vast stage was above her 
grasp — perhaps beyond her comprehension. At all events, 
in none of the eventful passages through which lay her 
course — ^in none of the dark storms which swept around 
the throne of her husband or of her father — can we discern 



266 VTEW PICTUBES AKB OLD PANELS. 

• 

in her person any of the characteristics of true greatness. 
An intense selfishness alone appears offensively brilliant to 
the eye that would fain discover something more akin to 
the virtues which reside in nearly every female heart. After 
a brief occupation, for we cannot call it enjoyment, of such 
state as the ex-Lieutenant of Artillery could give her in his 
imperial character, we see her at Bambouillet, calmly passing 
over to the Austrians, and co-operating in stripping her son 
of his harmless yet regal dignity. She might have endured, 
but it was beyond her duty to consent. The boy might 
have remained for ever without a kingdom ; but it was un- 
natural for his own mother at once to strip him of a title, 
and even to denationalize him. It is said that she never 
evinced for him any affection, but this is almost incredible, 
for Agrippina loved even Nero ; and Maria Louisa might 
well have found a place in her heart for the love-desiring 
Napoleon Francis. 



267 



PORTRAITS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF 

CHARLES I. 

•*Wbll!" observed Alexandre, "it would perhaps have been 
a happier thing for Maria Louisa had she died young, like 
your Princess EUzabeth." 

" There again is a story," said Mee Aughton, " which has 
more of the marvels of romance and the sternness of reality 
than that of any queen or lady yet mentioned." 

". Do not the histories of all the daughters of Charles I.," 
asked Smith, " abound in both romance and reality ?" 

This question led to an earnest research among Mr. Col- 
naghi's portfolios for portraits of those celebrated children 
of a luckless king ; and it was while endeavouring to trace 
their characters in their physiognomies that a discussion 
ensued, which is here thrown into the form of a narrative. 

Crashaw, the poet and protegS of Henrietta Maria, ap- 
pears to have striven with much zeal and entire fruitlessness 
to catch the laureate crown, which Ben Jonson had worn 
with rough but glittering dignity. Never did any patented 
" Versificator Eegis," from Gualo to Davenant, so praise 
princes and princesses, bom or expectant, as Crashaw did. 
The Carolinian births were the active stimulants of his 
muse. The coming of ,the heir-apparent was hailed by his 
"In SanctissimsB EeginsB partum hyemalem." The first 
wailing cry of the little Duke of York was celebrated in the 
" Natalis Ducis Eboracensis." His prophetic muse waxed 
bold during a later pregmmey of the Queen, and the vateB 

N 2 



268 KEW FICTUBES AKD OLD PANELS. 

confidently predicted the addition of another prince to the 
family circle of Charles. Nor was he wrong : the ode " Ad 
Principem nondum Natum, SeginU gravida,," was apt wel- 
come for the unconscious Duke of Gloucester, who lived to 
be the simple " Master Henry " of the plain-spoken Puri- 
tans. The zeal of Crashaw went so far, that he even rushed 
into metre to make thankful record of the King's recovery 
from an eruption in the face. The rhymer's " In Paciem 
Augustissimi Begis a morbillis integram" pleasantly por- 
trayed how his sacred Majesty had been afflicted with 
pimples, and how he had been ultimately relieved from the 
imdignified visitation. 

The poet would seem to have somewhat ungallantly neg- 
lected the daughters of Charles and Henrietta Maria. His 
poetic fire never blazed very brilliantly for the princesses. 
His inspiration, like the Salic law, favoured only the heirs 
male. The young ladies, however, were not undeserving of 
having lyres especially strung to sound their praises. There 
were four of them, — namely, M^y, bom in 1631 ; the heroic 
little Elizabeth, born in 1635 ; the happy Anne, in 1636-7 ; 
and the celebrated Henrietta Anne, in 164(4. 

Of these the Princess Anne was by fiur the happiest, for 
she had the inexpressible advantage of gently descending 
into the grave at the early, yet sufficiently advanced, age of 
three years and nine months. It was some time before the 
birth of " happy Anne" that Eochester Carr, brother of the 
Lincolnshire baronet. Sir Eobert, publicly declared, in his 
half-insane way, that he would fain kill the King if he might 
only wed with his widow. When this offensive sort of 
gallantry was reported to Henrietta, " she fell into such a 
passion as her lace was cut to give her more breath." Thus 
the storms of the world blew around " felix Anna," even be- 
fore her little bark entered on the ocean over which, angel-led, 
she made so rapid a passage to the haven of the better land. 
^ Maby, the eldest of the daughters of Charles, had some- 



POBTBAITS 07 THE DATTaHTEBS OF OHABLES T. 269 

thing of a calculating disposition ; she possessed a business- 
like mind, had much shrewdness, and contrived to secure, in 
her quiet way, as much felicity as she could or as she cared 
to secure. Her mother had an eager desire to rear this 
fayourite child for the Romish commimion. Charles him- 
self is said by the Queen's chaplain, Gamache, not to have 
cared much about the matter. The priest says of the King, 
that the latter held that salvation did not depend on com- 
munion, and that, if he expressly desired a child of his to be 
a Protestant, it was in some sort because his people accused 
him of being too favourably disposed towards the faith of 
"Borne, However this may have been, Gamache did his best 
to undo the teaching of Mary's orthodox instructors. He 
boasts of having impressed on this child — ^by command of 
her mother — the necessity and the profit of knowing and 
practising all that was taught by Eoman Catholicism. The 
little girl's eyes sparkled as the remarkably honest feUow 
suggested to her that she would probably marry a great 
Catholic potentate, the King of Spain, the Emperor of Ger- 
many, or, greater than both, the Grand Monarque of France. 
There were no other thrones, he intimated, much worth the 
having ; and, if she hoped ever to hold a sceptre on one of 
them, the first necessary qualification was to become a !Ro- 
manist at once, and to say nothing about it for the present ! 
Our Mary did not choose the better part. She stole to Mass, 
with the delight of Madavie de Caylus, who told Madame 
de Maintenon that she would turn Eroman Catholic at once it 
she might only hear the Eoyal Mass, listen to the music, and 
smell the incense daily. It was " so nice," she remarked. 
Well, Mary had much the same opinion of aU this, parti- 
cularly as there was a choice selection of consorts at the 
end of it. A little " Catholic" maid was placed about her 
person, who received from Father Gamache instructions 
similar to those given by Brother Ignatius Spencer for the 
guidance of all Bomish servants in Protestant families, and 



270 mSW PICTTTBES AlTD OLD PAKELS. 

the little maid fulfilled her office adtnirabty. Mary, tliougli 
sbe outwardly wore the guise of a thorough Protestant 
princess, wore also a rosary in her pocket ; and nothing gave 
her greater glee, or more delight to Eather Gbimache, than 
when she could display it behind the back of her ftther's 
chaplaiu, and, after kissing it, hide the forbidden aid to de- 
votion before the Protestant minister could diyine why the 
Queen and Pather Gktmache were smiling. 

But, after all, the mirth and the machinations of this 
worthy pair were all in vain. A wooer came in due time, 
not from the Eomish pale, but firom stout Protestant Hol- 
land ; and before the warmth with which Prince William of 
Orange plied his suit, the Catholicity of the lady melted 
like morning dew beneath a May sun. The princess was 
touched, and her sire approved ; and in 164i3, when Mary 
was but twelve years old, she was conducted across the seas, 
by Van Tromp and an escort of a score of gallant ships-of- 
war, to the country of her future husband. The greatest 
joy she had after her early marriage was in 1648, when she 
welcomed at the Hague the Duke of York (who had escaped 
from St. James's in female costume) and her other brother 
the Prince of Wales, who had gone to Helvoetsluys, where 
there ensued much intrigue, little action, and less profit. 

A brief two years followed, and then this youthful wife 
found herself a widow, and a mother expectant. Her hus- 
band suddenly died of the scourge that then commonly de- 
stroyed princes and peasants — ^the small-pox. She remained 
in dignified ^retirement at her house near the Hague, where, 
says Pepys, " there is one of the most beautiful rooms for 
pictures in the whole world. She had here one picture upon 
the top, with these words, dedicating it to the memory of 
her husband : — 'Incomparabilimarito, inconsolabilis vidua.' " 
Poor thing! the " semper moerens" promised by mourners 
has but a stunted eternity. Our last year's dead are beyond 
both our memory and our tears. 



^OBTBAITS 01* THE DJLUeHTBBS OP CHABLES I. 271 

At the Sestoration, Mary repaired to England to felicitate 
her worthless brother on his good fortune. She there once 
more met her mother ; and the Court was in the very high 
top-gallant of its joy, when the Princess was suddenly seized 
with small-pox. Henrietta Maria was desirous that her 
daughter should at least die in the profession of the Eomish 
faith, but she was deterred from entering the apartment of 
her sick child either by the malignity of the disorder or the 
jealousy of the Princess's attendants. Father Gkmache 
takes it as the most natural and proper thing in the world 
that, conversion not having been realized, the disease was 
made fatal by Divine appointment ! However this may be, 
the death of the Princess (on the 21st December, 1660) was 
laid to the incapacity of Dr. Parmer and the other medical 
men to whose care she was entrusted ; and we hear from 
!Evelyn that her decease " entirely altered the face and gal- 
lantry of the whole Court." Burnet, by no means so good 
authority in this particular case as Evelyn, gives a different 
Tiew of the effect produced at Court by the demise of the 
Princess Boyal, following so swiftly as it did on the death, 
also by smaU-pox, of her young and clever brother, Henry, 
Duke of Gloucester. " Not long after him," says Burnet^ 
'* the Princess Boyal died, also of the small-pox, but was 
not much lamented." Burnet acknowledges, however, her 
many merits, — that she had been of good reputation as wife 
and widow, had lived with becoming dignity as regarded 
herself and court, treated her brothers with princely libe- 
rality, and kept within the limits of her own income. The 
same writer says of her, that her head was turned by her 
mother's pretence of being able to marry her to the King of 
Prance, — a prospect that turned the heads of many ladies 
at that time, the niece of Cardinal Mazarin among various 
others. Burnet roimdly asserts that to realize this prospect 
she launched into an extravagant splendour, the cost of which 
not only injured her own income, but tempted her to deal 



272 KEW PICTUBBS AITD OLD PAI7ELS. 

disbonestlj with the jewels and estates of her son, held by 
her in a guardianship, the trusts of which she betrayed. He 
adds, that she not only was disappointed in hei^ expecta- 
tions, but that she " lessened the reputation which she had 
formerly lived in," — a strange epitaph to be written by him 
who found a benefactor in her son, and of her who is allowed 
to have been, with some faults, gentle, forgiving, patient, 
affectionate, and firm-minded. 

Of her younger sister Elizabeth, Clarendon has given a 
perfect picture in a few expressive words. She was, says 
the parenthesis-loving historian, " a lady of excellent parts, 
great observation, and an early understanding." The whole 
of her brief but eventful life gave testimony to the truth 
of this description. The storms of the times had swept 
her from the hearth of her parents, as they had indeed 
also divided those parents, and extinguished the fire at 
that hearth. She had successively been under the warden- 
ship of Lady Dorset and of old Lady Yere, and was trans- 
ferred from the latter to the custody of the Earl of North- 
umberland, who was already responsible for the safe keeping 
of her brothers York and Gloucester. Li the good Earl 
they had no surly gaoler, and he shared in the joy of the 
children when, in 1647, they were permitted to have an 
interview with their unhappy father at 'Maidenhead, and to 
sojourn with him during two fast-flying days of mingle* 
cloud and sunshine in Lord Craven's house at Caversham, 
near Beading. The house stiQ stands, and is a conspicuous 
object seen from the Beading station. It is in the occupa* 
tion of the great iron-master Mr. Crawshay. 

Some of the touching interviews which were held in 
Caversham House are said to have been witnessed by Crom- 
well, and Sir John Berkeley states that Oliver described 
them to him as " the tenderest sight his eyes ever beheld." 
" Cromwell," adds Sir John, " said much in commendation of 
his Majesty," and expressed his hope that " God would be 



^OBTSAITS OT THE DJLTJGHTEBS 01* CHABLES I. 273 

pleased to look upon him accotding to the sinceritj of his 
heart towards 4}he King." 

The prison-home of the Princess Elizabeth and her 
brothers was Sion House, at Isleworth, — ^the house of ill 
omen firom which Lady Jane Qrey had departed by water 
for the Tower, to seek a sceptre and to find an axe. The 
monarch visited his children more than once at the house of 
the Earl of Northumberland, at Sion. With the boys he 
talked, and to them gave counsel ; but if he advised Eliza- 
beth, he also listened with marked and gratified attention to 
her descriptions of persons and things, and to her clear ideas 
upon what was passing around her. His chief advice to her 
consisted in the reiterated injunction to obey her mother in 
all things except in matters of religion, — " to which he com- 
manded her, upon his blessing, never to hearken or consent, 
but to continue firm in the religion she had been instructed 
and educated in, what discountenance or ruin soever might 
befall the poor Church at that time imder so Severe prosecu- 
tion." She promised obedience to her father's counsel, and 
imparted joy by that promise, as she did two years sub- 
sequently, when, in 1649, she lay on her sire's bosom a few 
hours before his execution, and made him alternately weep 
and smile at the impression which he saw had b^en made 
upon her by the calamities of her family, and at the evidence 
of advanced judgment afforded by her conversation. As the 
yoimg girl lay on the father's heart, — ^that heai^; that was so 
soon to be no longer conscious of the pulse of Hfe, — he charged 
her with a message to her mother, then in Erance. It was 
a message of undying love mingled with assurances of a 
fidelity strong unto death. The little message-bearer was 
never permitted to fulfil her mission, and the mother to 
whom she was to have borne it found, it is said, a piUow for 
her aching head on the sympathizing breast of the Earl of 
St. Alban's. The wife of C»sar stooped to a centurion. 

" If I were you, I would not stay here," was the speech 

IX 3 



274 VBW PIOTXrSES AJn> 0U> FAlfEI.8* 

ufctered one day by Elizabeth to her brother James. They 
were both then, with the Duke of Gloncester, in confine- 
ment at St. James's. The speech was at once an incentive 
and a reproach. Elizabeth urged him thereby to accom- 
plish the flight which their father had recommended him to 
attempt. The young Duke of Guise, heir of the slayer who 
was slain at Blois, escaped from his prison by outwitting his 
keeper at a childish game. The royal captive children of 
the Stuart, for the same end, got up a game at ** hide and 
seek,'' and they were still in pretended search of James, 
when the lafcter, disguised as a girl, was awkwardly, but 
successfrilly, making his way to temporary safety. For their 
share in this escapade the little conspirators were trans- 
Initted to Carisbrook, where they were kept in dose con- 
finement in the locality where their father had so deeply 
suffered in the last days of his trials. The Princess bore 
her captivity like a proudly desponding caged eaglet, whom 
grief and indignity can kill, but who utters no sound in 
testimony of suffering. The utilitarian govemmeBt of the 
period designed, it is said, to have apprenticed this daughter 
of a line of kings to a needle or button maker in Nevrport ! 
Providence saved her from the degradation, by a well-timed 
death. '^ Elizabeth Stuart " sickened, died, and was buried. 
The very locality of her burial eyen perished with her from 
the memory of man. It was only discovered, moire than 
two centuries after, when kings were again at a discount 
imd ultra-democracy was once more rampant. 

It is somewhat singular that, whereas among the inha- 
bitants of Newport it became forgotten that the body of the 
young Elizabeth lay in their church, the villagers of Church 
Handborough, near Whitney, boasted of possessing the 
mortal remains of her father Charles 1. This boast was 
founded on a very magniloquent inscription on a tablet 
within the church, and which the parishioners took for an 
epitaph. He was a hearty old cavalier who wrote it, and 



^OBTRAITS OF THS PATJGHTSSS OF CHABLBS I. 275 

thougli the villagers comprehend nothing of the robust 
Latin of which it is constructed, thej understand the senti- 
ment, and to this day consider it as testimony to the fact 
that they are as guardians round the grave of the Charles — 
who is not there interred.* 

The young Elizabeth died about a year and a half afber 
her fEd^her's execution. In the year 1793, the year of the 
decapitation of Louis XYL and of Marie Antoinette, ultra* 
democracy was again raising its head in the England where 
Charles had been stricken. Gentlemen like Dr. Hudson 
and Mr. Figott drank seditious healths at the London Coffee 
House, and rode in hackney coaches to prison, shouting 
" Yive la E^publique!" Libels against the Queen of France, 
like those of mad Lord George Gordon, were flying about 
our streets " thick as leaves in Vallombrosa." The Eev. Mr. 
"Winterbottom was fined and imprisoned for preaching trea- 
sonable sermons; and so high did party spirit run, that good 
Yieesimus Knox had wellnigh got into serious trouble for 
delivering firom the Brighton pulpit a philippic agaiust going 
to war. The discourse so ruffled the plumage of some 
officers who happened on the following evening to meet the 
Severend Doctor with his wife and family at the theatre, that 
they created a patriotic riot, before the violence of which the 
celebrated essayist, his lady, and children, were feirly swept 
out of the house, the loyal audience in which celebrated their 

• The following is the inscription. It might hare been written be- 
tween a Tolume of Walker's ' LachrymseEcclesitt' on the one hand, and 
a flask of Canary on the other. Thus rolls its thunder and thus sighs 
the strain : — " M. S. sanctissimi regis et martyris CarolL Siste yiator ; 
lege, obmutesce, mirare, memento Caroli illius nominis, pariter et pie- 
tatb insignissim®, primi Magnse BritannisD regis, qui rebellium perfidift 
primo deoeptus, et in perfidiorum rabie perculsus, inconcnssus tamen 
l^gnm et fidei defensor, schismatioorum tyrannidi succubuit, anno servi- 
tutis nostrsB, felioitatis su» primo, coron4 terrestri spoliatus, coelesti 
donatus. Sileant autem peritorsD tabellfe, perlege reliquias yere sacras 
Oarolinas, in queis sui mnemosynem gere perenniorem vivacius exprimit : 
ffla, ilia" (no) "Eikon Basilike." 



276 KEW FICTTTItES AVP OLD PAKBLS. 



triumph over as loyal a subject as any there, by singing 
" God save the King" and " Eule Britannia." 

Amid this noise of contending parties, Boyalist and Bepub- 
lican, a quiet sexton was tranquilly engaged, in October, 
1798, in digging a grave in the chancel of Newport church 
for the body of Septimus Henry West, the youngest brother 
of Lord Delaware. The old delver was in the full enjoy- 
ment of his exciting occupation when his spade struck 
against a stone, on which were engraven the initials " E. S." 
Curiosity begat research, and in a vault perfectly dry was 
found a coffin perfectly fresh, on the involuted lid of which 
the wondering examiners read the words—'' Elizabeth, 2d 
daughter of y* late King Charles, dece* Sept. 8, MDCL." 
Thus the hidden grave of her who died of the blows dealt at 
monarchy in England was discovered when like blows were 
being threatened, and at the very moment when the Eepub- 
licans over the Channel were slaying their hapless Queen. 
The af&ighted spirit of Elizabeth might well have asked if 
nothing then had been changed on this troubled earth, and 
if killing kings were still the caprice of citizens ? The only 
answer that could have been given at the moment would 
have been, in the words of the adjuration, " Yatene in pace, 
alma beata e bella." Turn we now to the sister, who was 
of quite another complexion. 

On the site of Bedford Crescent, Exeter, there once stood 
a convent of Black or Dominican friars. At the Eeforma- 
tion the convent property was transferred to John, Lord 
Eussell, who made of the edifice thereon a provincial town 
residence, which took the name of " Bedford House " when 
the head of the Eussells was advanced to an earldom. As 
further greatness was forced upon or achieved by the family, 
the old coimtry mansion fell into decay. There are still some 
aged persons, verging upon " a hundred," whose weary memo- 
ries can faintly recall the old conventual building when it 
was divided and let in separate tenements. It was taken 



POBTBAI^S 01* THE DAtTaHTBBS OF OHABLES I. 277 

down, to save it from tumbling to pieces, in 1773, and on 
the site of the house and grounds stands, as I have said, the 
present "Bedford Crescent." "Priars' Row" would have 
been as apt a name. 

In the year 1644 the shifting fortimes of Charles com- 
pelled his queen, Henrietta Maria, to seek a refuge in 
Exeter, in order that she might there bring into the world 
another, and the last, heir to the sorrows of an unlucky sire. 
The corporation assigned Bedford House to her as a resi- 
dence, and made her a present of two hundred pounds to 
provide against the exigencies of the coming time. In this 
house was bom a little princess, who was the gayest yet the 
least happy of the daughters of Charles. The day of her 
birth was the 16th of June, 1644. She was shortly after 
christened in the cathedral (at a font erected in the body of 
the church under a canopy of state), by the compound name 
of HJBiirBiBTTJL-AjrirB. Dr. Burnet, the chancellor of the dio- 
cese, officiated on the occasion, and the good man rejoiced 
to think that he had enrolled another member on the re- 
gister of the English Church. In this joy the Queen took 
no part. It is said that the eyes of the father never fell 
upon the daughter bom in the hour of his great sorrows ; 
but as Charles was in Exeter for a brief moment on the 
26th of July, 1644, it is more than probable that he looked 
for once and aU upon the face of his unconscious child. 

The Queen Henrietta Maria left Exeter for the Continent 
very soon, some accounts say a fortnight after the birth of 
Henrietta Anne. The young Princess was given over to the 
tender keeping of Lady Morton ; and when opportunity for 
escape offered itself to them, the notable governess assumed 
a somewhat squalid disguise, and with the little Princess 
(now some two years old) attired in a ragged costume, and 
made to pass as her son Peter, she made her way on foot to 
Dover, as the wife of a servant out of place. The only peril 
that she ran was from the recalcitrating objections made by 



278 ITEW PICTXTBSS AKD OLB PAKEL0. 

her precious and troublesome charge. The litUe Princess 
loved fine clothes, and would not don or wear mendicant 
rags but with screaming protest. All the way down to the 
coast '* Peter" strove to intimate to passiiLg way&rers that 
there was a case of abduction before them, and that she was 
being carried off against her will. Had her expression been 
as clear as her efforts and inclination, the pretty plot would 
have been betrayed. Fortunately she was not so precocious 
of speech as the infant Tasso, and the passengers on board 
the boat to Calais, when they saw the terrible " Peter" 
scratching the patient matron who bore him, they only 
thought how in tiknes to come he would make the mother's 
heart smart more fiercely than he now did her cheeks. 
Peace of course was not restored until Lady Morton, soon 
after landing, cast off the hump which marred her naturally 
elegaat fig^e. and l^fonnLg « Pete." into a princeJ. 
both rode joyously to Paris in a coach-and-six — ^as wonderful 
and as welcome as that built by fairy hands for the lady of 
the glass slipper, out of a portly pumj^in. 

The fugitive princess had scarcely reached Paris when 
Henrietta Maria resolved to undo what Dr. Burnet had so 
well done at Exeter, and to convert Henrietta Anne to 
Bomanism. Father Gamache attempted the same with 
Lady Morton, but as the latter, though she listened, would 
not yield, the logical Jesuit pronounced her death by fever, 
many years subsequently, to be the award of Heaven for 
her obduracy! He found metal far more ductile in the 
youthful daughter of the King of England. For her espe- 
cial use he wrote three heavy octavo volumes, entitled 
' Exercices d'une Ame Eoyale,' and probably thought that 
the desired conversion was accomplished less by the bonbons 
of the Court than the reasoning of the confessor. 

The royal exUes lived in a splendid misery. They were 
so magnificently lodged and so pitiably cared for, that they 
are said to have often lain together in a bed at the Louvre 



POBTBAm 01 THl- BAVORTBBS OT CHABLES I. 279 

during a winter's day in order to keep themselTes warm ; 
no fuel haying been provided for them, and thej lacking 
money to procure it. They experienced more comfort in 
the asylum afforded them in the conyent of Ste. Marie de 
ChaOlot. Here Henrietta Anne grew up a graceful child, 
the delight of every one save Louis XIY., who hated her 
mortally, until the time came when he could only love her 
criminally. Mother and daughter visited England in the 
automn of l^e year of the Sestoration. Pepys has left a 
graphic outline of both : — " The Queen a very little plain old 
woman, and nothing more in her presence, in any respect, 
nor garbe, than any ordinary woman. The Princess Hen- 
rietta is very pretty, but much below my expectation ; and 
her dressing of herself, urith her haire frized short up to her 
eares, did make her seem so much the less to me. But my 
wife standing near her with two or three black patches on, 
and well-dressedy did seem to me much handsomer than 
she." Death, as I have before stated, marred the festivities. 
Love mingled with both ; and Buckingham, who had been 
sighing at the feet of Mary, Princess of Orange, now stood 
pouring unutterable nothings into the ear of her sister 
Henrietta Anne. When the latter, with her mother, em- 
barked at Calais on this royal visit to England, they spent 
two days in reaching Dover. On their return they went on 
board at Portsmouth, but storms drove them back to port, 
and the Princess was attacked by measles while on the sea. 
Buckingham, in his character of lover, attended her to 
Havre, displaying an outrageous extravagance of grief. Phi- 
lippe, the handsome, effeminate, and unprincipled Duke of 
Orleans, her affianced husband, met her at the last-named 
port, and tended her with as much or as little assiduity as 
man could show who never knew what it was to feel a pure 
affection for any woman in the world. The Princess felt 
little more for him, and stiU less for Buckingham, on whose 
forced departure from Paris the daughter of Charles was 



280 nSW FIOTVBES AlTD OLD PiLVBLS. 

married to the brother of Louis, the last daj of March, 1661, 
in full Lent, and with maimed rites — a disregard for seasons 
and ceremonies which caused all France to augur ill for the 
consequences. 

