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diff --git a/17558.txt b/17558.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..48ea194 --- /dev/null +++ b/17558.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13392 @@ +Project Gutenberg's My Life as an Author, by Martin Farquhar Tupper + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: My Life as an Author + +Author: Martin Farquhar Tupper + +Release Date: January 20, 2006 [EBook #17558] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY LIFE AS AN AUTHOR *** + + + + +Produced by Stacy Brown Thellend, Robert Connal and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by the Bibliotheque nationale de France +(BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr) + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Martin F. Tupper. _Elliott & Fry, Photographers._] + + + + +Martin Tupper's Autobiography + + + + +MY LIFE + +AS AN AUTHOR + +BY + +MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER +D.C.L. F.R.S. + +_Viri, vivo, vivam._ + +LONDON: +SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON +CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET, E.C. +1886 + +[_All rights reserved_] + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. + Page +Preliminary--Sonnet--Public Life, not Private--Benjamin +Franklin--Samples from Books--Self-judgment 1-6 + + +CHAPTER II. + +Infancy and Schooldays--Parentage--Germany and Guernsey, +America and Canada--Winsor's Patent Gaslights--King George +III.'s Blessing--My Father's Dream--Second +Sight--Heredity--First School at Brentford--Next at Brook +Green--Third Charterhouse--Dr. Russell--Parson +Schoolmasters--Coins and Hoops--Andrew +Irvine--Cockshies--Harpies at the Feast--Dr. +Stocker--Holt's--M'Neile--Harold Browne 7-25 + + +CHAPTER III. + +Young Authorship in Verse and Prose--Melite--Rough +Rhymes--Carthage--Umbrella Sapphics--Height of Honesty--Holkar +Hall--Melrose Abbey--Heidelberg--Pterodactyles--The +Buckstone--Scotch Journal--Vitrified Forts--Ireland--Kingston +Caverns--Cornish Letter and Sketches--Penzance--The +Logan--Land's End--St. Michael's Mount--Rapid Travel 26-51 + + +CHAPTER IV. + +College Days--Voice from the Cloister--Gladstone--Aristotle +Class--Giants in those Days--Studentship--A +Reading-Man--College Larks--D.C.L.--Dr. Bliss 52-61 + + +CHAPTER V. + +Failure as to Orders--Stammering--Blewbury Vicarage--Lincoln's +Inn--Lewin's Critique--Brodie's Cacography--Inkpen's +Entomology--Duke of Wellington--Walters'--Letter as to +India--Barrister and Benedict--A Hoax--Theodore Hook--Old Lady +Cork 62-71 + + +CHAPTER VI. + +Stammering--Man's Privilege of Speech--Chess +Playing--Anecdotes--Angling--Fishing Sonnets 72-78 + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Oxford Prize Poems--Verses in the Schools--Parodies--Rhyme +and Rhythm--Scriptural Science--Classic Parallels 79-85 + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +Sundry Providences--The Small Semisuicide--A Concussion--Horse +Accidents--Perils by Land and Sea--Lydstep Cavern 86-89 + + +CHAPTER IX. + +Yet more Escapes--White Cross Guild--Evils and +Temptations--Potipheras--Heresies--Creeds 90-94 + + +CHAPTER X. + +Fads and Fancies--Vegetarian--Teetotalism--The +Anglo-Saxon--Opera Colonnade--Moderation--America +Revisited--Poem on Temperance and Total +Abstinence--Gough--Dr. Hodgkin--A Martyr--Clerical Letter +on Pharisaism 95-104 + + +CHAPTER XI. + +Sacra Poesis--Geraldine--Critiques--John and Tom +Hughes--Donnington Priory--Little Providences 105-110 + + +CHAPTER XII. + +Origin of "Proverbial Philosophy"--M'Neile and Stebbing--N.P. +Willis--Harrison Ainsworth--Hatchard's--Moxon's--Cassell's--A +Prophecy--My Father's Letter and Gift--Sixty +Times--Politeuphuia--Parallels--Mr. Orton's Volume--American +Laudations, and English--As to _per contra_--Copyright +Question--Wedding Gifts--An Elizabethan Author--Seldom +Seen, and Few Adventures 111-133 + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +A Modern Pyramid--The Vision--A Fearful +Flight--Imagination--The Crystal Cubes and Mud +Bricks--Sonnets and Sonneteering--Mackay and Shakespeare's 134-144 + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +An Author's Mind--Prefatory Ramble--Addled Eggs--The Mental +Cathedral--Probabilities--Job's Trials 145-152 + + +CHAPTER XV. + +The Crock of Gold--Dramatised in Boston and London--Origin +of the Story--The Twins--Heart: drawn from Living +Models--Critiques from Ollier and St. John 153-158 + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +AEsop Smith--Mudie's--Rabelaisian Hints--The Early +Gallop--Alfred, or Albert Order--Fables 159-162 + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +Stephan Langton--King Alfred's Poems--The Silent Pool--Hard +Reading for the History--The Book still in Print--Curious +Metrical Translation of Anglo-Saxon Poetry--The Jubilee at +Wantage and at Liverpool 163-169 + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +Shakespeare Commemoration--Lord Carlisle--Lord Houghton, +Leigh Court--Stratford Church--The Baptismal Font--An +American Autograph Hunter--Sonnet 170-172 + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +Translations and Pamphlets--Homer, _lib._ A.--Tennyson's +Vivien--Classical Versions--Hymn for All Nations--Protestant +Ballads--Fifteen Pamphlets 173-179 + + +CHAPTER XX. + +Paterfamilias's Diary--Courier Pierre--Devil's +Bridge--Major Hely--Guernsey--The Haro that saved Castle +Cornet--Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney--Durham's +Statue of Prince Albert--Isle of Man--King Orry--Walter +Montgomery--Bishop Powys 180-189 + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +Never Give Up, at Dr. Kirkland's--Harvest Hymns--Gordon +Ballads--The Good Earl--John Brown--My Brother--Memory--Evil +not Endless 190-199 + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +Protestant Ballads--"So help me, God!"--Nun's Appeal, &c. 200-203 + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +Plays--Alfred--Raleigh--Washington--Twelve Scenes--Family +Records 204-207 + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +Antiquariana--Lockhart and my Coin Article in +the _Quarterly_--Farley Finds--Mummy Wheat and Faraday 208-212 + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +Honours--_Times'_ Letter--A Peerage and Baronetcy--Prussian +Medal and Chevalier Bunsen's Letter--Authorship a Rank by +Itself--Many Inventions and Literary Discoveries, as Punch, +Humpty Dumpty, 666, &c. 213-220 + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +Courtly: Prophetic Sonnet on our Empress--Many Royal +Poems--Modern Court Suit _v._ Queen Anne's--A Greeting +to Prince Albert Victor 221-228 + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +F.R.S.--Lord Melbourne's Carelessness--Spectrum +Analysis--Spiritualism--Vivisection--Painted +Windows--Parabolic Teaching 229-233 + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +Personation--Bignor--The Greyhound--Alibis--A Rescue +on Snowdon--Fraudulent Collections--Forged +Authorials--Boston Unitarianism--Pictures Falsely Signed 234-237 + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +Hospitalities--Farnham Castle--Orchids and Pines--Bishop +Sumner--Garibaldi at Gladstone's--Parham and +Curzon--Ghosts--Purple Parchments--Uncut +Elzevirs--Shenstone's Leasowes--"Little +Testy"--Sonnet--Isle of Wight--Sojourns--City +Feasts--Ostentatious Hospitality 238-244 + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +Social and Rural--No Scandals--Hawthorne's Visit--Alexander +Smith's--Jerdan's Haycock--Otto Goldschmidt and +Macdougall--Dark Visitors--Liberian Gold +Medal--Noviomagians--Lucky Angling--Albury Waltz--Rustic +Stupidity--Redmen--The Drinking Fountain--Our House a +Hive of Bees--Foxhunt in Drawing-room--The Donkey +Burglar--Anthony Devis--Irvingism 245-256 + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +American Ballads: "Ho, Brother! I'm a Britisher"--The +Quasi-Inspiration--"Thirty Noble Nations," and +Thirty-three--Many Others--Ground-baiting the Transatlantic 257-259 + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +First American Visit--Too Temperate for 1851; not Temperate +enough for 1876--Grand Dinner at Baltimore, and Great +Speech--The Astor Dinner--"Amice Davis"--Mayor Kingsland and +the Mile-long Procession--Willis, at Golden Square--The +Fillmore Dinner at the White House--Jenny Lind's +Concert--Gordon Bennet--Squier--Barnum 260-270 + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +Second American Visit--Extreme +Gold--Talmage--Bryant--Cooper--"Immortality" at the +Tabernacle--Lotus Club--Lord Rosebery--Dr. Levis--Mr. +Pettit's Portrait--The Listers at Hamilton--Toronto--Sir +Charles Tupper--Elgin--Dufferin--Mackay and Sleighing--Dawson +and Eozoa--Vaughan-Tuppers--The Grand John Hopkins' +Banquet--Charleston Tuppers--My Palinode to the South--Visit +to Williams Middleton--Parting Stanzas--Ruined +Mansion--Valete 271-280 + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +English and Scotch Readings, very rapid, from Isle of Wight +to Peterhead--My Entrepreneur D.: his Experiences: I Failed +with Him, but Succeeded Alone--Specimen of Readings--Local +Critiques--Many Friends Unrecorded--Miscellaneous Poems--Mr. +Gall's Primeval Man--Arbroath--Mill the Atheist--Mr. +Boyd's Piety--Hamilton Mausoleum--Wild Cattle--Burns's +Country--James Baird the Millionaire and the Hodman 281-288 + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +Electrics--Sir Culling Eardley at Erith--Atlantic +Telegraph--The First Message--Meddlesome Revisers--Antique +Telegraphy--Addison and Strada--Professor Morse--A +Telegram-Sonnet 289-295 + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +The Rifle, a Patriotic Prophecy in 1845--Early +Pamphlet--Defence not Defiance--Albury Club--Blackheath +Review--Lord Lovelace--Alarums--Drummond's Scare--A +Lucky Shot 296-303 + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +Autographs and Advertisements--Worth Eighteenpence each--A +Hundred at Once--Photographs--Oil Paintings--Locks of +Hair--Interviewers--Puffs and Anti-puffs 304-311 + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + +Kindness to Animals--Louis Napoleon and +Alfort--Vivisection--Pontrilas Court--The Omnibus +Hack--Divers Ballads 312-315 + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + +Orkney and Shetland--Our Voyage--Wick Herring Fair--Balfour +at Shapinshay--Kirkwall--Aytoun--Gulf Stream--Snuff-Boxes +and Corals--Fair Isle Hosiery--Stennis--Scalloway--Lerwick +Literature--Artificial Flora--Thurso Castle--Robert +Dick--Cape Wrath--Stornoway--Callanish--Pipers--The brooch +of Lorne, &c. 316-321 + + +CHAPTER XL. + +Literary Friends--Mrs. Somerville, Miss Granville, Mrs. +Jameson, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, Ouida, Miss Braddon, Mrs. +Carter Hall, Mrs. Grote, Lady Wilde, Miss Mackay, Rogers, +Carlyle, Haweis, Tennyson, Browning, Mortimer Collins, +Dickens and Son, Owen, Austen, Pengelley, Bowerbank, S. +Mackenzie, M. Arnold, S. Brooks, Albert Smith, Mark Lemon, +Tenniel, Cooper, P.B. Cole, E. Yates, Frank Smedley, J.G. Wood, +Cuthbert Collingwood, Mr. and Mrs. Zerffi, Birch, Miss Hooper, +Miss Barlee, G. MacDonald, Ronald Gower, Fred. Burnaby, +Charles Marvin--A Diner-Out--A Mormon Guest--Apostles--Frank's +Ranche--Twelve Anecdotes--Thackeray and Leech, +Longfellow, C. Kingsley, Ainsworth, Lord Elgin 322-350 + + +CHAPTER XLI. + +Some Older Friendships--Nightingale, and Farley Heath--Walter +Hawkins--His Tomb--Anchor--Anagrams--Christmas Largesse--Sham +Antiques--Joseph Durham--Alice's Statue--"Sir +Joe" and the Noviomagians--Prince Albert at St. Peter's +Port--Baroness Barnekow--Swedish Proverbial--King Oscar's +Poems--Geo. Metivier--French Proverbial--John Sullivan--Canon +Jenkins--Barnes, De Chatelain, De Pontigny--Correspondents, +&c. 351-362 + + +CHAPTER XLII. + +Political--A Dark Horse--No Party-Man--Gladstone--Ambidextrous +Stanzas--Liberal and Tory--The One-Vote System--Fancy +Franchises--The Voter's Motto--Fair Trade _v._ Free +Trade--Radically Conservative--Strikes, &c. 363-372 + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + +A Cure for Ireland--Racial Difficulties--The Unsunned +Corner--AEsop Smith's Prescription--An Irish Balmoral in +1858--My Anti Celtic Ballads--Adventures 373-379 + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + +Some Spiritist Experiences--Not a Spiritualist, but an Honest +Recorder of Facts--Alexis--Howell--Vernon's Mesmerised +Child--Mrs. Cora Tappan--Chauncey Townsend's +Book--Spirit-Drawings--Planchette--Showers of Flowers, and +Sugar-Plums, and Pearls--Mr. Home--Prayer before +_Seance_--The Table in the Air--Live Coals in My Hand--The +Vitalised Accordion--The Colonel's Ghost--Iamblicus--Query +Electrical Influence--Our Mysterious Key--Miss +Hudson--Thought-Reading 380-399 + + +CHAPTER XLV. + +Fickle Fortune--Losses and Failures--Testimonial--"L'espoir +est ma force"--My _Levee_ in 1851--The Missed Codicil--Life +and Death 400-403 + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + +Henry De Beauvoir, killed in Africa--Archdeacon Kitton--Our +Old Chancery Suit: A Lost Fortune--Belgravian Five Fields, +another Missed Chance--Earl Grosvenor 404-407 + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + +Flying: my Lecture at the Royal Aquarium with Fred. Burnaby +as Chairman--Henry Middleton's Invention--De Lisle Hay's +"Conquest of the Air"--Ezekiel's Angels--Ovid, and +Tennyson--Claude Hamilton--Extracts 408-412 + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + +Luther--The Peroration as to his Life and +Exploits--Anniversary Stanzas, in many Languages--Bullinger's +Music--Wycliffe Ballad--Wondrous Parallel 413-416 + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + +Final--Whatever is, is Right--Sick-bed +Repentance--Intuitions--What We Shall Be--Protest Against +Atheism--The Infinities--A Childlike Hymn--Eternal +Hope--Mercy for Ever--The Assurance of Ovid 417-431 + + + + +MY LIFE AS AN AUTHOR. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +PRELIMINARY. + + +I have often been asked to prepare an autobiography, but my objections +to the task have ever been many and various. To one urgent appeal I sent +this sonnet of refusal, which explains itself:-- + + "You bid me write the story of my life, + And draw what secrets in my memory dwell + From the dried fountains of her failing well, + With commonplaces mixt of peace and strife, + And such small facts, with good or evil rife, + As happen to us all: I have no tale + Of thrilling force or enterprise to tell,-- + Nothing the blood to fire, the cheek to pale: + My life is in my books: the record there, + A truthful photograph, is all I choose + To give the world of self; nor will excuse + Mine own or others' failures: glad to spare + From blame of mine, or praise, both friends and foes, + Leaving unwritten what God only knows." + +In fact I always rejected the proposal (warned by recent volumes of +pestilential reminiscences) and would none of it; not only from its +apparent vainglory as to the inevitable extenuation of one's own faults +and failures in life, and the equally certain amplification of +self-registered virtues and successes,--but even still more from the +mischief it might occasion from a petty record of commonplace troubles +and trials, due to the "changes and chances of this mortal life," to the +casual mention or omission of friends or foes, to the influence of +circumstances and surroundings, and to other revelations--whether +pleasant or the reverse--of matters merely personal, and therefore more +of a private than a public character. + +Indeed, so disquieted was I at the possible prospect of any one getting +hold of a mass of manuscript in old days diligently compiled by myself +from year to year in several small diaries, that I have long ago +ruthlessly made a holocaust of the heap of such written self-memories, +fearing their posthumous publication; and in this connection let me now +add my express protest against the printing hereafter of any of my +innumerable private letters to friends, or other MSS., unless they are +strictly and merely of a literary nature. + +Biography, where honest and true, is no doubt one of the most +fascinating and instructive phases of literature; but it requires a +higher Intelligence than any (however intimate) friend of a man to do it +fairly and fully; so many matters of character and circumstance must +ever be to him unknown, and therefore will be by him unrecorded. And +even as to autobiography, who, short of the Omniscient Himself, can take +into just account the potency of outward surroundings, and still more of +inborn hereditary influences, over both mind and body? the bias to good +or evil, and the possession or otherwise of gifts and talents, due very +much (under Providence) to one's ancient ancestors and one's modern +teachers? We are each of us morally and bodily the psychical and +physical composite of a thousand generations. Albeit every individual +possesses as his birthright a freewill to turn either to the right or to +the left, and is liable to a due responsibility for his words and +actions, still the Just Judge alone can and must make allowance for the +innate inclinings of heredity and the outward influences of +circumstance, and He only can hold the balance between the guilt and +innocence, the merit or demerit, of His creature. + +So far as my own will goes, I leave my inner spiritual biography to the +Recording Angel, choosing only to give some recollections and memories +of my outer literary life. For spiritual self-analysis in matters of +religion and affection I desire to be as silent as I can be; but in such +a book as this absolute taciturnity on such subjects is practically +impossible. + +For the matter, then, of autobiography, I decline its higher and its +deeper aspects; as also I wish not to obtrude on the public eye mere +domesticities and privacies of life. But mainly lest others less +acquainted with the petty incidents of my career should hereafter take +up the task, I accede with all frankness and humility to what seems to +me like a present call to duty, having little time to spare at +seventy-six, so near the end of my tether,--and protesting, as I well +may, against the charge of selfish egotism in a book necessarily spotted +on every page with the insignificant letter I; and while, of course on +human-nature principles, willing enough to exhibit myself at the best, +promising also not to hide the second best, or worse than that, where I +can perceive it. + +That shrewd old philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, thus excuses his own +self-imposed task of "autobiography," and I cannot do better than quote +and adopt his wise and just remarks:-- + +"In thus employing myself, I shall yield to the inclination so natural +to old men, of talking of themselves and their own actions, and I shall +indulge it without being tiresome to those who, from respect to my age, +might conceive themselves obliged to listen to me, since they will +always be free to read me or not. And (I may as well confess it, as the +denial would be believed by nobody) I shall, perhaps, not a little +gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I never heard or saw the introductory +words, 'Without vanity I may say,' &c., but some vain thing immediately +followed. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they may +have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with +it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the +possessor, and to others who are within his sphere of action; and +therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man +were to thank God for his _vanity_ among the other comforts of life. + +"And now I speak of thanking God, I desire, with all humility, to +acknowledge that I attribute the happiness of my past life to His divine +providence, which led me to the means I used, and gave the success. My +belief of this induces me to _hope_, though I must not _presume_, that +the same goodness will still be exercised towards me in continuing that +happiness or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse, which I may experience +as others have done; the complexion of my future fortune being known to +Him only in whose power it is to bless us, even in our afflictions." + +Thus speaketh the honest wisdom of Benjamin Franklin. + + * * * * * + +I do not see that a better plan can be chosen for carrying out the title +of this book than the one I have adopted, namely, tracing from the +earliest years to old age the author's literary lifework, illustrated by +accounts of, and specimens from, his various books and writings, +especially those which are absolutely out of print, or, haply have never +been published. No doubt, in such excerpts, exhibited at their best, the +critical accusations of unfairness, self-seeking, and so forth, will be +made, and may be met by the true consideration that something of this +sort is inevitable in autobiography. However, for the matter of vanity, +all I know of myself is the fact that praise, if consciously undeserved, +only depresses me instead of elating; that a noted characteristic of +mine through life has been to hide away in the rear rather than rush to +the front, unless, indeed, forced forward by duty, when I can be bold +enough, if need be; and that one defect in me all know to be a dislike +to any assumption of dignity--surely a feeling the opposite to +self-conceit; whilst, if I am not true, simple, and sincere, I am worse +than I hope I am, and all my friends are deceived in their kind judgment +of me. + +But let this book speak for itself; I trust it is honest, charitable, +and rationally religious. If I have (and I show it through all my +writings) a shrinking from priestcraft of every denomination, that +feeling I take to be due to some ancient heredity ingrained, or, more +truly, inburnt into my nature from sundry pre-Lutheran confessors and +martyrs of old, from whom I claim to be descended, and by whose spirit I +am imbued. Not but that I profess myself broad, and wide, and liberal +enough for all manner of allowances to others, and so far as any narrow +prejudices may be imagined of my idiosyncrasy, I must allow myself to be +changeable and uncertain--though hitherto having steered through life a +fairly straight course--and that sometimes I can even doubt as to my +politics, whether they should be defined Whig or Tory; as to my +religion, whether it is most truly chargeable by the epithet high or +low; as to my likings, whether I best prefer solitude or society; as to +literature, whether gaieties or gravities please me most. In fact, I +recognise good in everything, though sometimes hidden by evil, right (by +intention, at least) in sundry doctrines and opinions otherwise to my +judgment wrong, and I am willing to believe the kindliest of my +opponents who appear to be honest and earnest. This is a very fair creed +for a citizen of the world, whose motto is Terence's famous avowal, +"Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +INFANCY AND SCHOOLDAYS. + + +In a short and simple way, then, and without any desire ostentatiously +to "chronicle small beer," as Iago sneers it, I suppose it proper to +state very briefly when and where I was born, with a word as to my +parentage. July 17, 1810, was my birthday, and No. 20 Devonshire Place, +Marylebone, my birthplace, at that time the last house of London +northward. My father, Martin Tupper, a name ever honoured by me, was an +eminent medical man, who twice refused a baronetcy (first from Lord +Liverpool, and secondly, as offered by the Duke of Wellington); my +mother, Ellin Devis Marris, being daughter of Robert Marris, a good +landscape artist, of an old Lincolnshire family, and made the heiress, +as adopted child, of her aunt, Mrs. Ellin Devis, of Devonshire Place and +Albury. + +My father's family have sojourned 336 years in Guernsey, having migrated +thither from Thuringia, _via_ Hesse Cassel, owing to religious +persecution in the evil days of Charles V., our remote ancestors being +styled Von Topheres (chieftains, or head-lords) of Treffurth (as is +recorded in the heraldic MSS. of the British Museum), that being the +origin of our name. + +Of my mother's family (in old time Maris, as "of the sea," with mermaids +for heraldry), I have the commissions of one who was an Ironside +cavalry officer, signed by Cromwell and Fairfax; and several of her +relatives (besides her father) were distinguished artists. In +particular, her uncle (my wife's father), Arthur William Devis, the +well-known historical painter, and her great-uncle, Anthony Devis, who +filled Albury House with his landscapes. + +Some of our old German stock crossed the Atlantic in Puritan times, and +many of the name have attained wealth and position both in Canada and +the United States; notably Sir Charles Tupper northwards, and sundry +rich merchants in New York, Virginia, and the Carolines southwardly. + +Of my infancy let me record that I "enjoyed" very delicate health, +chiefly due, as I now judge, to the constant cuppings and bleedings +whereby "the faculty" of those days combated teething fits, and (perhaps +with Malthusian proclivities) killed off young children. I remember, +too, that the broad meadows, since developed into Regent's Park and +Primrose Hill, then "truly rural," and even up to Chalk Farm, then +notorious for duels, were my nursery ramblings in search of cowslips and +new milk. Also, that once at least in those infantile days, my father +took me to see Winsor's Patent Gaslights at Carlton House, and how he +prognosticated the domestic failure of so perilous an explosive, more +than one blowing-up having carelessly occurred. + + * * * * * + +Another infantile recollection is memorable, as thus. My father's annual +holiday happened one year to be at Bognor, where a patron patient of +his, Lord Arran, rented a pleasant villa, and he had for a visitor at +the time no less a personage than George the Third: it must have been +during some lucid interval, perhaps after the Great Thanksgiving at St. +Paul's. My father took his little boy with him to call upon the Earl, +not thinking to see the King; but when we came in there was his +kind-hearted Majesty, who patted my curls and gave me his blessing! How +far the mysterious efficacy of the royal touch affected my after career +believers in the divine rights and spiritual powers of a king may +speculate as they please. At all events I got a good man's blessing. + +I remember also in my nursery days to have heard this curious story of a +dream. My father, when a young man, was a student at Guy's Hospital, +from which school of medicine he went to Yarmouth to attend the wounded +after the battle of Copenhagen. He was on one occasion leaving Guernsey +for Southampton in the clumsy seagoing smack of those days, when, on the +night before embarking, he dreamt that on his way to the harbour he +crossed the churchyard and fell into an open grave. Telling this to his +parents at "The Pollet," they would not let him go, with a sort of +superstitious wisdom; for, strangely enough, the smack was seized on its +voyage by a privateer, and all the crew and passengers were +consigned--for twelve years--to a French prison! I have heard my father +tell this tale, and noted early how true was Dr. Watts' awkward line, +"On little things what great depend." I might say more about warnings in +dreams and other somnolencies, whereof we all have experiences. For +instance, my "Dream of Ambition" in Proverbial Philosophy was a real +one. And this reminds me now of another like sort of spiritual monition +alluded to in my Proverbial Essay on "Truth in Things False," which has +several times occurred to myself, as this, for example: Years ago, in +Devonshire, for the first time, I was on the top of a coach passing +through a town--I think it was Crediton--and I had the strange feeling +that I had seen all this before: now, we changed horses just on this +side of a cross street, and I resolved within myself to test the truth +of the place being new to me or not, by prophesying what I should see +right and left as we passed; to my consternation it was all as I had +foreseen,--a market-place with the usual incidents. Now, if reasonably +asked how to account for this (and most of us have felt the like), I +reply that possibly in an elevated state of health and spirits the soul +may outrun the body, and literally foresee coming events both real and +ideal. But we must leave this to the Psychical Society for a judgment +upon the famous Horatian philosophy of "more things in heaven and +earth," &c. + + * * * * * + +On Mr. Galton's topic of hereditary talent I have little to report as to +myself. Neither father nor mother had any leanings either towards verse +or prose; but my mother was an excellent pianiste and a fair landscape +painter both in oils and water-colour; also she drew and printed on +stone, and otherwise showed that she came of an artistic family. As to +my father's surroundings, his brother Peter, a consul-general in Spain, +wrote a tragedy called Pelayo; and I possess half-a-dozen French songs, +labelled by my father "in my late dear father's handwriting," but +whether or not original, I cannot tell. As a Guernseyman, he might well +be as much French as English. They seem to me clever and worthy of +Beranger, though long before him: possibly they are my grandsire's. A +very fair judge of French poetry, and himself a good Norman poet, Mr. +John Sullivan of Jersey writes and tells me that the songs are +excellent, and that he remembers them to have been popularly sung when +he was a boy. + +About the matter of hereditary bias itself, we know that as with animals +so with men, "fortes creantur fortibus, et bonis;" this so far as bodies +are concerned; but surely spirits are more individual, as innumerable +instances prove, where children do not take after their parents. If, +however, I may mention my own small experience of this matter, literary +talent, or at all events authorship, _is_ hereditary, especially in +these days of that general epidemic, the "cacoethes scribendi." + + * * * * * + +I wrote this paper following originally for an American publication; and +as I cannot improve upon it, and it has never been printed in England, I +produce it here in its integrity. + +A true and genuine record of what English schools of the highest class +were more than sixty-five years ago cannot fail to have much to interest +the present generation on both sides of the Atlantic; if only because we +may now indulge in the self-complacency of being everyway wiser, better, +and happier than our recent forebears. And in setting myself to write +these early revelations, I wish at once to state that, although at times +necessarily naming names (for the too frequent use of dashes and +asterisks must otherwise destroy the verisimilitude of plain +truth-telling), I desire to say nothing against or for either the dead +or the living beyond their just deserts, and I protest against any +charge of unreasonable want of charity as to my whilom "schools and +schoolmasters." It is true that sometimes I loved them not, neither can +I in general respect their memory; but the causes of such a feeling on +my part shall be made manifest anon, and I am sure that modern parents +and guardians will rejoice that much of my childhood's hard experience +has not been altogether that of their own boys. + +I was sent to school much too soon, at the early age of seven, having +previously had for my home tutor a well-remembered day-teacher in +"little Latin and less Greek" of the name of Swallow, whom I thought a +wit and a poet in those days because one morning he produced as an +epitaph on himself the following effusion: + + "Beneath this stone a Swallow lies, + No one laughs and no one cries; + Where he is gone or how he fares + No one knows and no one cares." + +At this time of day I suspect this epigram not to be quite original, but +it served to give me for the nonce a high opinion of the pundit who read +with me Cornelius Nepos and Caesar and some portions of that hopeless +grammar, the Eton Greek, in the midst of his hard-breathing consumption +of perpetual sandwiches and beer. + +The first school chosen for me (though expensive, there could not have +been a worse one) was a large mixed establishment for boys of all ages, +from infancy to early manhood, belonging to one Rev. Dr. Morris of +Egglesfield House, Brentford Butts, which I now judge to have been +conducted solely with a view to the proprietor's pocket, without +reference to the morals, happiness, or education of the pupils committed +to his care. All I care to remember of this false priest (and there were +many such of old, whatever may be the case now) are his cruel +punishments, which passed for discipline, his careful cringing to +parents, and his careless indifference towards their children, and in +brief his total unfitness for the twin duties of pastor and teacher. A +large private school of mixed ages and classes is perilously liable to +infection from licentious youths left to themselves and their evil +propensities, and I can feelingly recollect how miserable for nearly a +year was that poor little helpless innocent of seven under the +unrestricted tyranny of one Cooke (in after years a life convict for +crime) who did all he could to pollute the infant mind of the little fag +delivered over to his cruelty. Cowper's Tirocinium well expresses the +situation:-- + + "Would you your son should be a sot or dunce, + Lascivious, headstrong, or all these at once, + Train him in public with a mob of boys, + Childish in mischief only and in noise, + Else of a mannish growth and, five in ten, + For infidelity and lewdness, men." + +My next school was more of a success; for Eagle House, Brookgreen, where +I was from eight to eleven, had for its owner and headmaster a most +worthy and excellent layman, Joseph Railton. Mr. Railton was gentle, +though gigantic, fairly learned, just and kindly. His school produced, +amongst others eminent, the famous naval author Kingston, well known +from cabin-boy to admiral; there was also Lord Paulet, some others of +noble birth, and the two Middletons, nick-named Yankees, whom years +after I visited at their ruined mansion in South Carolina after the +Confederate War. Through the personal good influence of honest "Old +Joe," and his middle-aged housekeeper, Mrs. Jones, our whole +well-ordered company of perhaps a hundred boys lived and learned, worked +and played purely, and happily together: so great a social benefactor +may a good school chieftain be. + +I have little to regret in my Brook Green recollections; the annual fair +was memorable with Richardson's show and Gingel's conjuring, and the +walks for mild cricketing at Shepherd's Bush, and the occasional Sundays +at home; and how pleasant to a schoolboy was the generous visitor who +tipped him, a good action never forgotten; and the garden with its +flowering tulip-tree, and the syringas and rose-trees jewelled with the +much-prized emerald