" Madame,'* as she was now called, became the idol of a 
Court that loved wit and beauty, and was not particular on 
the score of morality. All the men adored her; and the 
King, to the scandal of his mother (Anne of Austria), was 
chief among the worshipers. Her memoirs have been 
briefly and rapidly written by her intimate friend, Madame 
de La Eayette. The latter was an authoress of repute, and 
the " ami de coBur," to use a sofb term, of the flEtmous La 
Bochefoucauld. This lady wrote the memoirs of the Princess 
from materials furnished by her Eoyal Highness, and thus 
she portrays the delicate position of Louis le Grand and 
Henrietta d' Angleterre : — " Madame entered into close inti- 
macy with the Countess of Soissons, and no longer thought 
of pleasing the King, but as a sister-in-law. 1 think, how- 
ever, that she pleased him after another fashion; but I 
imagine that she fancied that the King himself was agree- 
able to her merely as a brother-in-law, when he was pro- 
bably something more ; but, however, as they were both 
infinitely amiable, and both bom with dispositions inclined to 
gallantly, and that they met daily for purposes of amuse- 
ment and festivity, it was clear to everybody that they felt 
for one another that sentiment which is generally the fore- 
runner of passionate love." 

" Monsieur" became jealous, the two queen-mothers cen- 
sorious, the Court delighted spectators, and the lovers per- 
plexed. To conceal the criminal fact, the poor La YaHere 
was selected that the King might make love to the latter, 
and so give rise to the belief that in the new love the old 
had been forgotten. But Louis fell in love with La Valiere 
too, after his fashion, and soon visited her in state, preceded 
by drums and trumpets. " Madame" was piqued^ and took 



P0BTBAIT8 OE THE PJLUdHTEBS 07 OHABLES I. 281 

revenge or consolation in receiving the aspirations of the 
Count de Gniche. " Monsieur*' quarrelled with the latter, 
confusion ensued, and the ancient Queens, by their intrigues, 
made the confusion worse confounded. Not that they were 
responsible for all the confusion. How could they be ? since 
they only misruled in an imbroglio wherein the King loved 
La Valiere, the Marquis de Marsillac loved Madame, Ma- 
dame loved the Count de Quiche, Monsieur affected to love 
Madame de Valentinois, who loved M. de Peguilon, and 
Madame de Soissons, beloved by the King, loved the Mar- 
quis de Yardes, whom, however, she readily surrendered to 
Madame, in exchange for, or as auxiliary to. Monsieur de 
Quiche ; antbthis chain of loves is, after all, only a few links 
in a network that would require a volume to unravel, and 
even then would not be worth the trouble expended on it. 
They who would learn the erotic history of the day, may 
consult the memoirs by Madame de La Fayette. The story 
is like a Spanish comedy, full of intrigue, deception, stilted 
sentiment, and the smallest possible quantity of principle. 
There are dark passages, stolen meetings, unblushing 
avowals, angry husbands who are not a jot better than the 
seducers against whom their righteous indignation is di- 
rected, and complacent priests who utter a low " Oh, ^eV^ 
and absolve magnificent sinners who may help them to 
scarlet hats and the dignity of " Eminence." The chaos of 
immorality seemed come again. " Madame" changed her 
adorers, and was continually renewing the jealousy of 
" Monsieur," but she in some sort pacified him by deigning 
to receive at her table the "ladies" whom he mostly de- 
lighted to honour. The lives of the whole parties were 
passed in the unlimited indulgence of pleasant sins, and in 
gaily paying for their absolution from the consequences! 
Old lovers were occasionally exiled to make room for new 
ones, or out of vengeance, but the "commerce d'amour" 
never ceased in the brilliant Court of Louis le Grand. 



282 ITEW PIOTUBBS AlTD OLD FAFELS. 

There was scarcelj an indiyidual in tliat Court who might 
not, when dying, have said what Lord Mnskerrj said as that 
exemplary indiyidual lay on his deathbed, — " Well, I have 
nothing wherewith to reproach myself^ for I never denied 
myself anything ! '* 

At length, in 1670, Henrietta once more visited England. 
It was against the consent of her husband. She had that of 
the King; and her mission was to arrange matters with her 
brother Charles II., to establish Bomanism in England, and 
to induce him to become the pensioned ally of France ! To 
further her purpose she brought in her train the beautiful 
Louise de Querouaille. This was a " vrai trait de g^nie." 
Charles took the lady and the money, and doubly sold him- 
self and country to France. He made a Duchess (of Ports- 
mouth) of the French concubine, and Louis added a Gallic 
title to heighten the splendour of her infamy, and that of 
the monarch who, for her and filthy lucre, had sold bis very 
soul. There was some horrible story referring to himself 
and Henrietta which was probably only invented to exaspe- 
rate the husband of the latter against her. There is pro- 
bably more truth in the report that the young Duke of 
Monmouth gazed on her with a gallant assurance that met 
no rebuke. A few days afterwards, on the 29th of June, 
1670, she was well and joyous with Philippe, no participator 
in her joy, at St. Cloud. In the evening she showed some 
symptoms of faintness, but the heat was intense ; a glass of 
chicory water was offered to her, of which she drank ; and 
she immediately complained of being grievously ill. Her 
conviction was that she was poisoned, and very little was 
done either to persuade her of the contrary, or to cure her. 
The agony she suffered would have slain a giant. Amid it 
all she gently reproached her husband for his want of affec- 
tion for her, and deposed to her own fidelity ! The Court 
gathered round her bed ; Louis came and talked religiously ; 
his consort also came, accompanied by a poor guard of 



POBTBjLITB OV THB DA17aHT£BB 01* OHABLts I. 283 

honour, and the royal concubines came too, escorted by little 
annles ! Burnet says that her last words were, '^ Adieu, 
Treyille," addressed to an old lover, who was so affected by 
them that he turned monk — for a short time. Bossuet re- 
ceiyed her last breath, and made her fimeral oration ; of the 
speaker and of the oration in question, Yinet says, " Since 
this great man was obliged to flatter, I am very glad that he 
has done it here with so little heart, that we may be allowed 
to think that adulation was not natural to his bold and vigo- 
rous genius." The oration could do as little good to her 
reputation, as the dedication to her by Ba^^ine, of his < An- 
dromaque,' could do to her glory.* As to her ultimate fate, 
it was difficult even at the time to prove that sbe was poi- 
soned. The chicory water was thrown away, and the vessel 
which contained it had been cleansed before it could be exa- 
mined. Thei^e were deponents ready to swear that the body 
betrayed evidences of poison, and others that no traces of 
it were to be ^scovered. All present protested innocence, 
wfaHe one is said to have confidentially confessed to the King, 
on promise of pardon, that he had been expressly engaged 
in compassing the catastrophe. No wonder, amid the con- 
flicting testimony, that Temple, who had been despatched 
from London to inquire into the affair, could only oracularly 
resolve that there was more in the matter than he cared 
to talk about, and that at aU events Charles had better be 
silent, as he was too powerless to resent the alleged crime. 
And so ended the last of the daughters of Charles Stuart, 

* The funeral oration contained the following passage : — " She must 
descend to those gloomy regions " (he was speaking of the royal vaults at 
St. Denis) '* with those annihilated kings and princes among whom we 
can scarcely find room to place her, so crowded are the ranks." When 
the body of the Dauphin, son of Louis XIY., was deposited in these 
vaults in 1778, it was remarked with a ** yague terror," as Bungener 
says in his * Un Sermon sous Louis XTV,,' that the royal vault was en- 
tirely full. There was literally no place for Louis XVI. in the tomb of 
his ancestors. 



284 NEW PICTUBES AlTD OLD PAITELS. 

all of whom died young, or died suddenly, — ^and none but 
the infant Anne happily. 

At the hour of the death of Henrietta, there stood weep- 
ing by her side her fair young daughter, Maria Louisa. The 
child was eight years of age, and Montague, on that very 
day, had been painting her portrait. In the year 1688, that 
child, who had risen to the dignity of Queen of Spain, and 
was renowned for her beauty, wit, and vivacity, was pre- 
sented by an attendant with a cup of milk. She drank the 
draught and died. 

Henrietta Maria left her heart to the Nuns of the Visita- 
tion, to whose good keeping James II. left his own, and con- 
fided that of his daughter Louisa Maria. The heart of the 
King was finally transferred to the chapel of the English 
Benedictines in the Faubourg St. Jacques. During the 
Eevolution, the insurrectionists of the day shivered to pieces 
the urn in which it was contained, and trod the heart into 
dust upon the floor of the chapel. They did as much to the 
royal hearts enshrined at the " Visitation." The very dust 
of the sons and the daughters of Stuart was again an abomi- 
nation in the eyes of democracy. 



285 



THE THINGS WE BON'T KNOW. 

When our party had again assembled, the fortunes of the 
great personages who have been grouped in preceding pic- 
tures were more than once alluded to. " Few of them, pro- 
bably, ever foresaw," said Smith, " whither the chariot-wheels 
of destiny were carrying them." 

" (Test comme moi .'" exclaimed Alexandre ; " here I have 
sketches on canvas, commenced without particular design, 
and ending, as you see, in pictures that seem to have a 
story. Here is a French Admiral, there an opera-dancer, 
' — they had, originally, no reference one to the other ; but 
now they remind me of Bougainville and Coralie." 

We looked at the group, pronounced it pretty, and asked 
for the story. 

" K I were to give it a name," said Alexandre, " I should 
caU it ' The Things We Don't Know.' " 

The name led us into some conversation on various peo- 
ple and events which might be illustrated by such a title. 
Summarily, here, it may be said on such a text that our 
ignorance, compared with our knowledge, is as the giant 
to the dwarf in the fable. They walk through the world 
together, sensitive Knowledge getting all the blows, while 
stalwart Ignorance swaggers on with withers all unwrung. 
Ignorance is the sea, and knowledge the bright evening- 
star shining over it in clear, chaste, and circumscribed pu- 
rity: ignorance is sometimes better than knowledge, and 
the end of knowledge, after all, is but the confirmation of 
ignorance. '' I would give all I have," said the waterman's 



286 KSW PICTITBES AlfD OLD PAITELS. 

boy to Dr. Johnson, " to know about the Argonauts." That 
jovial crew of classic days were to him one of '^ the things 
he didn't know;" in exchange for an acquaintance wit) 
which he would have given what he possessed, thereby 
truly illustrating that ignorance is a good thing to be got 
rid of at any sacrifice. 

Yes, "the things we don't know" present a wide realm 
for the imagination to soar over ; boundless it lies in the 
immensity of space. Earth, air, and skies, and the waters 
under the earth, are all of this kingdom. Morals, philo- 
sophy, and physics, are portions of this unlimited region ; 
and the sum of what we know is less than the wart when 
weighed against the Ossa of our ignorance. What, even 
yet, know we of the secrets of the earth ? Not more than 
he knows of geography who has never seen anything re- 
lating to it but what he could learn from an outline map. 
And this in reference of its mere surface. "We have a pon- 
derous Universal History ; and, wrapped up in the mantle 
of our ignorance, we complacently congratulate ourselves 
on our intimacy with the story of man in all ages and coun- 
tries. But who can reveal to us the tale of those nations 
who lie unsung, even by the wild harp of tradition, beneath 
the diversely shaped mounds of North and South America ? 
Myriads of men are there entombed with evidences about 
them of an advanced civilization; and yet we, who have 
probably profited by their discoveries in art and science, 
are ignorant even of their names ; and we stand by the side 
of their mouldering skeletons, unable to say more than, 
Here lies the shell of the flown bird ! 

When we hail each modern discovery as a testimony of 
modem superiority, we are unconscious of the fact, that not 
only have all our witty things been said before us, but that 
all our great things were once in action, ere we struck upon 
our so-called original thought of inventing them. Painting 
in oils is no discovery of the Van Eycks ; the steam-engine 



THB THIHGS WE DOK't KNOW. 287 

and the railroads are said to be recoveries, — their prin- 
ciples, at least, were in daily activity before the eyes of 
Egyptian sommer tourists in the days of Fsammetichus and 
the Twelve Kings. The English amnibi that traverse the 
isthmus of Suez excite more surprise now in our own plagi- 
arizing eye than did the iron-traced road and the steam- 
funnel in the minds of the sober citizens of Sais when they 
made their trips to Memphis ; or, more adventurously, like 
cockneys on the Khine, hurried through the Heptanomis 
to the City of Crocodiles, to Ptolemais, or to Thebes ; or, 
bolder still, explored the Thebais itself up to the very Cata- 
racts. So little know we of men, and of the habits of men 
who have dwelt upon the surface of the earth. So little, and 
even less, know we of the earth itself. We prick the hide 
of the elephant with a pin, and then pronounce upon its 
anatomy ; even so have we scraped the dust from the first 
coating of the globe, and, like Sir Oracle, who when he opes 
his mouth bids no dog bark, have we talked most foolish 
wisdom, and most unstable certainty, of all that we do not 
know beneath it. Nay, the very history of our times is no 
longer a thing known to us. We had thought that Kufus 
had been slain by that wicked Walter Tyrrell; we had 
i^ndly dreamed that CoBur de Lion was no coward ; we had 
even conjectured that Mary Stuart and Anne Boleyn were 
personifications of innocence, that Gloucester was hunch- 
backed, and that King Charles had sat in an oak, gilding 
apples for posterity. But modem authors doubt all these 
things, and a thousand others besides ; they are sceptical 
academics on all they write ; they tell us that we don't 
know if such things were ; and, in short, they will reduce us 
to the unpleasant necessity of writing a book that shall be 
entitled, the Art of Not Knowing History. 

I^ as Shakspeare says, — and, as that sweet '^Swan of 
Avon" has said it, there can be little doubt attached to 
thai matter, — a good deed shines in a naughty world, so it 



288 KEW PIOTITBES ASD OLD PANELS. 

is a fact, of which we are not always cognizant^-T-a thing, in 
short, which we do not know, or, knowing, forget, — ^that an 
evil deed bears more ills in its train, and continues its bale- 
ful influence over a more extended period of time, than he 
who thoughtlessly gave the example, contemplated at the 
moment when he perhaps devoted myriads of beings to de- 
struction. The women who quarrelled over the making of 
Queen Anne*s bed caused a war in which thousands pe- 
rished. Had either of these Abigails only known one thing, 
—"the soft answer which tumeth away vrrath," — it is 
hardly too much to say that the face of Europe had not 
presented the aspect which we now see her wear. "When 
the dispute commenced about the size of a window in the 
palace of VersaiQes, how little did Holland know, while the 
Grand Monarque and his minister were bandying words, in 
breadth and odour smacking more of the stable than the 
saloon, that it behoved every Dutchman to be up and but- 
toning his — that is buckling on — ^his armour ; every word 
in that dispute threatened the States with fire and sword ; 
every angry afi&rmation of the King cost the United Pro- 
vinces a town ; and, if there be any truth in the poetical 
influences of sympathy, the smoke that rose from every 
Hollander's pipe on that eventful day must have taken 
wreathed forms, speaking to his affrighted sense of rapine 
menacing his amphibious cities, and ruin impending over 
his dairies, his dollars, and his daughters ! How very little 
did Louis VII. imagine that, by cultivating the growth of 
his too celebrated beard, he was in the course of perfecting 
a war that was destined to ravage Prance during three long 
and disastrous ages. This prince — who had one day amused 
his leisure hours (of which, like Heyne's archbishop, he had 
four-and-twenty daily) by burning four thousand peasants 
of Champagne who had taken refuge in the church of Vitry 
— ^had the unusual weakness, at some subsequent period, of 
feeling a little regret at having so treated fellows who, in 



THB THIKGhS WE DON't EKOW. 289 

their character of mere common men, were beneath the re- 
membrance and the remorse of royalty. The families of the 
martyrs were uncommonly flattered and gratified by this 
mark of the monarch's attention ; and, as it was the only 
return they enjoyed for being deprived of their protectors 
and friends, they were right to make as much out of it as 
they well could. The sense entertained by the Church at 
this fiinny little escapade of the King's was manifested in 
the jocular penance imposed on him by the Archbishop of 
Paris, who demanded that he should sacrifice his beard as 
an expiation for his dight ' irregularity. Louis consented 
with good grace ; and, to complete the frolic, the venerable 
prelate himself took his Majesty by the nose, and performed 
all the functions of an accomplished Eigaro. The King, 
having thus cut his beard and his remorse, thought the joke 
at an end ; but the Church, which had expressed itself per- 
fectly satisfied with getting the monarch's beard, was very 
much astonished, and, indeed, displeased, at finding Heaven 
determined to exact a little retribution for its own share ; 
and truly that unpleasant person whom the ancients yclept 
Nemesis sued him in a very remarkable fashion. The sove- 
reign's wife, Eleanor of Guyenne, conceiving a sudden anti- 
pathy for a beardless husband^ and being shocked, moreover, 
at the indelicacy of an uncovered chin, renounced her liege 
lord's couch as readily as he had done his beard ; she then 
speedily obtained a divorce, and with it the restitution of 
her dowry, which, with the addition of herself, she flung 
into the arms of Henry of Normandy. "When the latter 
encircled his brows with England's mark of sovereignty, he 
employed the portion of his bride in carrying on a war with 
France, which lasted till the reign of Charles VII., and 
which war, or rather series of wars, fought under various 
pretexts, though they were signalized by such triumphant 
days for England as those of Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt, 

Vemeuil, Mons-en-Vimeux, Crevant, and the glorious 

o 



290 ITEW PICTUBS8 AJSfD OLD PAITBLS. 

festival of Herrings, at Eouvrai, terminated somewhat 
less than agreeably to us, when a combined religious and 
superstitious fear of the Maid of Orleans chilled the stout 
hearts, and palsied the brave arms, oi England's bcddest 
warriors. 

A very important illustration of the title, " The Things 
We Don't Know," may be found in the never-ending evils 
which a man may almost unknowingly cause by a Hght word 
spoken against religion, virtue, or morals. The system 
which takes in this poison may transmit it to generation 
succeeding generation. He who wrote sportively in sup- 
port of the assertion, that killing was no murder, may be 
morally responsible for the last public assassination that 
polluted our streets. What he wrote in jest, the reader of 
a later period, not having the context of the times to weigh 
against each phrase, may have taken for sad and sober 
earnest ; till, in the course of events, its reasoning may have 
recommended that as a virtue which its author would never 
have thought of contemplating but in its worst view as the 
worst of crimes. It is, indeed, impossible to trace the ext^it 
and duration of wrong caused by evil example; it is not 
only continuous through a long line of succeeding ages, but 
is often productive of instantaneous consequences, — conse- 
quences of which, perhaps, he who has caused them dreams 
as little as did the Mogul Khan, who rdgned on the borders 
of China, 

^ Son nom est Temugiu ; c'est t'en apprendre assez^*' 

of having lowered the price of herrings in the English 
market. No one now requires to be told that this close 
connection between the sublime and the ridiculous occurred 
in A.D. 1238, owing to our market being glutted, from the 
northern nations not sending over their ships to purchase 
our herrings, through fear of the Tartars, who were about 
invading Europe. 

This mention of the word Tartar reminded Yriarte of an 



THE THINGS WE DOK'T KNOW. 291 

event, appertaining to the subject, which he once witnessed 
in the market-place of the town of Cashgar. 

" A poor devil of that nation," said he, " whose character 
had saiSered, not so much from thieving as from having been 
detected in a theft, was condemned to suffer the penalty- due 
less to his crime than his awkwardness. He stood on a 
scaffold, in the busy square of the above-named town, with 
hi& left-hand firmly fixed in a wedge, while, in his right, he 
held a sharp, broad-bladed knife. The punishment de- 
manded by the law extended no Airther than this : ifc merely 
declared that the culprit should not be removed till he could 
release himself; and his only means of accomplishing this 
devoutly wished-for consummation was by cutting his left- 
hand off with the knife that the generous law had placed in 
his right. Now the thing this unlucky Talmuk conveyancer 
did not know, was how to extricate himself from a diflSculty. 
You resemble, thought I, people who are fixed in a very 
disagreeable dilemma, and from which they find it impos- 
sible either to escape or remain, without damaging their 
reputation." 

If how to get honourably from between the horns of a 
dilemma be among the things that are unknown to many of 
us, not less difficult do some persons find it to take advan- 
tage of favouring opportunity. It is that tide of which 
sweet liVill sings as leading to fortune when taken at the 
flood ; and, to the majority of us, it may be that momentous 
period of our fates, determining whether we accept or reject 
the all-glorious boon of salvation. What a pregnant mo- 
ment was that when Paul stood before Agrippa, and the 
latter, struck with the majestic truths that fell from the 
noble lips of his exalted prisoner, the foremost man of all 
that ever iarod this earth, exclaimed, ''Thou almost persuadest 
me to he A Christian ! " At that moment, the needle of 
opportunity trembled in the balance of Fate ; the guardian 

o 2 



292 ISTEW PICTUBES AND OLD PJLNELS. 

angel looked down with an anxious smile, his spirit made 
still more radiant by the hope that a soul was about to be 
rescued that day from the powers of heathenism and dark- 
ness, and merit a claim, through faith, to be enrolled among 
the Sons of Light, whose place is around the throne of the 
immutable Father of Truth. But the demon of Indecision 
stood at the ear of the wavering monarch. Agrippa let " I 
dare not" wait upon "I would;" his hand was upon the 
horn3 of the altar, but only for a moment. The legions of 
angels who had heard his words, and gazed from their seats 
on high with such intensity of hope and joy that the very 
air that minute seemed to man to be made up of nought 
but sunshine, withdrew the light of their eyes when they 
heard no assurance of determined faith follow upon the 
sovereign's words of doubt, and, abandoning the earth to its 
pristine state of chilly darkness, they left Agrippa a bye- 
word to its inhabitants, as one knowing, yet neglecting, the 
worth of golden opportunity, 

" I," said "Weber, a German artist, " never met with a 
more perfect illustration of self-ignorance than one pre- 
sented to me within the majestic, gloomy aisles of St. Ste- 
phen's, at Vienna. They who have visited that glorious 
pile may probably recollect a little chapel near the western 
door, in which reposes the great Eugene of Savoy, who de- 
monstrated to Louis XIV. how many things there were 
which that monarch did not know, when he refused the 
young Prince permission to become a soldier. The king 
would have had him a court priest, to shrive those aristo- 
cratic sinners to whom the sun rose at Paris and set at Ver- 
sailles, and to whom all the rest of the world were Arctic 
oceans. Polar circles, and Cimmerian darkness. But Eugene 
would be a soldier, and, as the friend and ally of Marl- 
borough, he became a rankling thorn in the side of the 
Bourbon devot, who would not allow him to become the 
rose, as he was the expectancy, of the fair State. In this 



TAB THINGS WE DON'T KNOW. 293 

chapel, all that is mortal of him, lies beneath a showy, and 
som' what tewdr,. mixture of brass and marble ; andYear it 
is that colossal figure of Christ crucified which, for the divine 
impersonation of the suffering Bedeemer, reveals to the eye 
of the wondering, the devout, or the sneering spectator, a 
brawny Negro, not altogether ill formed, comely, though 
black, furnished with an abundance of woolly hair, and wiry 
beard to match. Close, then, to this chapel is a tomb which 
may have escaped the notice of those travellers for whom 
the ices of the Grab, the attractions of the Yolksgarten, and 
the smiles of the waltz-loving Wienerinnen, had metal more 
attractive than anything that eye could distinguish in the 
more than dimly religious light of the Turk-shaken Dom 
Kirche. One seldom sees a so-called imposing tomb with- 
out being struck by the vanity of the poor worm to whom it 
is erected. A very fat animal of this reptile and writhing 
order has here his counterfeit resemblance, stijQly assuming 
a position between his two rigid-looking wives; he leans 
on a pile of books, and wears one of those enormous seal- 
rings which the Germans of these modem days still affect. 
A very pedantic Latin epitaph, speaking for the corpulent 
defunct, says, in terribly crabbed style, " I worshiped the 
Muses and Apollo. I was a poet and a physician ; the Em- 
peror endowed me with wealth and dignity ; be these words, 
therefore, the sole inscription on my tomb, Cuspinianus is 
dead ; but he will live in the immortal and immense histo- 
rical works he has bequeathed to posterity ; yea, in these he 
will live for ever ! " 

" Well done," cried Smith, " for a fat, illustriously ob- 
scure wretch. It was lest such learned Thebanism as his 
should record its folly on imperishable marble that the 
Spartans, as one of you once observed, interdicted the use 
of lying tombstones. Go to, for a ponderous simpleton 
who measures ability as the Dutchman did poetical excel- 
lence, by weight. Gto to, thou less known than thy heavier 



294 VTW FICTTTBIS AlTD OLD PAVSIS. 

brother Lambert ; tbmi who art not eren in the German 
Valhalla, the hall of the Tentonie mediocritiea. Posterity 
takes thee ging^y, aa it would a lazj, oveffed waap, and, put- 
ting its foot upon thee, treads flat thy over swollen Taaity ! " 

" But remember," said Mee Aughton, " that if «pon such 
pseudo-celebrities as that obese and yerse-epinning son of 
iElsculapius the work of annihilation is only the trouUe of 
putting the foot, so there are celebrities so pure and 
genuine that no weight can crush l^em, nor any power 
efface. A certain Bohemian Jesuit was not aware ai this 
simple fact, when he thought that by a little act of is^ite, 
engendered by his malicious little mind, he had swept 
Luther from the memory and gratitude of man. 