May-bugs; for the whole garden was liberally thrown +open to us beyond the gravelled playground; all being now given over to +monks and nuns. Then I recollect how a rarely-dark annular eclipse of +the sun convulsed the whole school, bringing smoked glass to a high +premium; and there was a notable boy's library of amusing travels and +stories, all eagerly devoured; and old Phulax the house-dog, and good +Mr. Whitmore an usher, who gave a certain small boy a diamond +prayer-book, greatly prized then, though long since lost, and suitably +inscribed for him "_Parvum parva decent_;" and the speech days, wherein +the same small boy always signalised himself, to the general +astonishment, for he was usually a stammerer, owing much to the early +worries of Brentford; all these are agreeable reminiscences. + +My next school at eleven was Charterhouse, or as my schoolfellow +Thackeray was wont to style it, Slaughterhouse, no doubt from the cruel +tyranny of another educational D.D., the Rev. Dr. Russell. For this man +and the school he so despotically drilled into passive servility and +pedantic scholarship, I have less than no reverence, for he worked so +upon an over-sensitive nature to force a boy beyond his powers, as to +fix for many years the infirmity of stammering, which was my affliction +until past middle life. As for tuition, it must all have grown of itself +by dint of private hard grinding with dictionaries and grammars, for the +exercises, themes, and other lessons were notoriously difficult, and +those before me would be inextricable puzzles now; however, we had to do +them, and we did them, unhelped by any teacher but our own industry. As +for the masters in school, two more ignorant old parsons than Chapman +and "Bob Watki" could not readily be found; and though the four others, +Lloyd, Dickens, Irvine, and Penny were somewhat more intelligent, still +all six in the lower school were occasionally summoned to a "concio," if +the interpretation of any ordinary passage in Homer or Virgil or Horace +was haply in dispute between a monitor and his class. In the upper +school the single really excellent teacher and good clergyman, Edward +Churton, had but one fault, a meek subserviency to the tyrannic Russell, +who domineered over all to our universal terror; and I remember kindly +Mr. Churton once affected to tears at the cruelty of his chief. What +should we think nowadays of an irate schoolmaster smashing a child's +head between two books in his shoulder-of-mutton hands till the nose +bled, as I once saw? Or, in these milder times when your burglar or +garotter is visited with a brief whipping, what shall we judge of the +wisdom or equity of some slight fault of idleness or ignorance being +visited with the Reverend Doctor's terrible sentence, "Allen, three +rods, eighteen, and most severely"? + +Let me comment on this line, one of a sharp satire by a boy named +Barnes, long since an Indian Judge and I suppose translated Elsewhere. +Allen was head-gown-boy, and so chief executioner, the three rods being +some five-feet bunches of birch armed with buds as sharp as thorns, +renewed after six strokes for fresh excoriation! sometimes the +exhibition was in medio, a public terror to evil-doers, or doers of +nothing, but usually in a sort of side chapel to the lower school where +the whipping-block stood. Who could tolerate such things now? and who +can wonder that I, as a lad, proclaimed that I would rather die than be +flogged, for I had resolved in that event to commit justifiable homicide +on my flogger? I do not mean Allen, who became Head of Dulwich College, +and with whom I have since dined, annually as donor of a picture there, +but Russell, concerning whom I vowed that if ever he was made a Bishop +(happily he wasn't) I would desert the Church of England; as yet I have +not, albeit it has lately become so papalised as to be little worth an +honest Protestant's adherence. + +As to the exclusively classic education in my young days, to the +resolute neglect of all other languages and sciences, I for myself have +from youth upwards always protested against it as mainly waste of time +and of very little service in the battle of life. For proof of this, +before I was eighteen, I wrote that essay on Education to be seen in my +first series of Proverbial Philosophy, which long years after the +celebrated Dr. Binney of the Weigh-house in Thames Street issued with my +leave as a tractate useful to the present generation. And while there +was so much fuss made as to the criminality of a false quantity in +Greek, or a deficient acquaintance with those awkward verbs in "Mi," or +above all a false concord (every one of which derelictions in duty +involved severe punishment), let us remember that all this time +Holywell Street was suffered to infect Charterhouse with its poison (I +speak of long ago, before Lord Campbell's wholesome Act), and that our +clerical tutors and governors professionally recognised no sort of sins +or shortcomings but those committed in class! They practically ignored +everything out of school, much as a captain knows nothing of his company +off duty. It was the idle system of boys set to govern boys, that the +masters might have no damage. I think the system was called Lancastrian. + +One very noticeable trait in the parson-schoolmasters of those old days +(and perhaps it still survives) was the subserviency to rank and wealth +towards any pupils likely to give them livings, whereof more anon; at +present, an appropriate instance occurs to me. I was in my thirteenth +year monitor of the playground, when one Dillon, a scion of a titled +family, hunted and killed a stray dog there, and much to their credit +for humanity a number of other boys hunted and pelted _him_ into a dry +ditch or vallum, dug for the leaping-pole under a Captain Clias who +taught us athletics. I was technically responsible for this open insult +offered to Hibernian nobility, however well disposed to look another way +and let lynch-law take its course. Accordingly, the Doctor had me up for +punishment, and he inflicted an almost impossible imposition, Book +Epsilon of the Iliad (the longest of all) to be translated word for +word, English and Greek, and to be given to him in MS. within a month +(it would have been work for a year), that or expulsion. Had Mr. Dillon +been a plebeian, no notice would have been taken of the matter, but he +was an honourable, so Russell must avenge his righteous punishment. +However, the result of this outrageous set-task was curious and worthy +of this its first and only record. All the seventy boys in Irvine's +house and others elsewhere, volunteered to do the whole imposition for +me, and within a week hundreds of pages closely written with Greek and +Latin, were sewn together, making a large quarto pamphlet, which was +duly handed by me to the wondering Doctor; who had, however, too much +shrewdness to care to inquire closely as to this popular outburst of a +general indignation, so he said nothing more about it. + +For other playground reminiscences: I saw, even in those tame times for +cricket when overhand bowling was illegal, and the fierce artillery of a +Spofforth impossible, a poor lad killed in the field, one Honourable +Henry Howard; he was taken to the pump for recovery, as from a swoon, +but the ball had struck him behind the ear, stone-dead. Again as to that +pump; it was sometimes maliciously used for sousing unfortunate +day-boys, who were allowed two minutes law out of school to enable them +to escape pursuit after lessons, most unjustly, and injuriously, seeing +that old Sutton founded his Charterhouse mainly for day-boys (John Leech +was one in my time) and for pensioners ("old Cods") whereof Colonel +Newcome of Thackeray fame, was another; but both of these charity +classes were utterly despised and ignored by the reverend brigands who +kept all the loaves and fishes for themselves. + +One remarkable playground experience was the fact that it helped to +develop in me antiquarian inclinations, and my own discovered +hunting-ground for Roman numismatics in the south of England, long +afterwards expanded in "Farley Heath" near Albury. At Charterhouse +there was a great slope or semi-mound which had in old times been +utilised as a wholesale grave for the victims of plague and other +epidemics. It strikes me now as most perilous, but we boys used to dig +and scratch among bones and other _debris_ for on occasional coin or +lead token, whereof I found several; it is only a wonder that we did not +unearth pestilence, but mould is fortunately very antiseptic. Another +playground peculiarity was that after the hoop season, usually driven in +duplicate or triplicate, the hoops were "stored" or "shied" into the +branching elms, from which they were again brought down by hockey-sticks +flung at them; a great boon to the smaller boys who thus gratuitously +became possessed of valuable properties. And for all else, there were +fights behind the school, in those pugilistic days scientifically +conducted with seconds and bottleholders, and some "claret" drawn, and +other like fashionable brutalities; also in its season came football, +but not quite so fiercely fought as it is now; and there was Mr. +Rackwitz, the man of sweets and pastries at the corner; and another sort +of rackets in the tennis court; and for another sort of court there was +then extant a bit of ruinous Gothic in old Rutland Court, a ghostly +entrance from Charterhouse Square, some thought haunted, and long since +cleared away. + +And now crossing the Square we come to No. 41, the Queen Anne fashioned +mansion where Mr. Andrew Irvine (another Reverend Master, who like all +the rest, except Churton, almost never "did duty," and when he did +manifestly could neither read, preach, not pray) had a houseful of +pupils, whereof the writer was one. That long room is full of ancient +memories of past and gone Carthusians, though it is now humiliated into +a local charity school. I remember some humorous scenes there, chiefly +owing to the master's notorious niggardliness. Andrew had some Gruyere +cheese, easily accessible to the boyish plunderers of his larder. Now we +had complained that our slabs of butter laid between the cut sides of +the rolls often were salt and strong, so one "Punsonby" (afterwards an +earl) managed to put a piece of highly-flavoured Gruyere into a roll, +and publicly at breakfast produced it before Mr. Irvine as a proof of +the bad butter provided by the unfortunate housekeeper. He was overborne +against his own convictions, by the heroic impudence of chief big boys +whom he dared not offend, and actually pretended indignation, promising +better butter in future! + +For another small scholastic recollection: Andrew's Indian brother had +brought over a lot of curiosities from the East, including a rhinoceros +skin, and bows and arrows, idols, and the like, all of which were +carelessly stored away in a cellar near the larder aforesaid. Of course +the boys made a raid upon such _spolia opima_, and divers portions of +that thick hide were exhibited as Indian rubber: but Andrew never knew +that many other things vanished, and that for example Knighton used to +walk home on Saturdays with preternaturally stiff arms, an arrow +(possibly poisoned) being hid in each sleeve! some creeses also were +appropriated by others. I wonder if any Carthusian of my time survives +as the possessor of such loot. + +Let me record, too, that in those evil days (for I am not one who can +think this age as "pejor avis") boys used to go, on their Monday +mornings' return from the weekly holiday, out of their way to see the +wretches hanging at Newgate; that the scenes of cruelty to animals in +Smithfield were terrible; that books of the vilest character were +circulated in the long-room; and that both morality and religion were +ignored by the seven clergymen who reaped fortunes by neglecting five +hundred boys. If more memories are wanted of those times, here are two; +the planned famine on one occasion, when--under monitorial +inspiration--all the juniors clamoured for "more, more," seeing they had +slabbed on the underside of the tables masses of bread and butter +supposed to have been eaten-out; and on another, that lobsters, +surreptitiously obtained from out-of-bounds by the big boys were sworn +in the _debris_ of their smaller claws to be pieces of sealing-wax! and +nothing else: at least a reckless young aristocrat declared that they +were so,--and the mean-spirited Andrew, fearful of giving offence in +such high quarters, pretended to believe him. + +Yet another trifle; for I find that such trivials are attractive to +homeflock readers, by whose taste I feel the more public pulse, even as +Rousseau did with his housekeeper. We, that is Knighton and Ellis and I, +used to return on Sunday night in my father's carriage by the back way +of Clerkenwell to Charterhouse in order to avoid the crowds of cattle; +and I well remember that sometimes we would utilise apples and nuts from +the dessert as missiles from our carriage window as we sped along. Alas! +on one occasion Knighton was skilful enough to smash a chemist's blue +bottle with an apple,--and on another I am aware that an oil lamp in +Carthusian Street succumbed to my only too-true cockshy: "Et hoc +meminisse _dolendum_." + +Another incident was amusing in its way. Poor Mr. Irvine (who was going +to be married) mended up a very much smashed greenhouse to greet his +bride thereby with floral joy. Unluckily, the boys preferred broken +panes to whole ones, so nothing was easier than by flinging brickbats +and even mugs over the laundry wall to revel in the sweet sound of +smashed glass; moreover this would go to evidence the popular animosity +against a wretched bridegroom. Then, when he reappeared after some +temporary absence before the wedding, it was after this ridiculous +fashion. There was a wooden staircase screened off one side of the +long-room down which he would occasionally creep to listen at the door +at bottom to the tattle of the boys about him. He was heard creaking +downstairs, and some active young fellow by a round-about byway managed +to steal down behind and suddenly pushed him by the burst open door, +spread-eagle fashion, into the laughing long-room! The poor victim +pretended it was an accident, "Ye see, Mr. Yates, I was coming down the +stair, and me foot slipped." It seems that the luckless Andrew was +coming, so he averred, expressly to expostulate with the boys, to throw +himself on their generosity for a subscription towards his ruined +greenhouse, and to ask Messrs. "Punsonby," Yates, & Co. to promote it. +This they promised to do, and did after an original fashion. Several +pounds worth of pence and half-pence were distributed through the house, +so that when Andrew with his traitorous aides went round to collect +monies, it miraculously happened to be all coppers, unrelieved by a +single sparkle of silver or gold. On which, in a red rage (and he often +was in the like) he flung the whole bowlful into the long-room fire, +from the ashes whereof for days after the small boys gladly collected +hot half-pence. We must recollect that the canny Scot was a mean +over-reaching man, so perhaps he was well paid out. Soon after the +wedding, the bridegroom held high festival, and gave a grand dinner to +all the masters. Our big boys were equal to the occasion, and as the +hired waiters from the Falcon brought out the viands (all was a delusive +peace as they went in) our harpies flew upon the spoil, and each meat, +fish and fowl was cleared off the great dishes held between the helpless +hands of the astonished servitors! It was really too bad, but if a man +is so manifestly unpopular no doubt he deserves it. Rugbeians would not +have so served Arnold. Nearly all my schoolmates are dead, and I cannot +call on Charles Roe or Frank Ellis to corroborate my small anecdotes, +but I could till lately on Sir William Knighton and one or two more. In +a crowd of five hundred scholars (Russell's average number, afterwards +much diminished, until Godalming brought up the tale), there must be +many still extant and of eminence whom I would name if I did but know +them. Certainly, yes, Trevelyan was my next neighbour in the "emeriti," +and there was Hebert, the one distinguished in the State, the other in +the Church; also Cole, and his noble chief of Enniskillen, whom I have +visited at Florence Court; and Walford, our great genealogist, with many +more; among the more recent dead, let me mention my good friend +Archibald Mathison, lately an Indian Judge, and Robert Curzon, and +Arthur Helps, the historian of Mexico. Thackeray I knew then but very +slightly, as he was a lower schoolboy, and John Leech not at all, +because he was a day boy, seeing that the upper school was made to keep +foolishly aloof from all such; however, in after years I made good +acquaintance with both of those true geniuses, and had Leech down to +Albury, and to illustrate my tales, whilst I have several times +compared judgments with Thackeray as to Doctor Birch and his young +friends and other scholia. + +For the matter of my practical education at Charterhouse, I like others +went through the usual course, though without much distinction. I never +gained a prize, albeit I tried for some, by certain tame didactic poems +on the Tower, Carthage, and Jerusalem, and as I couldn't as a stammerer +speak in school, high places were out of my reach. Like others, however, +I learned by heart all Horace's odes and epodes, the Ajax and the +Antigone of Sophocles, and other like efforts of memory, almost useless +in after life, except for capping quotations, and thereby being thought +a pedant by the display of schoolboy erudition. How often have I wished +that the years wasted over Latin verses and Greek plays had been +utilised among French and German, astronomy, geology, chemistry and the +like; but all such useful educationals were quite ignored by the +clerical boobies who then professed to teach young gentlemen all that +they needed to know. Sixty years ago I perceived what we all see now +(teste Lord Sherborne) that a most imperfect classical education, such +as was then provided for us, was the least useful introduction to the +real business of life, except that it was fashionable, and gave a man +some false prestige in the circle of society. At about sixteen I left +Charterhouse for a private tutor, Dr. Stocker, then head of Elizabeth +College, Guernsey, seeing my father wished to do him a service for +kindly private reasons; I was not at the College, but a pupil in his own +house: however, as this other Rev. D.D. proved a failure, I was passed +on to a Rev. Mr. Twopeny of Long Wittenham, near Dorchester, staying +with him about a year with like little profit; when I changed to Mr. +Holt's at Albury, a most worthy friend and neighbour, with whom I read +diligently until my matriculation at Oxford, when I was about nineteen. +With Holt, my intimate comrade was Harold Browne, the present Bishop of +Winchester, and he will remember that it was our rather mischievous +object to get beyond Mr. Holt in our prepared Aristotle and Plato, as we +knew he had hard work to keep even in the race with his advanced pupils +by dint of midnight oil. With this good tutor and the excellent +ministrations of Hugh M'Neile, the famous rector of Albury, my _status +pupillaris_ comes technically to an end, Oxford being practically +independence; albeit I am sure that education can cease only with human +life, even if it be not carried further, onward and upward, through the +cycles of eternity. + +As I did not care to stop the continuity of this gossiping record +(perhaps too light and too frank, but it is best unaltered) I must now +hark back for a few years, to fill in whatever small details of early +life and primitive literature happened to me, between school and +college. Truly, much of this amounts to recording trivialities; but +boyhood, not to say life also, is made up of trifles; and there is +always interest to a reader in personal anecdotes and experiences, the +more if they are lively rather than severe. Let this excuse that lengthy +account of "My Schooldays." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +YOUNG AUTHORSHIP IN VERSE AND PROSE. + + +Of my earliest MS., written soon after my seventh birthday, I have no +copy, and only a very confused memory: but I remember that my good +mother treasured for years and showed to many friends something in the +nature of an elegy which a broken-hearted little brother wrote on the +death of an infant sister from his first school: this is only mentioned +in case any one of my older readers may possibly supply such a lost MS. +in a child's roundhand. At school, chiefly as a young Carthusian, I +frequently broke out into verse, where prose translation was more +properly required: seeing that it pleased my indolence to be poetical +where I was not sure of literal accuracy, and (I may add) it rejoiced me +to induce a certain undermaster to suspect and sometimes to accuse this +small poetaster of having "cribbed" his metrical version from some +unknown collection of poems: however, he had always to be satisfied with +my assurance as to authenticity, for he was sure to be baffled in his +inquiries elsewhere. + +One such instance is extant as thus,--for I kept a copy, as the +assembled Charterhouse masters seemed to think it too good to be +original for a small boy of twelve to thirteen. Here then, as a specimen +of one of my early bits of literature, is a genuine and unaltered poem +(for any modern improvements would not be honest) in the shape of a +translated Greek epigram from the Anthologia:-- + + "Not Juno's eye of fire divine + Can vie my Melite, with thine + So heavenly pure and bright; + Nor can Minerva's hand excel + That pretty hand I know so well, + So small and lily-white. + + "Not Venus can such charms disclose + As those sweet lips of blushing rose + And ivory bosom show; + Not Thetis' nimble foot can tread + More lightly o'er her coral bed + Than thy soft foot of snow. + + "What happiness thy face bestows + When smiling on a lover's woes! + Thrice happy then is he + Who hears thy soul-subduing song,-- + O more than blest, to whom belong + The charms of Melite!" + +I was head of the lower school then, and I remember the father of Bernal +Osborne patting my curly locks and scolding his whiskered son for +letting a small boy be above him. + +Much about this time, and until I left Charterhouse at sixteen, there +proceeded from my pen numerous other mild rhymed pieces and sundry +unsuccessful prize poems; _e.g._, three on Carthage, the second Temple +of Jerusalem, and the Tower of London, whereof I have schoolboy copies +not worth notice; besides divers metrical translations of Horace, +AEschylus, Virgil; and a few songs and album verses for young lady +friends, one being set by a Mr. Sala (perhaps G.A.S. had a musical +relative) with an impromptu or two, whereof the following "On a shell +sounding like the sea" is a fair specimen for a boy:-- + + "I remember the voice of the flood + Hoarse breaking upon the rough shore, + As a linnet remembers the wood + And his warblings so joyous before." + +Of course, this class of my juvenile lyrics was holiday work, and barely +worth a record, except to save a fly in amber, like this. + + * * * * * + +Whilst I was at Charterhouse, occurred my first Continental journey, +when my excellent father took his small party all through France in his +private travelling carriage, bought at Calais for the trip (it was long +before railways were invented), and I jotted down in verse our daily +adventures in the rumble. The whole journal, entitled "Rough Rhymes," in +divers metres, grave and gay, was published by the "Literary Chronicle" +in 1826, and the editor thereof, Mr. Jerdan, says, after some +compliments, "the author is in his sixteenth year,"--which fixes the +date. Possibly, a brief specimen or two of this may please: take the +livelier first,--on French cookery: if trivial, the lines are genuine: I +must not doctor anything up even by a word. + + "Now Muse, you must versify your very best, + To sing how they ransack the East and the West, + To tell how they plunder the North and the South + For food for the stomach and zest for the mouth! + Such savoury stews, and such odorous dishes, + Such soups, and (at Calais) such capital fishes! + With sauces so strange they disguise the lean meat + That you seldom, or never, know what you're to eat; + Such fricandeaux, fricassees epicurean, + Such vins-ordinaires, and such banquets Circean,-- + And the nice little nothings which very soon vanish + Before you are able your plate to replenish,-- + Such exquisite eatables! and for your drink + Not porter or ale, but--what do you think? + 'Tis Burgundy, Bourdeaux, real red rosy wine, + Which you quaff at a draught, neat nectar, divine! + Thus they pamper the taste with everything good + And of an old shoe can make savoury food, + But the worst of it is that when you have done + You are nearly as famish'd as when you begun!" + +For a more serious morsel, take the closing lines on Rouen:-- + + "Yes, proud Cathedral, ages pass'd away + While generations lived their little day,-- + France has been deluged with her patriots' blood + By traitors to their country and their God,-- + The face of Europe has been changed, but thou + Hast stood sublime in changelessness till now, + Exulting in thy glories of carved stone, + A living monument of ages gone!-- + Yet--time hath touch'd thee too; thy prime is o'er,-- + A few short years, and thou must be no more; + Ev'n thou must bend beneath the common fate, + But in thy very ruins wilt be great!" + +More than enough of this brief memory of "Sixty Years Since," which has +no other extant record, and is only given as a sample of the rest, +equally juvenile. Three years however before, this, my earliest piece +printed, I find among my papers a very faded copy of my first MS. in +verse, being part of an attempted prize poem at Charterhouse on +Carthage, written at the age of thirteen in 1823; for auld langsyne's +sake I rescue its conclusion thus curtly from oblivion,--though no doubt +archaeologically faulty:-- + + "Where sculptured temples once appeared to sight, + Now dismal ruins meet the moon's pale light,-- + Where regal pomp once shone with gorgeous ray, + And kings successive held their transient sway;-- + Where once the priest his sacred victims led + And on the altars their warm lifeblood shed,-- + Where swollen rivers once had amply flowed + And splendid galleys down the stream had rowed, + A dreary wilderness now meets the view, + And nought but Memory can trace the clue!" + +The poor little schoolboy's muse was perhaps quite of the pedestrian +order: but so also, the critics said, had been stern old Dr. Johnson's +in his "London." + +Mere school-exercises (whereof I have some antique copybooks before me), +cannot be held to count for much as early literature; though I know not +why some of my Greek Iambic translations of the Psalms and Shakespeare, +as also sundry very respectable versions of English poems into Latin +Sapphics and Alcaics still among my archives, should not have been +shrined--as they were offered at the time--in Dr. Haig Brown's +Carthusian Anthology. However somehow these have escaped printer's +ink,--the only true _elixir vitae_--and we must therefore suppose them +not quite worthy to be bracketed with the classical versification of +Buchanan or even of Mr. John Milton,--albeit actually superior to sundry +of the aforesaid Anthologia Carthusiana; so of these we will say +nothing. + +Of other sorts of schoolboy literaria whereof from time to time I was +guilty let me save here (by way of change) one or two of my trivial +humoristics: here is one, not seen in print till now; "Sapphics to my +Umbrella,--written on a very rainy day," in 1827. N.B. If Canning in his +Eton days immortalised sapphically a knifegrinder, why shouldn't a young +Carthusian similarly celebrate his gingham? + + "Valued companion of my expeditions, + Wanderings, and my street perambulations, + What can be more deserving of my praises + Than my umbrella? + + "Under thine ample covering rejoicing, + (All the 'canaille' tumultuously running) + While the rain streams and patters from the housetops, + Slow and majestic, + + "I trudge along unwetted, though an ocean + Pours from the clouds, as if some Abernethy + Had given all the nubilary regions + Purges cathartic! + + "Others run on in piteous condition, + Black desperation painted in their faces, + While the full flood descends in very pailfuls + Streaming upon them. + + "Yea, 'tis as if some cunning necromancer + Had drawn a circle magically round me, + Till like the wretched victim of Kehama, + (Southey's abortion) + + "Nothing like liquor ever could approach me! + But it is thou, disinterested comrade, + Bearest the rainy weather uncomplaining, + Oh, my umbrella! + + "How many hats, and 'upper Bens,' and new coats, + How many wretched duckings hast thou saved me + Well--I have done--but must be still indebted + To my umbrella!" + +Another such trifle may be permissible, as thus: also about an umbrella, +a stolen one. On the occasion of my loss I wrote this to rebuke the +thief, "The height of honesty:"-- + + "Three friends once, in the course of conversation, + Touch'd upon honesty: 'No virtue better,' + Says Dick, quite lost in sweet self-admiration, + 'I'm sure I'm honest;--ay--beyond the letter: + You know the field I rent; beneath the ground + My plough stuck in the middle of a furrow + And there a pot of golden coins I found! + My landlord has it, without fail, to-morrow.' + Thus modestly his good intents he told: + 'But stay,' says Bob,' we soon shall see who's best, + A _stranger_ left with me uncounted gold! + But I'll not touch it; which is honestest?' + 'Your honest acts I've heard,' says Jack, 'but I + Have done much better, would that all folks learn'd it, + Mine is the highest pitch of honesty-- + I borrow'd an umbrella and--_return'd it!!