*' In the Jesuits' Library at Prague, of which this Bohe- 
mian was once a member, I yerily beliere a man may obtain 
any hock that was ever published, from i^e first printed 
Bible by Fust, as he spells his name on the titlepage, down 
to the last numbers (for I saw them) of the * Illustrated 
Shakspeare.' I am not about to do the office of the guide- 
books, by giving you a catalogue, either ruis<mnS or other- 
wise, of the many remarkable objects this library encloses 
within its learned walls ; and quite as little am I disposed 
to regale you with pen-and-ink sketches of the biography 
of the multitude of truly illustrious men who have at once 
received and reflected honour by their sojourn under this, 
partially speaking, academic shade. Had no greater, more 
pious, or wiser man trod these floors than the meek and 
murdered Huss, the ground here trodden would still be 
holy. It is, indeed, in connection with hinr that I have to 
Bpeak. In company with a learned, and not leas jotial. 
priest, German by birth but Irish by descent, I had run 
through the lions of the place ; and, as the shades of evening 
were fast thickening around us, we stood before the grey 
marble pedestal supporting the white Carrara bust of the 
idolized Mozart. My Mend had his finger on that part of 



THE THiiros WE don't kkow. 295 

the insmption wbidi istabes that the great comp^ber wim 
' recalled to eolestial harmony,' and he bade me admire the 
hiunour of the phrase. I might, perhaps, have done so had 
it been original, but I half-offended mj companion by intt^ 
mating that, at ab eaiiiw period, Drjden had written some^ 
thing to the «ame time on the musical dust of our beloTed 
Furceil. He was chagrined that I should have alluded to ^ven 
a suspicion of plagiarism ; and, confessing that the thought 
aknost (douded the antie^ations he had formed of the enjoy* 
mentB attending our evening devotions befol^ the mellow 
glories of a flask of old Blister Ausbruch, he suddenly re» 
membered that I had not seen the very N«ro atiid Wallace^ 
as it wel<e, of the literary lions of Prague. Hunying me 
into 4n adjacent and lofty apartment, he walked almost 
reverently, as it seemed to me, to a redess, and returned 
bearing a large volume, as large as a seaman^« chest, and 
about twice as heavy. This terrific-looking tome proved to 
be a book of manu^pt songs, the musical nc^es of which 
are of the size of sledge-hammers, and not unlike them in 
figure. Each wmg or hymn has a head and tail piece mol^ 
exquisitely illuminated than the most curious in pictures 
so limned could easily imagihe; while down the knargins^ 
where may be found ' ample room and verg^ enough,' rta 
profuse and elegant masses of arabesque illustratiotis and 
adornments, on seeing which you bwear — land v^ pixV 
fanely swear aloud, too — that none but Diirer or Diabolus 
could poBgibly have had a hand iti them. Among tiliis hap> 
mcmious collection is a s<Hig in praise of John Huss> which, 
in the olden time, it was a matter of observalice to ding on 
the eve of John the Baptist. This is illustrated by the illu- 
mination of the initial letter exquisitely representing the 
beheading of the saint. The tail-piece is a graphic ^cene of 
the burning of Huss himself at Constance ; some Eomish 
priests, his adversaries in argument, are standing near» ex- 
ulting in the edifying sight of witnessing an antagonist so 



296 NEW PICTITBEB AND OLD PANELS. 

effectually overcome. But tbe most remarkable marginal 
ornaments consist in tbe portraits of Wycliffe, Kuss, and 
Luther, executed with a master's band, and witb tbe excel- 
lence of bumour and spirit. Wjcliffe, tbe topmost of the 
illustrious three, is represented in tbe act of striking a light ; 
Huss, beneath him, has caught tbe spark, and is lighting a 
candle from it ; and Luther, under Huss, having increased 
tbe flame, has ignited a torch, in place of the lesser light of 
bis predecessor, which he is waving around bis bead with 
the intense delight of triumph and victory. This latter 
portion of tbe tripart picture has evidently not been con- 
templated by some one with the spirit of religious philo- 
sophy ; for directly through the great Reformer's face there 
is a mark as if some envious fellow bad, with a wet thumb, 
occupied himself for an hour by trying to efface what to the 
favourer of darkness was an offensive representation. The 
thing this foolish and malignant fellow did not know was 
this, that bis very act has rendered tbe illustration more 
strikingly perfect, showing tbe truly Bom:sb (rather than 
Eoman) hatred towards the founder of Protestantism, and 
reminding us, moreover, that, though tbe face of the modem 
apostle be no more seen, tbe light be raised is still a bright, 
glorious, and inextinguishable light. 

"*Wbo did this?' was the exclamation that naturally 
followed the above sight ; but I could learn nothing more in 
reply than that it was the work of a monk so renowned for 
bis acute sense of smell, that he professed to be able, by his 
nose alone, to distinguish between good and bad men as he 
passed them in the street. 

" * So much for his nose !' said I ; * may his tongue remain 
for ever as dry as that of the blessed Neopomuk in St. 
Wenzel's chapel.' 

" There is Alexandre going to sleep over your long stories," 
said Smith. " What of Bougainville and Coralie, Alexandre?" 
asked be. 



THE THINGS WE DON't KNOW. 297 

"Well!" replied Alexandre, "of all the remarkable cir- 
cumstances that ever befell a man in the category of things 
unknown, is that of commencing a voyage round the world, 
utterly unconscious, when at his morning toilet, that he 
was dressing for a grand tour to his own house by way of 
the Antipodes. That an individual should actually com- 
mence the occupation of circumnavigating the world with- 
out himself entertaining the slightest suspicion of the dance 
through the five zones that Fate had reserved for him ; that 
he should exchange, and, all unknowingly to the person 
most interested in the affair, * his unhoused free condition,' 
to be cribbed, cabined, and confined, to be put in circum- 
scription, as Othello has it, even while he deemed his pos- 
sessions in freedom, and Coralie la Danseuse to be among 
the least questionable of sublunary things, is perhaps one of 
the most singular events that could occur to any respectable 
individual, who was very far from dreaming that time and 
the hour intended him the honour of a visitation, accom- 
panied with so vast a measure of undesired mutability." — 

Coralie, the celebrated opera-dancer, made her first ap- 
pearance upon the stage of life as a nun. She had actually, 
but much against her own will, taken the veil and her vows, 
both of which, as property peculiarly belonging to a convent, 
she left behind in her cell, when Armand de Vouillon, her 
lover, contrived, by the aid of him who laughs at locksmiths, 
to carry her off; nothing loath, from small-type breviaries, 
heavy scourges, long masses, and short meals, to life and 
that everlasting love which, as understood in Paris, seldom 
expires under a month. 

Coralie then became v^fille de V Opera, and she was not 
the first nun who had taken so strange a flight. By able 
tuition and constant practice, she was at last pronounced 
capable of making her debut; and, on the night that she 
charmed the crowded theatre of the Tuileries by her magic 
performance of Hebe, her veiled sisters in the convent- 

o 3 



298 viiw piGTiniBS ijn> old PAinBLs. 

cbapel celebrated a I>e FrofumdU in her behalf, as though 
she had reallj, bodily, departed from among th^n. Por a 
time her career i^ras an ovation : she walked upon flowers, 
lired in never-changing sunshine, broke the hearts, weekly, 
of fiye officers of the E^giment de Bohan, and had the plea- 
sure of hearing announced to her, every morning, that the 
Seine had been dragged below St. Cloud in search of the 
Coralie suicides. 

On these latter occasions, her Abigail, a far more eatable 
thing than a grisette, would enter her boudoir, with com- 
pound features made up of a smile and a sigh, and simper- 
ingly announce, '^ I have the honour of informing Mademoi- 
selle that the bodies of a young lawyer aud two Mousque- 
taires Noirs were found in the river this morning. They 
were in full-dress, and each bore the usual written intima- 
tion that they died for want of the smiles of the divine 
Coralie." Whereupon, the aforesaid divinity would sip her 
chocolate, and remark, with a dissatisfied air, ^'C^esi hien 
peu de chose I Two drunken soldiers and a miserable coun- 
cillor ! Why, 't is hardly fame I " 

It was on one of these mornings, when the divinity, 
only half-propitiated by an indifferent sacrifice of worthless 
life made in her honour the previous night, received in her 
elegant boudoir, from which she had but a moment previ- 
ously dismissed Eugene Fontbonne, the nephew of the 
Archbishop of Paris, the homage of one who, considering 
his strength of mind, his wisdom, and his knowledge, was 
strangely held the willing captive of this charmer's bonds. 
This was no less than the celebrated navigator BougainviUe, 
a man who, like the hero of your Dryden's satire, had been 
everything by turns, and nothing long — with this slight 
difference, that his varied range of characters comprised all 
that was useful, though occasionally coloured by eccentricity. 
He entered with a somewhat sombre face, for he knew who 
had preceded him in rendering homage to the amiable sove- 



THE THINGS WE DON't KSOW. 299 

reign of the hour ; but lie heitber evinced no^ felt tbe isdigbtest 
portion of melsncboly. His motto was, " All for love ; '* 
buJt he de^lj declined dying of tbe complaints And nothing 
was so ren3iote from bis tbougbtt and intentions as tbe idea 
of immolating bimself in honour of the fairedt o£ the ftir 
daughitei of Terpsichore. 

'^ Well, paress&uiv r* exclaimed tbd charming pet of the 
ballet, "yom sure come at last; ftnd) I know, only to say 
' AdieUb' I saw in this morning's ' Gazette' the annouiice* 
ment of your approaching departure for the Malouines." 

" In an hour," said Bougainville, ** I oomiSnence a voyage 
round the world ; and sure I bxsl that, throu^out tbe long 
circuit) I shall see nothing half so lovely — " 

" Though twice as honest," interrupted the candid Co- 
ralie. Like many pe6{>le of thede better-regulated times, 
she tesuin^ sincerity in accusing herself of faults, that the 
world might believe she was innocent of them. 

" Gertd,inly not batf bo lovely/' resumed the honest sailor, 
lettving the lady the benefit of her own admission,-^'' no^ 
thing half so lovely as she whose hand now lies in mine." 

'^ And who," added the princess with a pout^ ** is left be- 
hind like Ariadne abandoned by Theseus,-^an illustration 
f&r which you may be grtiteful to old Piazini, who has com- 
posed a ballet for me on the subject. It will please my dear 
Sage," she continued, playfully tapping his cheek, " to know 
that I am learned as well as lovely. Thanks to Pizzini, you 
see I already know something of Eoman history." 

A quiet, but perfectly polite smile passed over the fea- 
tures of the great navigator, as he rejoined, '^ I see it, my 
sweet one. You were bom to charm and instruct mankind ; 
and you quite as much mistook your vocation when you 
became a nun as I did mine on the day I enrolled myself 
among ces diahles de Motisquetaires" 

^^ Fi done, upon the comparison!" answered Coralie; 
« even as a nun I did not disgrace my profession, nor shame 
my sisters while I was one of them." 



800 NEW FICTUBSS AUTD OLB PAITBLS. 

" And of wliat horrid crime was I guilty when a Monsque- 
taire?" asked Bougainville, something surprised. "My 
brethren-in-arms were not of that very nice virtue that a 
trifle would ruffle them. Did I bum a church ?" 

"Worse!" said Coralie. 

" Worse ? Was I absent on the night of your debut, or 
is it any horrible atrocity of that nature ?" 

" Infinitely more grave," repb'ed the fatisse prude, " Tou 
wrote a book which not even the libertine Mousquetaires 
could read." 

" True," exclaimed Bougainville, with a laugh. 

" A book which no lady ever mentions." 

" Why, true again," rejoined Bougainville ; " and the title 
of which was— " 

" Nay, I will not even listen to it !" said the nymph. 

" An Essay on the Differential Calculus," exclaimed the 
Admiral. 

"Ah!" cried Coralie, with a laughable affectation of of- 
fended dignity, " I knew it was something very improper." 

" Such improprieties, and the Mousquetaires with them," 
said Bougainville, with the sweet smile for which he was as 
famed as was Napoleon after him, " I abandoned when I 
came to years of discretion. And I accompanied the em- 
bassy to England to learn gravity ; and, indeed, it is a place 
where gravity may be well acquired. They shoot men there, 
my love, for errors they are compelled to commit ; and they 
disgrace brave officers for aiding to gain a victory. Poor 
Byng!" continued Bougainville thoughtfully, " he was one 
of the best friends I ever made among our enemies ; and 
poor Lord George — " 

" J'aime beaucoup les Milords !" said Coralie, yaMming. 

" And I too," said Bougainville, " though they are not 
half so profitable to me." 

A rather tender leave-taking followed, after a short hour 
of some such very small conversation as the above. Coralie, 



THE THINGS WI DON't KNOW. 801 

who did not affect fidelity, did her best to feign sorrow, but 
nil she could obtain was a look of sentiment and a graceful 
. attitude. *^ I shall have no hopes of suicides a la mode now 
you leave me," said the pretty Juggernaut, with an air of 
disappointment, " for I shaU have no admirer left in town 
but Fontbonne, who, like my petit marin, ungallantly de- 
clares that there is more pleasure in living without than 
dying for me — Vingrat ! " 

A sudden thought seemed to strike the Admiral as he 
turned to leave the room. As he descended the staircase his 
quiet smile expanded itself into a look of broad fun, and he 
entered his ponderous carriage, which was waiting for him 
in the courtyard, only to sink back against one of its well- 
cushioned comers in a hearty convulsion of laughter. 

According to the Admiral's order, the carriage proceeded 
at a slow pace up the Champs Elysees. " This is about his 
hour," said he, " and, parhleu ! since my beautiful demon is 
sighing for blood, and Eontbonne declines being crushed 
under the wheels of her car, why I '11 even make away with 
him myself." 

The carriage had reached the stone bridge called the Pont 
d'Antin, which then formed the means of communication 
between the celebrated promenade, which the Parisians owe 
to the good taste of Colbert, and Lea Allees de Boule, before 
Bougainville discovered his friend and rival. Immediately 
calling him by name, he invited him to enter the carriage, 
and accompany him to Versailles to breakfast. 

" If I were certain,'* said Fontbonne, " that I should be 
back in Paris by six this evening, I should be charmed to 
partake of your impromptu festival." 

Bougainville engaged, as far as mortal man could engage 
himself, that Eontbonne should be at table, if he chose it, 
by that time. Eontbonne sprang into the carriage, and the 
Admiral, who had powers of conversation equal to those of 
the illustrious Englishman, who is said, after travelling alone 



802 KEW FTCTtlBES AFD OLD PAJTXLS. 

for three or four boxm, to have inyited liimeelf to dinner as 
one of the most agreeable fellows he had tever met tidth, 
engaged his intended yictim in such * labyrinth of anec* 
dote, wit, jests, and chronicled scandal of the day ; and so 
thoroughly was Fontbonne absorbed by the ruaSy tha% the 
horses were changed at Versailles, and the royal residence 
was a league behind them, before he awoke to conscious- 
ness. 

" But where," he at length exclaimed, ^' is our intended 
breakfast? and whither are we hastening at this unusual 
paoeP" 

" My dear friend," replied Bougainville, in an a{)(^ogetic 
tone, "I have here in the carriage a better r^Mwt than 
Jacques Coeur himself, with all his wealth, could procure;" 
saying which, he produced a charming little collation, sur- 
rounded with an appetising air which the Er^ich alone 
know how to give to all picnic arraDge(ments. ^^ The truth 
is," continued Bougain\rille, " I want to surprise you by a 
charming little dinner at Domfront, and — " 

" Domfront !" cried Fontbonne, " why, I shall not be in 
Paris to-night, and Coralie— " 

^' Will play Ariadne all the better for the little disappoint- 
ment." 

" It may be so," said the second lov^^, " but I do not 
understand which of us two is the genuine Hieseus. How** 
ever, as my day is lost, and as I know you have some excel- 
lent sport in view, or you would not have carried me off to 
Domfront to witness it, why, I resign myself to my fate, and 
shall be anxious for the due appearance of both the dinner 
and the joke." 

" Neither shall be of an inferior quality, for so much 1 
pledge the name of Bougainville," said the latter. " In the 
meantime allow me to offer you the wing of this chicken, 
and let me beg of you to devote yourself to the Madeira as 
if Coralie herself were acting Hebe to you." 



THl THIKOS WB BOK't KKOW. 303 

Fontbonne followed the example of hia fntevettr, and did 
ample justice to the fare proyided by his humorous com- 
panion. So ^ectuailj did Bougainville exert himsdf^ that 
Seez and Corouges were passed through almost as uncon* 
adously as Yersailles had been. Late in the erening an 
exquisite dinner awaited them at the 'Trois Yertas' at 
Domfront. To the inquiries of Fontbonne, BougainTille 
intimated that the hour for revealing his joke had not 
yet come; but that, as all hours were fitly devoted to 
champagne^ they would apply themselves during a few of 
them to that liquid consideration, and then order ftesh 
horses. 

'' Fresh horses !" cried the astounded Fcmtbonne, ^' I am 
dying of &tigue, and my head is as confused as though 
Madame Jaequet de la Ghierre had been singing her own 
execrable com|>08itions to me unceasingly for a fortnight/' 

^^ The night air," said Bougainville, '^ is a specific for all 
such complaints* And, not to deceive you any longer, my 
dear Fontbonne, I will confess that I am about spending 
some time at Brest. You have never beheld the wonders 
of that seaport, and you are too amiable to leave me now 
half-way.'* 

At this, F(mtbonne f^ into a tempest of passion^ which 
however gradually subsided before Bougainville's calm 
manner. Assurances of furnishing him with all the means 
and appliances necessary for the toilette of & petit nudtre of 
the period, and the seductive prospect of a residence among 
the joyous spirits that were at that time making Brest glad 
with their presence, induced Fontbonne, at last, to give way. 
In the due course of events, the two travellers arrived at 
their destination. ^' Before we proceed to any less attrac- 
tive object," said the Admiral, " let us pay our homage to 
my noble vessel which is now lying in the roads." The 
firiends alighted; Bougainville gave some directions aside 
touching the carriage, and a minute after he and the half- 



304 NEW FIOTUBES AlTD OLD PANELS. 

bewildered Fontbonne were in a boat on their way to the 
chief ship of the squadron. As thej stepped on deck, all due 
honours were paid the Admiral, and his companion welcomed 
as the protSge of so great a man. A sumptuous repast in 
the state-room greeted the eyes of Fontbonne, after he had 
made a tour of inspection throughout the ship ; and at the 
conclusion of a four hours' sederunt^ he remarked, in alluding 
to the forced journey he had made with the Admiral, " I 
really believe, gentlemen, your chief is almost hardy enough 
to apply to me one of the bad usages he has acquired in 
England, and that he would scarcely scruple to press me 
to accompany you round the world." 

" Nay," said Bougainville, " I use no constraint. If you 
will join us, you shall be treated as a favoured guest ; if not, 
you are free to return on shore directly." 

" Which," said the Admiral's captain, " as it is now dark 
as midnight in the Place Manbert, and the land sixteen 
leagues astern, would be an enterprise worthy of immor- 
talizing the Fontbonnes to the latest generation." 

The party were at that precise moment of good-fellowship 
when the amiability of a man is not to be ruffled. The 
united sensations of champagne, and the smooth course of the 
vessel over the mirror-like surface of the ocean, rendered 
Fontbonne satisfied and ready for any enterprise ; and, at 
length, entering with a good measure of eagerness into the 
now-discovered joke, he only sighed " Coralie!" and went, 
impromptu, round the world. 

After a lapse of three years, the friends returned to the 
scene of their old pleasures, their passion for the danseuse 
having, in the meantime, metempsychosed itself into a plato- 
nization. Nor had the latter been either sad or idle during 
the absence of her old lovers, seeing that she had, while that 
period pended, contrived to ruin three English peers and a 
master-general of the ordnance, those excellent persons 
not knowing that there are four things which will always 



THE THnrGS WB doit't kwow. 305 

swallow and never be satiated — the graye, the sea, a king, 
and a ballet-dancer. 

Nielson, after an interval, took up another of Alexandre's 
sketches,— it represented a fine-looking gentleman bowing 
to a lady who had the audacious beauty of Mrs. Bellamy, in 
the " Picture in Three Panels." 

" Who are these ?" asked Nielsen. 

" One is Farinelli, the other is Pompadour. They have 
no story, in common," he added, " but they were both artists, 
in their respective ways, especially Pompadour, who en- 
graved on gems with considerable ability. Here is a copy 
of her Louis XV. standing between Peace and Victory." 

While the friends and companions are examining the 
book of engraved gems, of which Pompadour was the au- 
thoress,— let us consider Tier career and that of Farinelli. 



306 



PORTRAITS OF FARINELLI AUD POMPADOUR. 

^ I hare stooped to flatter Farinelli, why should I hesitate 
to praise Pompadour?" In this speech, uttered b j Maiia 
Theresa when political necessity was bending her iibpeirial 
neck beneath the heel of a French king's ndstreas, ikeie 
was a mixture of insult and injury. Fasinelli was as hooest 
a man as any in the court of Charles YI., Maria Theresa's 
father. Perhaps Pompadour was as honest a woman as 
any in the court of Louis XV. ; but honesty was not to be 
found in the entotirage of that able yet idle, accomplished 
yet worthless, monarch. Honour and honesty maintained 
a dull but respectable state in the saloons of his consort and 
of his royal daughters. 

The King's own circle was made up of incarnate iniquity, 
gallo.ping gaily to meet the deluge which Pompadour had 
prophesied, and in the eddies of which so many French go- 
vernments have encountered destruction. To place Fari- 
nelli on the same level as Pompadour was therefore to inflict 
on the former no inconsiderable wrong. To' admire the 
artistic skill of either was no condescension, even in an 
empress. To speak of Pompadour as an artist is to notice 
her in a character which looks strange to the general public; 
but in truth her line of art, in which to excel she needed 
but the poor qualifications of necessity and virtue, was su- 
perior to that by which Farinelli achieved renown and for- 
tune. Let us glance at both in their respective pursuits. 

At the court of Vienna, at the beginning of the last cen- 
tury, the chief favourite of the imperial amateur Charles VI. 



POETBAITS OP PABINELLI AISTD POMPADOFB. 807 

was Porpora, tbe gpreat jmaETter of recitative and xneastired 
art, a man wboee tuition enabled many to become ricb, but 
wbose profuse generosity rendered bis extreme old age one 
of miserable penury. Porpora owed bis position at Vienna 
to wbat would bare ruined a composer anywbere else. Tbe 
Emperor, wbo cared only for solemn music, and was never 
known to smile, burst into a fit of uncontrollable laugbter 
at bearing a sbower of trills in one of Porpora's capering 
fugues. Tbe man wbo could excite risibility in a sardonic 
Kaiser, was accounted as sometbing above tbe commcm, and 
Porpora was more esteemed tban if be bad been a pbilo« 
Bopher. 