_'". + +_N.B._--I remember that Dr. Buckland, whose geological lectures I +attended, had the words "Stolen from Dr. Buckland" engraved on the ivory +handle of _his_ umbrella: he never lost it again. + +In the way of prose, not printed (though much later on I have since +published "Paterfamilias's Diary of Everybody's Tour") I have kept +journals of holiday travel _passim_, whereof I now make a brief mention. +Six juvenile bits of authorship are before me, ranging through the +summers of 1828 to 1835 inclusive; each neatly written in its note-book +on the spot and at the time (therefore fresh and true) decorated with +untutored sketches, and all full of interest ab least to myself in old +memories, faded interests, and departed friends. As very rare survivals +of the past (for who cares to keep as I have done his schoolboy journals +of half a century ago?) I will give at haphazard from each in its order +of time a short quotation by way of sample,--a brick to represent the +house. My first, A.D. 1828, records how my good father took his +sons through the factories of Birmingham and the potteries of +Staffordshire, down an iron mine and a salt mine, &c. &c., thus teaching +us all we could learn energetically and intelligently; it details also +how we were hospitably entertained for a week in each place by the +magnate hosts of Holkar Hall and Inveraray Castle; and how we did all +touristic devoirs by lake, mountain, ruin, and palace: in fact, a short +volume in MS., whereof quite at random here is a specimen page. "Melrose +looks at a distance very little ruinous, but more like a perfect +cathedral. While the horses were being changed we walked to see this +Abbey, a splendid ruin, with two very light and beautiful oriel windows +to the east and south, besides many smaller ones; the architecture being +florid Gothic. The tracery round the capitals of pillars is in wonderful +preservation, looking as fresh and sharp as on the first day of their +creation; instead of the Grecian acanthus _Scotch kail_ being a +favourite ornament. Some of the images still remain in their niches. In +the east aisle is the grave of the famous wizard, Michael Scott, and at +the foot of the tombstone a grim-looking figure,--query himself? In the +ruined cloisters the tracery is of the most delicate description, +foliage of trees and vegetables being carved on them. This Abbey was +founded by David the First, but repaired by James the Fourth, which +accounts for his altered crown appearing in stone on the walls," &c. &c. +The Scotch kail is curious, as indicative of national preference: and +is the wizard still on guard? Recollect that in those days there were no +guide-books,--so every observant traveller had to record for himself +what he saw. + +The next, in 1829, was a second visit to the Continent, my first having +been in 1826, with those quotations from "Rough Rhymes" which have +already met your view. In this we took the usual tour of those days, +_via_ Brussels and the Rhine to Switzerland, and I might quote plenty +thereof if space and time allowed. Here shall follow a casual page from +the 1829 MS. Journal, now before me. + +"Heidelberg has a university of seven hundred students, who wear no +particular academicals, but are generally seen with a little red or blue +cap topping a luxuriant head of hair, a long coat, and moustaches which +usually perform the function of a chimney to pipe or cigar. All along +our to-day's route extended immense fields of tobacco, turnips, and +vegetals of every description. Most of the women seem to be troubled +with goitres, and we observed that all who have them wear rows of +garnets strung tight on the part affected, whether with the idea of +hiding the deformity, or of rendering the beauty of the swelling more +conspicuous, or of charming it away, I cannot tell. The roads in these +parts are much avenued with walnut trees: Fels, our courier, told me +that of all trees they are most subject to be struck by lightning, and +that under them is always a current of air. I insert his information, as +he is both a sensible man, and has had great opportunities of +observing," &c. &c. Here is a gap of three years. + +In 1832, my journal about Dorsetshire and the Isle of Wight is chiefly +geological: as this extract shows, it was mainly a search after fossil +spoils at Charmouth:--"Would you like to see a creature with the head of +a lizard, wings of a bat, and tail of a serpent? Such things have been, +as these bones testify; they are called Pterodactyls, and are as big as +ravens. Thus, you see, a dragon is no chimera, but attested by a science +founded on observation, Geology. As their bones (known by their +hollowness) often occur in the coprolites or fossil dung of Plesiosauri, +mighty monsters of the deep like gigantic swans, it is thought they were +their special prey, for which the long and flexible neck of the +Plesiosaurus is an _a priori_ argument," &c. &c. + +The 1833 journal is Welsh; and, _inter alia_, I therein drew and I now +record that recently destroyed and more recently restored Druidical +movement, the Buckstone: "A solid mass of rock, not of living adamant +but of dead pudding-stone, seemingly 'by subtle magic poised' on the +brow of a steep and high hill, wooded with oaks: the top of this mass of +rock is an area of fifty-four feet, its base being four, and the height +twelve. It was once a logan stone, but now has no rocking properties; +though most perilously poised on the side of a slope, and certainly, if +in part a work of nature, it must have been helped by art, seeing the +mere action of the atmosphere never could have so exactly chiselled away +all but the centre of gravity. The secret of the Druids, in this +instance at least, was in leaving a large mass behind, which as a lever +counteracted the preponderance of the rock." I drew on the spot two +exact views of it, taken to scale,--whereof this is one,--now of some +curious value, since its intentional destruction last year by a snobbish +party of mischievous idiots. (However, I see by the papers that, at a +cost of L500, it has been replaced.) Let this touch suffice as to my +then growing predilection for Druidism, since expanded by me into +several essays find pamphlets, touching on that strange topic, the +numerous rude stone monuments from Arabia to Mona. + +[Illustration] + +The 1834 journal regards Scotland,--a country I have since visited +several times, including the Orkneys and Shetlands, and the voyage round +from Thurso _via_ Cape Wrath to the Hebrides; whereof, perhaps, more +anon. For a specimen page of this let me give what follows; the locality +is near Inverness and the Caledonian Canal: "We now bent our steps +toward Craig Phadrick, two miles north. This is the site of one of the +celebrated vitrified forts, concerning the creation of which there has +been so much learned discussion. And verily there is room, for there is +mystery: I will detail what we saw. On the summit of a steep hill of +conglomerate rock we could trace very clearly a double oblong enclosure +of eighty yards by twenty, with entrances east and west, a space of five +yards being between the two oblongs. The mounds were outwardly of turf, +but under a thin skin of this was a thick continuous wall of molten +stone, granite, gneiss, and sandstone, bubbling together in a hotchpot! +The existence of these forts (occurring frequently on the heights and of +various shapes) is attempted to be explained by divers theories. One man +tells us they were beacons; but, first, what an enormous one is here, +one hundred and twenty-four feet by sixty of blazing wood, timber being +scarce too! next, they sometimes occur in low situations from which a +flame could scarcely be seen; thirdly, common wood fire will not melt +granite. Another pundit says they are volcanic. O wondrous volcano to +spout oblong concentric areas of stone walls! Perhaps the best +explanation is that the Celts cemented these hilltops of strongholds by +means of coarse glass, a sort of red-hot mortar, using sea-sand and +seaweed as a flux. This is Professor Whewell's idea, and with him we had +some interesting conversation on that and other subjects." Of this +Scotch tour, full of interest, thus very curtly. Turn we now to Ireland +in 1835. My record of just fifty years ago is much what it might be now, +starvation, beggary, and human wretchedness of all sorts in the midst of +a rich land, through indolence relapsed into a jungle of thorns and +briars, quaking bogs, and sterile mountains; whisky, and the idle +uncertain potato, combining with ignorance and priestcraft, to +demoralise the excitable unreasoning race of modern Celts. Let us turn +from the sad scenes of which my said diary is full, to my day at the +spar caverns of Kingston. "At the bottom of a stone quarry, we clad +ourselves in sack garments that mud wouldn't spoil, and with lit candles +descended into the abyss, hands, knees, and elbows being of as much +service as our feet. Now, I am not going to map my way after the manner +of guide-books, nor to nickname the gorgeous architecture of nature +according to the caprice of a rude peasant on the spot or the fancy of a +passing stranger. I might fill a page with accounts of Turks' tents, +beehives, judges' wigs, harps, handkerchiefs, and flitches of bacon, but +I rather choose to speak of these subterranean palaces with none of such +vulgar similarities. No one ever saw such magnificence in stalactites; +from the black fissured roofs of antres vast and low-browed caves they +are hanging, of all conceivable shapes and sizes and descriptions. Now a +tall-fluted column, now a fringed canopy, now like a large white sheet +flung over a beetling rock in the elegant folds and easy drapery of a +curtain, everywhere are pure white stalactites like icicles straining to +meet the sturdier mounds of stalagmite below; whilst in the smaller +caves slender tubes extend from top to bottom like congealed rain. One +cavern is quite curtained round with dazzling and wavy tapestry; another +has gigantic masses of the white spar pouring from its crannied roof +like boiled Brobdingnag macaroni; others like heaps of snowy linen lying +about or hanging from the ceiling. The extent of the caves is quite +unknown: eleven acres (I was told) have been surveyed and mapped, while +there are six avenues still unexplored, and you may already wander for +twenty-four hours through the discovered provinces of the gnome king." +This is not to be compared with Kentucky, perhaps not quite with +Derbyshire; but it seemed to me marvellous at the time. Let this much +suffice as hinted reference to those early journals, which, if the world +were not already more full of books than of their readers, would be as +well worth printing in their integrity as many others of their bound and +lettered brethren. + +In connection with these journals, I have been specially requested to +add to the above this record following (dated forty-four years ago) as a +specimen of my letter-writing in old days: it has pen-and-ink sketches, +here inserted by way of rough and ready illustration. The whole letter +is printed in its integrity as desired, and tells its own archaeological +tale, though rather voluminously; but in the prehistoric era before +Rowland Hill arose, to give us cheap stamps for short notes, it was an +economy to make a letter as long as possible to pay for its exorbitant +postage: for example, my letters to and from Oxford used to cost +eightpence--or double if in an envelope, then absurdly surcharged. + + +_My Cornish Expedition._ + + [Illustration: [The Arms of Cornwall] + + 8th and 9th of January 1840. + + "FOR ONE AND ALL"] + + [Illustration] + + [Illustration] + + My Dear Mother, and all good Domiciliars,-- + + I suppose it to be the intention of our worshipful and right + bankrupt Government that everybody write to everybody true, full, + and particular accounts of all things which he, she, or it, may + have done, be doing, or be about to do; and seeing I may have + something to say which will interest you all, I fulfil the + gossiping intentions of the Collective Wisdom, and give you an + omnibus epistle. Now, I recommend a good map, a quiet mind, and as + Charley says, Atten_tion_.--The bright, clear, frosty morning of + the 8th found me at Devonport, and nine o'clock beheld the same + egregious individual, well-benjamined, patronising with his bodily + presence the roof of the Falmouth coach. A steam ferry-bridge took + us across the Hamoaze, which, with its stationed hulks, scattered + shipping, and town and country banks, made, as it always makes, a + beautiful landscape. At Torpoint we first encountered venerable + Cornwall; and a pretty drive of sixteen miles, well wooded, and + watered by several intrusions of the unsatisfied sea, brought coach + and contents to Liskeard, a clean, granite, country town, with + palatial inn, and (in common with the whole of Devonshire and + Cornwall) a large many gabled church, covered with carved cathedral + windows, and shadowed by ancient elms. Not being able to accomplish + everything, I heard of, but saw not, divers antiquities in the + distant neighbourhood of St. Clare, such as a circle of stones, an + old church and well, and the natural curiosity called the + cheese-ring, being a mass of layered granite capriciously + decomposed: these "unseen ones" (what a mysterious name for a + three-volumed Bentleyism!) I do not regret, for I know how to + appreciate those wonders, the only enchantment whereof is, + distance. So suffered I conveyance to Lostwithiel, a town lying in + a hollow under the pictorial auspices of Restormel Castle, whose + ivied ruins up the valley are fine and Raglandish: while the rest + were bolting a coach dinner, I betook me to ye church, and was + charmed with a curious antique font, and the tower, an octagon + gothic lantern with extinguisher atop, like this: as far as memory + serves me. Onward again, through St. Blazey, and a mining district, + not ill-wooded, nor unpicturesque, to the fair town of St. Austle, + which the piety of Cornish ancestors has furnished with another + splendid specimen of ecclesiastical architecture, the upper half of + the chief tower, a square one, being fretted on every stone with + florid carving, and grotesque devices: but what shall I say of + Probus tower, which from top to bottom is covered with delicate + tracery cut in granite? it rises above the miserable surrounding + village, a satire upon neighbouring degeneracy in things religious: + you must often have seen drawings of Probus at the Watercolour + Exhibition, as it is a regular artists' lion. At about half-past + six we got into Truro, a clean wide flourishing town with London + shops, a commemorative column, a fine spired church, bridges over + narrow streams, and, like most other West of England towns, well + payed and gas-lighted. From this, I had intended to go to Falmouth, + but a diligent brain-sucking of coach comrades induced me to jump + at once into a branch conveyance to Penzance, so passing sleepy + Redruth, Camborne, and St. Erth in the dark, I found myself safely + housed at the Union Inn, Penzance, at half-past eleven. Talking of + unions, the country is studded here as everywhere with them; fine + buildings put to the pernicious use of imprisoning for life those + whose only crime is poverty, and destined to be metamorphosed ere + long (so I prophesy) into lunatic asylums for desperate + ministerialists, prisons for the Chartists, veterinary colleges for + cattle with the rot, and as one good end, hospitals for the poor. + Near Redruth, I took notice in the moonlight of Carn-breh, the + remains of a British beacon or hill-fort, much of the antiquarian + interest of which has been destroyed by a neighbouring squire + having added to it _modern_ ruins, to make it an object from his + hall! the whole hill, like much of the country, is sprinkled with + granite blocks higgledi-piggledy, and it is a grand dispute among + the pundits, whether or not the Archdruid Nature has been playing + at marbles in these parts; I wished to satisfy myself about it, but + couldn't stop, and so there's no use in grummering about regrets. + I've seen enough, to be able to judge _a priori_, that father + Noah's flood piled the hill with blocks, which have served one Dr. + Borlase and others as occasions for earning the character of + blockheads. One thing is man's doing, without _much_ dispute, and + that is, an obelisk in honour of old Lord De Dunstanville, which is + a conspicuous toothpick on the hilltop: no doubt, as in this case, + nature brought the stones there, and man did his part in arranging + them; poor Dr. B. would have you believe that every natural rock + had been lifted here bodily for architectural purposes, and as + bodily made a most elaborate and labyrinthine ruin afterwards. At + Penzance, a broiled fish supper, and to bed by midnight, having + ordered a twilight gig, wherein by 7 on the ninth I was traversing + the beautiful bay. Penzance is a fine town in a splendid situation; + the bay, bounded by the Lizard and its opposite bold + brother-headland, inclosing St. Michael's Mount, and having a + fertile and villa-studded background; the town full of good + handsome shops (one like the Egyptian Hall), a large cathedralish + church, and with a very special market-place, of light granite, in + the form of a plain Grecian temple, surmounted at the middle by an + imposing dome. As I had duly culled information from the natives, I + lost no time in breakfasting, but drove off, bun in hand, to + explore the country of the Druids. Now, if the matters I succeeded + in visiting were in isolated and plain situations, they might have + been less disappointing; but where the face of the whole soil is + covered naturally with jutting rocks, and timeworn boulders of + granite, one doesn't feel much astonishment to see some one stone + set on end a little more obviously than the rest, or to find out by + dint of perseverance a little arrangement, which may or may not be + accidental: added to this, the cottages, and walls, and field + enclosures are built of such immense blocks cleared off the surface + of the fields, that one's mind is prepared for far more than the + Druids ever did: many a Stonehengeified doorway, many a Titanic + pigstye, many a "Pelion-on-Ossa" questionable-sentry box, puts one + out of conceit with our puny ancestors. I went first to the + Dans-mene, a famous stone-circle; and felt not a little vexed to + find that I, little i, am feet taller than any of the uprights + there, not 25 in number, and no bigger than field gateposts. It is + evidently the consecrated portion of a battlefield, for there are + several single stones dotted about the neighbourhood, to mark where + heroes fell; like those at Inveraray, but smaller. The habit all + through Cornwall of setting up a stone in every field, for cattle + to scratch themselves withal, seems to be a sly satire against + other rubbing-stones for A.S. Ses. A few dreary miles further + brought me to the "voonder of voonders," the Logan-Rock, which on + the map is near Boskenna. The cliff and coast scenery is superb; + immense masses of granite of all shapes and sizes tumbled about in + all directions; what wonder that in such a heap of giant pebbles + _one_ should be found ricketty? or more, what wonder that the very + decomposing nature of coarse granite should have caused the + atmosphere to eat away, gradually, all but the actual centre of + gravity? both at the Logan, and Land's End, and Mount St. Michael, + I am sure I have seen a hundred rocks wasted very nearly to the + moving point, and I could mention specifically six, which in 20 + years will rock, or in half an hour of chiselling would. In part + proof of what I say, the Land-End people, jealous of Logan + customers, have just found out a great rock in their parts, which + two men can make to move; I recommended a long-handled chisel, and + have little doubt that my hint will be acted on; by next season, + the Cornish antiquaries will be puzzling their musty brains over + marks of "druidical" tools; essays will appear, to demonstrate that + the chippings were accomplished by the consecrated golden sickle; + the rock will be proved to have been quarried at Normandy, and + ferried over; facsimiles of the cuts will be lithographed; and the + Innkeeper of the "First and Last house in England" will gratefully + present a piece of plate (a Druid "spanning" [consider Ezekiel's + "putting the branch to the nose" as a sign of contempt]!) to the + author of "Hints for a Chisel," "Proverbial Phil.," &c. &c. &c. + But--_revenous a nos moutons_: to _the_ Logan: until it was + scrupulously pointed out, by so tangible a manner as my boy-guide + getting _on_ it, I could scarcely distinguish it from the fine + hurlyburly of rocks around. That it moves there is no question; but + when I tell you that it is now obliged to be artificially kept from + falling, by a chain fixing it behind, and a beam to rest on before, + I think you will agree with me in muttering "the humbug!" Artists + have so diligently falsified the view, _ad captandum_, that you + will have some difficulty in recognising so old a friend as the + Logan: it is commonly drawn as if isolated, _thus_, and would so, + no doubt, be very astonishing; but, when my memory puts it as + above, stapled, and _obliged_ to remain for Cockneys to log it, + surrounded by a much more imposing brotherhood, my wonder only is + that it keeps its lion character, and that, considering the easy + explication of its natural cause or accident, it should ever have + been conceived to be man's doing; perhaps the Druids availed + themselves of so lucky a chance for miracle-mongering, but as to + having contrived it, you might as well say that they built the + cliffs. It strikes me, moreover, that Cornwall could never have + been the headquarters of Druidism, inasmuch as the soil is too + scanty for oaks: there isn't a tree of any size, much less an oak + tree in all West Cornwall: they must have cut samphire from the + rocks, instead of misletoe from oaks, and the old gentlemen must + have been pretty tolerable climbers, victim and all, to have got + near enough to touch the Logan: to be sure it was a frosty day, and + iron-shod shoes on icy granite are not over coalescible, but I did + not dare scramble to it, as a tumble would have insured a + particularly uncomfortable death; and although the interesting + "Leaper from the Logan, or Martin Martyr" would have had his name + enshrined in young lady sonnets, and azure albums, such immortality + had little charms for me. I contented myself with being able to + swear that I have seen 90 tons of stone moved by a child of ten + years old. Near it is another, called the logging lady, a block, + upright like its neighbours, about 12 feet high, and which the boy + told me could only be made to log by two men with poles; in fact, + one end is worn with levers: well, I told him to try and move it; + no use, says he; try, said I; he did try, and couldn't; well, I + took a sight of where I thought he could do it, and set him to + push; forthwith, my lady tottered, and I told the boy, if he would + only keep to himself where he pushed it would be a banknote to him. + I mention this to illustrate what I verily believe, to wit, that, + if a man only took the breakneck trouble to clamber and try, he + would discover several rocking-stones; but the fact is, this would + diminish the wonder, and Cockneys wouldn't come to see what is + easily explained: your Druids, with imaginary dynamics, invest + nature's freaks with mysterious interest. But away to Tol Peden + Penwith, where there is another curiosity; in the smooth green + middle of a narrow promontory, surrounded and terminated by the + boldest rock-scenery, strangely drops down for a perpendicular + hundred feet, a circular chasm, not ill named the Funnel, and which + not even a stolid Borlase can pretend was dug by the Druids: at the + bottom there is communication with the sea by means of a cavern, + and in stormy weather the rush up this gigantic earth's + chimney-must be something terrible: will this convey a rough idea? + the scenery all round is really magnificent, and the looking down + this black smooth stone-pit is quite fearful; it slopes away so + deceitfully, and looks like a huge lion-ant's nest. Few people see + this, because you can only get at it by a walk of a mile, but I + think it quite as worth seeing as the logan-rock. My next object + was the Land's End, where, as elsewhere, I did signalise myself by + _not_ scribbling my autograph on a rock, or carving M.F.T. on the + sod: the rocky coast is of the same grand character; granite bits, + as big as houses, floundering over each other like whales at play; + the cliffs, cavernous, castellated, mossgrown, and weatherbeaten; + it looks _like_ a Land's end, a regular break up of the world's + then useless ribs: an outlier of rocks in the sea, surmounted by a + lighthouse: looks _like_ the end of the struggle between conquering + man, and sturdy desolation. One place, where I tremble to think I + have been, struck me as quite awful: helped by an iron-handed + sailor, who comforts you in the dizzy scramble with "Never fear, + sir, you shan't fall, unless I fall too," you fearfully pick your + way to the extreme end, where it goes slick down, and lying + prostrate on the slippery granite (which looks disjointed + everywhere, and as if it would fall with you, bodily) with head + strained over you see under you a dreadful cavern, open nearly to + where you are, up which roars the white and angry sea. O brother + David, and foot-tingling Sire, never can you take that look; and + never would I again. Only think of tipping over! ugh.--Into the gig + again, beside my shrewd Sam Weller driver, and away. Here and there + about this part of Cornwall are studded rude stone crosses, + probably of the time of St. Colomba, as they are similar to those + at Iona: about two or three feet high, and very rude. In one place, + I noticed what seemed to be a headless female figure, perhaps the + Virgin, and as large as life: my Jehu said he had heard that it + once had a head. We soon came to a small square inclosure, said to + be a most ancient cemetery; I scrambled over the wall, and found + among the briars and weeds one solitary tomb of a venerable and + Runic aspect, but I soon found out that it recorded the name of + somebody who departed Ye LYFE somewhere in 1577; nothing so + extremely ancient. A rough rock-besprinkled hill now attracted me, + as I heard it was called another Carn-breh, and was surmounted by + some mound, or ruin: so out of the gig, and up in no time. Clearly + it had been an ancient beacon place, as atop are the remains of a + small square-built terrace inclosing some upright stones placed + irregularly,--a sort of huge fireplace. One of the neighbouring + rocks presented on its surface a fine specimen of what are called + rock basins; but unluckily for the antiquary, this excavation is on + the side of the stone, not on the summit; so that it could not + possibly hold water, and is clearly caused by some particular moss + eating away the stone.--By three o'clock returned to Penzance, had + dinner (it was breakfast too), bought a mineral memorial, and in + the gig again, over the sands to the outlandishly named Mara Zion, + or Market Jew, words probably of similar import. Opposite to this + little place, and joined to it by a neck of rocks passable at + low-water, stands that picturesque gem, Mount St. Michael. You know + the sort of thing; an abrupt, pyramid of craggy rock, crowned with + an edifice, half stronghold and half cathedral. It is a home of the + St. Aubyn family, and is well kept up in the ancient style, but in + rather a small way: a portcullised entrance, old armour hanging in + the guard-room, a beautiful dining-hall with carved oak roof, and + panels, and chairs; a chapel to match, with stained windows; an + elegant Gothic drawing-room, white and gold; and everything, down + to black-leather drinking jugs, in character with the feudal + stronghold. I mounted the corkscrew tower, and got to the broken + stone lantern they call St. Michael's chair; an uncomfortable job, + but rewarded by a splendid panorama, gilt by the setting sun: in + the chapel too, I descended into a miserable dungeon communicating + with a monk's stall, where doubtless some self-immured penitent had + wasted life away, only coming to the light for matins, and only + relieved from solitary imprisonment by midnight mass. This has been + discovered but very lately in repairing the chapel: it was walled + up, and contained a skeleton. As a matter of course, this old + castle contains a little hidden room, where that ubiquitous + vagabond, the royal Charles, laid his hunted head: the poor + persecuted debauchee sponged upon all his friends like Bellyserious + Buggins. Back again, by water this time, to little Mara Zion, but + ever and anon looking with admiration on that beautiful mount; the + western rocks are really magnificent, as big as the largest + hay-stacks, and tumbled about as loosely as an emptied sugar-basin; + some hanging by a corner, and others resting on a casual fragment; + I am sure of one logan-stone, if a little impertinent bit of rock + were only moved away; and I walked under and between more Titanic + architecture than Stonehenge can show: the Druids, for my part, + shall have their due, but not where they don't deserve it. At nine, + after a substantial fried-fish tea, I mounted the night coach to + Falmouth,--outside, as there was no room in, and so, through + respectable Helstone, remarkable for a florid Gothic arch erected + to some modern worthy of the town, to decent Penryn, and then by + midnight, to the narrowest of all towns, Falmouth. I longed to get + back to my darlings, and resolved to see them by next morning, so + booked an outside (no room inside, as before) for an immediate + start. Now, you can readily imagine that I was by no means hot, and + though the night of Thursday last was rather mild, still it was + midwinter: accordingly I conceived and executed a marvellous + calorificating plan, which even the mail-coachman had never heard + of. Haying comforted my interiors with hot grog of the stiffest, I + called for another shillingsworth of brandy, and deliberately + emptied it, to the astonished edification of beholders, into my + boots! literal fact, and it kept my feet comfortable all night + long. And so, wrapped all in double clothing, sped I my rapid way, + varying what I had before seen by passing through desolate Bodmin, + and its neighbourhood of rock, moor, and sand: hot coffee at + Liskeard, morning broke soon after, then the glorious sun over the + sea. Hamoaze, the ferry, and Devonport at 1/2 past 8. Much as I + longed to get home, I went forthwith into a hot bath at 102, to + boil out all chills, and thence went spick and span to my happy + rest, having within 48 hours seen the best part of Cornwall and its + wonders, and rode or walked 250 miles. And so, brother David, + commend me for a traveller. HERE ends my Cornish + expedition. Does it recall to thee, O sire, thine own of old time, + undertaken (if I remember rightly) with Dr. Kidd?--Mails then did + not travel like the Quicksilver, averaging 12 miles an hour, and + few people go 40 miles before breakfast. Now, I feel able to get + nearer my Albury destination, and in a week or so, shall hope to be + residing at Dorchester, near the Blandford of paternal + recollections. Did you, dear mother, get a letter from me directed + to Albury? I hope so, for it sets all clear: and if not, I'll set + the nation against cheap postage. I don't feel the least confidence + now in the Post Office, forasmuch as they have no interest in a + letter after it is paid, and many will be mislaid from haste and + multiplicity. Please to say if it came safely to hand, as I judge + it important. If you, dear mother, got my last, I have nothing more + to say, and if not, I'll blow up the Post Office: unpopularity + would send all the letters by carriers: but whether or not, I can't + write any more, so with a due proportion of regards rightly + broadcast around, accept the remainder from--Your affectionate son, + + M.F.T. + + [Illustration] + + [Illustration] + + [Illustration] + + [Illustration] + + [Illustration] + + [Illustration] + + [Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +COLLEGE DAYS. + + +In 1829 I was entered as a commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, and went +through the usual course of lectures with fair success. As a family we +have all favoured Oxford rather than Cambridge: my father and two +cousins, Elisha and Carre, were at Exeter College, to take the benefit +of its Sarnian Exhibitions; my brother Daniel was at Brasenose, and my +brother William gained a scholarship of Trinity. When at Christ Church I +wore the same academical gown which my father had,--and have it still; a +curious antiquity in the dress line, now some fourscore years old, and +perfect for wear and appearance,--such as would have rejoiced the Sartor +Resartus of Carlyle. At college I did not do much in the literary line, +unless it is worth mention that translations from the Greek or Latin +poets were always rendered by me in verse not prose, and that I +published anonymously "A Voice from the Cloister," being an earnest +appeal to my fellow-collegians against the youthful excesses so common +in those days. + +From this pamphlet I give an extract, as it is scarce; it began with +blank verse and ended with rhyme, all being for the period courageously +moral and religious. The end is as thus:-- + + "Enough, sad Muse, enough thy downward flight + Has cleft with wearied wing the shades of night: + Be drest in smiles, forget the gloomy past, + And, cygnet-like, sing sweeter at the last, + Strike on the chords of joy a happier strain + And be thyself, thy cheerful self, again. + Hail, goodly company of generous youth, + Hail, nobler sons of Temperance and Truth! + I see attendant Ariels circling there, + Light-hearted Innocence, and Prudence fair, + Sweet Chastity, young Hope, and Reason bright, + And modest Love, in heaven's own hues bedight, + Staid Diligence, and Health, and holy Grace, + And gentle Happiness with smiling face,-- + All, all are there; and Sorrow speeds away, + And Melancholy flees the sons of day; + Dull Care is gladden'd with reflected light, + And wounded Sin flies sickening at the sight. + + "My friends, whose innate worth the wise man's praise + And the fool's censure equally betrays, + Accept the humble blessing of my Muse, + Nor your assistance to her aim refuse, + She asks not flattery, but let her claim + A kind perusal, and a secret name." + +I scarcely like to mention it, as a literary accident, but being a +curious and unique anecdote it shall be stated. I had the honour at +Christ Church of being prizetaker of Dr. Burton's theological essay, +"The Reconciliation of Matthew and John," when Gladstone who had also +contested it, stood second; and when Dr. Burton had me before him to +give me the L25 worth of books, he requested me to allow Mr. Gladstone +to have L5 worth of them, as he was so good a second. Certainly such an +easy concession was one of my earliest literary triumphs. + +My first acquaintance with Gladstone, whom I have known from those +college days now for more than five and fifty years, was a memorable +event, and may thus be worthy of mention. It was at that time not a +common thing for undergraduates to go to the communion at Christchurch +Cathedral--that holy celebration being supposed to be for the particular +benefit of Dean and Canons, and Masters of Arts. So when two +undergraduates went out of the chancel together after communion, which +they had both attended, it is small wonder that they addressed each +other genially, in defiance of Oxford etiquette, nor that a friendship +so well begun has continued to this hour. Not that I have always +approved of my friend's politics; multitudes of letters through many +years have passed between us, wherein if I have sometimes ventured to +praise or to blame, I have always been answered both gratefully and +modestly: but I have ever tried to hold the balance equally too, +according to my lights, and if at one time (on occasion of the great +Oxford election, 1864) I published a somewhat famous copy of verses, +ending with + + "Orator, statesman, scholar, wit, and sage, + The Crichton,--more, the Gladstone of the age," + +my faithfulness must in after years confess to a well-known palinode +(one of my "Three Hundred Sonnets") commencing + + "Beware of mere delusive eloquence," + +and a still more caustic lyric, beginning with + + "Glozing tongue whom none can trust," + +and so forth, as a caution against a great man's special gift, so +proverbially dangerous. Some of our most honest Ministers, _e.g._, +Althorpe and Wellington, have been very bad speakers: some of our most +eloquent orators have proved very bad Ministers. + +And in this place I may introduce some account, long ago in print, of +the famous Aristotle class under the tutorship of Mr. Biscoe at Christ +Church, wherein (among far nobler and better scholars) your present +confessor took the lowest seat. + +Fifty years ago Biscoe's Aristotle class at Christ Church was comprised +almost wholly of men who have since become celebrated, some in a +remarkable degree; and, as we believe that so many names, afterwards +attaining to great distinction, have rarely been associated at one +lecture-board, either at Oxford or elsewhere, it may be allowed to one +who counts himself the least and lowest of the company to pen this brief +note of those old Aristotelians. + +Let the central figure be _Gladstone_--ever from youth up the beloved +and admired of many personal intimates (although some may be politically +his opponents). Always the foremost man, warm-hearted, earnest, +hard-working, and religious, he had a following even in his teens; and +it is noticeable that a choice lot of young and keen intelligences of +Eton and Christ Church formed themselves into a small social sort of +club, styled, in compliment to their founder's initials, the "W.E.G." + +Next to Gladstone Lord _Lincoln_ used to sit, his first parliamentary +patron at Newark, and through life to death his friend. We all know how +admirably in many offices of State the late Duke of Newcastle served his +country, and what a good and wise Mentor he was to a grateful Telemachus +in America. + +_Canning_ may be mentioned thirdly; then a good-looking youth with +classic features and a florid cheek, since gone to "the land of the +departed" after having healed up the wounds of India as her +Governor-General. Next to the writer, one on each side, sat two more +Governors-General _in futuro_, though then both younger sons and +commoners, and now both also gone to their reward elsewhere; these were +_Bruce_, afterwards Lord Elgin, and _Ramsay_, Lord Dalhousie; the one +famous from Canada to China, the other noted for his triumphs in the +Punjaub. When at Toronto in 1851, the writer was welcomed to the +splendid hospitality of Lord Elgin, and the very lecture-room here +depicted was mentioned as "a rare gathering of notables." Lord +_Abercorn_ was of the class, a future viceroy; Lord _Douglas_, lately +Duke of Hamilton, handsome as an Apollo, and who married a Princess of +Baden; and if Lord _Waterford_ was infrequent in his attendance, at +least he was eligible, and should not be omitted as a various sort of +eccentric celebrity. Then _Phillimore_ was there, now our Dean of the +Arches; _Scott_ and _Liddell_, both heads of houses, and even then +conspiring together for their great Dictionary. _Curzon_ too (lately +Lord De la Zouch) was at the table, meditating Armenian and Levantine +travels, and longing in spirit for those Byzantine MSS. preserved at +Parham, where the writer has delighted to inspect them; how nearly +Tischendorf was anticipated in his fortunate find of that earliest +Scripture, no one knows better than Lord Zouch, who must have been close +upon that great and important discovery! _Doyle_, now Professor of +Poetry, _Hill_, of Mathematics, _Vaughan_, of History--all were of this +wonderful class; as also the Earl of _Selkirk_, celebrated as a +mathematician; Bishops _Hamilton_, _Denison_, and _Wordsworth_; and +_Cornewall Lewis_, late Chancellor of the Exchequer; and _Kynaston_, +Head Master of St. Paul's; and a member of Parliament or two, as, for +example, _Leader_, once popular for Westminster. + +Now, other names of almost equal eminence may have been here +accidentally omitted, but the writer will not guess at more than he +actually recollects. Sometimes--for the lecture was a famous +one--members of other colleges came in; _Sidney Herbert_, of Oriel, in +particular, is remembered; and if _Robert Lowe_, of University, was only +occasionally seen, it must have been because he seldom went abroad till +twilight. + +Altogether "there were giants in those days;" and, without controversy, +a casual class, containing more than a score of such; illustrious names +as are here registered, must be memorable. The lecture-room was next to +Christ Church Hall, where that delicate shaft supports its exquisite +traceried roof; the book was "Aristotle's Rhetoric," illustrated by each +reader with quotations, a record whereof is still _penes me_, and the +lecturer, now no longer living, was that able and accomplished classic, +the Reverend _Robert Biscoe_. + +My college days are full of recollections of men, since become famous in +literature, art, science, or position: of these the principal are +already recorded as having been members of the Aristotle class. Let me +add here, that I lived for three weeks of my first term in the gaily +adorned rooms in Peckwater of the wild Lord Waterford; and afterwards in +Lord Ossulston's, both being then absent from college; that Frank +Buckland and his bear occupied (long after I had left) my own chambers +in Fells' Buildings; that I was a class-mate and friend of the luckless +Lord Conyers Osborne, then a comely and ruddy youth with curly hair and +gentle manners, and that I remember how all Oxford was horrified at his +shocking death--he having been back-broken over an arm-chair by the +good-natured but only too athletic Earl of Hillsborough in a wine-party +frolic; that Knighton, early an enthusiast for art, used to draw his own +left hand in divers attitudes with his right every day for weeks; and +that some not quite unknown cotemporary used to personate me at times +for his own benefit. As he has been long dead, I may now state that he +was believed to be Lord Douglas of Hamilton. Here is the true story. One +day the Dean requested my presence, and thus addressed me: "I have long +overlooked it, Mr. Tupper, but this must never occur again: indeed I +have only waited till now, because I knew of your general good conduct." + +"What have I done, Mr. Dean: be pleased to tell me." + +"Why, sir, the porter states that this is the fifth time you have not +come into college until past twelve o'clock." + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Dean; there is some mistake: for I have never +once been later than ten." + +"Then, Mr. Tupper, somebody must have given your name in the dark: and I +request that you will do your best to discover who did this, and report +it to me." + +As I failed to do it, after some days, again the Dean sent for me; and +finding after question made that I pretty well guessed the delinquent +but declined to expose him, the Dean kindly added--"This does you +credit, sir," and I left. A few days passed, and I was brought up again +with "I think you are intended for the Church, Mr. Tupper." As well as I +could manage it, I stammered out that it was impossible, as I could not +speak. Then he said he was sorry for that, as he meant to nominate me +for a studentship. This, however, never came to pass, and so the matter +dropped; until Dean Gaisford succeeded Dean Smith, and Joseph lost his +Pharaoh. + +At college I lived the quiet life of a reading-man; though I varied +continually the desk and the book with the "constitutional" up +Headington Hill, or the gallop with Mr. Murrell's harriers, or the quick +scull to Iffley, or the more perilous sailing in a boat (no wonder that +Isis claims her annual victims), or the gig to Blenheim or +Newton-Courtnay,--or that only once alarming experience of a tandem when +the leader turned round and looked at me in its nostalgic longing to +return home,--or the geological ramble with Dr. Buckland's class,--or +the botanic searchings for wild rarities with some naturalist pundit +whose name I have forgotten; and so forth. In matters theological, I was +strongly opposed to the Tractarians, especially denouncing Newman and +Pusey for their dishonest "non-naturalness" and Number Ninety: and I +favoured with my approval (_valeat quantum_) Dr. Hampden. I attended Dr. +Kidd's anatomical lectures, and dabbled with some chemical +experiments--which when Knighton and I repeated at his father's house, 9 +Hanover Square, the baronet in future blew us up to the astonishment of +the baronet _in praesenti_, his famous father. Also, I was a diligent +student in the Algebraic class of Dr. Short, afterwards the good Bishop +of St. Asaph; and I have before me now a _memoria technica_ of mine in +rhyme giving the nine chief rules of trigonometry, but not easily +producible here as full of "sines and cosines, arcs, chords, tangents, +and radii," though helpful to memory, and humorous at the time, ending +with + + "At least I have proved that nothing is worse + Than Trigonometrical Problems in verse:" + +there are also similarly to be recorded my mathematical _seances_ with +that worthy and clever Professor, A.P. Saunders, afterwards headmaster +of Charterhouse; and my Hebrew lectures with the mild-spoken Dr. Pusey, +afterwards so notorious; and I know not whatever else is memorable, +unless one condescended to what goes without saying about Hall and +Chapel, and Examinations: however, some frivolous larks in the Waterford +days, wherewith I need not say the present scribe had nothing to do, may +amuse. Here are three I remember; 1. An edict had gone out from the +authorities against hunting in pink,--and next morning the Dean's and +the Canons' doors in quad were found to have been miraculously painted +red in the night. 2. There was a grand party of Dons at the Deanery, and +as they hung their togas in the hall (for they couldn't conveniently +dine in them) there was filched from each proctorial sleeve that +marvellous little triangular survival of a stole which nobody can +explain, and all these collectively were nailed on the Dean's outer door +in a star. 3. A certain garden of small yews and box trees was found one +morning to have been transplanted bodily into Peckwater Quadrangle, as a +matter of mystery and defiance. And there were other like exploits; as +the immersion of that leaden Mercury into its own pond; and town and +gown rows, wherein I remember to have seen the herculean Lord +Hillsborough on one side of High Street, and Peard (afterwards +Garibaldi's Englishman) on the other, clear away the crowd of roughs +with their fists, scattering them like duplicates of the hero of +Corioli. + +Of course I duly took my degrees of B.A. and M.A.,--and long after of +D.C.L., when the Cathedral chimes rang for me, as they always do for a +grand compounding Doctor. + +A mentionable _curio_ of authorship on that occasion is this: whatever +may be the rule now, in those days the degree of D.C.L. involved a +three-hours' imprisonment in the pulpit of the Bodleian Chapel, for the +candidate to answer therefrom in Latin any theological objectors who +might show themselves for that purpose; as, however, the chapel was +always locked by Dr. Bliss, the registrar, there was never a possibility +to make objection. So my three hours of enforced idleness obliged me to +use pencil and paper, which I happened to have in my pocket,--and I then +and there produced my poem on "The Dead"--to be found at p. 26 of my +Miscellaneous Poems, still extant at Gall & Inglis's--a long one of +eighteen stanzas, much liked by Gladstone amongst others. I didn't +intend it certainly, but, as the poem ends with the word "bliss," it was +ridiculously thought that I had specially alluded to the registrar! + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +ORDERS: AND LINCOLN'S INN. + + +Soon after leaving Oxford, and when some attempts to help my speech +seemed to be partially successful, my father wished me to take orders, +which also from religious motives was my own desire (for M'Neile at +Albury, and Bulteel at Oxford, had been instruments of good to me, the +first since I was 15, the other as a young collegian) and as Earl +Rivers, whom my father had financially assisted promised me a living, +and a curacy was easy where the mere licence was enough by way of +salary, I soon found myself standing for introductory approval before +Bishop Burgess at his hotel in Waterloo Place, a candidate for orders by +Examination. The good Bishop being a Hebrew scholar was glad enough to +hear that I (with however slight a smattering) had studied that +primitive tongue under Pusey and Pauli,--and I began to hope before his +awful presence. But, when he told me to read, and soon perceived my only +half-cured infirmity, he faithfully enough assured me with sorrow that I +could not be ordained unless I had my speech. So that first and sole +interview came to an untimely end: for soon after, not meaning to give +up the struggle at once, I resolved, before my next Episcopal visit, to +go down to Blewbury, the vicarage of my friend Mr. Evanson, who had +agreed to license me to his curacy, in order that by reading the lessons +in church I might practically test my competency. Of course, I prepared +myself specially by diligence, and care, and prayer, to stand this new +ordeal. But I failed to please even the indulgent vicar, though he got +his curate for nothing, and though his fair daughter amiably welcomed +the not ungainly Coelebs; and as for the severe old clerk,--he naively +blurted out, "Tell'ee what, sir, it won't do: you looks well,--but what +means them stops?" Alas! they meant the rebellion of tongue and lips +against every difficult letter, a _t_, or a _p_, or a far too current +_s_. And so I came to the wise conclusion that I was not to be a parson. +And perhaps it's as well I'm not; for my natural combativeness would +never have tolerated my bishop or my rector, or even the parish +churchwarden, specially in these days of Ritualism and Romanism. I was +thus thrown back upon myself: and I now see gratefully and humbly how I +was being schooled and forced into a mental era of silent +thoughtfulness, in after years the seed of several volumes as well as +innumerable ballads and poems which have flown as fly-leaves over the +world. + +After this clerical failure, my good father urged me to turn to the law, +thinking that as a chamber counsel my intellectual attainments (and I +had worked hard for many years) might yet be available to society and to +myself, though on the "silent system:" but alas! verbal explanations are +as necessary in a room as at the bar; I soon perceived that all could +not be done on paper, and as I thoroughly hated law I speedily turned to +other sorts of literature, in especial the fixing of my own rhymed or +rhythmed thoughts in black and white. + +There is a small chamber in the turret of No. 19 Lincoln's Inn Old +Square, on the second floor of rooms then belonging to my late friend +Thomas Lewin (afterwards a Master in Chancery, and well known not only +for his Law books, but also for his Life of St. Paul) where I used to +dream and think and jot down Proverbial morsels on odd bits of paper +which gradually grew to be a book. Lewin once, I remember, picked up +from the wastepaper basket these lines which he admired much, and asked +me where they came from: + + "For that a true philosophy commandeth an innocent life, + And the unguilty spirit is lighter than a linnet's heart." + +They occur in my Essay on Ridicule, first series, so I had to confess as +found out. + +When my book appeared Lewin offered to review it for me in the _Literary +Gazette_, then edited by his friend Mr. Landon, L.E.L.'s brother. An +unusual rush of business just then coming in to him, and the editor +pressing for copy, Lewin begged me to write the Article myself, to which +I most reluctantly assented; resolving however to be quite impartial. +The result was that when I handed the critique to my busy friend, he +quickly said after a hurried glance, "Why, this won't do at all; you +have cut yourself up cruelly, instead of praising, as you ought to have +done. I must do it myself, I suppose. Here, copy out this Opinion for +me, if you can read it: it's Mr. Brodie's, and I can't." With that he +threw my MS. into the wastepaper basket, and I did his work for him, +whilst he commended me with due vigour, and sent his clerk off with a +too kind verdict in hot haste to the expectant editor. + +The mention of Brodie reminds me that I spent a year copying old deeds +in his murky chamber, 49 Lincoln's Inn Fields, where nobody could read +his handwriting except his clerk (appropriately yclept Inkpen), and +when _he_ couldn't it was handed back to Mr. Brodie for exposition, +wherein if he himself failed, as was sometimes the case, he had to write +a new Opinion. Inkpen was a character, as a self-taught entomologist, +breeding in me then the rabies of collecting moths and beetles, as a +couple of boxes full of such can still prove. He lived at Chelsea, near +the Botanical Gardens there; and attributed his wonderful finds of +strange insects in his own pocket-handkerchief garden to stray +caterpillars and flies, &c., that came his way from among the packets of +foreign plants. He used also to catch small fowl on passengers' coats +and blank walls, as he passed on his daily walks to his office and back, +having pill-boxes in his pocket, and pins inside his hat to secure the +spoil. In the course of years he had amassed butterflies and beetles to +so valuable an extent, that when he was compelled by adverse fortune to +sell his cabinets by auction at Stevens's, he netted L1200 for his +collection: this he told me in later years himself; immediately after +the sale, he commenced collecting anew,--and having been made curator of +Lincoln's Inn Fields (through Mr. Brodie's interest), he soon found an +infinity of new insects,--derived perhaps from the Surgeon's Hall +Museum, or straying to the nine acres of that Garden,--is it not the +area of Cephren's Pyramid?--as a refuge for them out of smoky London. +The good man always brought a new flower to look at every morning while +at desk work; it lived in an old inkbottle of water, till one happy day +I bethought me charitably of giving him a pretty China vase,--that good +man, I say, is now long since gone to a world of light and +beauty--whence, I am sure, flowers and butterflies cannot be excluded. + +About the same time this memorable matter may receive a notice. One day +at Brodie's chambers we heard a riotous noise in Lincoln's Inn Fields, +and running out, I found that the Duke of Wellington, for some political +offence, was being mobbed,--and that too on the 18th of June! He was +calmly walking his horse, surrounded by roaring roughs,--a groom being +behind him at some distance, but otherwise alone. Disgusted at the +scene, I jumped on the steps of Surgeon's Hall, and shouted +out--Waterloo, Waterloo! That one word turned the tide of execrations +into cheers, and the Iron Duke passed me silently with a military +salute: as the mob were thus easily converted ("mob" being, as we +conveyancers say, a short form for "mobile", changeable) and escorted +our national hero to his home in safety, I really think the little +incident worth recording. We are just now in the throes of such a +mobocracy,--and know how much one firm policeman can avail to calm a +riot. While speaking of the Duke and Apsley House, let me add here +another word of some interest. My uncle, Arthur W. Devis, had painted +life-sized portraits of Blucher and Gneisenau, which his widow had given +to me: and as the Duke had always been my father's friend, I asked his +Grace if he would accept them from me; this he declined, but said, "get +Colnaghi to value them and I'll buy them"--as accordingly I did, and the +pictures are still I presume either at Apsley House or Strathfieldsaye. +My small memories of the Great Duke are summed up in these four +monosyllables, plain, blunt, firm, kind. + +After Brodie's, my liberal father would give for me another hundred +pounds, this time to his cousin Mr. Walters of No. 12 in the Square, to +make me more learned as a conveyancer: but it was all of no use: "He +penned a stanza when he should engross:" however, I ate my terms and was +duly called to the Bar. At Walters' my most eminent colleague, amongst +others, was Roundel Palmer, now Lord Selborne, who, some time after, +when we both had chambers in the Inn, wanted me (but I repudiated the +idea) to be proposed as a candidate member for Oxford University, just +before Gladstone was induced to stand; I daresay he will remember it. As +to M.P.ship I may have had other chances, but I never cared for a +position of endless care and toil by night and day, to say nothing of my +impediment of speech, and as to the magic letters I rather despised +them: this being one reason. Not very many years ago my brother Charles +was offered Nottingham if he would pay L3000 for the honour,--and so I +failed to appreciate any such distinction. I think too that votes were +at one time purchasable even at Guildford, my county town: but that was +of course at a less upright and immaculate time of day than this. + +At Walters' were also three of my cotemporaries,--De Morgan, who had the +business after decease of our principal, and whose brother is or was the +famous psychological philosopher; Domville, since Sir Charles, I +believe; and Gunn, a West Indian, of whom the jest was to inquire of +Walters, a very nervous man, if he liked us to have a gun in chambers: +all these, and there were more, were clever men and worthy, but as the +tide of life flows on I have lost sight of them. + + * * * * * + +I have just found an old letter of my own, dated December 28, 1839, +which (with my own permission asked and granted) I will give as to a +matter quite forgotten by me, viz., that Lady Spencer promised my +father to get me an Indian Writership,--as also that previously I had +once hopes of the Registrarship from Lord John Russell, afterwards given +to Mr. Lyster. The letter proves how much my no-speech hindered both my +good father's efforts and my own;--and explains itself. In those days it +cost 9d. between Albury and London. + + My Dearest Father,--I can fully, though not perhaps so + fully as you can, enter into your great anxieties about your five + great boys, and actuated by this sympathy I sit down to say a word + more about India.--I do hope you have not yet given Lady Spencer a + decisive answer, as the horizon seems a little to clear of its + indigenous hurricanes. Since my last letter to you I have, I can + truly say, made every effort to speak like a man, but, alas I too + unsuccessfully: my tongue seems only able to say veto to the + Church, and that speaking is a necessary qualification "needs no + demonstration." Aunt Fanny has strongly recommended me to think + more seriously about it, and Mr. M'Neile has also given me his + valuable opinion on the subject, that at least I must inquire what + I am more fitted for, and not lightly put aside those opportunities + which Providence places in my way. However, I would by no means be + hurried in my choice either way: I must inquire what is the office + of a writer; whether oratorical powers be not requisite, &c., for + as yet I have a very vague and indefinite idea of what I reject or + choose. I really do find my impediment most truly a grievous + impediment to what appears more desirable; but I would wish to + consider this, as every other constitutional infirmity or + affliction, as but an instrument in the hands of God to subserve + some wise purpose. Let this letter therefore, if you please, serve + as a preventive, if not too late, to your final decision about it, + and put me, my dear father, in possession of more of the peculiar + features, in a writer's employment if you can, I hope to be with + you on Friday. + + Till then, and ever believe me, my dear father, your affectionate + son, + + M.F. Tupper. + + Albury, _December 28th, Wednesday._ + +The day after I took my degree as a barrister, I married my cousin after +a nine years' engagement; my father having resolved I should not marry +without a profession. I did my best at this vocation of the law much +against the grain, and actually achieved, with Lewin's help, a +voluminous will, and a marriage settlement, with some accessory deeds, +procured for me by my mother's friend Mr. Hunt, through one Dangerfield, +a solicitor. I have often felt anxious to know how far my conveyancing +held water; but the thought of Lewin's skill has comforted me--and +besides I have never heard a word about it now for half a century. My +fee for all was fifty guineas--pretty well for a first and last exploit +in the way of law and its rewards. + +As I am just leaving my father's house for Park Village, and thereafter +Albury, here I will insert two little memories of past days when I lived +with my parents at No. 5. Here is one. Theodore Hook's famous Berners +Street hoax had lately made such exploits very catching among +schoolboys--and in my Charterhouse days it was repeated by "Punsonby & +Co." at my father's town-house. On a certain Saturday when I had my +weekly holiday at home, I marvelled to find the street crowded with +vans, coal-carts, trucks, a mourning coach, fishmongers, butchers, and +confectioners with trays, and a number of servants wanting places. All +these were crowding round No. 5, as ordered or advertised for by Mr. +Tupper: of course soon explained away, and rejected, to a general +indignation at the hoaxers. Now, as I had my suspicions, I sat unseen at +the front drawing-room window, and watched: and as more than once I had +noticed P. and his friends pass down the street on the opposite side, I +taxed them with their exploit on the Monday; and I rather think it cost +them not a trifling sum to satisfy that crowd of disappointed tradesmen. +Happily such practical joking is now long since (or ought to be) a +social outrage of the past; Hook's being first had the grace of original +humour,--but imitations are dull repetition, not to be excused. I only +once met Theodore Hook, and that was in his decadence; he looked puffy +and only semi-sober; but I recollect with how much deference and +expectation the "livener-up" was eagerly surrounded, and how sillily the +dupes laughed at every word he uttered, whether humorous or not. + + * * * * * + +For another last memory of No. 5, in the dining-room whereof Lord +Sandwich, who had once lived there, is said to have invented +"sandwiches," I will record this. + +In those days of long ago, how well I remember our next-door neighbour, +old Lady Cork, "The Dowager-Countess of Cork and Orrery," as her +door-plate proclaimed, some of whose peculiarities I may mention without +offence, as they were notorious and (the physicians judged) innocent +and venial. Whenever she found herself alone (and she kept profuse +hospitality three or four days a week, with her vast illuminated +conservatory full of artificial flowers and grapes and oranges tied on +everything), when those famous routs were silent, and dance music no +longer kept us awake at night, the little old lady would send in a +message, asking "neighbour Tupper to give her a dinner +to-day"--sometimes even coming unannounced. She usually appeared all in +white, even to her shoes and bonnet, which latter she would keep on the +whole evening; the only colour about her being rouged cheeks, sometimes +decorated with a piece of white paper cut into the shape of a heart, and +stuck on "to charm away the tic." Well, her ladyship was always full of +society anecdotes; and I only wish that her diary may soon be published, +as probably a more spicy record of past celebrities than even Pepys's in +old times, or Greville's in our own; but she is said to have left +instructions to her executors not to publish till every one mentioned by +her was dead: so we must wait till that tontine is over. But the +specialty of the aged countess, who died at past ninety but never owned +to more than sixty, was a propensity to annex small properties; always +it happened that next morning after a visit either her butler or her +lady's-maid would bring to us a spoon or a fork or a piece of +_bric-a-brac_ which she had carried off with her in seeming +unconsciousness; and as she never inquired for them afterwards, possibly +it was so. Let doctors decide. _Requiescat._ The forthcoming memoirs of +that once famous and lovely Miss Monckton will be interesting indeed, if +not over-edited. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +STAMMERING AND CHESS. + + +One of the apparent calamities of my life (overruled, as I have long +since seen, for good) was the before-mentioned affliction of a very bad +impediment of speech, which blighted my youth and manhood from fifteen +to thirty-five, obliging me to social humiliations of many kinds, to +silence in class and on examination occasions (hence my written poetries +in lieu of spoken prose), and in early manhood preventing me from taking +orders, and thereafter from speaking in the law courts. But I was +hopelessly and practically a dumb man, except under special excitations, +when I could burst into eloquent speech which surprised third persons +more than myself; for when quite alone I could spout like Demosthenes; +it was only nervous fear that paralysed my tongue. Accordingly, my good +father placed me from time to time with well-meaning and well-paid +pretenders to make a perfect cure of my affliction, and I did many +things and suffered much from such false physicians. I am sure no one +can truly say what I can, viz., that in a purposely monotonous note and +syllable by syllable, with a crutch under my chin, and a sort of gag on +the rebellious tongue, I have read all through in a loud voice Milton's +whole Paradise Lost and Regained, and the most of Cowper's poems! That +was the sort of tongue-drill and nerve-quieting recommended and enforced +for many hours a day, through weary months, by a certain Mr. C., while +Dr. P., his successor to the well-named "patient," gave, first, +emulcents, and then styptics, and was fortunately prevented in time by +my father from some surgical experiments on the muscles of lip and +tongue. However, nobody could cure me, until I cured myself; rather, let +me gratefully and humbly confess, until God answered constant prayer, +and granted stronger bodily health, and gave me good success in my +literary life, and made me to feel I was equal in speech, as now, to the +most fluent of my fellows. So let any stammerer (and there are many +such) take comfort from my cure, and pray against the trouble as I did, +and courageously stand up against the multitude to claim before heaven +and earth man's proudest prerogative--the privilege of speech. In my +Proverbial Essay "Of Speaking" will be found two contrasted pictures +drawn from my own experiences: one of the stifled stammerer, the other +of the unbridled orator: which you can turn to as you will. As, however, +some of my old groanings after utterance are not equally accessible, I +will here give a few lines of mine from the "Stammerer's Complaint," +printed in the medical book of one of my Galens:-- + + "... And is it not in truth + A poisoned sting in every social joy, + A thorn that rankles in the writhing flesh, + A drop of gall in each domestic sweet, + An irritating petty misery,-- + That I can never look on one I love + And speak the fulness of my burning thoughts? + That I can never with unmingled joy + Meet a long-loved and long-expected friend + Because I feel, but cannot vent my feelings,-- + Because I know I ought, but must not, speak,-- + Because I mark his quick impatient eye + Striving in kindness to anticipate + The word of welcome strangled in its birth? + Is it not sorrow, while I truly love + Sweet social converse, to be forced to shun + The happy circle, from a nervous sense-- + An agonising poignant consciousness-- + That I must stand aloof, nor mingle with + The wise and good in rational argument, + The young in brilliant quickness of reply, + Friendship's ingenuous interchange of mind, + Affection's open-hearted sympathies? + But feel myself an isolated being, + A very wilderness of widowed thought!" + +All this is only sad stern truth; nothing morbid here: let any poor +stammerer testify to my faithfulness. Amongst others afflicted like +myself was Charles Kingsley, whom I knew well at a time when I had +overcome my calamity; whereas he carried his to the grave with him; +though he had frequent gleams of a forced and courageous eloquence, +preaching energetically in a somewhat artificial voice,--in private he +stammered much, as once I used to do, no doubt to his mortification, +though humbly acquiescing in God's will. + + * * * * * + +Chess is a chief intellectual resource to the stammerer; for therein he +can conquer in argument without the toil of speech, and prove himself +practically more eloquent than the men full of talk whom he so much +envies. Accordingly, in days gone by (for of late years I have given it +up, as too toilsome a recreation) I played often at that royal game. In +these times it is no game at all,--but a wearisome if seductive +science; just as cricket is an artillery combat now, and football a most +perilous conflict, and boating breaks the athlete's heart, and billiards +can only be played by a bar-spot professional, and tranquil whist itself +has developed into a semi-fraudulent system of open rules and secret +signs; even so the honest common-sense old game of chess has come to be +so encumbered with published openings and gambits and other parasitic +growths upon the wholesome house-plant, that I for one have renounced +it, as a pursuit for which life is too short and serious (give me a +farce or a story instead), and one moreover in which any fool well up to +crammed book games may crow over the wisest of men in an easy, because +stereotyped, checkmate. However, in this connection, I recollect a small +experience which proves that positive ignorance of famous openings may +sometimes be an advantage; just as the skilled fencer will be baffled by +a brave boor rushing in against rules, and by close encounter +unconventionally pinning him straight off. When a youth, just before +matriculation, I was a guest at Culham of the good rector there, a +chess-player to his own thinking indomitable, for none of the neighbours +could checkmate him: so he thought to make quick work of a silent but +thoughtful boy-stammerer,--by tempting him at an early period of the +game to take, seemingly for nothing but advantage, a certain knight (his +usual dodge, it appeared) which would have ensured an ultimate defeat. +However, I declined the generous offer, which began to nettle my +opponent; but when afterwards I refused to answer divers moves by the +card (as he protested I ought), and finally reduced him to a positive +checkmate, he flew into such an unclerical rage that I would not play +again; his "revenge" might be too terrible. For another trivial chess +anecdote: a very worthy old friend of mine, a rector too, was fond of +his game, and of winning it: and I remember one evening that his ancient +servitor, bringing in the chessboard, whispered to me, "Please don't +beat him again, sir,--he didn't sleep a wink last night;" accordingly, +after a respectably protracted struggle, some strange oversights were +made, and my reverend host came off conqueror: so he was enabled to +sleep happily. I remember too playing with pegged pieces in a box-board +at so strange a place as outside the Oxford coach; and I think my +amiable adversary then was one Wynell Mayow, who has since grown into a +great Church dignitary. If he lives, my compliments to him. + +One of the best private chess-players I used often to encounter,--but +almost never to beat, is my old life-friend, Evelyn of Wotton, now the +first M.P. for his own ancestral Deptford. It was to me a triumph only +to puzzle his shrewdness, "to make him think," as I used to say,--and if +ever through his carelessness I managed a stale, or a draw,--very seldom +a mate,--that was glory indeed. If he sees this, his memory will +countersign it. + +Let so much suffice, as perhaps a not inappropriate word about the +Literary Life's frequent mental recreation, especially, where the player +is, like Moses, "not a man of words." + +One day, by the by, this text in the original, "lo ish devarim anochi" +(Exod. iv. 10), came to my lot in Pusey's Hebrew class, to my special +confusion: but every tutor was very considerate and favoured the one who +couldn't speak, and Mr. Biscoe in particular used to say when my turn +came to read or to answer,--"Never mind, Mr. Tupper, I'm sure you know +it,--please to go on, Mr. So-and-So." This habitual confidence in my +proficiency had the effect of forcing my consciousness to deserve it; +and it usually happened that I really did know, silently, like +Macaulay's cunning augur, "who knew but might not tell." + +Speaking of recreation, Izaak Walton's joy as a contemplative man has +been mine from youth; as witness these three fishing sonnets, just found +in the faded ink of three or four decades ago, which may give a gleam of +country sunshine on a page or two, and would have rejoiced my +piscatorial friends Kingsley and Leech in old days, and will not be +unacceptable to Attwood Matthews, Cholmondeley Pennell, and the Marstons +with their friend Mr. Senior in these. I have had various luck as an +angler from Stennis Lake to the Usk, from Enniskillen to Killarney, from +Isis to Wotton,--and so it would be a pity if I omitted such an +authorial characteristic; especially as my stammering obliged me to +"study to be quiet." + + I. + + "Look, like a village Queen of May, the stream + Dances her best before the holiday sun, + And still, with musical laugh, goes tripping on + Over these golden sands, which brighter gleam + To watch her pale-green kirtle flashing fleet + Above them, and her tinkling silver feet + That ripple melodies: quick,--yon circling rise + In the calm refluence of this gay cascade + Marked an old trout, who shuns the sunny skies, + And, nightly prowler, loves the hazel shade: + Well thrown!