About tbis time tiiere was a marvellously tuneful boy at 
Naples, wbo was distinguisbed by tbe title of H B%$ga»ao^ 
or ^4he boy," but wbose name was Carlo Broscbi Farinelli. 
Tbis lad became tbe pupil of Porpora, wbo produced bim at 
tbe age of seventeen to tbe critical public of Eome. Tbe 
success of Parinelli excited tbe jealousy of tbe longest- 
winded trumpeter ever known, and tbe two (instrumentalist 
and vocalist) nigbtly endeavoured to excel eacb otber in 
uttering tbe greatest amount of notes witbout taking breatb, 
wbile tbe intellectual audience sat mutely listening witb 
enraptured ears. On one occasion tbe trumpeter scattered 
wbole avalancbes of sound, wbile Farinelli competed witb 
him in never-ending " runs." Tbe instrumentalist was lost 
in bis own continuance of barmonious noise, till bis trem- 
bling lips strove in vain to puff, bowever faintly, a crowning 
note. He fondly tbougbt be bad gained tbe prize, but bis 
astonisbment was great at bearing Farinelli dasbing on, in 
tbe same breatb witb wbicb be bad started, now swelling, 
now sbaking upon tbe note, anon running tbe most rapid 
and difficult divisions, and at lengtb ceasing, not from ex- 
haustion, but because, through tbe tumultuous approbation 
of tbe audience, he could be heard no more. It was ascer- 
tained that be could sing three hundred notes without 



308 N£W FICTTTEES JLfTD OLD PAIfTSLS. 

dra¥niig breath. When it is remembered that few other 
TocaUflts have been able to accomplish more than fifty nnder 
the same conditions, some idea may be entertained of the 
powers in this respect of young EarineUi. 

Charles VI. not only criticized poor Forpora, but he con- 
descended to give counsel to his pupil ; and, while the Em- 
peror was engaged in arerting the ruin which threatened 
his great inheritance, he found time to show Eannelli how 
he might add pathos to spirit, unite simplicity with sub- 
limity, and excite as much admiration as astonishment. 
Charles YI. could not conquer at Belgrade, but he could 
make a finished singer of Farinelli. The flattery paid to 
the latter by Maria Theresa was therefore but filial eulogy 
addressed to a father who was an indifi^erent emperor, but 
who would have made an invaluable leader of an operatic 
orchestra. 

England was anxious to hear a man who united in his 
own person the excellences of all other vocalists ; and in 
1734 he appeared in Hasse's opera of ' Artaserse,' for which 
the words had been expressly furnished by Metastasio. The 
locality was the house in Lincoln' s-inn-fields, a rival to that 
in the Haymarket, where Handel reigned supreme, yet found 
it di£5cult to counteract the attraction of Farinelli, sup- 
ported by the exquisite and wayward Cuzoni, — a lady who 
might have revelled in gold like '^ Miss Kielmansegg," but 
who lived to feel starvation, and who then spent a guinea, 
given her in charity, in purchasing a bottle of claret. The 
donor wonderingly beheld her pour the costly vmie into a 
basin, dip a "pennyworth of bread" therein, and so show 
how a famished actress loved to breakfast. 

The effect produced by Farinelli in England had never 
before been equalled, and certainly has never since been 
paralleled. It is said that on one occasion, as he was play- 
ing the part of a captive prince, the tyrant to whom he was 
pleading for liberty was so touched by his sweet and plain- 



POBTBAITS OF FABIVELLI AI^D FOMFADOUB. 309 

live strains, that he spontaneously tore the light fetters from 
the limbs of the prisoner, and gave a new reading to the 
catastrophe, to the intense delight of an enraptured audience. 
In the famous air of Son qual Nave he perfectly electrified 
his hearers. Sounds so musical, so melancholy, and so 
sweet, were novel to the untutored but greedily attentive 
ears of our great-grandfathers, and when these listened to 
the lightning rapidity of roulades which lagging violins 
strove in vain to keep up with, such ovations ensued in 
honour of the performer as had never been conferred upon 
the brightest of the sons of philosophy and science. 

But the name of Farinelli will ever remain most con- 
nected with Spain. He proceeded to Madrid in 1737, taking 
Paris in his way, and even charming a French court where, 
then as now, Italian music and Italian throats were ac- 
counted as things very inferior to what France could pro- 
duce in the same line. On the arrival of the great artist in 
Madrid he was at once summoned to the palace, where lay 
a king enslaved by a melancholy which it was thought might 
be made to yield to the magic of the foreign minstrel. The 
particular madness of Philip assumed the form of an un- 
clean insanity which is general enough in those continental 
cities wherein men seem determined that beards are natural 
and inviolable appendages to chins. In other words, Philip 
of Spain refused to shave or be shaven. His relations and 
friends, his medical men (barber-surgeons), and even his 
confessors, in vain assailed the royal ear with recommen- 
dations to lay down the hirsute tabernacle which veiled the 
royal face from the respectful gaze of the lieges. Philip 
answered never a word, but continued to caress his beard, 
than which his ear was not deafer to remonstrance. The 
whole court was at its small wit's end when Farinelli arrived 
to work a cure which had defied the faculty, and which was 
to be wrought by song. He was placed in a room adjoining 
that wherein reclined the moody and long-bearded majesty 



810 mSW FICTTTSES iJTD OLD PAJfXLS. 

• 

of Spain. As the first notes of the gifted minstrel fell on 
the sick ear of the King, a frown darkened his brow as 
though he were determined to resist the voice of the charms, • 
charm he never so wisely. The frown, however, soon gave 
way to a smile, and as the notes fell in liquid sweetness 
from the lips of the son of song, clear and fuU and solemn 
as though an archangel were delivering a message of conso- 
lation from the skies, the hand of the monarch dropped 
from the beard which it grasped and guarded, and tears ^ 
began to flow freely from eyes that for weeks had been diy, 
rigid, and sleepless. The cure was accomplished, an ecstatio 
circle knelt around the King, and the latter submitted him- 
self with graceful alacrity to the ready skill and long razors 
of the Figaros of the court. The merit of FarinelH could 
not be allowed to pass unrewarded. The royal &mily mo- 
nopolized his person and talents, attached him exclusively 
to the service of the court, and, holding that the human 
instrument which had been divinely sent as a remedy to 
lead a Spanish monarch to reason and a soap-dish, was 
too good to be permitted to enchant the mean ears of the 
people, FarineUi was lodged in the palace, created a knight, 
and a pension assigned him whereby to maintain his new 
dignity with the air of a cavalier. " The dew of grace bless 
our new knight, to-day," is the wish which Beaumont and 
!Fletcher place on the hps of Valetta in behalf of Miranda. 
Few such salutations greeted FarineUi. The hellica virtnfi 
was jealous of one who had achieved more than a warrior's 
fortune, arte ccmendi, by trills rather than thrusts, by the 
tongue and not by the sword. An old battered officer, who 
had long waited in the royal antechamber in expectation of 
a pension, one day seeing FarineUi pass into the monarch's 
apartment without ceremony, exclaimed thafc it was a shame 
that such squeaking doUs should be clothed in gold while 
old soldiers were left to rags and starvation. Fannelli 
gently glanced at the bold speaker, learned his name, ex- 



POBTBAITS OF FABINSLLI AJSJ) FOMFADOUB. 811 

amined bis claims, liberally aided bim from bis own purse, 
and finally obtained for bim from tbe King tbe bonourable 
gratuity wbicb tbe old soldier's services bad nobly earned. 
Sueb traits as tbese were common in Earinelli's daily career, 
and sbe wbo praised tbe actor bad bardly bave needed to 
apologize for it, or to call tbe eulogy a stooping to flattery. 
At all eyents one tbing is clear, namely, tbat tbe family of 
ParinelH was accustomed to bonours &om crowned beads. 
• TbtiB tbe uncle of tbe great artist, wbo began life as com- 
poser, violinist, and concert-master at Hanover, lived not 
only to be- ennobled by tbe King of Denmark, but actually 
resided at Venice as tbe representative of our George I. 

Fannelli contiuued in tbe vocal service of tbe crown of 
Spain for nearly a quarter of a century, and, by wearing bis 
bonottrs modestly and applying bis fortune liberally, be ac- 
quired a popularity wbicb extended to all classes. It h 
said tbat during tbe wbole of tbat time be rarely sang in 
public, except wben commanded by royalty and bonoured 
by its presence. Innumerable are tbe stories told on tbe 
otbeT'band of tlie stratagems adopted by individuals to get 
witbin bearing of bis wonderful voice. Tbe tradespeople 
whom^ be patronized, despising ducats, cared only to be paid 
in song ; and melancboly tailors offered to receipt bis bills 
in full if be would but treat tbem to as many roulades as 
bi» account contained pistoles. 

^ After bis long triumpb, as soon as time, tbat edaa of 
Toices as well as otber tbings, began to make gentle im- 
preasum upon tbe organ for wbicb all bearers would bave 
desired an immortal endurance, Earinelli witbdrew to bis 
native Italy, and in bis s^plendiidpalazzo welcomed all comers, 
and particularly bis Englisb visitors, witb tbe grace of a 
prince and tbe beartiness of an bonest and sincere man. 
He was at tbis time unwise enougb to make a sbort profes- 
sional sojourn in England ; but our grand&tbers could only 
discover in bim tbe excellent metbod, but no longer tbe in- 



812 KEW FICTUBES AlTD OLD FJHTELS. 

comparable Toice of the Earinelli of wellnigh lialf a century 
before. He accepted the lesson of his comparative failure 
with cheerful meekness, and, once more turning his face 
homeward, he died " a blameless man," in the year 1782, in 
the eighty-fourth year of his age. There are yet persons 
living who were contemporary with the man who was sing- 
ing in his youth when " Great Anna " was our Queen ! 

Such was Farinelli ; as for Madame de Pompadour, if she 
was less worthy as an individual, she was even greater as 
an artist, and, but for the temptation to which she yielded, 
she might have held the most dignified place in the Dic- 
tionary of Engravers. 

When Louis XV. married Maria Leczinska, daughter of 
Stanislas, ex-King of Poland, the modest bridegroom was 
but fifteen years of age, the bride some seven years older. 
For several years a more exemplary couple could not have 
been found ; but at last it might have been said of the King, 
as MassOlon said of his royal grandfather, he forgot every 
duty owing to the Queen, save that of politeness. He 
fancied that his infidelity was well paid for by excessively 
candying his courtesy. If his wife ever ventured to tax 
him with wickedness, she at least could never say he was 
uncivil. 

It was Cardinal Fleury who led the young monarch into 
iniquity. The King had capacity for business and wished 
to exercise it, but the Cardinal put in his way the young 
and simple Madame de Mailly. This young lady's guilty 
greatness was envied by her sister, a little novice who used 
to visit her at Versailles, and who contrived to have her 
ejected, and to succeed to her dishonour. When the sister 
(De Ventimille) died, the first concubine was restored to 
her old disgraceful dignity, from which she was finally de- 
posed by another sister, Madame de Toumelle, who drove 
her sister into a convent, forced the King into active life at 
the head of his armies, and displayed her own brilliant 



PORTBAITS or FABINELLI AKB POMPADOUR. 318 t 

beaatj in the camp as Duchesse de Chateauroux. The 
Duchess was the lady of the hour when the King was at- 
tacked by dangerous illness at Metz. Like another cele- 
brated potentate, he was never sick without longing to be a 
saint, and his confessor induced him to dismiss the mistress. 
The Duchess re-appeared when the King became well and 
wicked. Death, however, soon closed her brief reign. Her 
sister, Madame de Lauraguais, was unable to keep long the 
post which had been held by three so near akin. A fierce 
struggle ensued among ladies of the highest blood to suc- 
ceed to the vacant infamy ; and, while intrigue was at its 
very hottest and highest, in stepped a nameless but pert 
and pretty girl, who contrived to subdue the monarch as 
completely as she enslaved the man. 

Her name was Jeanne Poisson. She was the daughter of 
a rather gay mother and of a clerk in a Government office, 
who once very narrowly escaped hanging for fraudulent 
practices. She received a brilliant education at the expense 
of a certain M. le Normant de Tourneham, whose paternal 
regard for her was not exercised without reason, and who 
took an honest fatherly pride in seeing her in her earliest 
youth proficient in music and drawing, and especially in 
copper-plate engraving, and in engraving on gems. M. Le 
Normant gave this accomplished lady in marriage to his 
nephew Le Normant d'Etiolles. The young husband was 
plain, childishly simple, but warmhearted. The young wife 
was enchanting, cunning, and calculating. She detested 
her consort, and was even then looking to titular consort- 
ship with a King. Li the meantime she maintained a little 
court around her, the chief officers of which were Voltaire 
and Cahusac, Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Maupertuis, and 
the gallant Abbe de Bernis, of whom she subsequently made 
a Cardinal and a Minister of Foreign Affairs. It will be 
seen that she had a taste in selecting her followers. There 
was not a fool among them. She so worshiped intellect 

p 



814 WKvr ncTtmxs akd 01.1^ tasvlb. 

that I question if she would hare even cared for tbe King 
himself, but that, among other qualities, he possessed un- 
derstanding — an understanding which its owner misapplied, 
and which Jeanne Poisson abused. 

In the King's service there was a favourite attendant, a 
male cousin of Madame d'EtioUes. One idle morning, when 
the monarch seemed to be already weary of the day, this 
attendant ventured to remark that he had heard of a strange 
madcap of a young wife who bad laughingly told her hus- 
band that she would be constant to him against all the 
world, excepting only the King of France and Navarre. 
Louis smiled, ordered his hunting equipage, shot a stag in 
the Forest of Senaart, and entering the chateau d'Etiolles, 
on the skirts of the forest, presented the antlers to the 
master of the house ! The young husband, overwhelmed 
with the honour, suspended the boms above the door of his 
diawiug-room. At all the King's subsequent hunting 
parties, Madame d'Etiolles was present, dressed in greater 
variety of costume than ever was worn by Diana, and looking 
infinitely more bewitching ! She was an admirable rider, 
and at length she fairly rode away with the King. M. d'Eti- 
olles received a little billet that night from his wife, politely 
informing him that she was on a visit to Versailles, and did 
not very well know when she should be back. M. d'Etiolles 
looked up musingly at the royal present over his drawing- 
room door, and shook his head as if oppressed by the weight 
of his Yerj thoughts. A day or two later he began to give 
to these thoughts incautious utterance, and his indiscre- 
tion was rewarded by an appointment which exiled him to 
Avignon. He bore the banishment for a year with feverish 
impatience, and then capitulated. He purchased a permis- 
sion to return to Paris by promising never to trouble his 
errant spouse, and never to enter a theatre after intimation 
given to him that she was likely to be present. "When he 
retruned to the capital he heard no more of his wife by 



POBTBJJTS of TAntSttZl iiinD POirPADOUB. 815 

liame, btt much of a Marchioness de Pompadour, whose 
wit, yivacitj, and grac6 had established a permanent ecstasj 
at Versailles, whose accomplishments had excited an interest 
even in the nsed-np king, and whose prodigious extraya- 
gance was the wonder and indignation of the Parisians. As 
for her old father, he was placed in ignoble ease. Of her 
brother she had made a Marquis de Vandi^re, — a title which 
the wits of the capital had converted into Marquis ii'AvanU 
hief, or of " the day before yesterday." The woimded gen- 
tleman foiled the punsters by changing his marquisate to 
that of " de Marigny," and by procuring his appointment to 
the lucrative offices of director and controller-general of the 
buildings, woods, forests, arts, and manufactures of the 
kingdom. One of the finest line engra-vings I have ever 
seen, and partly the work of his sister, represents him, with 
his titles annexed, as a portly young man, looking perfectly 
unconscious that his honours were the price of his sister's 
diahonour. 

The treasures of the kingdom were made to flow at the 
Marchioness's good pleasure, and, if she sometimes directed 
them in a praiseworthy way, she too often lavishly misap- 
propriated them. Royal residences were assigned her, and 
revenues to support them. The magnificent chateau of 
Belle- Vue, well known to all who have visited the environs 
of Paris, sprang up from the ground like a fairy palace at 
her bidding. The neighbouring landholders were compelled 
to surrender their land at prices fixed by the court, that she 
might have space enough of garden-ground to entertain her 
royal lover and his numerous suite. When she purchased 
the aristocratic mansion of the D'Evreux in Paris, and, 
rasing it to the ground, built another, above whose portico 
she placed the shield of the ancient house of Pompadour, as 
though she had been a daughter of that noble race, the walls 
of her residence were covered with placards which bore 
the well-expressed and sarcastic opinions of the capital; 

p 2 



816 FEW PICTUBE8 AND OLD PAIYELS. 

and wben the shameless mistress was impudent enough to 
encroach on the public walks in order to enlarge her own 
private grounds, the people attacked the workmen, pulling 
down the wall as fast as it was raised. Upon which the 
monarch, as imprudent as his mistress was impudent, de- 
spatched a detachment of his royal guard, who repulsed 
the king's subjects, while his concubine tranquilly built a 
wall to conceal and protect her bower ! 

There was little mercy in those days for those who 
offended the imperious favourite. On one occasion, when 
the infant Duke of Burgundy was exhibited to the people, 
— into the little golden cradle in which he lay behind a 
gilded grating, some one contrived to slip a written denun- 
ciation against the monarch and his mistress, — an offence 
which ruined many suspected persons, without striking the 
one that was guilty. So when the peculiar condition of the 
health of the Marchioness reduced the liaison between her- 
self and the king to one of a platonic aspect, the wits of the 
capital flung their sarcastic verses into her apartments, and 
meekly resigned themselves to the captivity and loss of 
place which rewarded the bold exercise of their humour. 
Her assailants were among the noblest of the land, but she 
smote them as mercilessly as though she had been a Hiche- 
lieu in petticoats. 

It is a strange circumstance that her arrogance increased 
at the precise moment that one might have expected her 
influence to be on the wane. When she was an emerita, if 
I may so call her condition of ex-concubineship, those who 
attended her levees in her dressing-room found her seated 
in the solitary chair that was in the apartment. No one 
could sit in her presence : but the Marquis de Souvre was 
once bold enough, while paying his compliments, to seat 
himself on the arm of the chair in which she lay reclining 
and indignant. The audacity had wellnigh ruined the 
Marquis, but the King interceded for him, and his pardon 



P0BTKAIT8 OF FAEIKELLI AND POMPADOUE. 317 

was reluctantly accorded. When Louis attended her levees 
she would condescend to order a stool to be brought in for 
his use ; but when princes of the blood and cardinals adr 
dressed their homage to her, she received them standing 
before her solitary chair. A seat for them would have been 
to lower her own dignity to the ground. A young noble- 
man served her as groom of the chambers, and she compelled 
the King to confer on her butler, a common menial, thie 
then glorious military cordon of the Order of Saint Louis. 
"Alas!" said an old chevalier, with a sigh, "the King, by 
placing the cross of the royfd saint on a livery coat, has 
done for it exactly what he did for English * nankeens.' 
When he wished to destroy the popularity of that foreign 
material in France, he ordered it to be worn by every execu« 
tioner who appeared on the scaffold." 

The two objects nearest to the heart of " the Pompadour" 
were to be received by the Dauphin, and to become lady-in- 
waiting to the Queen. The first was easily accomplished ; 
but when the heir to the throne bent forward to bestow the 
ceremonial kiss, he simply thrust his tongue into his cheek, 
and so left her. The King instantly sent him, under arrest, 
to his ch^eau de Meudon, from which he was freed only by 
the action of a double lie. Li open court he assured the 
Marchioness that he had not been guilty of the insult, and 
she smilingly replied that she believed him incapable of 
committing such an outrage. Had there been an honest 
man among the courtiers who witnessed the scene, he would 
have uttered, trumpet-tongued, the royal saying, that if 
truth were banished from among all other people, it should 
still find refuge in the breast of princes. 

The attempt to wring from the scandalized Queen the 
nomination of the Marchioness to an honourable dignity in 
her royal and virtuous circle was a more difficult achieve- 
ment. Her Majesty protested against being compelled to 
receive a married woman who was living separated of her 



SIS mSW PICTUBXS AlTD OLD JfAMMlS. 

own wiU from her husband, and who was of a not<»iouBl^ 
irreligious life. A rare •comedy ensued. The mistress wrote 
a penitential letter to her discarded consort, who, under the 
direction of the Prince de Soubise, specially chiu*ged for the 
purpose, retiuned for answer that he was delighted at her 
restoration to heayenlj sentiments, and was fully convinced 
that the sfdyation of both depended on their liying separate. 
The next step was to be received at public communion bj 
the celebrated Jesuit Father de Sacj ; but the priest was 
Uiexorable. He would not believe in the repentance of a 
concubine who continued to reside in the King's apart- 
ments. Her wrath was severely felt by the order, but the 
Church generally expressed satis£ftction at the course she 
had taken ; a score of easy bishops honoured the ceremony 
of her presence at the sacrament, and Jeanne Poisson be- 
came first lady-in-waiting to the insulted Queen of France. 
The knife of Damiens, which had nearly cut short the 
career of Louis, placed in temporary peril the dignity and 
possessions of the Marchioness. The Jesuits, whom she had 
humiliated, accused her and the parliament of having con- 
spired with the English government to assassipate the King, 
The accusation was too gross in itself, and too vindictively 
framed, to admit of belief, and the mistress triumphed over 
her enemies. A settled melancholy, however, descended on 
the King, the infamous remedy for which was the invention 
of the Marchioness, and was applied in order to secure her 
own position by keeping from the monarch all inclination 
to establish another concubine under the roof of YersaUles. 
Into this iniquity I cannot enter further than by stating 
that she presented her old lover with the "Hermitage" in 
the famous Fare au Cerf, and this she peopled with pretty 
female children, who were immolated therein to a Moloch, 
compared with whom the fiend so called of old was a very 
ftngel of light. An awfuUy characteristic trait of Louis is 
connected with the chronicle of this place of sacrifice. He 



f OBTBAITS OF FA-UVSLLI JOTB POMP^BOVB. 8]L9 

was, After bis fiishion, eminently religious, and his confessor 
declared, with a mixture of blushes and pride, that after be 
took by the hand the destined youthful victim of the night, 
he might be heard teaching her the catechism, repeating 
with her the evening prayers, and adjuring her never to lose 
her reverence for the blessed Virgin, the Mother of our 
Lord ! The wretched old savage appears himself to have 
been struck by a faint idea that this sort of sanctity fell 
short of what was required to secure his salvation. The 
balance in Heaven^s account was decidedly against him, but 
he turned the amount in his favour by building that famous 
church of St. Gt-enevi^ve, which so gratified the ecclesiastics 
of the day, that they thought it would even include Madame 
de Pompadour in its saving effects, and which has been 
spoken of by the exemplary '^ JN^apoleon III." as a touching 
monument of the exalted piety of Louis XY. The comment 
was worthy of the act ! 

Within the circuit of the Fare au Cerf, Madame de Pom- 
padour had once herself amused the King by her dramatic 
performances, her concerts, and by entertainments in which 
she i^peared in a score of characters, and was perfect in all. 
Now, while the King there dwelt with favourites provided 
by herself, she goverued and ruined Erance, answering 
every counsel, remonstrance, and prophecy, by the now pro- 
v^bial saying, ''After us, the deluge!" Abroad, as at 
home. Prance knew nothing of glory under her sway; and 
when with one dash of her pen she overthrew the entire 
system of Henri IV., of Bichelieu, and of Louis XIV., and 
entered into a treaty of alliance with Austria, it was for no 
better reason than that Frederick of Prussia had spoken of 
her as '' Sultana Smock," and that Maria-Theresa, standing 
in need of her assistance, had condescended to address her 
in an epistle which commenced with " My dearest love.' ' 
She was forty-two years of age when she expired at Ver- 
sailles, on the 15th of April, 1764. The "deluge," which 



^320 VIEW PICTUBK8 AND OLD PAlfHSLS. 

she said would come after her, seemed descending from the 
clouds as the hearse which contained her remains left the 
court-yard of the chtLteau for Paris. The apathetic King 
sauntered to one of the windows to witness the departure ; 
and all the funeral oration uttered by him on the occasion 
was to the effect, that " the Marchioness had satanically bad 
weather to travel in, and would not arrive in Paris before 
ten o'clock." 

The " chronique scandaleuse" of the courtesan has left 
me but limited space to speak of the artist. In line- 
engraving she was expert, but in engraving on stones she 
was an almost faultless executante. Her portraits of the 
Dauphin and Dauphine, of the King, and of her " cavalier 
servente " the Abbe de Bemis, her pigeon, as she used to 
call him, were only privately circulated, and any one of them 
would be accounted a treasure by collectors. The * Tri- 
umph of Fontenoy' was one of a projected series of illus- 
trations of the great events of the reign of Louis XV. This 
subject she engraved alike on copper and on a gem. It re- 
presented Victory crowning the King, who holds by the 
hand the young Dauphin, both standing in a chariot that 
would be drawn by four horses, only that the traces have 
been omitted. The ' Victory' of Laufeldt represents that 
goddess, winged and erect, standing upon the prostrate tro- 
phies of the enemy. The Victory is a portrait of the fair 
artist, who, it must be said, had in most of her works the 
benefit of the suggestive counsel of the accomplished en- 
graver, Guay. The Preliminaries of the Peace of 1748 she 
illustrated by representing the King as Hercules, standing 
between Victory, to whom his face is turned, and Peace, who 
is on the other side endeavouring to attract his attention. 
It is the best of the series. It is far superior to the en- 
graving of the * Birth of the Duke of Burgundy,' wherein 
a very stout-limbed France painfully stoops to pick up a 
•child, over whom Pallas (that is, Madame de Pompadour) 



POBTBAITS OF FABI17ELLI JlSB POMPADOUR. 321 

holds her protecting shield. The figure of France, who, in 
another engraying, is kneeling at the altar of Hygeia, pray- 
ing for the restoration to health of the Dauphin, is a far 
more graceful figure than the lady of the same name in the 
preceding piece. The Minervas and Apollos have the true 
classical spirit both in feature and bearing, but her imper- 
sonations of nations are generally defective, never worse 
than in the last illustration of the work, for the accomplish- 
ment of which Maria Theresa stooped to flatter her, on 
the ground that she had condescended to do the same to 
Parinelli. I allude to the Alliance of Austria and Prance. 
The two old foes and new friends are seen in the figures of 
a couple of stalwart hussies, who are shaking hands, as if 
they were about to conmience a pugilistic encounter : the 
torch of Discord and the mask of Hypocrisy lie at their 
feet, but untrodden upon, and evidently ready for instant 
use when required; while a Uvely serpent, wreathing him- 
self round an altar, looks full of mischief, and may be 
accepted as a caricature of the mock religious rites by which 
the fatal alliance was consecrated. 



p 8 



822 



"TABLEAUX DE PARIS" IN THE LAST 

CENTURY. 

With two volumes under his arm, Alexandre, emboldened 
by the success of his pencil-sketch of Bougainville and Co- 
ralie, one night remarked, that he had brought with him a 
portfolio full of " tableaux " of old French customs and cha- 
racters painted from life, by two very different artists. He 
placed on the table the famous * Tableau de Paris ' of Mer- 
cier, and the more recently-kno^^Ti collection of slf:etches of 
past Parisian scenes by the Baroness d'Oberkirch. As in 
galleries great or small, pictures that form jpendants hang at 
certain regulated distance from each other, so this may be 
considered as hanging in that capacity with the picture 
of London a century old. As these pictures, too, are "word- 
pictures," they may be considered apart from the company 
for whom they formed subjects of discussion. 

Let us commence by remarking, that if it were possible 
that the vexed spirit of the Baroness d'Oberkirch were con- 
scious that her very noble name could have been mingled 
with that of a common hov/rgeois, her indignation would be 
most intense. Had she ever reflected that her keeping a 
diary would have made of her a member of the republic of 
letters, she would have died rather than have belonged to 
such a commonwealth. The Baroness was one of a class 
whose numbers were great, and whose influence was un- 
bounded. Their sympathies were given only to aristocratic 
sufterers ; royalty they adored ; the democracy they despised ; 
Jind the very fine ladies of the class in question would, ge- 



" TABLEAITX J>^ FABIS " IK THE LAST C£KTUBY. 828 

nerallj speaking, have preferred Skfauapas with a prince to 
contracting honest marriage with an inferior. 

The Baroness d'Oberkirch is a type rather of the follies 
than of the vices of the class, for haying made her a mem- 
ber of which she prettily offered her best compliments to 
Heaven. She was the daughter of a poor Alsatian baron, 
whose shield had more quarterings than it is worth while to 
remember. Early in life she married a noble gentleman, old 
enough to be her father, and her best years were consumed 
in performing the functions of lady-in-waiting at the court 
of the Duke of Wiirtemberg at Montbeliard, in visiting the 
more attractive court at Versailles, and in chronicling what 
she saw, and registering what she thought. 

The diary which she kept, and subsequently enlarged, was 
submitted to the public in 1852. It introduces us to the 
court and capital of France during the closing years of the 
reign of Louis XVI. It is interesting, as showing us both 
how the court acted and how the capital thereon commented ; 
how the lady profoundly admired all the former did, and 
as profoundly despised all the thought devoted thereto by 
the canaille who had no claim to stand upon red-heeled 
shoes, or to sit down on a tabouret in the face of royalty. 

Now while this illustrious lady was taking notes, which 
her grandson has printed, a citizen was similarly occupied ; 
and had the Countess been aware of the circumstance, 
the impudence of the commoner would have been soundly 
rated by the lady-in-waiting. The notes of the Bourgeois 
were committed to the press three-quarters of a century 
ago ; those of the " Baroness- Countess" have more lately 
seen the light. The evidence of two such opposite wit- 
nesses is worth comparing ; but the book of the lady will be 
ten-fathom deep in Lethe when men will be still addressing 
themselves with pleasure to the pages of Citizen Mercier. 

Louis Sebastian Mercier was a Parisian, born in the year 
1740. He had not yet attained his majority when he opened 



324 HEW PICTFBES USD OLD PANELS. 

his literary career by poetical compositions in the style of 
Pope's * Heloise to Abelard.' Upon poets, however, he soon 
looked as he subsequently did upon kings, and speedily ad- 
dressed himself exclusively to works in prose. Eacine and 
Boileau, according to him, had ruined the harmony of French 
verse, and he henceforward considered that if such harmony 
were to be found at all, it was in his own prose. He became 
Professor of Ehetoric in the college at Bordeaux, and was 
rather a prolific than a successful dramatic author. He 
threw the blame alike on the vitiated taste of actors and 
public ; and, shaking the dust off his sandals against thea- 
tres and capital, he hastened to Rheims with the intention 
of practising the law, in order to be better enabled to apply 
its rigours against the stage managers who had deprived 
him of his " free admissions." In 1771 he printed his *L'An 
2440, ou Reve s'il en fut jamais,' a rather clever piece of 
extravagance, which was imitated in England, half a cen- 
tury later, by the author of * The Mummy.' In 1781 he 
published anonymously the first two volumes of his famous 
* Tableau de Paris.' He was disappointed that his labour was 
not deemed worthy of notice by the police authorities, and 
he retired, somewhat in disgust, to Switzerland, where he 
completed a work which has been far more highly esteemed 
abroad than in France, and which even there enjoyed a 
greater reputation in the provinces than in Paris. In it 
he showed himself a better sketcher of what lay before him 
than a discemer of what was beneath the surface ; and he 
spoke of the impossibility of a revolution in France only a 
year before that revolution broke out. When the storm 
burst in fury, he claimed the honours due to a magician who 
had provoked the tempest. He wrote vigorously on the po- 
pular side, but— and to his lasting honour be it spoken — he 
broke with the Jacobins, when he found that they hoped 
to walk to liberty through a pathway of blood. He voted 
in the Convention for saving the life of Louis XVI., and 



« mA-nT.xiATT-w- -nx. n«^Ta*> 



TABJjEAXrS. DE PABIS IN THE LAST CENTUBT. 325 

this and other offences against the sons of freedom, whose 
abiding-place was the Mountain, caused him to be arrested, 
and would have led to his execution, but that his enemies 
were carried thither before him. At a later period, he was 
a member of the Council of Five Hundred, and made him- 
self remarkable by opposing the claims set up for Descartes 
for admission into the French Pantheon ; and he also gained 
the approbation of all rightly -thiuking men for taking the 
same adverse course against Voltaire, of whom he truly said 
that he (Voltaire) only attempted to overthrow superstition 
by undermining morality. His invectives were so bitter 
against philosophy and education, that he acquired the sur- 
name of ' The Ape of Jean- Jacques !' He was a denouncer 
of the immoral system of lotteries until he was offered the 
lucrative place of controller-general " of that gambling de- 
partment. "All men," said he, by way of apology for his 
inconsistency, " all men are authorized to live at the expense 
of the enemy ;" a maxim unsound in itself, and here alto- 
gether misapplied. Towards the end of the century, he was 
appointed to the professorship of history in the central school 
of Paris, from the labours of which post he found relaxation 
in various literary works, — among others, in ridiculing Con- 
dillac and Locke, in laughing at Newton as a plagiarist, in 
denouncing science generally, and in maintaining that there 
was nothing new under the sun, and that all novel inven- 
tions were in truth but ancient discoveries. As a member 
of the Institute, he put the Assembly into a condition of 
profound somnolency by reading his ponderous paper on 
Cato of TJtica, and he had a violent quarrel with the few who 
had remained awake, and who wished the angry author to 
put an end to his wearisome discourse. He liked the Em- 
pire as little as he had loved royalty ; and used to say, in his 
pleasant way in the caf(6 wherein he reigned supreme, and 
where he was highly popular and ever welcome, that he 
should like to see how it would all end, and that he only 



826 K£W FI0TVSS8 JLSJ) OLD PAITSLS. 

desired to live fi^m a motiye of simple curiosity. He did live 
just long enough to witness the first Bestoraticoi of 1B14, 
having then reached the age of seventy-four years. 

Of all the works of this voluminous author, we have now 
only to do with his famous ^ Tableau de Paris.' In this, as 
in the Memoirs of the Baroness d'Oberkirch, we have a pic- 
ture of what France was in the lifetime of many who are yet 
living — a picture so different from any that could represent 
present deeds, their actors, or the very stage on which they 
play out their little drama of intrigue and life, that though 
to many it represents contemporary history, it reads like ro- 
mance, the scene of which is in a far-off land, and the inci- 
dents too improbable to even require belief. 

Wide apart as were the conditions, opposite as were the 
sympathies, and also the antipathies, of the Baroness and 
the Bourgeois, their respective testimony conducts to but 
one conclusion, — that, when they wrote, the entire social 
state of France was rotten to the very core. The nobles 
were loyal only because they found their interests concerned 
in so being ; the commons were rebellious of spirit, and care- 
less of judgment to direct it. Both were equally debased. 
All were partisans ; none were patriots. The very priest- 
hood were as corrupt in the mass as the multitude of the 
people generally ; and God was dethroned in France long 
before the Goddess of Reason had been raised on the dese- 
crated altars, by men not perhaps so much more wicked than 
their predecessors as more bold in their wickedness. 

In the childhood of some yet living, Paris paid to the 
King's purse one hundred million francs yearly in duties. 
The citizens grumbled, and when the murmur reached Ver- 
sailles the powdered beaux were wont to say that "the irogs 
were croaking." It was alleged in return against those very 
beaux that thei/ consumed more flour in hair-powder than 
would feed many scores of the famished families of the ca- 
pital. Into that capital the King never entered but a rise 



'^ TABLEAUX DS PABI8 " IV TH|5 LAST OEITTUBY. 327 

oeeurred in the prioe 4^ provisions, and the fifty thousand 
llHurbers of the citj&nned into flame the indignation of their 
oudtomers while they shaved their beards an.d combed their 
perukes. I^et what would occur, however, the court was 
ev€^ gay. Madame d*Oberkirch B>peaks of the expectations 
of triumph held out by the Count d'Artois when he pro- 
ceeded to the siege of Gibraltar. His failure was visited 
with a shower of witty epigrams. " Comment va le si^ge de 
Gibraltar ? Assez bien, il se leve,^* is one recorded by Mer- 
cier. Madame d'Oberkirch teUs us of another made by the 
defeated Count himself. A courtier was flattering him on 
the way he managed his batteries at the fatal rock. — " My 
kitchen battery, particularly !*' was the comment of the gastro- 
nomic prince, who at home had four servants to present him 
with one cup of chocolate, and to save whose ears, in com- 
mon with the King and the royal family, the church bells 
at Versailles never rang a peal during the residence of 
those great ones of the earth within the walls of the palace. 
But Eliza Bonaparte showed even greater sensitiveness than 
this. When in Italy, she pulled down a church adjoining 
her palace, on the plea that the smell of the incense made 
her sick, and that the noise of the organ made her head ache. 
The bourgeois of Versailles were probably less democratic 
than those of the capital, for tradesmen of r^ute vied with 
each other in purchasing the dishes that came untasted from 
the royal table. Commoner people bought as eagerly, but 
for superstitious purposes, the fat of the dead from the exe- 
cutioner, who was paid eighteen thousand francs yearly for 
performing his terrible duties. The executioner, in conse- 
quence, was himself something of an aristocrat. He was a 
potentate, and was well paid. He kept less flaming fires on 
his hearth, perhaps, and wore less fine linen, than, the grave- 
diggers, — a class who found their fuel in coffins, and who 
wore no shirts but such as they could steal out of aristo- 
cratic graves. It was a time when honesty consisted solely 



328 NEW PICTUBES AKD OLD PAITELS. 

in being well-dressed. Clerks at forty pounds a year, says 
Mercier, walk abroad in velvet coats and lace frills, — hence 
the proverb, " Gold-laced coat and belly of bran." As long 
as appearance was maintained, little else was cared for ; but 
even the twenty thousand in the capital who professionally 
existed as " diners out," might have taken exception to the 
custom of placing carved fruits and wooden joints upon 
otherwise scantily furnished tables. The wooden pears of 
Australia were not then known, — they would have been the 
fashionable fruit at a Parisian dessert in the year 1780. There 
was another fashion of the day that was wittily inveighed 
against by the priests ; tliat of ladies wearing on what was 
called their " necks," a cross held by the dove, typical of 
faith by the Holy Ghost. " Why suspend such symbols on 
your bosoms ?" asked the ungallant churchmen ; " do you 
not know that the cross is the sign of mortification, and 
the Holy Spirit that of virtuous thoughts?" The ladies 
smiled, and retained the insignia till all-powerfiil fashion mo- 
tioned to a change. And then female coteries were absorbed 
in the merits of the respective shades of colour implied by 
" dos de puce," or " ventre" of the same. Our ladies have 
more nicely retained the name of the animal in the catalogue 
of colours, without venturing to translate it ; but their less 
susceptible sisters across the Channel could, under the old 
monarchy, and even under the empire, unblushingly talk of 
their satins, using names for their colours which would have 
called up a blush even on the brow of the imperturbable 
Dean Swift. If small delicacy prevailed, the luxury was as- 
tounding. Kfermier-general was served by twenty-four va- 
lets in livery, and never less than six " women" assisted at 
the toilet of " my lady." Two dozen cooks daily excited the 
palate of that self-denying priest, the Cardinal de Eohan ; 
while his eminence's very footmen looked doubly grand by 
appearing like " Tiddy Bob, with^a watch in each fob." Gen- 
tlemen then dined in their swords, ate rapidly, and has- 



"tableaux de pabts' in the last centubt. 329 

tened from table when it suited them, without any formal 
leave-taking. This was felt more acutely by the cooks than 
by the ladies, — in compliment to whom the cavaliers finally 
dropped their swords and assumed canes. The latter came 
in when the ladies wore such high-heeled shoes that without 
the support of a cane it was almost impossible to walk. The 
gentlemen with " clouded heads" to their canes, tottered, or 
saunt^ered aloug in company, while fans were furled and 
snuff-boxes carried, according to the instructions of masters, 
who thundered through Paris in gilded chariots, bespatter- 
ing the philosophers, mathematicians, and linguists that 
plodded basely by them on foot. " La Kobe dine. Finance 
soupe," is a saying that also illustrates a fashion of the day. 
Of fashion at court, Madame d'Oberkirch tells us that at 
presentations the King was ohliged to kiss duchesses and 
the cousins of kings, but not less noble persons. Louis 
XVI. was timid in the presence of ladies. Marie- Antoinette 
was ever self-possessed, whatever might be the occasion. It 
was etiquette to kiss the edge of her robe. The following 
picture by the Baroness is characteristic of the fashion of 
the times : — 

" I had an adventure this evening that at first embarrassed 
me a little, but from which I had the good fortune to come 
off with honour. I wore on my arm a very handsome brace- 
let, that had been given me by the Countess du Nord (wife 
of the Grand Duke Paul of Russia, then travelling under 
the title of Count du Nord), and the value of which was 
greatly ephanced to me by having her portrait in its centre. 
The Queen noticed it, and asked me to show it her. I im- 
mediately opened my fan, to present the bracelet on it to her 
Majesty, according to etiquette. This is the only occasion 
on which a lady can open her fan before the Queen. My 
fan, which was of ivory, and wrought like the most delicate 
lace, was not able to bear the weight of the bracelet, which 
-sank through it to the ground. I was in a very awkward 



ddO KEW PICTUJUM AKD OLD PAKSLA. 

position. The Queen's hand was held out, and I felt that 
every eye was on me ; but I think that I got out of the di- 
lemma very well, — I stooped, which was very painful with 
my stiff petticoat, and, picking up the bracelet, immediately 
presented it to her Majesty, saying, * Will the Queen have 
the goodness to forget me, and think only of the Grand 
Duchess?' The Queen smiled and bowed; and everybody 
admired my presence of mind." 

When we read of such delicate homage as ihis paid to the 
divinity that hedged the Queen, we can more fully sympa- 
thize with her in her fall when she, who had been so dain- 
tily worshiped, was unceasingly watched in her dungeon 
by the coarsest of men, and who was dragged to execution 
with no other sign that human love yet inclined to her than 
that afforded by the infant child of&pausarde, who, nused 
on her mother's shoulders to view the spectacle of a queen 
passing on her way to death, put her little fingers to her lips, 
and wafted a kiss to the meek pilgrim as she passed. 

Madame d'Oberkirch, speaking of the Chevalier de Mor- 
ney, notices his strong method of expression as one '* which, 
except in the society of her husband, would be too b>oad 
for the ears of a modest woman," — a singular exception! 
But our fair diarist does not ^pear to be heirself over par- 
ticular. She is the warm apologist of the Duchesse de 
Bourbon, the unworthy mother of the heroic Due d*Enghien. 
She, however, tells the following, " with gre^t hesitation,*' 
as a sign of the depravity of the times — it is certainly ^ther 
piquant : — 

"The Duchess of had one day received a visit from 

her lover, M. Archambault de Talleyrand- P^rigord, when 
the husband unexpectedly returning, the gallant was obliged 
to make his escape by the window. Some persons seeing 
him descend, made him prisoner, thinking he was a robber . 
but, having explained who he was, he was allowed to go, 
without being brought before the injured husband. The 



« m 4 -B-r -u . «T^ -n.. ■».•»*«)« 



TABLlfiAUX DS PAIUB '* IN T^S LAST CEKTITBY. 981 

stoij soon became generally known, and the King reproved 
the lovely Duchess for her coquetry : * You intend to imitate 
your mother, I perceive, madlime,' said he, in a very severe 
tone. The tale at last reached the ears of the Duke, who 
complained to the mother-in-law of the conduct of his wife ; 
but she coolly said to him, * You make a great noise about a 
trifle ; your &ther was much more polite !' " 

This lady was of the quality of Madame de Matignon, 
who gave twenty-four thousand livres to Bailard, on condi- 
tion that he would send her, every morning, a new head- 
dress. The people were at this period suffering &om famine 
and high prices. Selfishness and other vices survived the 
period, however ; — ^witness Madame Tronchin, who, in the 
Bevolution, was daily losing her relatives by the guillotine, 
but who sympathizingly remarked to a friend, that, if it were 
not for her darling little cup of cafe a la crime, she really 
did not know how she should survive such misfortunes ! 
Such was the fine lady who wore a '^ Oadogan'' and looked 
like a man ; while the gallants took to English greatcoats, 
with buttons on them larger than crown-pieces, and on every 
button the portrait of a mistress. 

A curious and revolting custom prevailed at this same 
period. During Passion Week all theatres were closed ; 
but more infamous places remained open ; the royal family 
cut vegetables curiously arranged to represent fish and other 
food ; the court chaplains enjoyed on Holy Thursday the 
privilege of unlimited liberty of speech in presence of the 
king. It was on a Holy Thursday that a court chaplain 
ventured to s^y from the pulpit, in the royal hearing of 
Louis XIV., that " we are all mortal," and when the mo- 
narch, who could not bear the sight of the towers of the 
cathedral of St. Denis, sternly looked up at the preacher, 
the latter, trembling for his chance of a bishopric, amended 
his phrase and its doctrine by adding, '^ Yes, Sire, almost 
all of us ! " The custom to which I have alluded at the be- 
giimidg of iim p^ijag^h ^ nan:»ted by Merder, ^nd i« 



882 NEW PICTTIBES AlH) OLD PAITELS. 

substantiallj to this effect. On the night between Holy 
Thursday and Good Friday, a relic of the true cross was 
exposed for public adoration in the " Sainte Chapelle." 
Epileptic beggars, under the name of possessed maniacs, 
flocked thither in crowds. They flung themselves before 
the relic in wild contortions ; they grimaced, howled, swore, 
blasphemed, and struggled fiercely with the half-dozen men 
who seemed unable to restrain them. The better all this 
was acted, the more money was showered on the actors. 
Mercier declares that all the imprecations that had ever 
been uttered against Christ and the Virgin could not amount 
to the mass of inexpressible infamy which he heard uttered 
by one particular blasphemer. 

" It was for me," he says, " and for all the assembly, a 
novel and strange thing to hear a human being in a voice 
of thunder publicly cast defiance at the God of the very 
temple, insult His worship, provoke His wrath, and belch 
forth the most atrocious invectives, — all of which were laid 
to the account, not of the energetic blasphemer, but of the 
Devil. The people present tremblingly made the sign of 
the cross, and prostrated themselves with their face to the 
ground, muttering the while * It is the Demon who speaks ! * 
After eight men had with difficulty dragged him three times 
to the shrine which held the relic of the cross, his blasphe- 
mies became so outrageously filthy that he was cast out at 
the door of the church as one surrendered for ever to the 
dominion of Satan, and unworthy of being cured by the 
miraculous cross. Imagine that a detachment of soldiers 
publicly mounted guard that night over this inconceivable 
farce, — and that in an age like the present !" 

Such acts were not so much in advance of the age. Pour 
years later the inquisitors of Seville publicly burned at the 
stake a girl charged with holding criminal intercourse "with 
Satan. She was a very beautiful young creature, and, that 
her beauty might not excite too much sympathy for her 
fate, her nose was cut off previous to hei: being led to exe* 



"tableaux de paeis" in the last centfet. 883 

cution ! Mercier relates this on the authority of an eye- 
witness. It occurred barely more than seventy years ago, 
and Dr. Cahill, of gloomy memory, may rejoice therefore to 
think that the executive hand of his Church can hardly yet 
be out of practice. 

"An age like the present 1" wrote Mercier, in the days 
only of our fathers. In that age it was deemed impossible 
to carry the shrines of St. Marcel and St. Genevieve at the 
same time through one street. Whenever the respective 
bearers ventured on such a feat they invariably beheld a 
miracle, exemplifying the attraction of cohesion. The two 
shrines were drawn to each other, in spite of all opposing 
human effort, and remained inseparable for the whole space 
of three days ! 

At this period Protestant marriages were accounted as 
concubinage by the law, while Jewish marriages were held 
legal. A Jew who purchased the estate of Pequigny bought 
it with the undisputed right to nominate the cur6s and 
canons of the church. It is worth recording also, as 
midnight masses have been re-established in Paris, that 
they were suppressed in that capital three-quarters of a 
century ago, in consequence of the irreligious scenes which 
occurred in the churches. Mercier pertinently remarks on 
the singularity of the fact that Boman Catholics who be- 
lieved in the ever real presence of Christ in their temples, 
behaved before that presence like unclean heathens, while 
Protestants, who denied the presence, behaved with de- 
corum. The great attraction for many years at many of 
these masses was the organ-playing of the great Daquin. 
His imitation of the song of the nightingale used to elicit 
a whirlwind of applause from the so-called worshipers. 

This mixture of delight and devotion was, after all, but 
natural in the people. The cleverest ahhea of the day com- 
posed not only musical masses, but operas. 

Yet the Church and the Stage were ever in antagonism 



884 ITEW PICTURES AKD OLB FASTEIiS. 

in France. Mercier tells ns a pleasant story, which re- 
counts how the famous actress Clairon wrote a plea in 
claim of funeral rites being allowed to the bodies of de- 
ceased stage-players. With some difficulty she found an 
avocat bold enough to present and read this plea to " Par- 
liament." The latter august body struck the lawyer off the 
rolls. Mile. Clairon, out of gratitude, instructed him in 
elocution, and he adopted the stage as his future profession. 
On his first appearance, however, he proved himself so in- 
different an actor that he was summarilv condemned, amid 
an avalanche of hisses. He so took the failure to heart that 
he died — and, being an actor in the eye of the Church, was 
pronounced excommunicate, and was buried like Ophelia, 
with " maimed rites." 