--you hold him bravely,--off he speeds, + Now up, now down,--now madly darts about,-- + Mind, mind your line among those flowering reeds,-- + How the rod bends,--and hail, thou noble trout!" + + II. + + "O, thou hast robbed the Nereids, gentle brother, + Of some swift fairy messenger; behold,-- + His dappled livery prankt with red and gold + Shows him their favourite page: just such another + Sad Galataea to her Acis sent + To teach the new-born fountain how to flow, + And track with loving haste the way she went + Down the rough rocks, and through the flowery plain, + Ev'n to her home where coral branches grow, + And where the sea-nymph clasps her love again: + We the while, terrible as Polypheme, + Brandish the lissom rod, and featly try + Once more to throw the tempting treacherous fly + And win a brace of trophies from the stream." + + III. + + "Come then, coy Zephyr, waft my feathered bait + Over this rippling shallow's tiny wave + To yonder pool, whose calmer eddies lave + Some Triton's ambush, where he lies in wait + To catch my skipping fly; there drop it lightly: + A rise, by Glaucus!--but he missed the hook,-- + Another--safe! the monarch of the brook, + With broadside like a salmon's, gleaming brightly: + Off let him race, and waste his prowess there; + The dread of Damocles, a single hair, + Will tax my skill to take this fine old trout; + So,--lead him gently; quick, the net, the net! + Now gladly lift the glittering beauty out, + Hued like a dolphin, sweet as violet." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +PRIZE POEMS, ETC. + + +In the course of my Oxford career I tried for two Newdigate Prize poems, +"The Suttees" and the "African Desert," won respectively by Claughton, +now Bishop of St. Albans, and Rickards, whose honours of course I ought +to know, but don't. A good-looking and well-speaking friend of mine, +E.H. Abney, now a Canon, was so certain that the said prizes in those +two successive years were to fall to me, that he learnt my poems by +heart in order to recite them as my speech-substitute in the Sheldonian +Theatre at Commemoration, and he used frequently to look in upon me to +be coached in his recital. It was rumoured that I came second on both +occasions,--one of them certainly had a 2 marked on it when returned to +me, but I know not who placed it there. However, my pieces were +afterwards printed; both separately, and among my "Ballads and Poems," +by Hall and Virtue, and are now before me. As an impartial and veteran +judge of such _literaria_, I am bold to say they are far better than I +thought, and might fairly have won Newdigate prizes, even as friend +Abney & Co. were sure they would. + +At the close of my University career came, of course, the Great Go, +which I had to do as I did the Little Go, all on paper; for I could not +answer _viva voce_. And this rule then, whatever may be the case now, +prevented me from going in for honours, though I had read for a first, +and hoped at least to get a second. Neither of these, nor even a third +class, was technically possible, if I could not stand a two days' ordeal +of _viva voce_ examination, part of the whole week then exacted. +However, I did all at my best on paper, specially the translations from +classic poets in verse: whereof I'll find a specimen anon. The issue of +all was that I was offered an honorary fourth class,--which I refused, +as not willing to appear at the bottom of the list of all, +alphabetically,--and so my tutor, Mr. Biscoe, not wishing to lose the +honour for our college, managed to get it transferred to another of his +pupils, Mr. Thistlethwaite, whose father wrote to thank me for this +unexpected though not unmerited luck falling to his son. + +One short presentable piece of verse-making in the schools is as below +from Virgil: there were also three odes of Horace, a chorus from +AEschylus, and more from other Greek and Latin poets. + + "Sicilian Muses, sing we loftier strains! + The humble tamarisk and woodland plains + Delight not all; if woods and groves we try, + Be the groves worthy of a consul's eye. + Told by the Sibyl's song, the 'latter time' + Is come, and dispensations roll sublime + In new and glorious order; spring again + With Virgo comes, and Saturn's golden reign. + A heavenly band from heaven's bright realm descends, + All evil ceases, and all discord ends. + Do thou with favouring eye, Lucina chaste, + Regard the wondrous babe,--his coming haste,-- + For under him the iron age shall cease, + And the vast world rejoice in golden peace," &c. &c. + +I select this bit, famous for being one of the places in Virgil which +goes to prove that the Sibylline books (to which the Augustan poets had +easy access) quoted Isaiah's prophecies of Christ and the Millennium. It +will be considered that my public versifying was quite extempore, as in +fact is common with me. For other college memories in the literary line, +I may just mention certain brochures or parodies, initialed or +anonymous, whereto I must now plead guilty for the first time; +reflecting, amongst other topics, on Montgomery's Oxford, St. Mary's +theology, Mr. Rickard's "African Desert," and Garbet's pronounced and +rather absurd aestheticism as an examiner. Here are morsels of each in +order:-- + + "Who praises Oxford?--some small buzzing thing, + Some starveling songster on a tiny wing,-- + (_N.B._ They call the insect Bob, I know, + I heard a printer's devil call it so)-- + So fondly tells his admiration vast + No one can call the chastened strains bombast, + Though epitheted substantives immense + Claim for each lofty sound the _caret_ sense," &c. &c. + +Next, a bit from my Low Church onslaught on St. Mary's in the Hampden +case, being part of "The Oxford Controversy":-- + + "Though vanquished oft, in falsehood undismayed, + Like heretics in flaming vest arrayed + Each angry Don lifts high his injured head, + Or 'stands between the living and the dead.' + Still from St. Mary's pulpit echoes wide + Primo, beware of truth, whate'er betide; + Deinde, from deep Charybdis while you steer + Lest damned Socinus charm you with his sneer, + Watch above all, so not _Saint_ Thomas spake, + Lest upon Calvin, Scylla's rook, you break," &c. &c. + +These forgotten trivials, wherein the allusions do not now show clear, +are, I know, barely excusable even thus curtly: but I choose to save a +touch or two from annihilation. Here is another little bit; this time +from a somewhat vicious parody on my rival Rickard's prize poem: it is +fairest to produce at length first his serious conclusion to the normal +fifty-liner, and then my less reverent imitation of it. Here, then, is +the end of Rickard's poem:-- + + "Bright was the doom which snatched her favourite son, + Nor came too soon to him whose task was done. + Long burned his restless spirit to explore + That stream which eye had never tracked before, + Whose course, 'tis said, in Western springs begun + Flows on eternal to the rising sun! + Though thousand perils seemed to bar his way, + And all save him shrunk backward in dismay, + Still hope prophetic poured the ardent prayer + To reach that stream, though doomed to perish there! + That prayer was heard; by Niger's mystic flood + One rapturous day the speechless dreamer stood, + Fixt on that stream his glistening eyes he kept,-- + The sun went down,--the wayworn wanderer slept!" + +So much for the prize-taker; the prize-loser vented his spleen as +thus:-- + + "Bright was the doom that diddled Mungo Park, + Yet very palpably obscure and dark. + Long burned his throat, for want of coming nigh + That stream he long'd and pray'd for wistfully, + Whose course, 'tis said, that no one can tell where + It flows eternal; guessing isn't fair. + Though miles a thousand had he tramp'd along, + And all, save him, were sure that path was wrong, + Still hope prophetic poured the ardent prayer + He'd find that stream,--if it was anywhere! + That prayer was heard, of course, though no one knows + Where this said Niger never flowed, or flows; + All that is known is, that a dreamer stood + In speechless transport by a mystic flood, + And after fixing on't his glistening eyes, + The sun goes down, and so the dreamer dies!" + +For the fourth promised specimen, the best excuse is that Garbet really +did utter the words quoted,--and the answer he received about love is +exact, and became famous:-- + + "'Didst e'er read Dante!'--Never. 'Cruel man! + Take, take him, Williams,--I--I never can.'" + +_N.B._--Williams was the other examiner. Garbet went on with a further +question nevertheless,--as he was affectedly fond of Italian:-- + + "'Dost know the language love delights in most? + If thou dost not, thy character is lost.' + 'Yes, sir!'--the youth retorts with just surprise, + 'Love's language is the language of the eyes!'" + +In those days, as perhaps also in these, like Pope, "I spake in +numbers," verse being almost--well, not quite--easier than prose. In +fact, some of my critics have heretofore to my disparagement stumbled on +the printed truth that he is little better than an improvisatore in +rhyme. And this word "rhyme" reminds me now of a very curious question I +raised some years after my Oxford days in more than one magazine +article, as to when rhyme was invented, and by whom: the conclusion +being that intoning monks found out how easily the cases of Latin nouns +and tenses of verbs, &c., jingled with each other, and that troubadours +and trouveres carried thus the seeds of song all over Europe in about +the ninth century, until which time rhythm was the only recognised form +of versification, rhyme having strangely escaped discovery for more than +four thousand years. Is it not a marvel (and another marvel that no one +noticed it before) that not one of the old poets, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, +and I think Sanscrit, Arabic, and Celtic too, ever (except by manifest +accident, now intentionally ignored) stumbled upon the good idea of +terminating their metres with rhyme? Where is there any ode of Horace, +or Anacreon,--where any psalm of David; any epigram of Martial, any +heroic verse of Virgil, or philosophic argument of +Lucretius,--decorated, enlivened, and brightened by the now only too +frequent ornament of rhyme? + + * * * * * + +I have just found among my old archived papers, faded by nearly six +decades of antiquity, a treatise which I wrote at nineteen, styled by me +"A Vindication of the Wisdom of Scripture in Matters of Natural +Science." This has never seen the light, even in extracts; and probably +never can attain to the dignity of print, seeing it is written against +all compositor law on both sides up and down of a quarto paper book. +Therein are treated, from both the scriptural and the scientific points +of view, many subjects, of which these are some: Cosmogony, miracles (in +chief Joshua's sun and moon), the circulation of the blood revealed in +Ecclesiastes, magnetism as mentioned by Job, "He spreadeth out the +north over the empty space and hangeth the world upon nothing," the +blood's innate vitality--"which is the life thereof," the earth's +centre, or orbit, and inclination, astronomy, spirits, the rainbow, the +final conflagration of our atmosphere to purify the globe, and many +other matters terrestrial and celestial. Some day a patient scribe may +be found to decipher this decayed manuscript and set out orderly its +miscellaneous contents. I began it at eighteen, and finished it when at +Oxford. + +There is also now before me another faded copybook of my early Christ +Church days containing ninety-one striking parallel passages between +Horace and Holy Writ; some being very remarkable, as Hor. _Sat._ i. 8, +and Isaiah xliv. 13, &c., about "making a god of a tree whereof he +burneth part:" also such well-known lines as "Quid sit futurum eras, +fuge quaerere," and "Quis scit an adjiciant hodiernae crastina summae +Tempora Di superi?"--compared with "Take no thought for the morrow" and +"Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may +bring forth." With many more; in fact I collected nearly a hundred out +of Horace, besides a few from others of the classics. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +SUNDRY PROVIDENCES. + + +Carlyle somewhere gives utterance to a truism, which the present scribe +at least can most gratefully countersign, that "it takes a great deal of +providence to bring a man to threescore years and ten." Not only are we +in peril every time we take breath, both from the action of our own +uncertain hearts and from the living germs of poison floating in the +air, but from all sorts of outer accidents (so-called, whereas they all +are "well ordered and sure") wherewith our little life is compassed +from, cradle to grave; in truth, trifles seem to rule us: "the turning +this way or that, the casual stopping or hastening hath saved life or +destroyed it, hath built up or flung down fortunes." Every inch and +every instant, we are guided and guarded, whether we notice it or not: +"the very hairs of our heads are all numbered." Here shall follow some +personal experiences in proof. Nearly seventy years ago I knew a small +schoolboy of seven who accidentally slit his own throat while cutting a +slate-frame against his chest with a sharp knife; there was a knot in +the wood, the knife slipped up, a pinafore was instantaneously covered +with blood--(though the little semisuicide was unconscious of any +pain)--thereafter his neck was quickly strapped with diaculum +plaister,--and to this day a slight scar may be found on the left side +of a silvery beard! Was not this a providential escape? Again--a lively +little urchin in his holiday recklessness ran his head pell-mell blindly +against a certain cannon post in Swallow Passage, leading from Princes +Street, Hanover Square, to Oxford Street, and was so damaged as to have +been carried home insensible to Burlington Street: a little more, the +doctors said, and it would have been a case of concussion of the brain. +The post is still there "to witness if I lie," as Macaulay's Roman +ballad has it,--and here grown to twice its height, thank heaven! am I. +Then again, some ten years after, a youth is seen careering on a +chestnut horse in Parliament Street, when a runaway butcher's cart +cannoned against his shying steed, the wheel ripping up a saddle-flap, +just as the rider had instantaneously shifted his right leg close to the +horse's neck! But for that providence, death or a crushed knee was +imminent. + +Yet again, after some twenty years more: "AEsop Smith" was one dark +evening creeping up a hill after a hard ride on his grey mare Brenda, +when he was aware of two rough men on the tramp before him, one of whom +needlessly crossed over so that they commanded both sides, and soon +seemed to be approximating; which when AEsop fortunately noticed, with a +quick spur into Brenda he flashed by the rascals as they tried to snatch +at his bridle and almost knocked them over right and left whilst he +galloped up the hill followed by their curses: was not this an escape +worth being thankful for? + +Once more: the same equestrian has had two perilous dog-cart accidents, +noticeable, for these causes; viz.--broken ribs, and a crushed right +hand, have proved to him experimentally how little pain is felt at the +moment of a wound; which will explain the unconscious heroism of common +soldiers in battle; very little but weakness through loss of blood is +ever felt until wounds stiffen: further, a blow on the head not only +dazes in the present and stupefies further on, but also completely takes +away all memory of a past "bad quarter of an hour." At least I +remembered nothing of how my worst misadventure happened; and only know +that I crawled home half stunned by moonlight for three miles, holding +both sides together with my hands to enable me to breathe: no +wonder,--all my elasticity was gone with broken ribs. Though these two +accidents cost me, one three months, and the other much longer of a +(partly bedridden) helplessness, were they not good providences to make +one grateful? I write my mental thanksgiving with the same healed broken +hand. + +So much of perils by land, by way of sample: here are three or four by +sea, to match them. Do I not remember how a rash voyager was nearly +swept off the _Asia's_ slippery deck in a storm, when a sudden lurch +flung him to cling to the side rail of a then unnetted bulwark, swinging +him back again by another lurch right over the yawning waves--like an +acrobat? Had I let go, no one would have known of that mystery of the +sea,--where and when a certain celebrity then expected in America, had +disappeared! Captain Judkin after that always had his bulwarks netted; +so that was a good result of my escape: I was the only passenger on +deck, a favoured one,--the captain being on his bridge, two men at the +wheel in their covered house, the stormy wind all round in a cyclone, +and the raging sea beneath,--and so all unseen I had been swept +away,--but for good providence. + +Once again; do I not shudderingly recollect how nearly the little +Guernsey steamer was run over by an American man-of-war in the Channel, +because a tipsy captain would "cross the bows of that d---- d +Yankee:"--the huge black prow positively hung over us,--and it was a +miracle that we were not sunk bodily in the mighty waters. What more? +Well, I will here insert an escaped danger that tells its own tale in a +sonnet written at the time, the place being Tenby and the sea-anemone +caverns there, accessible only at lowest neap tide. + + "An hour of peril in the Lydstep caves: + Down the steep gorge, grotesquely boulder-piled + And tempest-worn, as ocean hurrying wild + Up it in thunder breaks and vainly raves,-- + My haste hath sped me to the rippled sand + Where, arching deep, o'erhang on either hand + These halls of Amphitrite, echoing clear + The ceaseless mournful music of the waves: + Ten thousand beauteous forms of life are here; + And long I linger, wandering in and out + Among the seaflowers, tapestried about + All over those wet walls.--A shout of fear! + The tide, the tide!--I turned and ran for life, + And battled stoutly through that billowy strife!" + +Perhaps this is enough of such hairbreadth 'scapes both by land and +water: though I might (in America especially) mention many more. Then +there are all manner of the ordinary maladies of humanity, which I +pretermit. Carlyle was quite right; it _does_ require "a good deal of +providence" to come to old age. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +YET MORE ESCAPES. + + +But there are many other sorts of peril in human life to which I may +briefly advert, as we all have had some experiences of the same. Who +does not know of his special financial temptation, some sanguine and +unscrupulous speculator urging him from rock to rock across the rapids +of ruin, till he is engulfed as by Niagara? Or of the manifestly +disinterested and generous capitalist, who gives to some young legatee a +junior partner's free arm-chair, only that he may utilise his money and +keep the house solvent for yet a year or two, utterly unheeding that ere +long the grateful beneficiaire must be dragged down with his chief to +poverty? Or, which of us has not had experience of some unjust will, +stealing our rights by evil influence? Or of the seemingly luckless +accident killing off our intending benefactor just before that promised +codicil? Or of the ruinous investment? Or of the bankrupt Life +Assurance? Or of the unhappy fact of your autograph, "a mere matter of +form," on the back of some dishonoured bill of one's defaulting friend? +Yet all these are providences too,--lessons of life, and parts of our +schools and schoolmasters. + +And there are many like social evils besides. Let me delicately touch +one of them. I desire as an Ancient, now nearing the close of my +career, at least in this the caterpillar and soon to be chrysalis +condition of my being, to give my testimony seriously and practically to +the fact (disputed by too many from their own worse experience) that it +is quite possible to live from youth to age in many scenes and under +many circumstantial difficulties, preserving still through them all the +innocent purity of childhood. True, the crown of greater knowledge is +added to the Man; but although it be a knowledge both of evil and of +good, theoretically,--it need not practically be a guilty knowledge. If +one of any age, from the youngest to the oldest, has not the power of +self-control perpetually in exercise, and the good mental help of prayer +habitually at hand to be relied on, he is in danger, and may fall into +sin or even crime, at any hour, unless the Highest Power intervene. But, +if the senses are trained to resist the first inclinations to +unchastity, by the eye that will not look and the ear that will not +listen, then the doors of the mind are kept closed against the enemy, +and even "hot youth" is safe. + +We live in a co-operative cycle of society; and amongst other +co-operations are all manner of guilds to encourage, by example, +companionship and the like, divers great virtues, and some less +important fads and fancies of the day: let me not be thought to +disparage any gatherings for prayer, or temperance, or purity; though +individual strong men may not need such congregated help as the weaker +brethren yearn for. Many a veteran now, changed to good morals from a +looser life in the past, may well hope to serve both God and man by +preaching purity to the young men around, by vowing them to a white +ribbon guild, and giving them the decoration of an ivory cross. But he +is apt to forget what young blood is, his own having cooled down apace; +anon he will find that Nature is not so easily driven back--_usque +recurrit_--and he will soon have to acknowledge that if the higher and +deeper influences of personal religion, earnest prayer, honest +watchfulness, and sincere--though it be but incipient--love of God and +desire to imitate Christ, are not chief motives towards the purification +of human passion, this brotherhood of a guild may tend to little except +self-righteousness, and it will be well if hypocrisy and secret sin does +not accompany that open boastfulness of a White Cross Order. After all +said and done, a man--or woman--or precocious child--must simply take +the rules of Christ and Paul, and Solomon, as his guide and guard, by +"Resisting," "Fleeing," "Cutting off--metaphorically--the right hand, +and putting out the right eye;" so letting "discretion preserve him and +understanding keep him;" but there is nothing like flight; it is easy +and speedy, and more a courage than a cowardice. Take a simple instance. +Some forty years ago, an author, well-known in both hemispheres, then +living in London, received by post a pink and scented note from "an +American Lady, a great admirer of his books, &c. &c.: would he favour +her by a call" at such an hotel, in such a square? Much flattered he +went, and was very gushingly received; but when the lady, probably not +an American (though comely enough to be one), after a profusion of +compliments went on to complain of a husband having deserted her, and to +throw herself not without tears on the kindness of her favourite author, +that individual thought it would be prudent to depart, and so promptly +remembering another engagement he took up his hat and--fled. He had +afterwards reason to be thankful for this escape, as for others. _I, +fac simile_; as no doubt you have done, and you will do, for there are +many Potipheras; ay, and there exist some Josephs too. + +Other forms of evil in the way of heterodoxy and heresy have assailed +your confessor, as is the common case with most other people, whether +authors or not. The rashest Atheism or more cowardly Agnosticism are +rampant monsters, but have only affected my own spirit into forcing me +to think out and to publish my Essay on Probabilities, whereof I shall +speak further when my books come under review. But beyond these open +foes to one's faith, who has not met with zealous enthusiasts who urge +upon his acceptance under penalty of the worst for all eternity if +refused, any amount of strange isms,--Plymouth, Southcote, Swedenborg, +Irving, Mormon,--and of the other 272 sects which affect (perhaps more +truly infect) religion in this free land? I have had many of these +attacking me by word or letter on the excuse of my books. Who, if he +once weakly gives way to their urgent advice to "search and see for +himself," will not soon be addled and muddled by all sorts of +sophistical and controversial botherations, if even he is not tempted to +accept--for lucre if not godliness--the office of bishop, or apostle, or +prophet, or anything else too freely offered by zealots to new converts, +if of notoriety enough to exalt or enrich a sect; such sect in every +case proclaiming itself the one only true Church, all other sects being +nothing but impostors? We have all encountered such spiritual +perils,--and happy may we feel that with whatever faults and failings, +there is an orthodox and established form of religion amongst us in the +land. For my own part, I go freely to any house of prayer, national or +nonconformist, where the Gospel is preached and the preacher is capable: +all I want is a good man for the good word and work--and if he has the +true Spirit in him, I care next to nothing for his orders: though to +many less independent minds human authorisation may be a necessity. From +cradle hymns to the more serious prayings of senility, my own religion +in two words is crystallised as "Abba, Father;" my only priest being my +Divine Brother; and my Friend and Guide through this life and beyond it +the Holy Spirit, who unites all the family of God. May I die, as I have +lived, in this simple faith of childhood. + +My "Probabilities" has, amongst others apposite, this sentence about the +origin of evil, and the usefulness of temptation: "To our understanding, +at least, there was no possible method of illustrating the amiabilities +of Goodness and the contrivances of Wisdom but by the infused permission +of some physical and moral evils; mercy, benevolence, design would in a +universe of Best have nothing to do; that universe itself would grow +stagnant, as incapable of progress; and the principal record of God's +excellences, the book of redemption, would have been unwritten. Is not +then the existence of evil justified in reason's calculation? and was +not such existence an antecedent probability?" + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +FADS AND FANCIES. + + +In a recent page I have alluded to sundry "fads and fancies of the day," +some of greater and others of lesser import, and I have been mixed up in +two or three of them. For example;--as an undergraduate at Oxford I +starved myself in the matter of sugar, by way of somehow discouraging +the slave-trade; I don't know that either Caesar or Pompey was any the +better for my small self-sacrifice; but as a trifling fact, I may +mention that I then followed some of the more straitlaced fashions of +Clapham. Also, when in lodgings after my degree, I resolved to leave off +meat, bought an immense Cheshire cheese, and, after two months of +part-consumption thereof, reduced my native strength to such utter +weakness as quite to endanger health. So I had to relapse into the old +carnality of mutton chops, like other folk: such extreme virtue doesn't +pay. + +Of course abstinence from all stimulant has had its hold on me +heretofore, as it has upon many others,--but, after a persistent six +months of only water, my nerve power was so exhausted (I was working +hard at the time as editor of "The Anglo-Saxon," a long extinct +magazine) that my wise doctor enjoined wine and whisky--of course in +moderation; and so my fluttering heart soon recovered, and I have been +well ever since. + +Now about temperance, let me say thus much. Of course, I must approve +the modern very philanthropic movement, but only in its rational aspect +of moderation. In my youth, the pendulum swung towards excess, now its +reaction being exactly opposite; both extremes to my mind are wrong. And +here let me state (_valeat quantum_) that I never exceeded in liquor but +once in my life: that once serving afterwards as a valuable life lesson +all through the wine-parties of Christ Church, the abounding +hospitalities of America, both North and South, through two long +visits--and the genialities of our own Great Britain during my several +Reading Tours. If it had not been for that three days' frightful +headache when I was a youth (in that sense a good providence), I could +not have escaped so many generous hosts and seductive beverages. That +one departure from sobriety happened thus. My uncle, Colonel Selwyn, +just returned from his nine years' command at Graham's Town, South +Africa, gave a grand dinner at the Opera Colonnade to his friends and +relatives, resolved (according to the fashion of the time) to fill them +all to the full with generous Bacchus by obligatory toasts, he himself +pretending to prefer his own bottle of brown sherry,--in fact, dishonest +toast and water; but that sort of practical joke was also a fashion of +the day. The result, of course, was what he desired; everybody but +himself had too much, whilst his mean sobriety, cruel uncle! enjoyed the +calm superiority of temperance over tipsiness. However, the lesson to me +(though never intended as such) was most timely,--just as I was entering +life to be forewarned by having been for only that once overtaken. I +have ever since been thankful for it as a mercy; and few have been so +favoured; how many can truly say, only that once? But I pass on, having +a great deal more to write about temperance. On my first visit to +America in 1851, all that mighty people indulged freely in strong drinks +of the strangest names and most delicious flavours: on my second in +1876,--just a quarter of a century after,--there was almost nothing to +be got but iced water. Accordingly when I was at Charleston I took up my +parable,--and spoke through a local paper as follows: I fear the extract +is somewhat lengthy, but as an exhaustive argument (and the piece, +moreover, being unprinted in any of my books), I choose to give it here +in full, to be skipped if the reader pleases. It is introduced thus by +an editor:-- + + "In these days of extreme abstinence from wine and spirits, it is + refreshing to see what the strong common-sense of an eminent moral + philosopher has to say about temperance. We make, then, a longish + extract, well-nigh exhaustive of the subject, which occurs in a + lecture, entitled 'America Revisited--1851 and 1877,' from the pen + of Martin Tupper, explaining itself. The author introduces his + poetic essay thus:--'Since my former visit to the States + twenty-five years ago, few changes are more remarkable than that in + the drinking habits of the people; formerly it was all for + spirituous liquors, and now it is "Water, water everywhere, and + every drop to drink!" The bars are well-nigh deserted, and the + entrance-halls of most houses are ostentatiously furnished with + plated beakers and goblets ensuring an icy welcome: in fact, not to + be tedious, intemperance has changed front, and excess in water has + taken the place of excess in wine.'" To an Englishman's judgment + the true "part of Hamlet" in a feast is the more generous fluid, + and the greatest luxuries are simply Barmecidal without some + wholesome stimulant to wash them down; accordingly, my too + outspoken honesty protested thus in print against this form of + folly in extremes, and either pleased or offended, as friends or + foes might choose to take it. + + "Temperance? Yes! true Temperance, yes! + Moderation in all things, the word is express; + 'Nothing too much'--Greek, 'Meden Agan;' + So spake Cleobulus, the Seventh Wise Man; + And the grand 'golden mean' was shrewd Horace's law, + And Solomon's self laid it down for a saw + That 'good overmuch' is a possible fault, + As meat over-salted is worse for the salt; + And Chilo, the Stagyrite, Peter, and Paul, + Enjoin moderation in all things to all; + The law to make better this trial-scene, earth, + And draw out its strongest of wisdom and worth, + By sagely suppressing each evil excess-- + In feasting, of course, but in fasting no less-- + In drinking--by all means let no one get drunk-- + In eating, let none be a gluttonous monk, + But everyone feed as becometh a saint, + With grateful indulging and wholesome restraint, + Not pampering self, as an epicure might, + Nor famishing self, the ascetic's delight. + + "But man ever has been, and will be, it seems, + Given up to intemperance, prone to extremes; + The wish of his heart (it has always been such) + Is, give me by all means of all things too much! + In pleasures and honours, in meats, and in drinks, + He craves for the most that his coveting thinks; + To wallow in sensual Lucullus's sty, + Or stand like the starving Stylites on high, + To be free from all churches and worship alone, + Or chain'd to the feet of a priest on a throne, + To be rich as a Rothschild, and dozens beside, + Or poor as St. Francis (in all things but pride), + With appetite starved as a Faquir's, poor wretch! + Or appetite fattened to luxury's stretch; + Denouncing good meats, on lentils he fares, + Denouncing good wine, by water he swears-- + In all things excessive his folly withstands + The wise moderation that Scripture commands. + + "This vice of excess is no foible of mine, + Though liking and needing a glass of good wine, + To help the digestion, to quicken the heart, + And loosen the tongue for its eloquent part, + But never once yielding one jot to excess, + Nor weakly consenting the least to transgress. + For let no intolerant bigot pretend + My Temperance Muse would excuse or defend, + As Martial or tipsy Anacreon might, + An orgy of Bacchus, the drunkard's delight: + No! rational use is the sermon I'm preaching, + Eschewing abuse as the text of my teaching. + + "Old Pindar says slyly, that 'Water is best;' + When pure as Bandusia, this may be confest. + But water so often is troubled with fleas + And queer little monsters the microscope sees; + Is sometimes so muddy, and sometimes so mixt + With poisons and gases, both fixt and unfixt, + And seems so connected with juvenile pills-- + A thought which the mind with unpleasantness fills-- + That really one asks, is it safe to imbibe + So freely the live animalcula tribe, + Unkilled and uncooked with a little wine sauce + Poured in, or of whisky or brandy a toss-- + And gulp a cold draught of the colic, instead + Of something to warm both the heart and the head? + + "That Jotham-first-fable, the bramble and vine, + Piles up to a climax the praise of good wine; + For in Judges we read--look it up, as you can-- + 'It cheereth the heart, both of God and of man;' + And everywhere lightness, and brightness, and health, + Gild the true temperance texts with their wealth, + Giving strong drink to the ready to perish, + And heavy-heartedness joying to cherish. + + "What is wanted--and let some Good Templar invent it, + Damaging drunkenness, nigh to prevent it, + Is a drink that is nice, warm, pleasant, and pale, + Delicious as 'cakes,' and seductive as 'ale,' + Like 'ginger that's hot in the mouth' and won't hurt you, + As old Falstaff winks it, in spite of your virtue; + A temperate stimulant cup, to displace + Pipes, hasheesh, and opium, and all that bad race; + Cheap as pure water and free as fresh air-- + Oh, where shall we find such a beverage--where? + + "No wine for the pure or the wise--so some teach-- + Abstinence utter for all and for each, + Total denial of every right use, + Because some bad fools the good creature abuse! + As well might one vow not to warm at a fire, + Nor give the least rein to a lawful desire, + Because some have recklessly burnt down their houses, + Because the rogue cheats, or the reveller carouses! + I see not the logic, the rational logic, + Conclusive to me, coherent and cogic, + That since some poor sot in his folly exceeds, + I must starve out my likings, and stint out my needs. + + "Am I _that_ brother's keeper? He is not an Abel, + Is strange to my roof, and no guest at my table: + I know not his mates, we are not near each other, + He swills in the pothouse, that dissolute brother!-- + But there's your example?--The drunkards can't see it, + And if they are told of it, scorn it and flee it; + Example?--Your children!--No doubt it is right + To be to them always a law and a light; + But moderate temperance is the vise way + To form them, and hinder their going astray; + Whereas utter abstinence proves itself vain, + And drunkards flare up because good men abstain. + + "The law of reaction is stringent and strong, + A youth _in extremis_ is sure to go wrong, + For the pendulum swings with a multiplied force + When sloped from its even legitimate course. + I have known--who has not?--that a profligate son + Has been through his fanatic father undone; + Restrained till the night of free licence arrives, + And then he breaks out to the wreck of two lives! + + "A fierce water-fever just now is red-hot; + Drink water, or perish, thou slave and thou sot! + Drink water alone, and drink more, and drink much-- + But, liquors or wines? Not a taste, not a touch! + Yet, is not this fever a fervour of thrift? + It is wine you denounce, but its cost is your drift; + The times are so hard and the wines are so bad + (For good at low prices are not to be had), + That forthwith society shrewdly shouts high + For water alone, the whole abstinence cry! + And, somehow supposed suggestive of heaven, + The cup of cold water is generously given, + But a glass of good wine is an obsolete thing, + And will be till trade is once more in full swing! + I hint not hypocrisy; many are true, + They preach what they practise, they say--and they do, + And used from their boyhood to only cold water, + Enjoin nothing better on wife, son, and daughter; + But surely with some it is merely for thrift, + That they out off the wine, and with water make shift, + Although they profess the self-sacrifice made + As dread of intemperance makes them afraid. + And so, like a helmsman too quick with his tiller, + Eschewing Charybdis they steer upon Scylla, + To perish of utter intemperance--Yes! + The victims of water consumed to excess. + + "To conclude: The first miracle, wonder Divine, + Wasn't wine changed to water, but water to wine, + That wine of the Kingdom, the water of life + Transmuted, with every new excellence rife, + The wine to make glad both body and soul, + To cheer up the sad, and make the sick whole. + And when the Redeemer was seen among men, + He drank with the sinners and publicans then, + Exemplar of Temperance, yea, to the sot, + In use of good wine, but abusing it not! + We dare not pretend to do better than He; + But follow the Master, as servants made free + To touch, taste, and handle, to use, not abuse, + All good to receive, but all ill to refuse! + It is thus the true Christian with temperance lives, + Giving God thanks for the wine that He gives." + +I once heard Mr. Gough, the temperance lecturer: it was at the Brooklyn +Concert Hall in 1877. A handsome and eloquent man, his life is well +known, and that his domestic experiences have made him the good apostle +he is. I remember how well he turned off the argument against himself as +to the miracle of the marriage-feast in Cana of Galilee: "Yes, +certainly, drink as much wine made of water as you can." It was a witty +quip, but is no reply to that miracle of hospitality. _Apropos_,--I do +not know whether or not the following anecdote can be fathered on Mr. +Gough, but it is too good to be lost, especially as it bears upon the +fate of a poor old friend of mine in past days who was fatally a victim +to total abstinence. The story goes that a teetotal lecturer, in order +to give his audience ocular proof of the poisonous character of alcohol, +first magnifies the horrible denizens of stagnant water by his +microscope, and then triumphantly kills them all by a drop or two of +brandy! As if this did not prove the wholesomeness of _eau de vie_ in +such cases. If, for example, my poor friend above, the eminent Dr. +Hodgkin of Bedford Square, had followed his companion's example, the +still more eminent Moses Montefiore, by mixing water far too full of +life with the brandy that killed them for him, he would not have died +miserably in Palestine, eaten of worms as Herod was! Another such +instance I may here mention. When I visited the cemetery of Savannah, +Florida, in company with an American cousin, I noticed it graven on the +marble slab of a relation of ours, a Confederate officer, to the effect +that "he died faithful to his temperance principles, refusing to the +last the alcohol wherewith the doctor wanted to have saved his life!" +Such obstinate teetotalism, I said at the time, is criminally suicidal. +Whereat my lady cousin was horrified, for she regarded her brother as a +martyr. + +I cannot help quoting here part of a letter just received from an +excellent young clergyman, who had been reading my "Temperance," quite, +to the point. After some compliments he says, "I need scarcely say I +entirely agree with the scope and arguments of this vigorous poem. +Nothing is more clear, and increasingly so, to my own perception than +the terrible tendency of modern human nature to run into extremes" +(quoting some lines). "Your reference to 'thrift' is especially true. I +have often smiled at the pious fervour with which the heads of large +families with small incomes have embraced teetotalism! I have long +thought that the motto '_in vino veritas_' contains in it far more of +'_veritas_' than is dreamt of in most people's philosophy, and that the +age of rampant total abstinence is the age of special falseness. Of +course, the evils of drunkenness can scarcely be exaggerated,--and yet +they can be and are so when they are spoken of as equal to the evils of +dishonesty: the former is indeed brutal, but the latter is devilish, and +far more effectually destroys the souls of men than the former. +Nevertheless in our poor money-grubbing land, the creeping paralysis of +tricks of trade, &c., is thought little of; and the shopman who has just +sold a third-rate article for a first-class price goes home with +respectable self-complacency and glances with holy horror at the man who +reels past him in the street. + +"I desire to say this with reverence and caution. For we all need the +restraining influences of the blessed Spirit of God, as well as the +atonement and example of His dear Son. But when we see the present +tendency to anathematise open profligacy, and to ignore the hidden +Pharisaism (the very opposite to our Lord's own course), and the subtle +lying of the day, it seems as if those who ponder sadly over it ought to +speak out." + +Doubtless, there are many more fads and fancies, many other sorts of +perils and trials that might be spoken of as an author's or any other +man's experiences: but I will pass on. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +"SACRA POESIS" AND "GERALDINE." + + +With the exception of "Rough Rhymes," my first Continental Journal as +aforesaid, and a song or two, and a few juvenile poems, my first +appearance in print, the creator of a real bound volume (though of the +smallest size) was as author of a booklet called "Sacra Poesis;" +consisting of seventy-five little poems illustrative of engravings or +drawings of sacred subjects, and intended to accompany a sort of pious +album which I wished to give to my then future wife. Most of it was +composed in my teens, though it found no technical "compositor" of a +printing sort until I was twenty-two (in 1832), when Nisbet published +the pretty little 24mo, with a picture by myself of Hope's Anchor on the +title. The booklet is now very rare, and a hundred years hence may be a +treasure to some bibliomaniac. Of its contents, speaking critically of +what I wrote between fifty and sixty years ago, some, of the pieces have +not been equalled by me since, and are still to be found among my +Miscellaneous Poems: but, many are feeble and faulty. Some of the +reviews before me received the new poetaster with kindly appreciation; +some with sneers and due disparagement,--much as Byron's "Hours of +Idleness" had been treated not very many years before: though another +cause for hatred and contempt may have operated in my case, namely +this: Ever since youth and now to my old age I have been exposed to the +"_odium theologicum_," the strife always raging between Protestant and +Papist, Low Church and High, Waldo and Dominic, Ulster and Connaught: +hence to this hour the frequent rancour against me and my writings +excited by sundry hostile partisans. + + * * * * * + +My next volume was "Geraldine and other Poems," published by Joseph +Rickerby in 1838. The origin thereof was this,--as I now extract it from +my earliest literary notebook:-- + +"In August 1838 I was at Dover, and from a library read for the first +time Coleridge's Christabel;" it was the original edition, before the +author's afterward improvements. "Being much taken with the poem, the +thought struck me to continue it to a probable issue, especially as I +wanted a leading subject for a new volume of miscellaneous verse. The +notion was barren till I got to Heine Bay a fortnight after, and then I +put pen to paper and finished the tale. It occupied me about eight days, +an innocent fact which divers dull Zoili have been much offended withal, +seeing that Coleridge had thought proper to bring out his two Parts at a +sixteen years' interval; a matter doubtless attributable either to +accident or indolence,--for to imagine that he was diligently polishing +his verses the whole time (as some blockheads will have it) would indeed +be a verification of the _parturiunt montes_ theory. The fact is, these +things are done at a heat, as every poet knows. Pegasus is a racer, not +a cart-horse; Euterpe trips it like the hare, while dogged criticism is +the tortoise, &c." The book had a fair success, both here and in +America, and has been many times reprinted. Critiques of course were +various, for and against; the shuttlecock of fame requires conflicting +battledores: but, as I now again quote from that early notebook, "It is +amusing to notice, and instructive also to any young author who may +chance to see this, how thoroughly opposite many of the reviews are, +some extolling what others vilify; it just tends to keep a sensible man +of his own opinion, unmoved by such seemingly unreasonable praise or +censure. When Coleridge first published Christabel (intrinsically a most +melodious and sweet performance) it was positively hooted by the +critics; see in particular the _Edinburgh Review_. Coleridge left behind +him a very much improved and enlarged version of the poem, which I did +not see till years after I had written the sequel to it: my Geraldine +was composed for an addition to Christabel, as originally issued." +Another note of mine, in reply to a critic of _The Atlas_, runs +thus:--"Nobody who has not tried it can imagine the difficulties of +intellectual imitation: it is to think with another's mind, to speak +with another's tongue: I acknowledge freely that I never was satisfied +with Geraldine as a mere continuation of a story, but as an independent +poem, I will yet be the champion of my child, and think with _The +Eclectic_ that I have succeeded as well as possible: as honest Pickwick +says, 'And let my enemies make the most of it.' At this time of day it +is not worth my while by any modern replies to attempt to quench such +long extinct volcanoes as 'The Conservative' and 'The Torch,' nor to +reproduce sundry glorifications of the new poet and his verses from many +other notices, long or short, duly pasted down for future generations in +my Archive-book. As to critical verdicts in this case, black and white +are not more contradictory: _e.g._, let _Blackwood_ be contrasted with +the _Monthly Review_, or the _Church of England Quarterly_ with the +_Weekly True Sun_, &c. &c." + +It is a pity (at least the author of sold-out volumes may be forgiven +for the sentiment) that most of my books are not to be bought: they are +not in the market and are only purchasable at old-literature stores, +such as Reeves' or Bickers': some day, I hope to find a publisher +spirited enough to risk money in a ten-volumed "Edition of my Prose and +Poetry complete," &c.; but in the past and present, the subscription +system per Mudie and Smith, buying up whole editions at cost price +whereby to satiate the reading public, starves at once both author and +publisher, and makes impossible these expensive crown octavo editions, +"which no gentleman's library ought to be without." Some of the beat +smaller pieces in my "Geraldine and other Poems" will be found in Gall & +Inglis's Miscellaneous Tupper before mentioned: but my two Oxford Prize +Poems, The African Desert and The Suttees, are printed only in the +Geraldine volume. + +Anecdotes innumerable I could tell, if any cared to hear them, connected +with each of my books, as friends or foes have commented upon me and +mine in either hemisphere. In this place I cannot help recording one, as +it led to fortunate results. In 1839 I was travelling outside the Oxford +coach to Alma Mater, and a gentleman, arrayed as for an archery party +with bow and quiver, climbed up at Windsor for a seat beside me. He +seemed very joyous and excited, and broke out to me with this stanza,-- + + "How fair and fresh is morn! + The dewbeads dropping bright + Each humble flower adorn, + With coronets bedight, + And jewel the rough thorn + With tiny globes of light,-- + How beautiful is morn! + Her scattered gems how bright!" + +There,--isn't that charming? he said,--little aware of whom he asked the +amiable query. But when I went on with the second verse, he opened his +eyes wider and wider as I added: + + "There is a quiet gladness + On the waking earth, + Like the face of sadness + Lit with chastened mirth; + There is a mine of treasure + In those hours of health, + Filling up the measure + Of creation's wealth!" + +Of course, discovery of the author was unavoidable: so we collided and +coalesced, and I rejoiced to find in this "Angel unaware" no less a +celebrity than John Hughes of Donnington Priory, father of the still +greater celebrity (then a youth) Tom Hughes of Rugby and "Tom Brown's +Schooldays." Some time after I spent several pleasant days at his fine +old place in Berks, and made happy acquaintance with the brightest old +lady I ever met, his mother, who had known Burns and Byron and Scott; as +also with his pleasant good wife and her clever sons, one of whom, in +the ripeness of time, married a then charming little girl, the +heiress-ward of my host, and since well appreciated in society as a +_grande dame_; wife also to one famous for a Rugby in both hemispheres, +for rifledom, the White Horse of Wilts, and now full-fledged county +judgeship. These excellent friendships survive many long years and will +be transplanted elsewhere hereafter. All this grew from a casual +encounter outside a coach: but such is life; what we call accidents are +all providences, and we are guided inch by inch and minute by minute. +Tom Hughes succeeded as a county judge in Yorkshire my old schoolfellow, +St. John Yates, mentioned on a recent page in connection with Andrew +Irvine's turkeycock irascibility. + + "Watch little providences: if indeed + Or less there be, or greater, in the sight + Of Him who governs all by day and night, + And sees the forest hidden in the seed: + Of all that happens take thou reverent heed, + For seen in true Religion's happier light + (Though not unknown of Reason's placid creed) + All things are ordered; all by orbits move, + Having precursors, satellites, and signs, + Whereby the mind not doubtfully divines + What is the will of Him who rules above, + And takes for guidance those paternal hints + That all is well, that thou art led by Love, + And in thy travel trackest old footprints." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. + + +And this may well be a fitting place wherein to record the origin, +progress, and after long years the full completion of what is manifestly +my chief authorial work in life, "Proverbial Philosophy." To ensure +accuracy, and not leave all the details to oftentimes unfaithful memory, +I will give a few extracts from "a brief account" of the book, set down +in 1838, at the beginning of Volume I. of "My Literary Heirloom," now +grown to many volumes, containing newspaper cuttings, anecdotes, and +letters and scraps of all sorts relating to my numerous works. + +"In the year 1828, when under Mr. Holt's roof at Albury (anno aetatis meae +18), I bethought myself, for the special use and behoof of my cousin +Isabella, who seven years after became my wife, that I would transcribe +my notions on the holy estate of matrimony; a letter was too light, and +a formal essay too heavy, and I didn't care to versify my thoughts, so I +resolved to convey them in the manner of Solomon's Proverbs or the +'Wisdom' of Jesus the Son of Sirach: and I did so,--successively, in the +Articles first on Marriage, then Love, then Friendship, and fourthly on +Education: several other pieces growing afterwards. Whilst at Albury, my +cousin showed some of these to our rector, Hugh M'Neile, who warmly +praised them, and recommended their publication; but, regarding them as +private and personal, I would not hear of it, and in fact it was nine +years before they saw print; thus literally, though I meant it not then, +exemplifying the Horatian advice, 'nonumque premantur in annum.' +However, one day in August 1838, Mr. Stebbing, whose chapel, in the +Hampstead Road I used to attend when living at Gothic Cottage, Regent's +Park, in my first years of marriage, visiting me and urging me to write +something for the _Athenaeum_, which he was then editing, I was induced +to show him these earliest essays; but I declined to _give_ them to him, +whereat he was angered; perhaps the rather in that I objected to +piecemeal publication, possibly also casting some reproach (as the +fashion of the day then was) upon magazine and journalistic literature +generally. That I made an enemy of him was evidenced by a spiteful +little notice in the _Athenaeum_ of April 21st (three months after my +first series was published) stating that it was 'a book not likely to +please beyond the circle of a few minds as eccentric as the author's.' +The same false friend excluded me altogether from any notice in the +_Examiner_ wherein he had some literary influence." To this day these +reviews have been my foes, which I regret. + +"Still, Mr. Stebbing did me substantial good; he praised the idea as +'new, because a resuscitation of what was very old,'--and as of my own +origination in these latter days, and as a good vehicle for thoughts on +many matters: and he promised his valuable assistance to a young +author's fame,--performing as above. So, after a last interview with him +at his house, wherein I conclusively refused him, I wrote my Preface at +once, jotting down (as I recollect at the street corner post opposite +Hampstead Road Chapel) on the back of an old letter my opening +paragraph,-- + +"'Thoughts that have tarried in my mind, and peopled its inner +chambers,' &c., &c. + +"In ten weeks from that day I had my first series ready,--supposing it +then all I should ever write;--the same assurance of a final end having +been my delusion at the close of each of my four series. My first +publisher was Rickerby of Abchurch Lane, who produced a beautifully +printed small folio volume with ornamental initials, and now very +scarce: it came to a second edition, but brought me no money,--and the +third edition failing to sell, it was in great part sent to America; +where N.P. Willis finding a copy, fancied the book that of some +forgotten author of the Elizabethan era, and quoted it week after week +in a periodical of his, _The Home Journal_, as such: years afterwards, +when he met me in London, he was scared to find that one whom he had +thought dead three hundred years was still alive and juvenile and ruddy. + +"It might be thought indelicate in me to quote at length the many +pleasant greetings of the press to my first odd volumes; suffice it to +say, that the kind critics were with few exceptions unanimous in +commendation; and some great names, as Heraud, Leigh Hunt, and St. John +particularly favoured me,--the latter prophesying a tenth edition: but I +must still condescend to pick out at the end of this paper a few of the +plums of praise wherewith my early publication was indulged, if only to +please the numerous admirers of my chief 'lifework.' One comfort is that +no one of my reviewers all my life through has ever been bought or +rewarded. As to the less fulsome style of criticism, I was supposed by +the _Spectator_ to have 'written in hexameters,'--as if David or Solomon +had ever imitated Homer or some more ancient predecessor of his; and the +_Sun_ fancied that I had 'culled from Erasmus, Bacon, Franklin, and +Saavedra,' whereas I was totally ignorant of their wisdoms: Saavedra I +have since learned is Cervantes. The _Sunday Times_ finds 'Proverbial +Philosophy' 'very like Dodsley's "Economy of Human Life,"' but I may say +I never saw that neat little book of maxims till my brother Dan gave it +to me fourteen years after my Philosophy was public property; I am also +by this critic supposed to have 'imitated the Gulistan or Bostan of +Saadi,'--whereof I need not profess my total ignorance: however, the +writer kindly says of me, 'if he fail to make himself heard, the fault +will be rather in the public than in him.' The _Metropolitan_ propounds +that 'a book like this would make a man's fortune in the East, but we +are afraid that philosophy in proverbs has no great chance in the West: +we should recommend the author to get it translated into Arabic.'" [I +have since heard that some of it has been.] Let this be enough as to +those first fruits of criticism, which might be extended to satiety; but +I decline to become "inebriated with the exuberance of my own +verbosity," as Beaconsfield has it about Gladstone. + +To carry on the story of my old book, its second series was due to +Harrison Ainsworth, at all events instrumentally. For, just as he was +establishing his special magazine, he asked me to help him with a +contribution in the style of that then new popularity, my Proverbs. This +I sturdily declined; for in my young days, it was thought +ungentlemanlike to write in magazines, though dukes, archbishops, and +premiers do so now: even authorship for money was thought vulgar: but, +when there greeted me at home a parcel of well-bound books as a gift +from the author, being all that were then extant of Ainsworth's, I was +so taken aback by his kindly munificence that I somewhat penitentially +responded thereto by an impromptu chapter on "Gifts," wherewith I made +the quarrel up and he was delighted: one or two others following. +However, I was too quick and too impatient to wait for piecemeal +publication month by month,--seeing I soon had my second series ready: +and so, leaving Rickerby as an unfruitful publisher (though, as will +soon appear, he produced other books for me) I went to Hatchards; with +whom I had a long and prosperous career--receiving annually from L500 to +L800 a year, and in the aggregate having benefited both them and +myself--for we shared equally--by something like, L10,000 a piece. But +in the course of time, the old grandfather and the father of the house, +excellent men both, went severally to the Better Land, and I had +published other books elsewhere, as will be seen, anon: and, amongst +other things, Mr. Bertrand Payne, who represented the respectable poetic +house of Moxon, desired to include me in his Beauties of the Poets, and +in order to that, having previously obtained license both from me and +Messrs. Hall & Virtue to select specimens of my lyrics for his volume, +asked me to let him add a few bits of Proverbial; to this I willingly +assented, but found myself repulsed by the temporary chief at +Hatchards'--lately a subordinate--with a direct refusal to permit any +portion of my book, of which they had a three years' lease then nearly +out, to be included in the specimen volume until, the whole remainder +copies were sold off. Mr. Payne on that immediately bought all they had, +writing a cheque of L900 in payment down,--whereof I got one-half, as I +should have done if sold at Hatchards'. I then of course went equitably +over to Moxon's,--and not long after published my third series with that +house, at Mr. Payne's suggestion and solicitation: it was not a +financial success, any more than others in that quarter; but I was paid +by having my later thoughts on topics of the day so handsomely published +at no cost of mine. The house of Moxon having its reverses,--and a +fourth and final series of "Proverbial Philosophy" having grown up +meanwhile, I concluded to go to Ward & Lock, that my four series might +for wider circulation be all included in one cheap volume, beautifully +got up, and with them I have since had some small success: for though +the royalty is only about a penny a volume, the numbers licensed have +been an edition of 20,000 succeeded in the course of years by another of +30,000; and I still leave the book with them so far as that cheap issue +is concerned. + +As, however, I desired to meet the wish of many friends and others of +the public who often asked for a handsomer form, suggesting a +reproduction of Hatchards' quarto, with additional illustrations for the +new matter, I applied to Cassell, and made arrangements to have the +whole four series issued piecemeal in weekly or monthly parts, so as to +meet (as Cassell's manager suggested) a certain demand from the middle +and artisan class; seeing that the aristocracy and gentry had bought the +whole volume so freely, but sixpenny parts in a wider field might bring +on a new sale. I did not then know that Cassell's had numerous serials +already on hand, and that many of them were unremunerative; and so I +was a little surprised and vexed to find that my book was after all to +appear as a whole and not in numbers, and that at a higher price, +half-a-guinea, in these cheap times quite prohibitive, I protested +vainly as to this; as I did also at the unsatisfactory character of the +illustrations to the third and fourth series, promised to be equal to +Hatchards' first and second, which had cost L2000: but Cassell's +additions were cheaply and insufficiently supplied by old German plates, +adapted as much as might be to my words for illustration. This manifest +inferiority of the last half of the volume, as well as its too great +price, stopped the sale,--and after a time with a high hand all the +copies were sold off by auction, to the loss of both publisher and +author. As I had supplied gratis the plates of Hatchards' edition, +buying up the half not mine and giving the other, I found myself thus +mulcted in a large sum, for which I have only to show in return about a +hundredweight of wood-blocks and stereotypes:--which may be bought by +any publisher at bargain price. Altogether the whole affair was +unsatisfactory and disappointing. Individuals may be genial, honest, and +considerate, but a company or a partnership simply looks to the hardest +bargain in the shrewdest way. Of all this I'll complain, vainly enough, +no more. + +In their several places, many anecdotes about "Proverbial Philosophy" +shall duly appear: I may mention one or two now, as timely. When that +good old man, Grandfather Hatchard, more than an octogenarian, first saw +me, he placed his hand on my dark hair and said with tears in his eyes, +"You will thank God for this book when your head comes to be as white as +mine." Let me gratefully acknowledge that he was a true prophet. When I +was writing the concluding essay of the first series, my father (not +quite such a prophet as old Hatchard) exhorted me to burn it, as his +ambition was to make a lawyer of me, the Church idea having failed from +my stammering, and he had very little confidence, as a man of the world, +in poetry bringing fortune. However, it did not get burnt, though I had +some difficulty in persuading him to let me get it printed instead. The +dear good man lived to bless me for it, especially for my essay on +Immortality, which I know affected him seriously, and he gave me L2000 +as a gift in consequence. + +As I may have been only too faithfully frank in mentioning this curious +literary anecdote,--which, as known to others, I could scarcely have +suppressed,--it is only fair to the memory of my dear and honoured +father that I should here produce one of his very few letters to me, +just found among my archives and bearing upon this same subject. It was +written to me at Brighton, and is dated Laura House, Southampton, +October 16, 1842:-- + + "My dearest Martin,--Anything that I could say, or any + praise that I could give respecting your last volume would, in my + estimation, fall very far short indeed of its merits. I shall + therefore merely say that I look upon your chapter upon + Immortality, not only as a most exquisite specimen of fine, sound, + and learned composition, but as combating in the most satisfactory + manner the _wisdom_ of infidelity, almost perfect. I only hope that + you may receive the just tribute of the literary community: your + own feelings as the author of that chapter must be very enviable. + God bless you, dearest, dearest Martin.--Believe me, ever your + affectionate father and sincere friend, + + Martin Tupper." + +I need not say that these are "_ipsissima verba_," and that I here +insert the letter in full, as the warmest and most honourable palinode I +could have received from a man so usually reserved and reticent as was +my revered and excellent father. + + * * * * * + +The brother of my friend Benjamin Nightingale (to be more spoken of +hereafter) was so fascinated with the book that he copied it all out in +his own handwriting, word for word, and was jocularly accused of +pretending to its authorship. I once met an enthusiast who knew both the +two first series by heart,--and certainly he went on wherever I tried to +pose him from the open volume,--my own memory being far less faithful. +Similarly my more recent friend William Hawkes claims to have read the +whole book sixty times; whereof this impromptu of mine is a sort of half +proof:-- + + _Impromptu_. + + "Sixty times, you tell me, friend, + You've read my books from end to end. + Perhaps not all my myriad rhymes, + But all my rhythmics sixty times. + Yes, friend, for I have heard you quote + My old Proverbials by rote + Page after page, and anywhere + Have heard you spout them then and there, + Though I myself had quite forgot + What I had writ, and you had not. + + "Well, author surely never more + Was complimented so before; + For though I knew in years long past + An amiable enthusiast, + Who copied out in his MS. + My whole Proverbial, as for press, + Until he half believed that he + Was the real Simon M.F.T.,-- + Yet thou, my worthy William Hawkes, + Hast beaten Nightingale by chalks,-- + And, years ago, your friends for fame + Have given you Martin Tapper's name, + Because you constantly were heard + Quoting Proverbial word for word! + So then, by heart, as by the pen, + 'I live upon the mouths of men,' + Ev'n as Ennius lived of old, + A life worth more than gems or gold." + +Two more strange anecdotes may here find their place (others will occur +elsewhere in this volume hereafter) respecting "Proverbial Philosophy." +Joseph Durham, the sculptor, a great friend of mine, had been known to +me for some years, and one day he gave me a curious little book, very +ancient and dingy-looking, entitled "Politeuphuia, Wits' Commonwealth: +London, 1667;" with this explanation, that he had picked it up at an old +bookstall, and, finding it was written somewhat in proverbs gave it to +me, adding, in his shrewd way, the humorous fancy that (until he had +read it and couldn't discover a line or thought of exact similarity) +possibly he might have checkmated me by showing me the mine from which I +had dug my wisdoms! As I have before me a memorandum pasted into the +booklet itself (it is a minute duodecimo) I will here quote exactly what +I wrote in it at the time: the date being Albury House, May 24, 1865:-- + +"This little book has just been given to me by Durham; it is very +scarce, so much so that the British Museum, he says, does not possess a +copy; probably there are not six in the world. I never saw it, nor +heard of it till now; just twenty-nine years after the publication of +my Proverbial Philosophy. It is a curious coincidence that the headings +of this Wits' Miscellany are similar to my own; as Of so and so +throughout; I first wrote On so and so; but did not like the sound, and +remembering it would be De in Latin, altered it to Of. The treatment +also of the subjects has some apparent similitude; but in looking all +through the book, it is strange that not one line, not one phrase, is +the same as any of mine. Travelling on the same road, and in somewhat of +the same proverbial rhythm, this is very curious; whilst it certainly +acquits me of even unintended and unconscious plagiarism. The headings +begin of God, of Heaven, of Angels, &c.,--and then of vertue, of peace, +of truth, &c., and afterwards of love, of jealousie, of hate, of beauty, +of flattery, &c., &c.,--all being aphoristic quotations from ancient +authors. As before stated, the whole was unseen by me until nearly +thirty years after I had published my independent essays on the same +theses much in a similar key." + +This is a parallel case to the recent statement in a printed book with +characteristic illustrations respecting the non-originality of Bunyan's +Pilgrim's Progress; and Milton's Paradise Lost has been similarly +disparaged, Mr. Plummer Ward having written and shown to me a pamphlet +by himself to prove that some Italian poem seen by Milton in youth +preceded him on the same lines;--while Mr. Geikie quotes from the +Anglo-Saxon Caedmon papers nearly identical with some in Paradise Lost. +But there is no end to assertions of this sort, impugning authorial +honesty and originality: when authors write on the same topics and with +much the same stock of words and ideas both religious and educational, +it is only a marvel that the thoughts and writings of men do not oftener +collide, and seem to be plagiaristic reproductions. I have spoken of all +this at length, that if any one hereafter finds this "Politeuphuia" in +the British Museum (which is welcome to have my copy if it lacks one), +and years hence accuses my innocence of having stolen from it, he may +know that I have thus taken the bull by the horns and twisted him over. + +The last anecdote I shall now inflict upon my reader in this connection +is as follows:-- + +One James Orton, an American gentleman whom I have never seen that I +know of (unless by possibility in some one of the crowds met +anonymously, before whom I may have read in public) was kind enough many +years ago to publish a beautifully printed and illustrated volume "The +Proverbialist and the Poet," whereof he sent me two copies; but lacking +his address, probably with the delicate object of preventing an +acknowledgment; and I am almost ashamed to state that his whole book in +different inks combines the threefold wisdoms of King Solomon, William +Shakespeare, and Martin Tupper; the title-page being decorated in +colours with views of the Temple, Stratford-on-Avon, and Albury House! +If I ventured to quote the Preface, it would beat even this as the +climax of fulsome flattery, and I think that my friends of the Comic +Press who have done me so much service by keeping up my shuttlecock with +their battledores, and so much honour by placing me prominently among +the defamed worthies of the world, would in their charity (for they have +some) pity the victim of such excruciating praise, if he failed hereby +to repudiate it. + +Not but that poor human nature delights in adulation. I well remember +the joy wherewith I first greeted the following from a Cincinnati paper; +so hearty too, and generous, and obviously sincere. + +"The author of this book will rank, we are free to say, with the very +first spirits of the British world. It will live, in our judgment, as +long as the English language, and be a text-book of wisdom to the young +of all generations of America and England both. We would rather be the +author of it, than hold any civil or ecclesiastical office in the globe. +We would rather leave it as a legacy to our children, than the richest +estate ever owned by man. From our heart we thank the young author for +this precious gift, and, could our voice reach him, would pronounce a +shower of heartfelt blessings on his soul. When we began to read it with +our editorial pencil in hand, we undertook to mark its beautiful +passages, should we find any worthy of distinction; but, having read to +our satisfaction--indeed to our amazement--we throw down the pencil, +and, had we as much space as admiration, we would quote the whole of it. +It is one solid, sparkling, priceless gem." + +I may as well add a few more such extracts, as strictly within the text +of "My Lifework." + +"The author of 'Proverbial Philosophy' is a writer in whom beautiful +extremes meet,--the richness of the Orient, and the strength of the +Occident--the stern virtue of the North and the passion of the South. At +times his genius seems to possess creative power, and to open to our +gaze things new and glorious, of which we have never dreamed; then again +it seems like sunlight, its province not to create, but to vivify and +glorify what before was within and around us. Aspirations, fancies, +beliefs we have long folded in our hearts as dear and sacred things, +yet never had the power or the courage to reveal, bloom out as naturally +in his pages as wild flowers when the blossoming time is come. We are +not so much struck by the grandeur of his conceptions, or fascinated by +the elegance of his diction, as warmed, ennobled, and delighted by the +glow of his enthusiasm, the purity of his principles, and the continuous +gushing forth of his tenderness. His words form an electric chain, along +which he sends his own soul, thrilling around the wide circle of his +readers."