Mercier tells us that there were not less than five thousand 
special masses daily celebrated in Paris at the charge of 
sevenpenee-halfpenny each! The Irish priests in the ca- 
pital, he says, were not too scrupulous to celebrate two in 
one day, thus obtaining a second sevenpence-hal^enny by 
what their French confreres considered rank impiety. Among 
the poorer brotherhood was chosen the " Porte-Dieu." Such 
was the rather startling popular name for the penniless 
priest hired to sit up o' nights, and carry the " holy sacra- 
ment" to the sick or dying. In rainy weather " le bon 
Dieu" was conveyed by the porter in a hackney-coach, on 
which occasions the coachman always drove with his hat 
reverently under his arm. "When the " Porte-Dieu" en- 
tered an apartment the inmates hurriedly covered the look- 
ing-glasses, in order that the "holy sacrament" might not 
be multiplied therein. There was a superstitious idea that 
it was impious. 

I have stated before that Protestant marriages were not 
valid when Madame d'Oberkirch and M. Mercier were en- 
gaged on their respective works — placed before the world 
at such wide intervals. That much-wished-for consumma- 



W m A TlT.'ll" A.fTir TkW "DA-DYa'* 



TABLEArX BE PAEIS" TK THE LAST CBl^TITET. 335 

tion was Howeyer supposed to be then "looming in tbe 
future!" 

" This day," says the lady, " I heard a piece of news which 
gaye me great pleasure. It was that the King had regis- 
tered in the Parliament an ordonnance by which all cures 
were enjoined to record the declarations of all persons who 
presented their children, without questioning them in any 
way. This was to prevent certain cures from trying to cast 
a- doubt on the legitimacy of Protestant children. It did 
not recognize the validity of Protestant marriages, but it 
gave us hope for a better future." 

Madame d'Oberkirch is by far a more correct prophet of 
the future than Mercier. She saw that the society in which 
she gloried was falling into ruins. Mercier depicted its 
vices, but so little could he foresee the consequences of 
them, he patriotically exulted that Paris was so secured by 
its police from such enormities as the Q-ordon riots, which 
had disgraced London, so as to render revolution im- 
possible. The opinions of the painters apart, their respec- 
tive pictures are well worth studying. That of Mercier has 
been partially forgotten, but its graphic power, its wit, 
and variety ill deserve such reward. That of the Baroness, 
crowded and confused as it is, has also its certain value. 
Both are real mirrors of the times, and all that passed be- 
fore their polished surface is represented thereon with a 
fidelity that sometimes terrifies as much as it amuses. 

The following, from Mercier, may come under the first 
head ; but it is far from beiug the worst case that might be 
cited. As an instance of the results of common hospital 
practice, it contrasts startlingly with what now occurs in 
the same locality : — 

" The corpses daily vomited forth by the hospital of the 
H6tel-Dieu are carried to Clamart, a vast cemetery whose 
gulf is ever open. These bodies are uncoffined ; they are 
sewed up in a winding-sheet. They are hurriedly dragged 



336 msw PICTURES and old pakei^s. 

from the beds, and more than one patient pronounced dead 
has awoke to life under the eager hand that was sewing him 
up in his shroud. Others have shrieked out that they were 
living, in the very cart that was conveying them to burial. 
This cart is drawn by twelve men; a dirty and bemired, 
priest, a bell, and a crucifix — such is the sum of the honours 
paid to the poor. This gloomy cart starts every morning 
from the H6tel-Dieu at four o'clock, and journeys amid a 
silence as of night. The bell which precedes it awakes some 
who slept ; but you must meet this cart on the highway to 
correctly appreciate the effect produced on the mind both 
by its sight and sound. In sick seasons it has been seen 
performing the same journey four times in twenty-four 
hours. It can contain fifty bodies. The corpses of children 
are squeezed in between the legs of adults. The whole 
freight is tossed into a deep and open pit, quick-lime is libe- 
rally poured in, and the horror-stricken eye of the observer 
plunges into an abyss yet spacious enough to hold all the 
living inhabitants of the capital. There is holiday here on 
All Souls' day. The populace contemplate the spot wherein 
so many of them are destined to lie ; and kneeling and pray- 
ing only precede the universal drinking and debauchery." 

Let us turn from the pictures of burials to sketches of 
bridals. In the picture drawn by Madame d'Oberkirch of 
the marriage of the Prince de Nassau-Saarbriick with MUe. 
de Montbarrey we recognize not only what the fair au- 
thoress calls " a very grand affair," but an infinitely amus- 
ing one to boot. We cannot represent the execrable poetry, 
by "a drawing-room poet," which was read with great 
avidity during the bridal festivities. It is necessary, how- 
ever, to allude to the effusion, as will be seen from what 
follows ; — 

" These verses are very stupid, but I quote them because 
they amused us exceedingly when we considered that this 
husband, * possessor of your charms,' and who ' to love's en- 



"tableaux db paeis" in the last centubt. 337 

chanting bliss shall wake/ was a child of twelve years of 
age, who wept from morning to night, frantic at being made 
an object of universal curiosity, flying from his wife, and 
even repulsing her with the rudeness of an ill-bred child, 
and having no desire to claim a title whose signification he 
did not understand. . . . During the ball, the bridegroom 
would on no account consent to dance with the bride. He 
was at length threatened lyith a whipping in case of further 
refusal, and promised a deluge of sugar-plums and all sorts 
of amusements if he complied. Whereupon he consented 
to lead her through a minuet. Though he showed so great 
an aversion to her who had a legal claim upon his attentions, 
he manifested a great sympathy for little Louisa de Diet- 
rich, a child of his own age, and returned to sit beside her as 
soon as he could free himself from the ennti^euse ceremony 
of attending on his bride. This was the husband whose 
* rapt embrace' awaited the young princess. My brother un- 
dertook to console him, and was showing him some prints 
in a large book. Amongst them there happened to be one 
which represented a marriage procession, which, as soon as 
the child saw, he shut the book, exclaiming, ' Take it away. 
Sir, take it away ! What have I to do with that ? It is 
shocking ; — and hold,' continued he, pointing out a tall figure 
in the group, * there is one that is like Mademoiselle de 
Montbarrey.' " 

" Whatever may be thought respectively of the Baroness 
and the Bourgeois," said Alexandre, in '* the sketches of 
Mercier at all events will always be found something worthy 
of the attention, not only of the general reader, but of 
the statesman, the moralist, and the philosopher." 

"True," added Mee Aughton, "and who so fit as Mer- 
cier's gifted grandson, Charles Kenney, to make pictorial 
selections from the portfolio of his graphic grandsire ?" 

We all assented, cheering the suggestion heartily. 



838 



PICTURES OF OLD AND YOUNG CHRISTMAS. 

The church-superstitions illustrated in the last picture 
directed the discourse of the friends, on a subsequent night, 
to old church festivals uid incidents in England. Chiefly, 
was a controversy maintained on the ups and downs of 
Christmas, out of this arose some small novelties, and these 
will be found below in the portraits of Christmas at various 
periods of his career.— 

We celebrate our Christmas so regularly, if not so joy- 
ously, that few perhaps are aware of the difficulties once in 
the way of establishing this glad festival, or of the various 
names under which it has been honoured. 

Towards the end of the first century, the Christians finft; 
found means and courage to make due observance of the 
anniversary of the nativity of their great Master. It would 
have been death to them to mourn when the empire was 
rejoicing, or to wear signs of gladness on a pagan unlndqr 
day. They chose, therefore, tlie period of the Satui^alia, 
when half the heathen population was mad with the eocoite- 
ment of enacting revelry or witnessing its enactment. 

The q>ies and eavesdroppers could make nothing of sus- 
pected Christians, who then sang rapturous songs in praise 
ot their Lord and King. JDotninuff and Sea were among 
the many titles of CsBsar; — and thus the early Christians 
outwitted the informers. 

According to some writers, the Church authorized the 
observance of the festival of the Nativity on the 26th of 



PICTUSES OF OLD AND TOUKG CHBI8TMAS. 389 

December as earljr as the middle of the second centiuy. 
Others assert that it was not till the fourth centiuy that 
the season for glad and grateful observance was thus autho- 
ritatively determined. Therewith, see what poor human 
nature is ! Before the period was definitely settled, there 
was little dispute as to whether the settlement rested on 
correct or fallacious grounds. But as soon as authority 
registered the date, half the leaders in the Christian world 
went to loggerheads to prove that the decision was very ill 
founded. 

Acute G-reek fathers and earnest African patriarchs main- 
tained that the 6th of January was the day of the Saviour's 
birth. Others insisted that tiie slightest effort of thought 
would show that the 6th of April was the. anniversary day. 
Clemens of Alexandria was always inclined to support this 
latter theory. But men as great as he, and long before his 
time, fought respeclavely for the 15th, 20th, and 25th of 
May. The great &Gt, cried others, could only have taken 
place at the end of September or the beginning of October. 
Origen thought so too ; and Scaliger, in later days, advo- 
cated the same opinion with as much energy as he ever 
applied to the defence of any assertion which he chose to 
uphold. 

It was not of the slightest consequence, said one of the 
early popes, at what season the great festival was observed, 
provided observance was not neglected and the instructions 
of the Divine Teacher were not despised or forgotten. This 
wise remark persuaded nobody ; and even as late as 1722, 
the Jesuit College at Bome was shaken with the thunder- 
ing debates which were held tiiere on this very subject. The 
nuyority of the learned and fiery gentlemen — for the argu- 
ment on either side was sustained with little of chivalrous 
courtesy — ^betrayed an inclination to select the 20th of May 
as the correct annivwsary. 

The anniversary was originally celebrated junder various 

Q 2 



840 VEW PICTURES AKD OLD PA9EL8. 

names. Spiphania, and Theaphania, — the ^ manifestation,** 
and the "divine manifestation," — Dies Luminariumy "the 
daj of lights;" and, to express that it was the festival of 
festivals, some early leaders in the Church called it "the 
capital of all the festivals," — Metropolis reliquorumfestorum 
omnium. 

As the season has heen disputed, so occasionallj has the 
signification of the name applied to it. The Germans 
designate Christmas bj the term Weihnaeht. Now the 
most orthodox of Teutonic barons caught at the sound, 
and interpreted its meaning Wein-Niacht, a wine-night, or 
evening for a carouse. But they were told that it rather 
meant WeHie-N'acht, or the hallowed night ; a circumstance 
which they ought not to have forgotten, if they repeated 
the primitive German Paternoster, in which occur the old- 
fashioned words, Weyhe sey Nahmo ikeini. 

There is something saddening in the unpleasant truth 
that, as year succeeded to year, many foolish superstitions 
were hung on to our Christmas observances. There was 
long a belief that between Christmas Eve and Christmas • 
morning all water in the house was turned to vnne. That 
no one ever found the fact to be as it was stated, was held 
to be no proof against the alleged fact itself. The failure 
was assigned to every cause but the right one. Even St. 
Chrysostom very seriously maintained that all water drawn 
fresh on Christmas Eve remained incorruptible, for a period 
which the golden-mouthed philosopher wisely declined to 
fltate. It was on this night that beasts were supposed to 
discourse with human voices; whereas, even then, it was 
probably only humanity putting on the beast. I say even 
then, for as early as the reign of Nero, the austere com- 
plained, that in some Christian families the old and young 
united in the performance of such follies as to induce a con- 
sideration whether it were not preferable to suppress the 
festival rather than allow it to be abused. 



prcTUBBfl or OLD xjsro Toujra chbxstmas. 341 

The profits of superstition seem to have been as great as 
its pleasures. The crafty sold to the silly, flowers that were 
said to have bloomed solely because the trees from which 
they were plucked had been sprinkled with holy water upon 
Christmas Eve. On the same night, spurs and chain-traces 
were manufactured, with such a mixture of holy ceremonies 
in the making of them up, that no steed, however weary, 
could resist the one, nor any chariot, however heavy and 
deep in the mire, hold back from the other. 

Then we owe to Christmas, perhaps, the old European 
fashion of masquerades. It was at this season that fifteen 
godless G-ermans with their maidens, more merry than wise, 
continued to dance in the churchyard rather than attend 
the holy service. The priest Rupert, perplexed with their 
noise, prayed them to desist, and on their rude refusal, 
cursed them with a wish that they might do nothing else 
but dance for ever. It did not quite happen as he desired, 
although the Christmas revellers danced themselves — some 
up to their hips in the ground, the heavier partners up to 
their necks. It took a whole bench of bishops to reduce 
them to tranquillity and get them out of the ground. This 
was effected with loss of life, but the souls were rescued. 
And in memory of the event, — of the terrible Eupert and 
his curse, and the dancing company who coranted it till 
they went through the dancing-floor, more than half a 
fathom deep, — our G-erman ancestors in their youth were 
wont to run about in masks, and thereby helped, uncon- 
Bciously, to swell the balls at Eanelagh and in Soho. 

If the festival of Christmas was not established without 
some difficulty, its reign was altogether long before it was 
even partially interrupted. In 1647 it was entirely abo- 
lished in England. The people, however, could better 
afibrd to lose their king than their Christmas. But the 
Parliament was determined to deprive them of both. Our 
stout ancestors resisted manfully ; and they cried out lustily 



842 ITEW PIOTTTBSB AKB OLD PAJTELg. 

for tbeir Christmas Day on the 25th of December, 1647. 
The Parliament had ordered all shops to be opened, and all 
churches to be closed. '* We may haye a sermon on any 
other day,*' said the London apprentices, who did not always 
go to hear it, "why should we be deprived on this day?" 
" It is no longer lawful for the day to be kept," was the 
reply. "Nay," exclaimed the sharp-witted fellows, "you 
keep it yourselves by thus distinguishing it by desecration." 
They declared they would go to church ; numerous preachers 
promised to be ready for them with prayer and lecture ; and 
the porters of GomhiU swore they would dress up their 
conduit with holly, if it were only to prove that in that 
orthodox and heavily-enduring body there was some respect 
yet left for Christianity and hard drinking, — for the raising 
of the holly was ever accompanied by the lifting of tankards. 

Accordingly, some shops were shut and some churches 
open. But the constables laid hold of the churchwardens 
and the noisiest in the congregation, and took them before 
the august Parliament, which of course sat on that day. 
Such preachers as Dr. Griffiths, Dr. Jones, and Mr. Hall, 
were dragged to the same tribunal. The anti-Christmas 
judges fined the lesser offenders, and sent iihe clerical 
gentlemen to be disposed of by that eminently competent 
Body the " Committee of the Militia of London !" 

As for the porters,- they would have their way. Tbey 
dressed their conduit with ivy, rosemary, and bays. " But," 
says the * Mercurius,' "the mayor, his horse, and the city 
marshal, went all in their proper persons (jpontificalibtis and 
all) to set it on fire." The decorations, however, were too 
elevated for the arm of authority, even with a link at the 
end of it ; and when the city-boys, now in a state of frantic 
ecstasy, beheld the failure, they set up their " sixteen parish 
voices " to such a tune, that his lordship's " nag began to 
retreat upon the galliard of Sink-apace,*' The horse was 
held to be more religious and reasonable than his rider. 



FICTU&EB or OLD JLKD YOUNG CUBISTMAS. 343 

touching whom the * Mercurius ' makes some very unsavoury 
remarks. 

Nor was the gallant Christmas spirit less lively in the 
country than in the capital. At Oxford there was a world 
of skull->breaking ; and at Ipswich the festival was celebrated 
by some loss of life. Canterbury especially distinguished 
itself by its violent opposition to the municipal order to be 
mirtUess. There was a combat there, which was most 
rudely maintained, and in which the mayor got pummelled 
till he was as senseless as a pocket of hops. The mob 
mauled him terribly, broke all his windows, as well as his 
bones, and, as we are told, ''burnt the stoupes at the 
coming^n of his door." So serious was the riot, so com- 
plete the popular victory, and so jubilant the exultation, 
that thousands of the never-conquered men of Kent and 
Kentish men met in Canterbury, and passed a solemn 
resolution that if they could not have their Christmas Day, 
they were determined to have the King cm his throne again. 

The press, such as it was, helped the outcry. The powers 
that then were were ridiculed, as allowing liberty of con- 
science to all but conscientious men. And the ' Mercurius 
Pragmaticus,' seeing that carols were forbidden, flung the 
following Christmas cracker at the nose of authority ; — 

" Live, drink, and laugh, our worthies may. 
And kindly take their fills ; 
The subjects must their reckonings pay, 
The King must pass their bills. 

• 

" No princes now but they ; the crown 

Is vanisht with our quiet j 
* Nor will they let us love our own 
De-vo-ti-ons and diet. 

" The plums these prophets* sons defy, 
And spin-broths are too hot ; 
Treason 's in a Beoember pie, 
And death within the pot. 



844 NEW FIGTVBES AND OLD PAIITELB, 

" Christmas, fiirewell ; thy Day (I fear) 
And merry days are done : 
So they may keep feasts all the year, 
Our Sayiour shall have none." 

After the Bestoration, Christmas remained undisturbed 
till the year 1762. They who had been looking abroad 
beyond the world had discovered that the fractional few 
minutes which are tailed on to the days and hours which 
make up the year had, by neglect, brought us into a wrong 
condition, and that to set us right, it would be necessary to 
give credit for eleven days, which nobody was conscious of 
having enjoyed. Accordingly, the day after the 2nd of Sep- 
tember, 1762, was called the 14th, to the great indignation 
of thousands, who reckoned that they had thus been cut oif 
from nearly a fortnight of life which honestly belonged to 
them. These persons sturdily refused to acknowledge the 
Christmas Eve and Day of the new calendar. They averred 
that the true festival was that which now began on the 6th 
of January nea;t year. They would go to church, they said, 
on no other day ; nor eat mince-pies, nor drink punch, but 
in reference to this one day. The clergy had a hard time 
of it with these recusants, and I will furnish one singular 
example to show how this recusancy was encountered. I 
am indebted for it to a collection of pamphlet-sermons pre- 
served by George III., none of which, however, have any- 
thing curious or particularly meritorious about them, save 
this one, which was preached on Friday, January 5, 1763, 
which was entitled in the almanacs " Old Christmas Day." 
Mr. Francis Blackburne, " one of the candid disquisitors," 
opened his church on that day, which was crowded by a 
congregation anxious to see the day celebrated as that of 
the anniversary of the Nativity. The service for Christmas 
Day, however, was not used. " I will answer your expec- 
tations so far," said the preacher, in his sermon, "as to 
give you a sermon on the day ; and the rather because I 



PICTUBES OF OLD AND TOIJNO CHBISTMAS. 34S 

perceive you are disappointed of something else that you 
expected." The purport of the discourse is to show that 
the change of style was desirable, and that it having been 
effected by Act of Parliament, with the sanction of the 
King, there was nothing for it but acquiescence. " For," 
says the simple-minded preacher, " had I, to oblige you, dis- 
obeyed this Act of Parliament, it is very probable I might 
have lost my benefice, which, you know, is all the subsistence 
I have in the world, and I should have been rightly served, 
for who am I that I should fly in the face of his Majesty 
and the Parliament ? These things are left to be ordered 
by the higher powers, and in any such case as that, I hope 
not to think myself wiser than the King, the whole nobility, 
and principal gentry of Great Britain ! " 

The simplicity of the preacher was not greater, how- 
ever, than that of the perplexed peasants of Buckingham- 
shire, who pitched upon a pretty method to settle the ques- 
tion of Christmas, left so meekly by Mr. Blackburne to 
the King, nobility, and most of the gentry. They bethought 
themselves of a blackthorn near one of their villages, and 
this thorn was for the nonce declared to be the growth of 
a slip from the Christmas-flowering thorn at Glastonbury. 
K the Buckinghamshire thorn, so argued the peasants, will 
only blossom in the night of the 24th December, we will 
go to church next day, and allow that the Christmas by Act 
of Parliament is the true Christmas, but no blossom no 
feast, and there shall be no revel till the eve of old Christmas 
Day. They watched the thorn, and drank to its budding ; 
but as it produced no promise of a flower by the morning, 
they turned to go homewards as best they might, perfectly 
satisfied with the success of the experiment. Some were 
interrupted in their way by their respective "vicars," who 
took them by the arm, and would fain have persuaded them 
to go to church. They argued the question by field, stile, 
and church-gate, but not a Bucks peasant would consent 

<)8 



846 Kiw picrrmEs ajtd old panels. 

to enter a pew till the parson had promised to preach a 
sermon to, and smoke a pipe with, them on the only Christ- 
mas Day they chose to acknowledge. 

This old prejudice has been conquered, and the " new 
style'* has maintained its ground. It has even done more, 
for its authors have so provided that a confusion in the time 
of this or any other festival is not likely to occur f^in. 



347 



PORTRAIT OF A STUDENT IN LOVE. 

This time it was not books that Alexandre brought with 
him, not pictures in words, but four charming designs by 
Emy, illustrating the loves and destiny of " Peter Abailard.". 
By the side of a table, on which are books not yet opened, 
and an hour-glass nearly run out, sits a buxom Heloiise, 
with her young tutor at her feet, kissing a very white hand, 
whose fellow rests tenderly on Abelard's neck. In the 
next, the practical old uncle, who does not understand this 
method of teaching the hvmanities, has broken in upon 
the illustrious pair, and is evidently about to proceed to 
accomplish a purpose which disgusts the lady and paralyzes 
her companion with terror. In the third design, the lover 
is cloistered up with a brotherhood of friars, who listen 
to his hapless story, some with shame, some with surprise, 
and others with broad grins or outbursts of laughter. In 
the concluding design, H61oise, in conventual attire, re- 
clines languidly on a mossy bank in the rear of a nunnery, 
contemplating with evident uneasiness the billing and cooing 
of a pair of turtle-doves. The whole is surrounded by a 
border-work, in which the fortunes of the famous pair are 
sketched in allegory, peculiarly French and significant, and 
well adapted to the rollicking rhymes accompanying them, 
which gallop on gaily to the tune of * Malbrook,' and are 
from the pleasantly satirical pen of Martin de Choisy. 

Thus the comic artists have seized upon the illustrious 
lovers, a discussion on whose merits and foibles ended in 
a portraiture which may be summed up in these words. 



348 VEW FICTUBES AKB OLD PANELS. 

Brittany is proud of her great men. In philosopliy, she 
boasts of Descartes ; in chivalry, of Du Guesclin ; she re- 
joices in Latour d'Auvergne, the " first Grenadier of France;" 
she points to the tomb of Chateaubriand with a mournful 
joy ; and, if anything like shame can possess her when num- 
bering her sons, it is when there appear on the roll the names 
of Abelard and Lamennais, the first and the last of the 
" heretics" of Brittany. 

For all, save the last two, the old Armorica acknowledges 
an unlimited love. For Abelard, there is a divided allegiance ; 
for Lamennais there is nothing but a voice of mourning, as 
over a fallen star of the Bomish Church. 

The controversy with respect to the merits or demerits of 
the learned lover of Heloise has of late been renewed in 
France generally, and in Brittany particularly, with a hot 
and eager intensity. M. de Bemusat claims the great dia- 
lectician as a reformer before the Beformation ; as one who, 
when reconciled to Borne, was "unconvinced still," main- 
taining his old heresy, propagating his old philosophy, and 
practising his old sins by living again upon the ecstatic me- 
mory of those stolen hours of love which have given im- 
mortality to a couple of names. There are others of less 
fame and more orthodoxy than M. de Bemusat, who have 
little faith in the gracefully-expressed repentance of either 
of the two renowned lovers. Against these, the most ac- 
complished of scholars, the most experienced of antiquaries, 
and the most faithful of the obedient children who are still 
conquering Gaul for Bome, has appeared as the champion of 
Abelard and the apologist of Heloise. This double duty, an 
entire task of love, has been undertaken by Aur^lien de 
Courson, who in his great work on the history of the Breton 
nations, 'Histoire des Peuples Bretons,' has devoted no 
inconsiderable space to a defence of the character and career 
of Peter Abelard. "We honour his chivalrous courage, and 
we acknowledge his "cunning of fence;" but we must de- 



POBTBAIT OP A 8TIJDEKT IK LOYE. 849 

clare at the outset that never was failure more signal or 
more complete. The champion is slain by his own weapons ; 
the defender is buried beneath the defences which himself 
has raised. K it be sport to " hoist the engineer with his' 
own petard," they may have it who will take from M. de 
Courson the arms which he has prepared with much pains, 
great skill, and little result favourable to himself. 