--N.P. Willis's _Home Journal_. + +"Perhaps no writer has attracted a greater degree of public attention, +or received a larger share of public praise, during the last few years, +than Martin F. Tupper,--a man of whom England may well be proud, and +whose name will eventually be one of the very noblest on the scroll of +fame."--_American Courier_. + +"Everybody knows the 'Proverbial Philosophy' of Martin Tupper; a million +and a half of copies--so, publishers say--have been sold in +America."--_New York World_. + +"Full of genius, rich in thought, admirable in its religious tone and +beautiful language."--_Cincinnati Atlas_. + +"'Apples of gold set in pictures of silver' is the most apposite +apophthegm we can apply to the entire work. We have rarely met a volume +so grateful to the taste in all its parts, so rich in its simplicity, so +unique in its arrangements, and so perfect in all that constitutes the +perfection of style, as the volume before us. It must live like immortal +seed, to produce a continual harvest of profitable +reflection."--(_Philadelphian_) _Episcopal Recorder_. + +"No one can glance at this work without perceiving that it is produced +by the inspiration of genius. It is full of glorious thoughts, each of +which might be expanded into a treatise."--_Albany Atlas_. + +"We cannot express the intense interest and delight with which we have +perused 'Proverbial Philosophy.'"--_Oberlin's Evangelist_. + +"The 'Proverbial Philosophy' has struck with almost miraculous force and +effect upon the minds and hearts of a large class of American readers, +and has at once rendered its author's name and character famous and +familiar in our country. It abounds in gems and apt allusions, which +display without an effort the deep practical views and the aesthetical +culture of the author."--_Southern Literary Messenger_. + +Let all this suffice for America: a few from this side of the Atlantic +may be added:-- + +"Were we to say all we think of the nobleness of the thoughts, of the +beauty and virtuousness of the sentiments contained in this volume, we +should be constrained to write a lengthened eulogium on it."--_Morning +Post_. + +"Martin Farquhar Tupper has won for himself the vacant throne waiting +for him amidst the immortals, and after a long and glorious term of +popularity among those who know when their hearts are touched, without +being able to justify their taste to their intellect, has been adopted +by the suffrage of mankind and the final decree of publishers into the +same rank with Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning."--_Spectator_. + +"It is a book easily understood, and repaying the reader on every page +with sentiments true to experience, and expressed often with surprising +beauty."--_Presbyterian_. + +"One of the most thoughtful, brilliant, and finished productions of the +age."--_Banner of the Cross_. + +"For poetic imagery, for brightness of thought, for clear and striking +views of all the interests and conditions of man, this work has been +pronounced by the English and American press as unequalled."--_Literary +Messenger_. + +"The principal work of Martin Farquhar Tupper, 'Proverbial Philosophy,' +is instinct with the spirit of genial hopeful love: and to this mainly +should be attributed the vast amount of sympathetic admiration it has +attracted, not only in this country, but also in the United +States."--_English Review_. + +"We congratulate ourselves, for the sake of our land's language, on this +noble addition to her stock of what Dr. Johnson justly esteems 'the +highest order of learning.' If Mr. Tupper be not the high priest of his +profession, he is at least no undignified minister of the altar. The +spirit of a noble hope animates the exercise of his high +function."--_Parthenon_. + +"We know not whether Mr. Tupper, when he was pouring forth the contents +of these glorious volumes, intended to write prose or poetry; but if his +object was the former, his end has not been accomplished. 'Proverbial +Philosophy' is poetry assuredly; poetry exquisite, almost beyond the +bounds of fancy to conceive, brimmed with noble thoughts, and studded +with heavenward aspirations."--_Church of England Journal_. + +"The 'Proverbial Philosophy,' which first established Mr. Tupper's +reputation, is a work of standard excellence. It has met with +unprecedented success, and many large editions of it have been sold. It +led to the author's being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and the +King of Prussia, in token of his Majesty's high approbation of the +work, sent him the gold medal for science and literature."--_Glasgow +Examiner_. + +"This book is like a collection of miniature paintings on ivory, small, +beautiful, highly finished, and heterogeneous: in style something +between prose and verse; not so rigid as to fetter the thought, not so +free as to exclude absolute distinctness, with the turn and phrase of +poetry."--_Christian Remembrancer_. + +"There is more novelty in the sentiments, a greater sweep of subjects, +and a finer sense of moral beauty displayed by Mr. Tupper, than we +remember to have seen in any work of its class, excepting of course the +'Proverbs of Solomon.' We also discover in his 'Philosophy' the stores +of extensive reading, and the indisputable proofs of habitual and devout +reflection, as well as the workings of an elegant mind."--_Monthly +Review_. + +"Have we not now done enough to show that a poet of power and of +promise,--a poet and philosopher both--is amongst us to delight and +instruct, to elevate and to guide."--_Conservative Journal_. + +"This work glows and glitters all over with the effluence and lustre of +a fine imagination, and is steeped in the rich hues and pervading beauty +of a mild wisdom, and a genial and kindly morality."--_Scots Times_. + +"The 'Proverbial Philosophy' contains much sound reflection, moral and +religious maxims of the highest importance, elegant figures and +allusions, sound and serious observations of life,--all expressed in +most appropriate and well-selected language."--_Gentleman's Magazine_. + +"One of the most original and curious productions of our +time."--_Atlas_. + +"A book as full of sweetness as a honeycomb, of gentleness as woman's +heart; in its wisdom worthy the disciple of a Solomon, in its genius +the child of a Milton. Every page, nay almost every line, teems with +evidences of profound thinking and various reading, and the pictures it +often presents to our mind are the most imaginative and beautiful that +can possibly be conceived."--_Court Journal_. + +"If men delight to read Tupper both in England and America, why should +they not study him both in the nineteenth century and in the twentieth? +The judgment of persons who are more or less free from insular +prejudices is said in some degree to anticipate that which is admitted +to be the conclusive verdict of posterity."--_Saturday Review_. + +"The popularity of the 'Proverbial Philosophy' of Martin Tupper is a +gratifying and healthy symptom of the present taste in literature, the +book being full of lessons of wisdom and piety, conveyed in a style +startling at first by its novelty, but irresistibly pleasing by its +earnestness and eloquence."--_Literary Gazette_. + +"Mr. Mill, Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Browning, Mr. Morris, Mr. +Rossetti--all these writers have a wider audience in America than in +England. So too has Mr. Tupper. The imagination staggers in attempting +to realise the number of copies of his works which have been published +abroad. Unlike most of his contemporaries, further, he has conquered +popularity in both hemispheres. He has won the suffrages of two great +nations. He may now disregard criticism."--_Daily News_. + + * * * * * + +This sonnet, written and published in 1837, nearly half a century ago, +explains itself and may fairly come in here as a protest and prophecy by +a then young author. And, _nota bene_, if hyper-criticism objects that +a sonnet must always be a fourteen-liner (this being one only of twelve) +I reply that it is sometimes of sixteen, as in the one by Dante to +Madonna, which I have translated in my "Modern Pyramid:" and there are +instances of twelve, as one at least of Shakespeare's in his Passionate +Pilgrim. But this is a small technicality. + + _To my Book "Proverbial Philosophy," before Publication._ + + "My soul's own son, dear image of my mind, + I would not without blessing send thee forth + Into the bleak wide world, whose voice unkind + Perchance will mock at thee as nothing worth; + For the cold critic's jealous eye may find + In all thy purposed good little but ill, + May taunt thy simple garb as quaintly wrought, + And praise thee for no more than the small skill + Of masquing as thine own another's thought: + What then? count envious sneers as less than nought: + Fair is thine aim,--and having done thy best, + So, thus I bless thee; yea, thou shalt be blest!" + +There were also two others afterward, in the jubilate vein; but I spare +my reader, albeit they are curiously prophetic of the wide good-doing +since accomplished. + +To the above numerous commendations which indeed might be indefinitely +extended, it is only fair to add that "Proverbial Philosophy" has run +the gauntlet of both hemispheres also in the way of parody, ridicule, +plagiaristic imitation, and in some instances of envious and malignant +condemnation. It has won on each side both praise from the good and +censure from the bad: our comic papers have amused us with its +travesties--as Church Liturgies and Holy Writ have been similarly +parodied,--and some of the modern writers who are unfriendly to +Christian influences have done their small endeavour to damage both the +book and its author through adverse criticism. But their efforts are +vain. They have availed only to advance--from first to last now for some +forty-five years--the world-wide success of "Proverbial Philosophy." + +If it is expected, as a matter of impartiality, that I should here print +adverse criticisms as well as those which are favourable, I simply +decline to be so foolish: a caricature impresses where a portrait is +forgotten: the _litera scripta_ in printer's ink remains and is quotable +for ever, and I do not think it worth while deliberately to traduce +myself and my book children by adopting the opinions of dyspeptic +scribes who will find how well I think of them in my Proverbial Essay +"Zoilism;" which, by the way, I read at St. Andrews, before some chiefs +of that university, with A.K.H.B. in the chair. + + * * * * * + +Accordingly, I prefer now to appear one-sided, as a piece of common +sense; quite indifferent to the charge of vain-gloriousness; all the +good verdicts quoted are genuine, absolutely unpaid and unrewarded, and +are matters of sincere and skilled opinion; so being such I prize them: +the opposing judgments--much fewer, and far less hearty, as "willing to +wound and yet afraid to strike"--may as well perish out of memory by +being ignored and neglected. Here is a social anecdote to illustrate +what I mean. I once knew a foolish young nobleman of the highest rank +who--to spite his younger brother as he fancied--posted him up in his +club for having called him "a maggot;" and all he got for his pains in +this exposure was that the name stuck to himself for life! so it is not +necessary to borrow fame's trumpet to proclaim one's few dispraises. + +Moreover, I have thought it only just to the many unseen lovers of +"Proverbial Philosophy" to show them how heartily their good opinions +have been countersigned and sanctioned all over the English-speaking +world by critics of many schools and almost all denominations. It is not +then from personal vanity that so much laudation is exhibited [God wot, +I have reason to denounce and renounce self-seeking]--but rather to +gratify and corroborate innumerable book friends. + + * * * * * + +If there had been International Copyright in the more halcyon days of my +"Proverbial" popularity, when, as reported (see the _New York World_ on +p. 124), a million and a half copies of my book were consumed in +America, I should have been materially rewarded by a royalty of +something like a hundred thousand pounds: but the bare fact is that all +I have ever received from my Transatlantic booksellers in the way of +money has been some L80 (three thousand dollars) which Herman Hooker of +Philadelphia gave me for the exclusive privilege--so far as I could +grant it--of being my publisher. For aught else, I have nothing to +complain of in the way of praise, however profitless, of kindliness, +however well appreciated, and of boundless hospitality, however fairly +reimbursed at the time by the valuable presence of a foreign celebrity. +No doubt the public are benefited by the cheapness of books unprotected +by copyright, and the author, if he wins no royalty, gains by fame and +pleasure; but the absence of a copyright law is a great mistake,--as +well as an injustice to the authorship of both nations, by starving the +literature of each other, American publishers will not sufficiently pay +their own native bookwrights when they can appropriate their +neighbours' works for nothing; and ours in England probably enriched +themselves as vastly and cheaply by Mrs. Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's +Cabin" as many among the thirty-three States by "Proverbial Philosophy." + + * * * * * + +As my handsome quarto "Proverbial" has been for two generations a common +gift-book for weddings, and has more than once appeared among the gifts +at royal marriages, it is small wonder that I have often been greeted by +old--and young--married couples as having been a sort of spiritual Cupid +on such occasions. Frequently at my readings and elsewhere ladies +thitherto unknown have claimed me as their unseen friend, and some have +feelingly acknowledged that my Love and Marriage (both written in my +teens) were the turning-points of their lives and causes of their +happiness. These lines will meet the eyes of some who will acknowledge +their truth, and possibly if they like it may write and tell me so: some +of my warmest friendships have originated in grateful letters of a +similar character. + + * * * * * + +It may also be worthy of mention that on this side of the Atlantic as +well as on the other (see especially the case of N.P. Willis) it has +often been taken for granted that the author of "Proverbial Philosophy" +has been dead for generations. No doubt this is due both to the antique +style of the book and to the retiring habits of its author: +comparatively few of my readers know me by sight. I could mention many +proofs of this belief in my non-existence: here is one; a daughter of +mine is asked lately by an eminent person if she is a descendant of the +celebrated Elizabethan author? and when that individual in passing round +the room came near to the Professor, and was introduced to him as her +father, the man could scarcely be brought to believe that his +long-departed book friend was positively alive before him. The Professor +looked as if he had seen a ghost. + + * * * * * + +Throughout this volume I wish my courteous readers to bear in mind that +the writer excludes from it as much as possible the strictly private and +personal element; it is intended to be mainly authorial or on matters +therewith connected. Moreover, if they will considerately take into +account that as a youth and until middle age I was, from the +speech-impediment since overcome, isolated from the gaieties of society, +as also that I religiously abstained from theatricals at a time before +Macready, who has since purified them into a very fair school of +morals,--to say less of having been engaged in marriage from seventeen +to twenty-five,--I can have (for example) no love adventures to offer +for amusement, nor any dramatic anecdotes such as Ruskin might supply. +The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini is full of entertaining and +highly coloured incidents which could not be possible to one rather of +the Huguenot stamp than that of the Cavalier, and so I cannot compete +therewith as to any of the spicier records of hot youth: for which +indeed let me be thankful. + +If then my reader finds me less lively than he had--shall I say +uncharitably?--hoped for, let him take into account that, to quote the +splendid but sensuous phrase of Swinburne, I have always been stupidly +prone to prefer "the lilies and languors of virtue" to "the roses and +raptures of vice." + +I will now proceed with the self-imposed duty of recording my authorial +performances. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +A MODERN PYRAMID. + + +In 1839, Rickerby was again my publisher; the new book being "A Modern +Pyramid; to Commemorate a Septuagint of Worthies." In this volume, +commencing with Abel, and ending with Felix Neff, I have greeted both in +verse and prose threescore and ten of the Excellent of the earth. +Probably the best thing in it is the "Vision Introductory;" and, as the +book has been long out of print, I will produce it here as an +interesting flight of fancy, albeit somewhat of a long one. If an author +can be accounted a fair judge of his own writings, this is my best +effort in the imaginative line; and as it is no new brain-child (we +always love the last baby best), but was written little short of fifty +years ago, the impartial opinion of an old judge is probably a correct +one. The sun-dial is still in my garden,--and as I stood by it half a +century since, there grew up to my mind's eye this Vision:-- + + +"I was walking in my garden at noon: and I came to the sun-dial, where, +shutting my book, I leaned upon the pedestal, musing; so the thin shadow +pointed to twelve. + +"Of a sudden, I felt a warm sweet breath upon my cheek, and, starting +up, in much wonder beheld a face of the most bewitching beauty close +beside me, gazing on the dial: it was only a face; and with earnest +fear I leaned, steadfastly watching its strange loveliness. Soon, it +looked into me with its fascinating eyes, and said mournfully, 'Dost +thou not know me?'--but I was speechless with astonishment: then it +said, 'Consider:'--with that, my mind rushed into me like a flood, and I +looked, and considered, and speedily vague outlines shaped about, +mingled with floating gossamers of colour, until I was aware that a +glorious living Creature was growing to my knowledge. + +"So I looked resolutely on her (for she wore the garb of woman), gazing +still as she grew: and again she said mildly, 'Consider:'--then I noted +that from her jewelled girdle upwards, all was gorgeous, glistening, and +most beautiful; her white vest was rarely worked with living flowers, +but brighter and sweeter than those of earth; flowing tresses, blacker +than the shadows cast by the bursting of a meteor, and, like them, +brilliantly interwoven with strings of light, fell in clusters on her +fair bosom; her lips were curled with the expression of majestic +triumph, yet wreathed winningly with flickering smiles; and the lustre +of her terrible eyes, like suns flashing darkness, did bewilder me and +blind my reason:--Then I veiled mine eyes with my clasped hands; but +again she said, 'Consider:'--and bending all my mind to the hazard, I +encountered with calmness their steady radiance, although they burned +into my brain. Bound about her sable locks was as it were a chaplet of +fire; her right hand held a double-edged sword of most strange +workmanship, for the one edge was of keen steel, and the other as it +were the strip of a peacock's feather; on the face of the air about her +were phantoms of winged horses, and of racking-wheels: and from her +glossy shoulders waved and quivered large dazzling wings of iridescent +colours, most glorious to look upon. + +"So grew she slowly to my knowledge; and as I stood gazing in a rapture, +again she muttered sternly,--'Consider!'--Then I looked below the girdle +upon her flowing robes: and behold they were of dismal hue, and on the +changing surface fluttered fearful visions: I discerned blood-spots on +them, and ghastly eyes glaring from the darker folds, and, when these +rustled, were heard stifled meanings, and smothered shrieks as of +horror: and I noted that she stood upon a wreath of lightnings, that +darted about like a nest of young snakes in the midst of a sullen cloud, +black, palpable, and rolling inwards as thick smoke from a furnace. + +"Then said she again to me, 'Dost thou not know me?'--and I answered +her,--'O Wonder, terrible in thy beauty, thy fairness have I seen in +dreams, and have guessed with a trembling spirit that thou walkest among +fears; are thou not that dread Power, whom the children of men have +named Imagination?'--And she smiled sweetly upon me, saying, 'Yea, my +son:' and her smile fell upon my heart like the sun on roses, till I +grew bold in my love and said, 'O Wonder, I would learn of thee; show me +some strange sight, that I may worship thy fair majesty in secret.' + +"Then she stood like a goddess and a queen, and stretching forth her +arm, white as the snow and glittering with circlets, slowly beckoned +with her sword to the points of the dial. There was a distant rushing +sound, and I saw white clouds afar off dropping suddenly and together +from the blue firmament all round me in a circle: and they fell to the +earth, and rolled onwards, fearfully converging to where I stood; and +they came on, on, on, like the galloping cavalry of heaven; pouring in +on all sides as huge cataracts of foam; and shutting me out from the +green social world with the awful curtains of the skies.--Then, as my +heart was failing me for fear, and for looking at those inevitable +strange oncomings, and the fixt eyes of my queenlike mistress, I sent +reason from his throne on my brow to speak with it calmly, and took +courage. + +"So stood I alone with that dread beauty by the dial, and the white +rolling wall of cloud came on slowly around with suppressed thunderings, +and the island of earth on which I stood grew smaller and smaller every +moment, and the garden-flowers faded away, and the familiar shrubs +disappeared, until the moving bases of those cold mist-mountains were +fixed at my very feet. Then said to me the glorious Power, standing in +stature as a giant,--'Come! why tarriest thou? Come!'--and instantly +there rushed up to us a huge golden throne of light filigree-work, borne +upon seven pinions, whereof each was fledged above with feathers fair +and white, but underneath they were ribbed batlike, and fringed with +black down: and all around fluttered beautiful winged faces, mingled and +disporting with grotesque figures and hideous imps. Then she mounted in +her pomp the steps of the throne, and sat therein proudly. Again she +said to me, 'Come!'--and I feared her, for her voice was terrible; so I +threw myself down on the lowest of the seven golden steps, and the +border of her dark robe touched me. Then was I full of dread, hemmed +about with horrors, and the pinions rustled together, and we rushed +upward like a flame, and the hurricane hastened after us: my heart was +as a frozen autumn-leaf quivering in my bosom, and I looked up for help +and pity from the mighty Power on her throne; but she spurned me with +her black-sandalled foot, and I was thrust from my dizzy seat, and in +falling clutched at the silver net-work that lay upon the steps as a +carpet,--and so I hung; my hands were stiffly crooked in the meshes like +eagle's talons, my wrists were bursting, the bones of my body ached, and +I heard the chill whisper of Death (who came flitting up to me as a +sheeted ghost) bidding my poor heart be still: yet I would live on, I +would cling on, though swinging fearfully from that up-rushing throne; +for my mind was unsubdued, and my reason would not die, but rebelled +against his mandate. And so the pinions flapped away, the dreadful +cavalcade of clouds followed, we broke the waterspout, raced the +whirlwind, hunted the thunder to his caverns, rushed through the light +and wind-tost mountains of the snow, pierced with a crash the thick sea +of ice, that like a globe of hollow glass separates earth and its +atmosphere from superambient space, and flying forward through the +airless void, lighted on another world. + +"Then triumphed my reason, for I stood on that silent shore, fearless +though alone, and boldly upbraided the dread Power that had brought me +thither,--'Traitress, thou hast not conquered; my mind is still thy +master, and if the weaker body failed me, it hath been filled with new +energies in these quickening skies: I am immortal as thou art; yet shalt +thou fear me, and heed my biddings: wherefore hast thou dared--?' but my +wrathful eye looked on her bewitching beauty, and I had no tongue to +chide, as she said in the sobriety of loveliness,--'My son, have I not +answered thy prayer? yet but in part; behold, I have good store of +precious things to show thee:' with that, she kissed my brow, and I +fell into an ecstasy. + +"I perceived that I was come to the kingdom of disembodied spirits, and +they crowded around me as around some strange creature, clustering with +earnest looks, perchance to inquire of me somewhat from the world I had +just left. Although impalpable, and moving through each other, +transparent and half-invisible, each wore the outward shape and seeming +garments he had mostly been known by upon earth: and my reason whispered +me, this is so, until the resurrection; the seen material form is the +last idea which each one hath given to the world, but the glorified body +of each shall be as diverse from this, yet being the same, as the +gorgeous tulip from its brown bulb, the bird of paradise from his +spotted egg, or the spreading beech from the hard nut that had +imprisoned it.--Then Imagination stood with me as an equal friend, and +spake to me soothingly, saying, 'Knowest thou any of these?'--and I +answered, 'Millions upon millions, a widespread inundation of shadowy +forms, from martyred Abel to the still-born babe of this hour I behold +the gathered dead; millions upon millions, like the leaves of the +western forests, like the blades of grass upon the prairie, they are +here crowding innumerable: yet should my spirit know some among them, as +having held sweet converse with their minds in books; only this boon, +sweet mistress, from yonder mingled harvest of the dead, in grace cull +me mine intimates, that I may see them even with my bodily eyes.' So she +smiled, and waved her fair hand: and at once, a few, a very few, not all +worthiest, not all best, came nearer to me with looks of love; and I +knew them each one, for I had met and somewhile walked with each of +them in the paths of meditation; and some appeared less beatified than +others, and some even meanly clad as in garments all of earth, yet I +loved them more than the remainder of that crowded world, though not +equally, nor yet all for merit, but in that I had sympathy with these as +my friends. And each spake kindly to me in his tongue, so that I stood +entranced by the language of the spirits. Then said my bright-winged +guide, 'Hast thou no word for each of these? they love thy greeting, and +would hear thee.' But I answered, 'Alas, beautiful Power, I know but the +language of earth, and my heart is cold, and I am slow of tongue: how +should I worthily address these great ones?'--So with her finger she +touched my lips, and in an inspiration I spake the language of spirits, +where the thoughts are as incense to the mind, and the words winged +music to the ear, and the heart is dissolved into streams of joy, as +hail that hath wandered to the tropics: in sweetness I communed with +them all, and paid my debt of thanks. + +"And behold, a strange thing, changing the aspect of my vision. It +appeared to me, in that dreamy dimness, whereof the judgment inquireth +not and reason hath no power to rebuke it, that while I was still +speaking unto those great ones, the several greetings I had poured forth +in my fervour,--being as it were flowing lava from the volcano of my +heart,--became embodied into mighty cubes of crystal; and in the midst +of each one severally flickered its spiritual song, like a soul, in +characters of fire. So I looked in admiration on that fashioning of +thoughts, and while I looked, behold, the shining masses did shape up, +growing of themselves into a fair pyramid: and I saw that its eastern +foot was shrouded in a mist, and the hither western foot stood out +clear and well defined, and the topstone in the middle was more glorious +than the rest, and inscribed with a name that might not be uttered; for +whereas all the remainder had seemed to be earthborn, mounting step by +step as the self-built pile grew wondrously, this only had appeared to +drop from above, neither had I welcomed the name it bore in that land of +spirits; nevertheless, I had perceived the footmarks of Him, with whose +name it was engraved, even on the golden sands of that bright world, and +had worshipped them in silence with a welcome. + +"Thus then stood before me the majestic pyramid of crystal, full of +characters flashing heavenly praise; and I gloried in it as mine own +building, hailing the architect proudly, and I grew familiar with those +high things, for my mind in its folly was lifted up, and looking on my +guide, I said, 'O Lady; were it not ill, I would tell my brethren on +earth of these strange matters, and of thy favour, and of the love all +these have shown me; yea, and I would recount their greetings and mine +in that sweet language of the spirits.'