Peter Abelard was bom in the year 1079, when Brittaoy 
was free, and Hoel IV. was Sovereign Count thereof. The 
place of his birth was Pallet, a hamlet between Nantes and 
Clisson. His mother was a Bretonne of Brittany, his sire a 
gentleman and a soldier of Poitou, Norman by descent, and 
bearing with him all the fierce characteristics of his race. 
Abelard inherited all of his Ather but the Norman love for 
arms. G-reatness was offered him, and knighthood was be- 
fore him, but chivalry tempted him not. At the moment 
that this child in Brittany was defying with petulant scorn 
the temptations of the tented field, there was another boy 
in Burgundy, the son of noble parents, also renouncing the 
greatness to be won by "pricking o'er the plain." This 
last-named boy was the great Bernard, and the two were 
destined to meet as foes within those lists where there is a 
" cudgelling of brains," but no peril of life. The hostile 
sons of chivalrous sires had every quality of knighthood save 
courtesy. If spoken daggers could have killed, St. Bernard 
would have slain his adversary a thousand times over ; in 
wordy deadliness of design the scholastic Abelard was not a 
whit behind his mystical enemy.* 

Peter was a marvellous child ; learning was his nourish- 

* Hfloise, in her viyacious correspondenoe, treats St. Bernard as a 
" miserable old impostor ! " The Saint styled Abelard an " infernal dra- 
gon," and a " wretched song- writer." It would be worth while to col- 
lect the fragments of these songs if they could be found, for they were 
long fiimous for their sweetness and pathos. The songs which poor 
Goldsmith too wrote for the Dublin ballad-singers would make another 
noble collection if they could be discovered. 



350 VEW FICTUBE8 AKB OLD PASSIM. 

ment. The down was yet upon his chin when he was wan- 
dering from uniyersitj to university, knocking at its gates, 
and challenging bearded doctors. M. de Courson looks 
upon this period as an Augustan age, citing, by way of 
proof, the crowds of professors who taught, and the mob of 
students who followed them. But what was the instruction 
of the first, and what the profit drawn from it by the second ? 
Upon the thick yet well-trodden straw of the cloister of 
Notre Dame de Paris the theological students used to fling 
themselves in dirty, drunken, and disorderly multitudes, 
and, after a long and often-interrupted course, they departed 
with a few pages of Aristotle, got by heart, a prayer or two, 
made familiar to them by mystic paraphrases, and their 
brains, too often drowned in wine or shaken by debauchery, 
shattered into utter uselessness by the verbose and stupendous 
nothings of the dialectic lecturers. Some escaped from such 
a course with minds iminjured, but we doubt if Abelard can 
be cited as an exception. BLis philosophy was unworthy of 
the name, his principles and acts disgraced Christianity, 
and his entire life was marked to the end by those inconsis- 
tencies which stamp a man who, knowing what is good, re- 
fuses to follow it, and who would rather be wrong with 
Plato than right with all the world besides. 

The most famous dialectician of his day was "William of 
Champeaux, and at the feet of William in Paris sat Abelard 
to learn logic and surpass his master. The fallacies of the 
teacher were exposed by the pupil to his fellow-students, 
and the result was the opening of a class at Melun, where 
Abelard assumed the professorial chair, and taught marvel- 
lous subtleties, which admiring crowds, fabulous as to num- 
ber, took for wisdom, merely because they were wrapped in 
a tuneful eloquence. In the absence of Abelard, the pro- 
sperity of William of Champeaux was renewed, and to the 
feet of his old tutor, Abelard, worn out with his own labours 
at Melun, resorted to study rhetqric and insult his preceptor. 



POETEAIT or A STIJDENT IN LOTE. 351 

He soon after established his own clASses in the capital, on 
the Montagne St. Genevieve. This was in 1115, but after 
a short visit to Brittany, to take leave of his parents, both of 
whom embraced a monastic life, and became dead to the 
sins, the eirors, and the glorj of their son, we find him at 
Laon, studying theology under the great Anselm of Loudun. 
Here again the scholar laughed at the beard of his master. 
" If you look at him at a distance," said the irreverent alum" 
nu8 to his grinning condisoipuU, ^* he is as a fine tree bend- 
ing beneath its foliage ; eome close, and the tree bears no 
better fruit than the arid fig cursed by Christ. "When he 
kindles into fire, there is smoke, but no light." It was here 
that he declared his readiness to expound Ezekiel, the most 
thorny of the prophets, after a single day's preparation; 
and when it was suggested that custom, and, it might have 
been added, common sense, required that such expounding 
should only be the fruit of long study, he laughed arrogantly, 
and declared, with spirit as arrogant, that it was not his 
custom to follow what was usual, but to obey his impulses. 
The remark shows that he had one essential of philosophy, 
" self-knowledge ! " 

With the reputation attached to such arrogance, and with 
the disgrace connected with being expressly forbidden by 
Anselm to expound Scripture at all, Abelard hastened to 
the metropolis, got possession of the chair of theology va- 
cated by his old master William of Champeaux, delivered 
lectures on Ezekiel to a concourse of students, who left 
their occupation of drinking wine and cutting purses to 
listen to him, and received as his reward the high office of 
Canon of Paris. The score ot cardinals and half-hundred 
bishops, who are also said to have attended the lectures of 
the disciple of Aristotle, perhaps gave evidence of his ortho- 
doxy ! His ideal of a Church pleased them. The present 
occupier of the Canonry held by Abelard, M. Deplace, has 
been making the Hanover Square Eooms re-echo during the 



352 3f£W PICTVfiES AKD OLD PANELS. 

summer months (and rendering assembled cardinals and 
bishops exultant too) with assurances that the Church is 
sovereign on earth, and the State its subject, if not its slave. 
While Europe was sending countless numbers of her sons 
from all parts to listen to the music and to learn the method 
of the lecturer, the great expounder of Ezekiel was solacing 
his learned leisure with the society of meretricious beauties ! 
That he had ruined himself with the companionship of cour- 
tesans was the friendly reproach of Foulques, in a letter 
still extant.* Pride was ruining him to the full as speedily. 
He cast his eye over the five thousand students who stood 
mute and impatient to catch wisdom from his lips, and the 
devil bade him hold himself the greatest philosopher of his 
age. He was fairly drunk with his burning spirit of vanity : 
" Me solum," he says (Abela. Epist. l.)> " ine solum in mundo 
superesse philosophum sestimarem :" the devil had bidden 
him account himself the greatest philosopher in the world, 
but he bettered the instructions of the angel who fell through 
pride, and held himself to be the only one. 

And now, in presence of this terrible compound of human 
passions and superhuman learning, stands the accomplished 
Heloise; rich in beauty, rich in Latin, in Greek, and in 
Hebrew ; as fond by nature as he was proud and susceptible, 
and as frail, and as shameless of her frailty, as he was eager 
to profit by it. Truly has Dryden said that 

'* When to ein our bias'd nature leans. 
The careful devil is still at hand with means ; 
And providently pimps for ill desires.'* 

So it was in this case, where the tempted met the tempter 
halfway. Let young and pure hearts be assured that when, 

* It is but fair to add that the young professor denies this in bis 
Correspondence. In his letter to Fhilintus, referring to H^o'ise, he 
says, " Frsena libidrni ccepi laxare, qui autea vixeram continentissime." 
'* I had always an aversion/' he says again," to those Hght women whom 
it is a reproach to pursue." But in the same letter there is a boast that 



POBTBAIT or A STUDENT IS LOTE. 363 

in their sweet wooing-time, they talk smilingly of the exem- 
plary love and fidelity of Abelard and H61oise, they are 
flinging their incense before unworthy shrines. Those idols 
of all youthful lovers lacked dignity, honesty, and purity. 
They not only deliberately fell, but deliberately boasted of 
their offence. Honest affection should deposit its garland 
on a purer altar than the shrine of these sinning lovers. 

H^loise was the "niece" of Fulbert, a fellow-canon with 
Abelard in the cathedral church of Paris. The blood of the 
Montmorencies was hers, says M. de Courson, through her 
mother. This however is very questionable. No one knows 
who her mother really was. By one authority it is stated 
that Fulbert "Heloysiam naturalem filiam habebat praestanti 
ingenio form^ue." The ardent Peter corresponded with 
the ardent young lady while she was only a pupil in the 
convent of Argenteuil. At his suggestion the uncle brought 
her home to his own hearth, and admitted Abelard, on his 
own urgent prayer, to be the inmate of his house and the 
tutor of his niece. And straightway the expounder of 
Ezekiel took to writing love-songs; the lecturer on Plato 
and Origen to reading romances of the heart. " There were," 
wrote H^loise to Abelard, years after, and when both are 
imagined to have been absorbed in their remorse, "there 
were two things in you that would have captivated any 
man ; one was the grace with which you recited, the other 
the charm with which you sang!" M. Courson is sen- 
timental on the subject of the errors of this young pair, 
but he has gone into less of pictorial detail than Abelard 
himself. The Canon of Paris, in his after-correspondence 
with the lady, when the latter had taken the veil, thus 

no woman whom he addressed oould resist him ; and there is, therewith, 
in describing his repulse of the advances made to him hj Agaton, the 
fair handmaid of H^olise, such a sparkling detail of the charms and 
ways of the serving-ladj, that we are disinclined to put much ^Eiith in 
hia aasertion of a generally virtuous demeanour, 



854 KEW PICTUBSS AND OLD FAKELS. 

helped the nun to repentance b^ feeding her imagination 
with the memories of the past. 

^ Under the semblance of study we were all-surrendered 
to love. Love made choice of the retired spot wherein 
glided by the hour of our lesson ; love was the subjeet of 
our speech and of our thoughts ; and with the page open 
before us we only meditated on love. We exchanged more 
kisses than sentences, and we oftenar turned to caresses 
than to our books, on which our eyes could not willingly 
&11 after gazing at each other. Finally, and in order to 
prevent any suspicion on the part of Eulbert, we had our 
little chastisements, but love, and not anger, measured the 
blows, which were more gentle even than the caresses them- 
selves." The after-reminiscences of H^loise were not less 
warm or active. "What wife, or maiden," she exclaims, 
" did not dream of him when absent, or bum for him when 
proi^ent ? What queen or noble lady did not envy my de- 
lights P" And again, long after he had been in his tomb, 
and she had falleii into years, she wrote, and wrote repeat- 
edly, "Vows and monastery, I have not lost my human 
feelings beneath your pitiless rules ; you have not, by chan- 
ging my garment, converted me into marble." 

When the scandal of their lives offended even the unscru- 
pulous age in which they lived, Fulbert awoke to conviction 
and separated the lovers. Abelard however carried off the 
lady, nothing loath, and the pair fled into Brittany. His 
sister afforded them a refuge, and the fruit of guilt was bom 
beneath her roof. The son who there unhappily saw the 
light, received the affected name of Astrolabe. On receiving 
knowledge of his birth, Fulbert insisted that Abelard should 
marry his niece. M. de Courson, ever partial to the crimi- 
nal, says that Abelard offered to marry H61oise ! Accepting 
this assertion as true, why did M. de Courson separate from 
the text, and bury in an obscure note, the record of the fact 
that the calculating Peter stipulated that the marriage, if it 



POETEAIT OP A STTJDEWT IS LOVE. 366 

must take place, should be performed in private and kept 
secret, for the sufficient reason that by its beeoming public 
he should be disappointed in his hopes and expectations of 
rising to the highest honours in the Church ? 

Let us be strictly just however to Abelard. If he made 
a grimace at the prospect of marriage, H^loise quoted St. 
Paul, Theophrastus, and Cicero in his favour. In her own 
words it is written : " What could we scholars have had in 
common with household servants ? Conversation and era- 
dies would have marred one another. Books and distaffs, 
pens and spinning-wheels, are opposites. How could we 
have borne, in place of theological and philanthropical medi- 
tations, the screams of children, the songs of nurses, and 
the thousand miseries of domestic life?" Subsequent to 
their separation, and when she was the " mother" of a nun- 
nery, the pious lady reminded him that while they loved 
without thinking of matrimony. Heaven had been indulgent ; 
but that they had no sooner thought of marriage than Pro- 
vidence visited them with all sorts of tribulation ! To the 
end of her own life this exemplary lady protested that she 
would rather be his "concubine" than his wife. She was 
neither, for any length of time. A private marriage indeed 
took place, but Fulbert, still indignant, no sooner found 
Abelard lying at his mercy, in Paris, than he inflicted upon 
him that sanguinary vengeance which reduced the victim to 
the condition of Atys ; which drove H^loise to obey the now 
selfish and jealously expressed will of her lover, to take the 
veil at ArgenteuU ;* and which made of Abelard himself a 
most unwilling monk. He assumed the monastic habit at 

* The letter of Abelard on this point is a disgrace to manhood. He 
bribed the conventual authorities to inveigle her within the walls by a 
false colouring of the alleged pleasiires of a conventual life; and no 
sooner found her securely imprisoned for ever, than he gave utterance to 
his gladness that no man could possess what was denied to him, and 
that on one point Abelard and the world were equal. 



856 K£W PICTVBSS JlSTD old PAITELS. 

St. Denis, not, as he himself confesses, out of devotion, but 
out of shame. As for the victim and partner of his guilt, 
she walked to the altar heedless of the tears and expostula- 
tions of her friends. Modesty went not with her, nor re- 
pentance neither. There was nothing of the humiliation of 
the Magdalen. The Gospel was neither in her heart nor 
on her lips. As the irremovable veil fell over her brow, the 
spouse of Christ thought only of her husband after the flesh, 
and the last words she uttered as she entered the cloister 
for ever were those attributed by Lucan (in his * Fharsalia,' 
1. viii.) to Cornelia, deploring the overthrow of the beloved 
Pompey, and the expiation endured by his wife for his sake ; 

" O maxime conjax, 
O thalamis indigne meis, boo juris habebat 
In tantum fortuna caput ! Cur impia nupsi 
Si miserum fSeictura fui ? Nunc aocipe poenas, 
Sed quas sponte luam ! " 

This was but an unpromising commencement of a course of 
repentance. If Brother Peter ever counselled her to better, 
the advice was nullified by the reminiscences of the lover 
Abelard. One example may suffice to show how he mingled 
present grave thoughts with past and dangerous recollec- 
tion. "Nosti . . . quidibi" (in the monastery of Argenteuil) 
*^ tecum mea libidinis egerit intemperantia in quadam etiam 
parte ipsius refectorii. . . . Nosti id impudentissime tunc 
actum esse, in tam reverendo loco et summaB Virgini con- 
secrato." "What was this but bidding her be mindful of 
their old loves in the place where free indulgence had been 
given to them ? Those who would read more of similar 
matter we refer to Paquier, to the history and letters of 
Abelard and Heloise, written in Latin, and first published 
in a quarto volume, in 1616, or to the translation of the same 
into French, given to the world by Bastim, in 1782. As 
for Heloise, Pope has refinedly rendered the essence of her 
epistolary style in bis well-known lines, equally well-kuowa 



POETRAIT or A STUDENT IK LOYB. 357 

in France by the translation of Colardeau, and Martin de 
Choisy has penned some gaillard verses descriptive of the 
history of the lady and her lover. To that lover we must 
now give our exclusive attention.* 

Abelard flung himself into active Hfe. He again ascended 
the professorial rostrum, and lectured on theology and logic 
to thousands of hearers, whose appetite to listen to him had 
been excited by recent circumstances. He was more popu- 
lar and also more proud than ever, and his pride impelled 
him to write that * Introduction to Theology' which raised 
all Christendom against him as a denier of the Trinity, and 
which caused his condemnation by the Council of Soissons, 
not only for his heresy, but for his ignorance of the chief 
dogmas of the Christian faith. M. de Courson says that he 
retired in grief to the monastery of St. M^dard ; but this 
is not the fact. The brotherhood of St. Denis thrust him 
into the street, and St. Medard was assigned him only as 
a prison. His humility, feigned or real, procured his speedy 
restoration to St. Denis ; but he was no sooner there than 
he made the place too hot to hold him, by declaring to the 
infuriate monks that St. Denis, Bishop of Paris, was not 
identical with the much earlier St. Denys the Areopagite. 
M. de Courson should have shown how the poor monks 
might have stood excused for their error, seeing that, as if 
in confirmation of that error, Innocent II. had just pre- 
sented to the church of the French martyr the body, lack- 
ing the head, of the Athenian Bishop. Many a wrong 
opinion has been maintained on a worse foundation.t A 

* We would not willingly pass without notice the elegant and the 
first English translation publislied exactly a century ago, a.d. 1751. 
The translator, in the preface, blushes at the idea of our great-grand- 
mothers finding pleasure in reading the once famous, and fictitious, 
' Letters of a Nun and a Cavalier.' He hardly improved the matter 
by laying before them the fervid reminiscences of the more real couple. 

t Voltaire, who used to ridicule monastic learning, has fidlen into 



358 VEW PIOTUBES AIXD OLD PANELS. 

second expulsion rewarded the temerity of Abelard, who 
resumed the calling more agreeable to his humour, of pub- 
lic lecturer; and, after much wandering, and a success 
which increased a vanity already nearly intolerable, he set- 
tled for a time at Troyes, and castle and cottage were alike 
emptied of its occupants, who assembled around the bold 
master, whose liberality erected for their use the well-fre- 
quented church of the Paraclete. If Abelard had been 
drunk with vanity before, he was now insane. His senti- 
ments, uttered with a self-sufficient arrogance, were so 
utterly opposed to Bomish doctrine, that St. Bernard arose, 
and, though less learned and less logical than his opponent, 
so far triumphed over his adversary as to exact from him a 
promise to circulate no more opinions that the Church did 
not sanction. In testimony of his defeat, he abandoned the 
Paraclete to Heloise and a conmiunity of nuns, of which she 
was the Superior, opened there with her that famous corre- 
spondence, little redolent of repentance in the heart of either 
writer, and betook himself to the abbey of Buys, said to 
have been founded by that supposititious British Jeremiah 
to whom have been attributed the gloomy pages 'De Excidio 
BritannisB,' namely, St. Gildas ; the brotherhood of which 
monastery, acknowledged by M. de Courson to be a set of 
wild, unclean, ignorant, and drunken savages, had, in one 
of their fits of unconsciousness, elected him as their Abbot. 
While Abelard was struggling to make externally decent 
Christians of the debauched fraternity, he was also engaged 
in circulating writings in which the eagle-eyed St. Bernard 
detected the combined heresies of Arius against the Trinity, 
of Nestorius against the Incarnation, and of Pelagius against 
Grace. The offender and his accuser met face to face on 
the 2nd June, 1140, before the Council of Sens. The ma- 

this old monastic eiror, and has confounded Denis and Dioujnios. See 
Dictionn. Philosoph. Art. " D^iis," and note 14 to the lat Ckato of 
'LaPuoeUe.* 



POBTBAIT or A STUDENT IK LOTE. 359 

jesty of France, as well as the gi*eatness of the Church, was 
present, and all eyes were turned upon the two athleta. 
The expectation of a noble intellectual struggle was disap- 
pointed, for St. Bernard had do sooner opened the attack, . 
than Abelard, pale and faint, declared that he appealed to 
iBome, and hurriedly left the assembly. The Council nev^* 
theless condemned him. Eome confirmed the judgment-, 
and sentenced the offender ^'to eternal silence." Abelard 
bent his head in obedience, and withdrew to the Abbey of 
St. M^dard ; so says M. de Courson ; but the obedience of 
the priest was a matter of compulsion, and St. M^dard was 
the place of captivity to which he was condemned. Thence, 
says the author just named, he wrote a confession of faith 
and submission, and addressed it to H^loise, " his sister in 
Christ." Very true ; but in this communication he aays to 
his " beloved sister," " I have not been able to escape the 
critics ; nevertheless, God knows that I cannot find in my 
books the faults with which I am charged." The ofi^er 
to retract them, if they are there, is of little value when he 
calls God to witness that he cannot find them. 

He longed yet for a triumph to be ^ven to him in Eome 
itself, and trusted to his ..eloquence to secure it, if he could 
succeed in obtaining an interview with the Pontiff. He set 
out for that purpose, but neither St. Bernard of Citeaux, 
nor Peter the Venerable of Cluny, had lost sight oif his 
movements. They intercepted him on his way, and so 
wrought upon their impressionable brother that he, whether 
by his own will or in spite of it, gave up his journey, and 
never agavn left Cltmy, except when for the sake of his health 
he waa transferred to a monastery at Cydons, where he 
died, in a semi-odour of sanctity, on the 2lBt April, 1142, 
in the sixty-lihird year of his age. 

Peter the Venerable, in a rather warm letter to H^lo'ise, 
to w^hom lie says, ^^ would to Heaven that Cluny possessed 
you :also !" speaks in high tepms of the peilbet hunulity- of 



860 K£W PICTURES Aim OLD PAITELS. 

Abelard in his retirement, or captivity. We are inclined 
to agree with E^musat, that this humility may have been 
feigned in order to obtain his fi*eedom. *' He gave up," 
adds the Venerable Peter, "logic for the Gospel; nature 
for the Apostles ; Plato for Christ ; the academy for the 
cloister." "Was any choice allowed him ? Or can we ac- 
cept " the Venerable " as a competent judge, when, in the 
epitaph he inscribed upon the tomb of the convert, he 
called him the " Socrates of Gbul," the "Plato of the West," 
and " our own Aristotle " ? 

On a dark night of the November following the April in 
which Abelard died, Peter the Venerable, in order to gratify 
H^loise, stole the remains of her lover, and had them con- 
veyed to the Paraclete, where during twenty-one years the 
loving woman visited them daily. She survived till 1163, 
when she died with the calmness of a saint. She was 
mourned by her nuns as a Lady Superior deserved to be, 
who " of human frailty construed mild." She loved order so 
much that she would not, as she says in the last, and by far 
the warmest and boldest of her epistles to Abelard, allow 
her young ladies to be running riot at midnight. But when 
a little love-affair was carried on ^rith decency and discre- 
tion, she thought upon Abelard and smiled ! The gratitude 
of the nuns of the house endured for a good six centuries, 
and in honour of her they performed a Mass annually (on 
the anniversary of her death) in the Greek language ! 

In 1163 the body of H^loise was placed in the coffin 
which held what was mortal of her lover, whose arms, ac- 
cording to the legend, opened to receive her. When 334 
years had passed, the silent lovers were again disunited, 
and, in 1497, placed in separate coffins and different graves. 
In 1779 they were re-united partially, being deposited side 
by side in a single coffin, divided by a leaden compartment. 
On the dissolution of the monasteries in 1792, the inhabi- 
tants of Nogent transferred to their church the remains of 



POETEAIT OF Jl STXTDEKT IS LOTE. 361 

the unhappy pair. A superb monument was erected over 
them, but in 1794 the iconoclasts of the Eepublic shattered 
it into fragments. Six years later, on the festival of St. 
GFeorge, 1800, the bodies were removed to Paris, and afber 
a term of repose within the Musee des Monuments Fran9ai8, 
they were finally carried to the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. 
The open chapel which canopies the tomb within which 
they rest is formed from the ruins of the Paraclete, but the 
tomb itself, seven centuries old, is the original one raised 
by Peter the Venerable over the body of Abelard. A hand- 
ful of dust and a few bones are all that remain of those of 
whom we have here given the record and the chronicle — of 

THE SELFISH SOHOLAE AND THE TJKSELEISH AND DETOTED 
WOMAN. 



B 



862 



PICTURES OF RHINE-LAND AND ITS 

ROMANCE. 

"Emt," remarked Alexandre, "is not altogether correct 
in his last illustration of H^loise — whose convent, in the 
picture, is a well-known locality on the Ehine." 

" At all events," said the German, " he could not have 
placed her more picturesquely." 

This remark was text sufficient for treating of figures, 
landscapes, and romance in Ehine-land. How each mem- 
ber present took part in the discussion, need not be re- 
ported, but the sum of what was said (or seen in sketches, 
to w^hich reference was frequently made) may be gathered 
from a connected resume of the conversation, — opened by 
the Briton. 

A matter-of-fact river is our river Thames, and all its 
legends are more connected with money-making than with 
magic. The truth is, that we must traverse Belgium before 
we can reach the frontiers of fairy-land. We approach it 
when we come in sight of the tomb of Charlemagne and 
the towers of Aix-la-Chapelle — that city of noble memories, 
but we are not fairly over the threshold until we enter the 
old " Stadt Koln," when we at once succumb to evil smells, 
endless legends, and the odour of eau de Cologne. 

The Ehine, from Botterdam to Cologne, has never been 
inhabited by spirits. The favourite locality of the latter 
lies between Cologne and Mayence. All beyond is common- 
place shore and wave. But within these limits, every reach 



PICTITBES 07 BHINE-L^JH) AKB ITS BOMiL^CE. 363 

m the stream re-echoes a st/ory of an elf or an imp, and 
every meadow on its shores is danced upon by gossamer 
fairies, or galloped over at the witching hour of night by 
ghasbly ritters and skeleton steeds. Every miU has its 
kobbold, and every building its household spirit. From the 
cathedral at Koln to the most wretched Ehine-washed hut, 
beings supernatural rule and possess. From the devil, 
" first in bad eminence," down to the ghost of some erring 
beacon, every nook acknowledges the deep mysterious sway. 
Churchman and knight, trembling nuns and ladies fair, 
truculent bishops and stiff-necked burghers, lord and pea- 
sant, emperor and beggar, in short, whole visionary mul- 
titudes of deceased generations elbow one another on the 
land, or swim in unsubstantial vessels, with transparent 
sails, upon the water. A majesty of gloom hangs over the 
spots where these spirits of the past most do congregate. 
Cologne itself lives upon a crowd of traditions more nume- 
rous than its steeples, of which there are said to have once 
been as many as there are days in the year. Not the least 
of them is, that Judas Maccabeus and his brother lie therein 
entombed. Stone figures of saints in Cologne have been 
known to accept half-munched apples from pious little boys, 
who afterwards studied hard, read much, and, as the old joke 
say^, " nobody the wiser." Here lived Albertus Magnus the 
monk, who possessed the power of turning winter into sum- 
mer, and of being pleasantly independent of the coal-market 
and its tariffs. Here too existed merchants who built 
churches by calculation, that the weight of the stones would 
exceed the ponderosity of their sins, and that the recording 
angel would strike a balance in their favour accordingly. 
Finally, here dwelt the famous Matemus, who was elected 
Bishop after his death, and who walked from his grave 
rather than render the election void by non-appearance, 
and kept possession of the episcopal chair for more than a 
quarter of a. century. To do the honest man justice, he 



8M msw picTUBSS aitd old paitels. 

always ayerred, after his attainment to the mitre, that he 
had never yet died — as far as A« could recollect. But they 
who wanted a miracle had more convenient memories, and 
they ever asserted that Bishop Matemus was, in good truth, 
the most ghostly of prelates. 

Legend has paid the greatest possihle compliment to 
Satan, hy attributing to him the honour of being the ori- 
ginal designer of the plan for that still unfinished cathedral 
at Cologne, of which Hood says so finely, that it looks like 
a broken promise made to God. There are only two other 
places on the Ehine where the Father of Lies still retains 
occupation. One is at Eahr, where he has a *' Devil's 
House," in which he may be seen at night, drinking hor- 
ribly hot-spiced wine with a long since deceased Prince of 
Neuwied. The exemplary pair often issue forth at night, 
after their carouse is over, and in the disguise of monks make 
convent cloisters hideous with the howling of their gaillard 
songs, or play such tricks with the ferrymen and their boats 
upon the river, that when morning dawns there is no man at 
his right station, and every boat is drifting towards the sea. 
But the Devil of the Ehine is sometimes of a better quality 
than is here implied. The perpendicular staircase in the 
rock at Loch was cut by him in a night, expressly to enable 
a knight to rescue his daughter from the lord of a castle 
in his eyrie above. Cavalier and steed trotted up at right 
angles to the surface ; and in proof of the fact the people 
show you the saddle ! 

The legendary ritters are as restless as the traditionary 
Satan. At Eheid, if you only go when they are to be seen, 
you may discern a host of them in the tournament-field 
there, engaged in passages of arms, charging fiercely at each 
other, and galloping about " like mad," but all so silently 
and lightly that no sound reaches the ear, not a harebell 
bends beneath the chargers' hoofs, and indeed, if nothing be 
beard or felt, the legend can only be perfected by adding 



:i?icTtrBEB or bhike-laitb akd its romance. 365 

that there is quite as little to be seen. But do not attempt 
to say so to the people of Loch ! 

The Drachenfels — rock of the dragon — introduces us to the 
chivalrous Siegfried, who found it an easier task to over- 
come the dragon, that carried off maidens by night and 
breakfasted off young ladies in the morning, than to subdue 
the truculent Queen of the Burgundians to the reasonable 
vnll of that melancholy man, her husband. Altogether 
Siegfried, the homed knight, was more creditable to chivalry 
than his brother Bitter, Graf Hurman. He used to take 
delight in riding through his tenants' corn, and, if any of 
these complained, he took the funniest imaginable way of 
intimating that he felt hurt at the little liberty they took 
with him. In fact, he had the offender tied to the antlers 
of a wild stag, and hunted to death by hungry dogs. But 
there is a Nemesis — and Graf Hurman is now nightly chased 
out of his grave by the vengeful spirits of his tenants, in the 
form of hounds, and these lead him such a life of it that it is 
a pity his descendants do not lay out a few kreutzers in 
Masses, to ensure his- repose. 

A knight of another class- and reputation is he who has 
given fame to the height at Boland's Eck. There still 
stands the window whence he used to watch the nun he 
loved, in the island below ; from which he beheld her borne 
to the grave, and at which he gently died, — the spectacle 
being too much for the nerves of a man who had scattered 
legions of Paynim Saracens by the might of his single arm. 

At Daltenberg we meet with another love-stricken knight, 
who, after dinner, made a promise of marriage to a dead 
lady in a deserted castle. He subsequently found himself, 
he knew not how, in a ruined chapel ; and when he beheld 
his cold bride with him at the altar, the ghost of her father 
rising complaisantly from the grave to give her away, and a 
bronze bishop beginning to read the marriage service aloud, 
he became so alarmed that he had but just sufficient strength 

a2 



866 KSW PICTUBES AND OLD PANSLi. 

to call for help upon the saints aboye, and barely sufficient 
power of vision to see the whole party disappear in snap- 
dragon flames, and a yery suspicious smell of sulphur. At 
other points we fiEiU in with ritters who are tossing their 
fathers' bones out of their graves in search of treasure, and 
expressing great sorrow at finding nothing. Others, in 
times of famine, play at nine-pins, with loaves for balls, and 
baked pastry pins to bowl at. Above Lahneck we enter 
the ground where the two brothers slew each other for the 
sake of a worthless woman who cared for neither of them. 
At Sonneck, a company of ghostly ritters meet twice a 
month, at hours known to the initiated ; their purpose is 
convivial, and their place of meeting a cavern, wherein, 
seated at an unearthly banquet, they eat fire, like conjurors, 
and drink boiling wine out of red-hot goblets. At Ealken- 
berg there is a ghostly knight of more solitary habits. 
When he was alive he used to spend his nights with a dead 
lady, much afber the fashion of Gothe's young heathen with 
the Christian bride of Corinth. The knight, however, im- 
like the impetuous young pagan of the ballad, ultimately 
espoused a lady — alive, pretty, and as substantial as grace- 
ful brides of upper earth should be. The newly married couple 
speedily died of affright ; and I am not surprised at it, for 
every night the cold form of the other, the dead but betrothed 
lady, lay between them, by way of mutely annoying reproach 
upon the infidelity of the bridegroom. The penalty of the 
latter beyond the grave is to wander for ever in search of 
both wives, and fall in with neither. One would think that 
Belphegor had had compassion upon him. 

The well-known legend of the Mouse Tower may be 
classed with the ritters' traditions, for Hatto was as much 
knight as bishop. He was a monopolizer and a forestaller 
of com, but an army of rats devoured the greedy cavalier- 
priest. Truth will have ib that it was the com and not the 
owner that was devoured, — but that would not have been 



PIOTTTSEB 01* BHrifB^ANJ) AND ITS EOMANOE. 867 

half so. interesting a circumstance to register. I prefer the 
legend, and invoke the fate of its hero upon the monopo* 
lizers of com, who make bread dear for the people of England. 
The ladies are especially lively in the legends of the 
Eihine. England alone furnishes eleven thousand for the 
dingle story of Ursula and her companions, who crossed the 
seas to marry as many G-erman princes, and who were 
massacred at Cologne by a host of ferocious Huns, whose 
rough wooing had been deeply declined by these resolute 
ladies. The shy Kordula alone remained, and half a hundred 
Huns offered her their very dirty hands ; but Kordula hap- 
pened to look up, and as she saw all her headless sisters 
gaily scaling the heights of heaven, she selected to be of the 
company, and was qualified accordingly. The Huns, nothing 
daunted by their iU success, broke into the nunnery at 
Niedeswerth, where they found the entire establishment of 
noble ladies locked in each others' arms, fast asleep. The 
intruders were proceeding to rude measures, when a dis- 
criminating wind blew the Huns into the river, and the 
nuns into swift sailing-boats upon it, in which they descended 
the stream and found safety at Bonn. The unquietness of 
the nuns of Grau E>heindorf is, perhaps, in allusion to their 
particular peccadillo. They were excessively given to glut- 
tony, especiaUy in the article of fish ;. and fearfully did they 
suffer in consequence, from sleepless nights and indigestionn 
They rest as iU in their graves, but have not the same 
motive for leaving it as the phantom mother of Eiirstenbergj 
who issues nightly from the tomb in order to "nurse" an 
imaginary baby which she fancies is encradled in the neigh- 
bouring castle. Well! the poor mother is impelled by 
better motives than that terrible dead lady-in-waiting to 
a deceased duchess of Nassau, who will enter the young 
officers' rooms, where she says such dreadfully unexpected 
things that it turns grey the fair or sable locks of all who 
hear them. And this I readily believe. 



868 KXW PICTUBES AJSHD OLD PAITBLS. 

There is a very liyely company of ghostly ladies at 
Aberwerth. It comprises a troop of unmarried damsels 
who are doomed to dance for ever until they find lovers 
willing to marry them. Poor things ! It is something too 
hard upon them that they should be condemned, when 
defunct, to endure the same round of toil for the same foolish 
purpose that moved them when living. But, the penalty is 
retribution. It implies that had the maidens waited to be 
wooed at their fathers' hearths, rather than bound about a 
ball-room to entice the wooers that would not come, their 
mission would have been better fulfilled. And there is 
something in that. 

Of the other ladies who linger perforce by the Ehine, 
and there visit the pale glimpses of the moon, I can only 
allude to the lovely legion en masse. Their separate tales 
are too many to tell, and what requires to be told is not 
always " tellable." Some of these spirits lead awfully im- 
moral lives, and very few are exemplary characters. I sup- 
pose that originally their legends, like that of Hatto and 
the rat-tower, had some significance ; but it were as profit- 
able to try and weave ropes out of sand, or squeeze moisture 
fipom dust, as to extract edification from myths which deal 
in ladies and gentlemen who are employed in disreputable 
proceedings, which, had they indulged in them upon earth, 
would have made society shun them. Ghosts, at least Ger- 
man ghosts, do not appear to be half so particular ; and 
grave No. 3, inhabited by the most serious of spirits, does 
not shake to its foundation at the character of its neigh- 
bours, Nos. 2 and 4. On the contrary, the spirits in all 
three roam abroad in company, and No. 3 sings hymns, 
and looks calmly on, while 2 and 4 are comporting them- 
selves with anything but the strictest propriety. 

The best of the ladies is one who partakes both of light 
legend and true history. I allude to the prophetess Hilde- 
gard, who was one of the nine wives of Karloman, and who 



FICTTJBEB OF BHIKE-LAyB AKD ITS BOMANCE. 869 

went triumphantly through the process of being unjustly 
suspected by her husband. She traversed Europe, preach- 
ing the crusades, and uttering prophecies which will be 
^Ifilled whenever they come to pass. She was famous for 
her healing powers, and invented " spermaceti ointment for 
an inward bruise ;" (an invention which was patronized as 
"the sovereign'st thing on earth," by Hotspur's carpet 
cavalier ;) she, further, spread plaisters, invented pills, and 
may be altogether considered as the patron saint presiding 
over patent medicines. 

The legendary monks do not make so conspicuous a figure 
in the Ehine romances as the legendary ladies. Their spirits 
rather linger among the distant and inland castles and con- 
vents which, in the olden time, were renowned for their 
freedom from danger, and their abundance of good cheer. 
But, however, the river legends are not entirely silent with 
regard to the sons of the church. At Heisterbach, the last 
abbot of the community still wanders about the ruins of 
the abbey, looking in vain for the grave which is denied to 
his canonized bones, until every vestige of the edifice shall 
have disappeared. The dead monks at Kreuzburg, who lie 
in the vault there uncoffined, garmented as when they lived, 
and who look so very dry and dusty, are accused of being 
rather given to jollity and illicit sports about midnight. 
No one who has seen them would, for a moment, suspect 
them of levity. Even the old dead gardener, with his 
withered wreath about his skull, the last of the brother- 
hood there laid out to rest, has as severe a look in his 
silent solemnity as any of his more reverend brethren ; and 
yet is it said of him that he sits upright on his stone seat 
at nights, and trolls such catches and tells such stories, 
and is so comic in manner as well as matter, that the dead 
monks regularly die of laughing, — ^until the descent of the 
night-dew awakens them again to their nightly revel. 

What a far more respectable deceased churchman is the 



870 msw PicTUBSs and old paitels. 

defunct and gigantic monk of Eheinbreitbach ! His name 
is Hammerling, and his office is to nurse and feed poor 
miners who happen to get imprisoned by accident in the 
course of their perilous vocation. He is somewhat capri- 
cious and hasty, but compassionate withal, — and he keeps a 
good larder, too, or how could he have maintained alive, and 
even made fat, those seven miners who, by the falling-in of 
their cavernous workshop, were confined seven years, and 
were found much better than could be expected, at last ? 
At Stronberg, a monk and nun are said to "walk," waiting 
to be married ; the walking and waiting being their punish- 
ment for expressing a desire to be married when they were 
in the flesh. In the castle of Eheinfels, there is a more 
ghastly sight than that of two youthful novices wandering 
in cold afiection. The sight I allude to is that of the old 
chaplain of the Countess of Katzenellenbogen, who poisoned 
his mistress by putting arsenic into the sacramental cup. 
The penalty of the old murderer is to be always mixing the 
draught and drinking it himself. There are numberless 
spectral abbots, too, about this district who bore no very 
good reputation when living, and who are a perfect nuisance 
now they are dead ; active in mischief, and terribly seduc- 
tive ; and there is not a poor peasant girl who leans solitarily 
against a gate, with her apron to her eyes, and something 
at her heart to keep it aching, who does not lay the blame 
upon these terribly Juanic ghosts, who go about in cowls, 
and are as licentious as when they were living ! At St. G-oar, 
we meet, however, with the name, if not the spirit, of a re- 
spectable saint; it is said of him that he could hang his 
cloak on a sunbeam and pass a whole year without food. 
The unseen spirit is active though invisible, and once, when 
Karloman passed the saint's grave without stopping to hear 
a Mass, St. Goar was so irritated that, with a breath which 
seemed to descend, like a hurricane, from the hills, he over- 
turned the boat in which the Emperor and his courtiers 



picTxraES or ehine-land aitd its eomance. 371 

were seated, and nearly drowned the illustrious passengers 
in return for their alleged impiety. Pepin, the son of Karlo- 
man, did not forget the insult, and when, at a* subsequent 
period, his queen Bertruda visited the shrine of the Saint, 
and was lefb without refreshment till she almost fainted, 
Pepin was so indignant thereat that he went down and 
horsewhipped the prior ! Karloman had shown less resent- 
ment than his son, and returned good for evil. He made a 
present to the monastery of that wonderful butt of wine, 
the liquor in which never grew less, although it was for ever 
running at the spigot. 

Karloman shines among the legendary emperors, of whose 
doings, however, less is said than we might have expected. 
Even the Konigstuhl, or coronation seat at Ehens, has dis- 
appeared, solid masonry as it was ; it could not withstand 
the hammering of the French Republicans. Marksburg has 
its true stories more terrible than romance. It was there 
that Lewis the Severe murdered his wife, in a fit of jealousy 
as ungovernable as it was unfounded. He beheaded the 
poor lady in her own bedroom, and then flung all her ser- 
vants from the highest turret of the castle, as accomplices 
in a crime which existed only in his imagination. With the 
exception of this trifling weakness, Lewis was an exceed- 
ingly proper knight ; stem, and apt to kill upon contradic- 
tion ; but such little foibles tarnished not the lustre of his 
cuirass, though they have rather dulled the glory of his 
name. Heymon of Dordogne was worthy of bearing arms 
under such a master. This mirror of chivalry, according to 
the legend, once struck his wife to the ground with hia 
gauntleted hand, and strode across her body to greet his 
newly-discovered son Eeynold, whom he embraced with 
such a paternal hug that he laid the cartilage of the young 
fellow's nose flat upon his face ! Turning from him, he ad- 
dressed himself to the Countess, whom he had stretched 
upon the ground, and, with the appellation of ''heart's 



872 ITEW PICTintES JlTTD old PAITELS. 

loye," politely requested her to arise. Eejmold, in tbe 
meantime, smarting under his smashed nose, affectionately 
returned thp excess of his father's warmth by protesting 
" so help him Heaven, he was well-minded to lay his sire 
dead at his feet !" 

There is nothing left of the palace of Karloman at Ingel- 
heim, save two of the hundred porphyry columns blessed 
by the Pope. One of these is in the church ; the other in 
a gateway, which is itself a ruin. Tradition speaks of the 
great Emperor riding out from hence nightly, in disguise, 
and exhibiting his imperial sense of humour in the practical 
joke of silently breaking open his subjects' houses, and carry- 
ing off their property. His sons are said to have played for 
the succession to his magnificent throne, at Kempton, where 
the young gamblers fought a main of cocks for the purpose. 
The game was won by Ludwig, and therewith the terribly 
uneasy throne. 

But it is, after all, the tricksy spirits that lend life and 
loveliness to the Ehine and its legends. Who would not 
have liked to have belonged to the monastery at Gunsdorf, 
that used to be visited every night by fairies of the most 
exquisite beauty and the lightest of garments, and who used 
to keep the reluctant old gentleman up and feasting till 
cock-crow ? Another fairy took the form and name of the 
"Wondrous Harp of Luladorf, in the vicinity of which she 
was to be heard discussing such music as might melt the 
soul. There were other fays whose homes were beneath 
the waters, and who were very much given to entice yoimg 
knights into the stream, and set up unblessed houEoholds 
with them in bowers below the crystal waves. The Lurley 
Berg is a height, the home-place of a million echoes. In 
the vicinity once dwelt a maid who was so exquisitely 
beautiful that she turned mad aU who looked upon her, and 
despairing husbands of the gravest cast committed suicide 
after beholding her. The fatal Siren was thereupon tried 



FICTUBES OF BHDirE-LAin) Aim ITS BOHAITCE. 373 

for manifold murder and witchcraft, l)ut the archiepiscopal 
judge, the lawyers, the witnesses, and the spectators fell so 
deeply in love with her, that, like the tribunal that absolved 
Phryne when the nymph was unveiled before it, the Court 
acquitted the accused by acclamation. Lurley still survives, 
in legend at least ; and no pilot who steers his bark round 
the headland called by her name is safe &om being swept 
overboard, if he raises his eyes as his ears recognize the 
sound of her harp, and beholds her sitting in seductive 
beauty, singing him invitations to land. GDhere is no more 
dangerous place upon the river, — save, indeed, in the 
Whisper Dell at Lorch, which is noted for its perils to 
youths of tender hearts j&om the tongues of sweet-voiced 
ladies. It was at Lorch that the first red wine was made, 
and the influence of the grape is said to be strong on the 
lips of either spirit or mortal who, having drunk of the 
eloquent juice, is led by his destiny to the fatal Valley of 
"Whispers. No doubt. It must be confessed that generous 
wine, a fair face, and a pleasant vale, form a combination of 
charms very suitable to put a man, as Mr. Lumpkin says, 
" in a concatenation accordingly.' " 

The male followers of Oberon are, as might be expected, 
rather rougher in their moods than the ladies who wait upon 
Titania. Their duties, too, are sometimes droll, but without 
signiflcance. There is one whose mission it is to go in 
quest of young ladies and old nurses ; and, when these have 
performed the offices required at their hands, they are 
straightway deprived of their souls, which are fastened 
down for ever, in duly ticketed pipkins ! There are water- 
wolfs and bottle-imps, and there are the jolly elf frater- 
nity at Ehrenthal, whose sole business it is, like Chaucet's 

friends, to 

"Hold their hippee and loffe." 

Werlau is the residence of the gnome king of shadows. 
In the valley is his dweUing-place, and it is said that when 

s 



374 FEW PICTUBES AlH) OLD FAITSLS. 

two young persons of the locality become attached to each 
other, there spring up in the valley two flowers, called 
" soul-flowers." These flowers may be made an unerring 
test of the aflection that inspires the enamoured pair, by 
applying them to the heart. K the love be true and stead- 
fast, the flower is instantly reduced to ashes ! 

" Stead£u9t heart o*er Cupid's flower 
Hath such force and blessed power I *' 

With US, in the olden time of England, our romantic youth 
employed the Bcmuneultis hulboms as a test of strength of 
aflection. In those days, a swain was wont to stuff his 
pockets full of " bachelor's buttons," and, as they flourished 
or withered, so did he judge of his lady's love. Thus mine 
host, in the * Merry "Wives of Windsor,' says of Ponton's 
love for sweet Anne Page, " He writes verses ; he speaks 
holy day ; he smells April and May ; he will carry 't ! he will 
carry 't ! 't is in his buttons ; he will carry 't !" 

The Ehine has more legends than those I have told ; but 
such as I have cited of each class will enable my readers to 
conjecture (if they care to do so) the quality of the rest. I 
will therefore conclude with an incident that belongs rather 
to history than romance. Bacharach is the scene where 
passed the bloody feuds maintained by the Palatine Herman 
and the Archbishop Arnold of Mainz : the Diet interfered, 
and condemned each to carry a dog on his shoulders a cer- 
tain distance. The Palatine performed his share of the 
penalty, with many a wry face ; but the Archbishop, being 
by far too venerable a person to be punished in any way but 
by deputy, a certain number of his vassals were compelled, 
to their great edification, to do this good service for their 
lord! This species of punishment was not uncommonly 
inflicted upon those who broke the peace of the empire, or 
who were notoriously tyrannical as vicegerents of the Em- 
peror. The nobles were compelled to carry a cur-dog, 
vassals a stool, and peasants a plough-wheel, on their 



LOST TIMS. 375 

shoulders, to the bounds of the adjacent lordship, and to 
endure patiently every insult offered them by the way. As 
we have seen, high churchmen could pay the penalty by 
representatives, — twenty vassals being accounted equivalent 
to one archbishop 1 



" And now, Mee Aughton," said Smith, at the close of our 
session, '' paint us a picture in words that shall represent 
our occupation here." 

Thereupon Mee Aughton, with something of a satirical 
smile on his face, dashed off the following metrical sermon, 
to the great edification of his audience. 

LOST TIME. 

One eyening, as old Wisdom lay 

Before his cool and mossy cell ; 
While round him softest airs did play, 

And on him eve's last bright rays fell ; 
Then as the Sage lay musing there 

On things above or 'neath the sky, 
A sound arose upon the air, 

A mingled, loud, and mournful cry. 

More grief's sharp tone than joyous song. 

Or lay subdued of Wisdom's clime. 
From a mixed crowd who passed along. 

Exclaiming, " Time ! we have lost Time ! 
Old Time, entrusted to our guard, 

(O'er whom we held so light a sway,) 
Hath, while we played, broke from his ward. 

Slipped off his bonds and fled away. 

" Wisdom, tell us where to find 
The truant who has thus escaped. 
Who flies with wings more swift than wind. 
And, of the way that he has shaped, 



876 NEW PICTUBES AITD OLD PANELS. 

LeftTes scarce a mark to trace him bj. 

We hardly thought he could have flown, 
When o*er our heads we saw him fly, 

And now we weep that Time is gone." 

And then again the crowd began 

To shriek still louder than before ; 
From hill to hill the echo ran, 

And died in murmurs on the shore. 
Thei4 some would sigh and some would scoff. 

And some {moH foolish) take to rhyme. 
GRien, swift as thought, the whole were off, 

In search once more of missing Time. 

Old Wisdom smiled. Old Wisdom frowned, 

Old Wisdom pondered long and deep. 
And, as at night he turned him round 

Upon his healthy couch to sleep, 
** Fly on ! fly on !" the sage he said, — 

" Pursue ! pursue ! but all in vain, 
For Time, who from his bonds hath strayed. 

Can neyer be enchained again." 



CJe ffinti. 



JOHN EDWARD TATLOE, PKINTBR, 
LITTLB QUEKK STREET, LIKCOLM'S IMN FIBLI»S. 






piclurM and aW panali.