--But the glorious Wonder drew +back majestic with a frown, saying, 'Not so, presumptuous child of man; +the things I have shown thee, and the greetings thou hast heard, and the +songs wherewith I filled thee, cannot worthily be told in other than the +language of spirits: and where is the alphabet of men that can fix that +unearthly tongue,--or how shouldst thou from henceforth, or thy fellows +upon earth, attain to its delicate conceptions? behold, all these thine +intimates are wroth with thee; they discern evil upon thy soul: the +place of their sojourn is too pure for thee.' + +"Then was there a peal of thunder, like the bursting of a world, +whereupon all that restless sea of shadows, and their bright abode, +vanished suddenly; and there ensued a flood of darkness, peopled with +shoaling fears, and I heard the approach of hurrying sounds, with +demoniac laughter, and shouts coming as for me, nearer and louder, +saying, 'Cast out! Cast out!' and it rushed up to me like an unseen +army, and I fled for life before it, until I came to the extreme edge of +that spiritual world, where, as I ran looking backwards for terror at +those viewless hunters, I leaped horribly over the unguarded cliff, and +fell whirling, whirling, whirling, until my senses failed me-- + +"When I came to myself, I was by the sun-dial in my garden, leaning upon +the pedestal, and the thin shadow still pointed to twelve. + +"In astonishment, I ran hastily to my chamber, and strove to remember +the strains I had heard. But, alas! they had all passed away: scarcely +one disjointed note of that rare music lingered in my memory: I was +awakened from a vivid dream, whereof the morning remembered nothing. +Nevertheless, I toiled on, a rebel against that fearful Power, and +deprived of her wonted aid: my songs, invita Minerva, are but bald +translations of those heavenly welcomings: my humble pyramid, far from +being the visioned apotheosis of that of a Cephren, bears an unambitious +likeness to the meaner Asychian, the characteristic of which, barring +its presumptuous motto, must be veiled in one word from Herodotus +(2-136),--alas! for the bathos of translation, the cabalistic--[Greek: +phelikos], 'built up of mud.' + +"Was not Rome lutea as well as marmorea? and is not beautiful Paris +anciently Lutetia, with its tile-sheds for Tuileries, and a Bourbe-bonne +for its Sovereign?" + +All these sonnets, with others, were published by me elsewhere, as I +state further on. The volume also contains some of my less faulty +translations, as from Sappho, AEschylus, Pythagoras, Virgil, Horace, +Dante, Petrarch, &c. And here I will give a chance specimen out of my +"Septuagint of Worthies," to each one of whom I have appropriated a page +or two of explanatory prose besides his fourteen lines of poetry. Take +my sonnet on "Sylva" Evelyn:-- + + "Wotton, fair Wotton, thine ancestral hall, + Thy green fresh meadows, coursed by ductile streams, + That ripple joyous in the noonday beams, + Leaping adown the frequent waterfall, + Thy princely forest, and calm slumbering lake + Are hallowed spots and classic precincts all; + For in thy terraced walks and beechen grove + The gentle, generous Evelyn wont to rove, + Peace-lover, who of nature's garden spake + From cedars to the hyssop on the wall! + O righteous spirit, fall'n on evil times, + Thy loyal zeal and learned piety + Blest all around thee, wept thy country's crimes, + And taught the world how Christians live and die." + +The sonnet is a form of metrical composition which has been habitual +with me, as my volume "Three Hundred Sonnets" will go to prove; and I +have written quite a hundred more. The best always come at a burst, +spontaneously and as it were inspirationally. A laboured sonnet is a +dull piece of artificial rhyming, and as it springs not from the heart +of the writer, fails to reach the heart of the reader. If the metal does +not flow out quick and hot, there never can be a sharp casting. Good +sonnets are crystals of the heart and mind, perfect from beginning to +end, and are only unpopular where poetasters make a carnal toil of them +instead of finding them a spiritual pleasure. But one who knows his +theme may write reams about sonneteering; for instance, see that +striking article on Shakespeare's sonnets in a recent _Fortnightly_ (or +was it a _Contemporary_?) by Charles Mackay, himself one of our literary +worthiest, who has so well worked through a long life for his country +and his kind: my best regards to him. + +His discovery, or rather ingenious hypothesis, quite new to me, is, that +some of the one hundred and fifty-four in that collection are by other +writers than Shakespeare, though falsely printed under his name, and +that some more (though by him) were written impersonately in the +characters of Essex and Elizabeth; which would account for an awkward +confusion of the sexes hitherto inexplicable. Mackay thinks that the +publisher included any sonnets by others which he thought worthy of the +great bard, as if they were his, and so caused the injurious and wrong +appropriation; most of them are exquisite, and many undoubtedly +Shakespeare's; some I have said probably by another hand. Critically +speaking too, not one of all the one hundred and fifty-four is of the +conventional and elaborate fourteen-liner sort, with complicated rhymes; +but each is a lyrical gem of three four-line stanzas closed by a +distich. Milton's eighteen are all of the more artificial Petrarchian +sort; which Wordsworth has diligently made his model in more than four +hundred instances of very various degrees in merit. + +As I am writing a short memoir of my books, I may state that my own +small quarto of sonnets grew out of the "Modern Pyramid." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +AN AUTHOR'S MIND: PROBABILITIES. + + +My next book, published by Bentley in 1841, is in some sort a +psychological curiosity,--its title being "An Author's Mind, the Book of +Title-pages;" and when I add that it contains in succession sketches of +thirty-four new brain-children, all struggling together for exit from my +occiput, it may be imagined how impelled I was to write them all down +(fixt, however briefly, in black and white) in order to get rid of them. +The book is printed as "edited" by me; whereas I wrote every word of it, +but had not then the courage to say so, as certain things therein might +well have offended some folks, and I did not wish that. I think I will +give here a bit of the prefatory "Ramble," to show how the emptying out +of my thought-box must have been a most wholesome, a most necessary +relief:-- + + * * * * * + +"Now, reader, one little preliminary parley with you about myself. Here +beginneth the trouble of authorship, but it is a trouble causing ease; +ease from thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, which never cease to make one's +head ache till they are fixed on paper; ease from dreams by night and +reveries by day (thronging up in crowds behind, like Deucalion's +children, or a serried host in front, like Jason's instant army), +harassing the brain, and struggling for birth, a separate existence, a +definite life,--ease, in a cessation of that continuous internal hum of +aerial forget-me-nots, clamouring to be recorded. O happy unimaginable +vacancy of mind, to whistle as you walk for want of thought! O mental +holiday, now as impossible to me as to take a true schoolboy's interest +in rounders and prisoner's base! An author's mind,--and remember always, +friend, I write in character, so judge not as egotistic vanity merely +the well playing of my _role_,--such a mind is not a sheet of smooth +wax, but a magic stone indented with fluttering inscriptions,--no empty +tenement, but a barn stored to bursting--it is a painful pressure, +constraining to write for comfort's sake,--an appetite craving to be +satisfied, as well as a power to be exerted,--an impetus that longs to +get away, rather than a dormant dynamic--thrice have I (let me confess +it) poured forth the alleviating volume as an author, a real author, +real, because, for very peace of mind, involuntary,--but still the +vessel fills,--still the indigenous crop springs up, choking a better +harvest, seeds of foreign growth,--still these Lernaean necks sprout +again, claiming with many mouths to explain, amuse, suggest, and +controvert, to publish invention, and proscribe error. Truly it were +enviable to be less apprehensive, less retentive,--to be fitted with a +colander-mind, like that penal cask which forty-nine Danaides might not +keep from leaking; to be, sometimes at least, suffered for a holiday to +ramble brainless in the paradise of fools. Memory, imagination, zeal, +perceptions of men and things, equally with rank and riches, have often +cost their full price, as many mad have known; they take too much out of +a man, fret, wear, worry him,--to be irritable is the conditional tax +laid of old upon an author's intellect; the crowd of internal imagery +makes him hasty, quick, nervous, as a haunted, hunted man--minds of +coarser web heed not how small a thorn rends one of so delicate a +texture,--they cannot estimate the wish that a duller sword were in a +tougher scabbard,--the river, not content with channel and restraining +banks, overflows perpetually,--the extortionate exacting armies of the +ideal and the causal persecute MY spirit, and I would make a +patriot stand at once to vanquish the invaders of my peace. I write +these things only to be quit of them, and not to let the crowd +increase,--I have conceived a plan to destroy them all, as Jehu and +Elijah with the priests of Baal; I feel Malthusian among my mental +nurslings; a dire resolve has filled me to effect a premature +destruction of the literary populace superfaetating in my brain,--plays, +novels, essays, tales, homilies, and rhythmicals; for ethics and +poetics, politics and rhetorics, will I display no more mercy than +sundry commentators of maltreated Aristotle. I will exhibit them in +their state chaotic,--I will addle the eggs, and the chicken shall not +chirp,--I will reveal, and secrets shall not waste me; I will write, and +thoughts shall not batten on me." + +The whole volume, as before-mentioned, is an epitome or quintessence of +more than thirty works,--perhaps the best being "The Prior of Marrick," +a story of idolatry; "Anti-Xurion," a crusade against razors; and "The +Author's Tribunal," an oration; but I confess, not having looked at the +book since my hair was black (and now it is snow-white), and considering +that I wrote it forty-five years ago, I am surprised to find how well +worth reading is my old Author's Mind. It may some day attain a +resurrection: possibly even, in more than the skeleton form of its +present appearance, muscles and skin being added, in a detailed filling +up and finishing of these mere sketches, if only time and opportunity +were given to me. But I much fear at my time of life that my Tragedy of +Nero must remain unwritten, as also my Novel of Charlotte Clopton, and +that thrilling Handbook of the Marvellous; not to mention my abortive +Epic of Home, and sundry essays, satires, and other lucubrations which, +alas! may now be considered addled eggs. In a last word, I somewhat +vaingloriously claim for authorship, as thus:-- + + _The Cathedral Mind._ + + "Temple of truths most eloquently spoken, + Shrine of sweet thoughts veil'd round with words of power, + The Author's Mind in all its hallowed riches + Stands a Cathedral; full of precious things-- + Tastefully built in harmonies unbroken, + Cloister and aisle, dark crypt and aery tower; + Long-treasured relics in the fretted niches + And secret stores, and heaped-up offerings, + Art's noblest wealth with Nature's fruit and flower. + Paintings and Sculpture, Summer's best, and Spring's, + Its plenitude of pride and praise betoken; + An ever-burning lamp shines in its soul; + Deep music all around enchantment flings; + And God's great Presence consecrates the whole!" + + +Probabilities. + +In this our day, Agnosticism, if not avowed Atheism, seems to be making +great way, and destroying the happiness of thousands. It may be a truth, +though partly an unpleasant one, that "he has no faith who never had a +doubt," even as "he has no hope who never had a fear." Well, in my short +day and in my own small way I seem to have been through everything, and +there was a time when I was much worried with uninvited difficulties and +involuntary unbeliefs. Such troublesome thoughts seemed to come to me +without my wish or will,--and stayed too long with me for my peace: +however, I searched them out and fought them down, and cleared my brain +of such poisonous cobwebs by writing my "Probabilities, an Aid to +Faith;" a small treatise on the antecedent likelihood of everything that +has happened, which did me great good while composing it, and has (to my +happy knowledge from many grateful letters) enlightened and comforted +hundreds of unwilling misbelievers. The book, after four editions, has +now long been out of print; however, certainly I still wish it was in +the hands of modern sceptics for their good. The scheme of the treatise +is briefly this: I begin by showing the antecedent probability of the +being of a God, then of His attributes, and by inference from His +probable benevolence, of His becoming a Creator: then that the created +being inferior to His perfection might fall, in which event His +benevolence would find a remedy. But what remedy? That Himself should +pay the penalty, and effect a full redemption. How? By becoming a +creature, and so lifting up the race to Himself through so generous a +condescension. I show that it was antecedently probable that the +Divinity should come in humble form, not to paralyse our reason by +outward glories,--that He might even die as a seeming malefactor; this +was the guess of Socrates: and that for the trial of our faith there are +likely to be permitted all manner of difficulties and mysteries for us +to gain personal strength by combating and living them down. Many other +topics are touched in this suggestive little treatise, whereanent a few +critiques are available; as thus, "The author has done good service to +religion by this publication: it will shake the doubts of the sceptical, +strengthen the trust of the wavering, and delight the faith of the +confirmed. As its character becomes known, it will deservedly fill a +high place in the estimation of the Christian world."--_Britannia._ And +similarly of other English journals, while the Americans were equally +favourable. Take this characteristic instance, one of many: the +_Brooklyn Eagle_ maintains that "the author is one of the rare men of +the age; he turns up thoughts as with a plough on the sward of +monotonous usage." And _Hunt's Magazine_, New York, commends "this +reasoning with the sceptical, showing that if they consider +probabilities simply, then all the great doctrines of our faith might +reasonably be expected." + + * * * * * + +An extract from the book itself, as out of print, may be acceptable, the +more so that it takes a new and true view (as I apprehend) of Job and +his restored prosperity:-- + +"One or two thoughts respecting Job's trial. That he should at last give +way was only probable: he was, in short, another Adam, and had another +fall, albeit he wrestled nobly. Worthy was he to be named among God's +chosen three, 'Noah, Daniel, and Job,' and worthy that the Lord should +bless his latter end. This word brings me to the point I wish to touch +on,--the great compensation which God gave to Job. Children can never be +regarded as other than individualities, and notwithstanding Eastern +feelings about increase in quantity, its quality is, after all, the +question for the heart. I mean that many children to be born is but an +inadequate return for many children dying. If a father loses a +well-beloved son, it is small recompense of that aching void that he +gets another. For this reason of the affections, and because I suppose +that thinkers have sympathised with me in the difficulty, I wish to say +a word about Job's children lost and found. It will clear away what is +to some minds a moral and affectionate objection. Now this is the state +of the case. + +"The patriarch is introduced to us as possessing so many camels and +oxen, and so forth, and ten children. All these are represented to him +by witnesses, to all appearance credible, as dead; and he mourns for his +great loss accordingly. Would not a merchant feel to all intents and +purposes a ruined man, if he received a clear intelligence from +different parts of the world at once that all his ships and warehouses +had been destroyed by hurricanes and fire? Faith given, patience +follows: and the trial is morally the same, whether the news be true or +false. + +"Remarkably enough, after the calamitous time is past, when the good man +of Uz is discerned as rewarded by heaven for his patience by the double +of everything once lost--his children remain the same in number, ten. It +seems to me quite possible that neither camels, &c., nor children, +really had been killed. Satan might have meant it so, and schemed it; +and the singly coming messengers believed it all, as also did the +well-enduring Job. But the scriptural word does not go to say that these +things happened; but that certain emissaries said they happened. I think +the devil missed his mark--that the messengers were scared by some +abortive diabolic efforts; and that (with a natural increase of camels, +&c., meanwhile) the patriarch's paternal heart was more than compensated +at the last by the restoration of his own dear children. They were dead, +and are alive again; they were lost, and are found. Like Abraham +returning from Mount Calvary with Isaac, it was the resurrection in a +figure. + +"If to this view objection is made, that, because the boils of Job were +real, therefore similarly real must be all his other evils; I reply, +that in the one temptation, the suffering was to be mental; in the +other, bodily. In the latter case, positive personal pain was the gist +of the matter--in the former, the heart might be pierced, and the mind +be overwhelmed, without the necessity of any such incurable affliction +as the children's deaths amount to. God's mercy may well have allowed +the evil one to overreach himself; and when the restoration came, how +double was the joy of Job over these ten dear children! + +"Again, if any one will urge that, in the common view of the case, Job +at the last really has twice as many children as before, for that he has +ten old ones in heaven, and ten new ones on earth,--I must, in answer, +think that explanation as unsatisfactory to us as the verity of it would +have been to Job. Affection, human affection, is not so numerically nor +vicariously consoled--and it is, perhaps, worth while here to have +thrown out (what I suppose to be) a new view of the case, if only to +rescue such wealth as children from the infidel's sneer of being +confounded with such wealth as camels. Moreover, such a paternal reward +was anteriorly more probable." + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE CROCK OF GOLD, ETC. + + +The origin of the "Crock of Gold" is so well given in a preface, written +by Mr. Butler of Philadelphia, for his American edition of my works in +1851, that I choose here to reproduce it, as below. Our cousins over the +water were characteristically very fond of the "Crock of Gold," and some +editions of "Proverbial Philosophy" were published by them as "by the +author of the 'Crock of Gold'" on the title-page, whereof I have a copy. +Moreover, it was dramatised and acted at "the Boston Museum, Tremont +Street"--a playbill which I have announcing the twenty-first +representation, November 1, 1845; the writer sent it to me in MS., where +it lies among the chaos of my papers. In England it has been issued five +times in various forms, and a printed play thereof as adapted by +Fitzball, who wrote for Astley's and the like, was acted (without my +leave asked or granted) in November 1847, at the City of London Theatre +in the East End: I did not stop it, as on a certain private scrutiny I +saw that the influence of the play upon its crowded audiences seemed a +good one. Unseen and unknown in a private box I noted the touching +effect of Grace's Psalm (ch. viii.) and the sobs and tears all over the +theatre that accompanied it; so it was a wisdom not to interfere with +such wholesome popularity and wholesale good-doing. It was a fair +method of preaching the Gospel to the poor, for that crowd was of the +humblest. + +The "Crock of Gold" has been translated complete as a _feuilleton_ both +in French and German by newspapers; and I have copies somewhere,--but I +know not who wrote the French, the German authoress having been the +Fraulein Von Lagerstroem. + +What Mr. Butler says in his preface, no doubt after speech with me, for +I was his visitor at the time in 1851, is this:-- + +"All who have had the good fortune to meet Mr. Tupper during his visit +here have been struck with his characteristic impulsiveness. In +accordance with this feature of his mind, nearly all of his most +successful performances have been occasioned by something altogether +incidental and unpremeditated--the result of an impulse +accidentally--shall we not say, providentially?--imparted. It was so +with the first work in this series (four volumes) respecting the +composition of which he has given to me in conversation the following +account. Some years ago he purchased a house at Brighton. While laying +out the garden, he had occasion to have several drains made. One day +observing a workman, Francis Suter, standing in one of the trenches wet +and wearied with toil, Mr. Tupper said to him in a tone of pleasantry, +'Wouldn't you like to dig up there a crock full of gold?'--'If I did,' +said the man, 'it would do me no good, because merely finding it would +not make it mine.'--'But suppose you could not only find such a +treasure, but might honestly keep it, wouldn't you think yourself +lucky?'--'Oh yes, sir, I suppose I should--but,' after a pause, 'but I +am not so sure, sir, that it is the best thing that could happen to me. +I think, on the whole, I would rather have steady work and fair wages +all the season than find a crock of gold.' + +"Here was wisdom. The remark of the honest trench-digger at once set in +motion a train of thought in the mind of the author. He entered his +study, wrote in large letters on a sheet of paper these words, 'The +Crock of Gold, a Tale of Covetousness,' and in less than a week +that remarkable story was written. By the advice of his wife, however, +he spent another week in rewriting it, and then gave it to the world in +its finished state." + +In the same Butlerian volume occurs the following MS. notice written by +me (in about 1853) respecting the origins of my two other tales, the +three being issued together:-- + +"As in the instance of my 'Crock of Gold,' both 'The Twins' and 'Heart' +were undoubtedly the outcome in after years of early observations, +anecdotes, and incidents, whereof memory kept in silence an experimental +record. Very few artists succeed in the delineation of life without +living models; but no good one servilely will betray the forms they +rather get hints from than actually copy. Thus though I sketched Roger +Acton from one Robert Tunnel, an Albury labourer, and took the cottage +near Postford Pond as his home,--adding thereto Mr. Campion's park and +house at Danney, near Hurst (I was then living at Brighton) as the model +for Sir John Vincent's estate,--as well as Grace, Ben Burke, and so on +from persons I had seen,--I need not say that my sketches from nature +were but outlines to my finished work of art. Simon Jennings, however, +is an exact portrait of a man I knew at Brighton. So also with these +tales, and others of my writings." + +About "The Twins" a curious and somewhat awkward coincidence happened, +in the fact that my totally ideal characters of General Tracey and his +family were supposed to be intended for some persons whom the cap (it +seems) fitted pretty accurately, and who then lived at the southern +watering-place I had too diaphanously depicted as Burleigh-Singleton. It +is somewhat dangerous to invent blindly. However, my total innocence of +any intentional allusion to private matters whereof I was entirely +ignorant was set clear at once by an explanatory letter; and so no harm +resulted. In the case of "Heart" similarly, I invented the bankruptcy of +a certain Austral Bank, which at the time of my tale's publication had +no existence,--the very name having been taken some years after. This is +another instance of the literary perils to which imaginative authors may +be subject; for _litera scripta manet_, especially if in printer's ink, +and, for aught I know, that offhand word might be held a continuous +libel. For all else, by way of notice, the stories speak for themselves; +as, Covetousness was the text for "The Crock of Gold," while Concealment +and False Witness are severally the _morale_ of "The Twins" and "Heart." +I once meditated ten tales, on the Ten Commandments, these three being +an instalment; and I mentally sketched my fourth upon Idolatry, "The +Prior of Marrick," but nothing came of it. The Decalogue hangs together +as a whole, and cannot be cut into ten distinct subjects without +reference to one another. + +In the chapter headed "The find of the Heartless," I find a manuscript +note perhaps worth printing here: + +"If I had been gifted with the true prophetic power, hereabouts should +my heartless hero have stumbled on a big nugget of gold (I wrote before +the Australian gold discovery), even as the shrewd Defoe invented for +his Robinson Crusoe in Juan Fernandez, where gold has not yet been +found, though it may be. However, I did not originally make the splendid +guess, and will not now in a future edition surreptitiously interpolate +such a suggestive incident, after the example of dishonest Murphy in his +prognostic of that coldest January 7th. It may be true enough that, for +my story's sake, I may wish I had thought of such a not unlikely find: +for the uselessness of the mere metal to a positively starving man in +the desert might have furnished comment analogous to what was uttered by +Timon of Athens; and would have been picturesque enough and +characteristic withal." + +Here may follow a bit of notice for each tale from two critics of +eminence,--as copied from one of my Archive-books, for memory is +treacherous, and I must not invent. Of the "Crock of Gold" Mr. Ollier +wrote as follows:-- + +"A story of extraordinary power, and, which is a still greater eulogy, +of power devoted to a great and beneficent purpose. Mr. Martin Tupper +(the author) is already known to the world by his 'Proverbial +Philosophy,' and other works which indicate an extraordinarily gifted +mind and an originality of conception and treatment rare indeed in these +latter days,--but he has never demonstrated these qualities to such +perfection as in his present deeply interesting work, wherein romance is +united to wisdom, and both to practical utility. Terror is there in its +sternest shape--the hateful lust of gold is shown in all its hideous +deformity and inconceivable meanness, and through the awful suspense +that hovers over the incidents, occasional gleams of pure and hallowed +love come to humanise the darkness. This is cue of the few fictions +constructed to stand the shocks of time." + +And of the other tales we find the following from the pen of the +celebrated Mr. St. John, when he was editor of the _Sunday Times_. He +speaks of the three tales together:-- + +"In every page of this work there is something which a reader would wish +to bear in his memory for ever. For power of animated description, for +eloquent reflections upon the events of everyday life, and for soft, +touching, pathetic appeals to the best feelings of the heart, these +tales are worthy of a place on every library table in the kingdom. They +are well calculated to add to the author's already established +reputation." + +Of this trilogy of tales, undoubtedly the best is the "Crock of Gold:" +"The Twins," though written from living models, is very inferior, as the +hero is too goody-goody and the villain too hopelessly wicked: "Heart" +has more merit, and has been much praised by a celebrated authoress for +its touching chapter on Old Maids. Much of it also is autobiographical, +as with "The Twins." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +AESOP SMITH. + + +"AEsop Smith's Rides and Reveries" is one of the books which, really +written by me from beginning to end, is nominally only edited. It is a +volume of self-experiences, to be read "through the lines,"--and almost +every incident and character therein is drawn from living models and +actual facts. It grew naturally out of the simple circumstance that I +used daily to ride out alone on one of my horses--more exactly, +mares--Minna and Brenda, and jotted down my cantering fancies in prose +or verse when I got home. Hurst & Blackett were its publishers in +1858,--and it soon was all sold off, but did not come to a second +edition in London, though reproduced widely in New York and +Philadelphia. The fact is that, between an independent publisher who +sells a little over cost price, and a Gargantua purchaser of thousands +at a time, like Smith or Mudie, the poor author is sacrificed: he has +received his fee for the edition (I got L100 for this first and only) +and forthwith finds himself dismissed, while the reading public is made +glad by easy perusal instead of costly purchase: and thus he is cheated +of his second edition. Most authors know how their interests are +affected wholesale by that modern system of subscription libraries: but +cheapness pleases the voracious multitude, and so in this competitive +free-trade era the units who feed those devourers are swallowed up +themselves. However, "what must be, must,"--_che sara sara_,--and I care +not even to complain of what cannot be helped, and wins fame to the one, +whilst it does good to the many, though financially unprofitable to +individual authorship. + +In the scarce copy of "AEsop Smith" now before me, I find a few +manuscript notes of mine perhaps worth transcribing. One has it, "This +book is actually autobiographical; but (as Rabelais did) I often mix up +irrelevant and extraneous matter by way of gilding pills, &c., and that +&c. is like one of Coke's upon Littleton, full of hints to be +amplified." Further, "Let readers remember that this book was written +and published long before recent changes in our laws of marriage and +divorce and libel: also when no Englishman dared to go bearded, and no +civilian was permitted to be armed. In advocacy of all these things and +many more, then unheard of but now common, I was in advance of the age; +and in some degree my private notions conduced to very wholesome public +changes." Again: "When Rabelais is diffuse, or a buffoon, or worse, it +may be to throw disputers off the scent as to his real mark of satire or +philosophy. Perhaps, like Liguori, AEsop has written a book for the sake +of a sentence, and veils his true intent in a designed mist of all sorts +of miscellaneous matter. I shan't tell you clearly, but you may guess +for yourselves." The book includes a hundred and thirty original fables, +essayettes, anecdotes, tirades, songs, and musings, all of which +thronged my brain as I cantered along, and were set down in black and +white as soon as I got home. Stay: some were even pencilled in the +saddle,--in especial this, which became very popular afterwards, +particularly in the charming musical composition thereof by Mrs. +Stafford Bush, and as sung by Mr. Fox at St. James's Hall and elsewhere. +It was printed in an earliest edition of my Ballads and Poems (Hall & +Virtue), and is headed there, "Written in the saddle on the crown of my +hat." I reproduce it here for the sake of that heading, though it occurs +also in my extant volume of poems without it:-- + + _The Early Gallop._ + + "At five on a dewy morning, + Before the blaze of day, + To be up and off on a high-mettled horse, + All care and danger scorning, + Over the hills away,-- + To drink the rich sweet breath of the gorse, + And bathe in the breeze of the downs.-- + Ha! man, if you can,--match bliss like this + In all the joys of towns! + + "With glad and grateful tongue to join + The lark at his matin hymn, + And thence on faith's own wing to spring + And sing with cherubim! + To pray from a deep and tender heart + With all things praying anew, + The birds and the bees and the whispering trees, + And heather bedropt with dew.-- + To be one with those early worshippers, + And pour the carol too! + + "Then off again with a slackened rein + And a bounding heart within, + To dash at a gallop over the plain + Health's golden cup to win! + This, this is the race for gain and grace, + Richer than vases and crowns; + And you that boast your pleasures the most + Amid the steam of towns, + Come taste true bliss in a morning like this, + Galloping over the downs!" + +Among the most notable prose pieces (though it is of little use to refer +my readers to a book hopelessly out of print) there may be selected my +panacea for Ireland, to wit, a Royal Residence there to evoke the +loyalty of a warm-hearted people,--I called my fable "The Unsunned +Corner:" I mean to quote some of it in a future political page of this +book. Also other papers, as "Bits of Ribbon," suggesting as just and +wise the more profuse distribution of honours,--in particular +recommending an Alfred or an Albert Order. Also, many of my Rifle +ballads,--whereof, more anon. And "The Over-sharpened Axe"--applicable +to modern Boardschool Educationals: and Colonel Jade's matrimonial +tirades, all real life: and "The Grumbling Gimlet," a fable on Content, +&c. &c. With plenty more notabilia--which those who have the book can +turn to if they will. + +I could fill many pages with the critiques _pro_ and _con_ this queer +book has provoked, but it is useless now that the world has let it die. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +STEPHAN LANGTON--ALFRED. + + +I wrote "Stephan Langton, a Story of the Time of King John," because, +1st, I had little to do in the country; 2dly, I wished to give some +special literary lift to Albury and its neighbourhood, more particularly +as my story had a geographical connection with Surrey; 3dly, I had the +run of Mr. Drummond's library, and consulted there some 300 volumes for +my novel: so it was not an idle work though a rapid one; 4thly, I wanted +to show that though in a Popish age England's heart, and especially +Langton's, was Protestant, quite a precursor of Luther. As this book is +extant, at Lasham's, Guildford, I refer my readers to it. One curious +matter is that my ideal scenes have taken such hold upon my +neighbourhood that streams of tourists come constantly through Albury to +visit "The Silent Pool" and other sites of scenes invented by me, and +have thereby enriched our village inn and the flymen, as well as given +to us a new sort of fame. The book, so cheap in the Guildford edition, +was originally published by Hurst & Blackett in 2 vols., illustrated by +Cousins: that edition is very scarce now. + +The tragedy at the "Silent Pool" and the _Auto-da-fe_ are perhaps the +most dramatic scenes in the book,--as the Robin Hood gathering in Combe +Valley is the most picturesque. + + * * * * * + +I quote a few particulars from one of my diaries. "This book tended to +clear my brain of sundry fancies and pictures, as only the writing of +another book could do _that_. Its seed is truly recorded in the first +chapter as to the two stone coffins still in the chancel of St. +Martha's. I began the book on November 26, 1857, and finished it in +exactly eight weeks, on January 21, 1858, reading for the work included. +In two months more it was printed by Hurst & Blackett. I intended it for +one full volume, but the publishers preferred to issue it in two scant +ones; it has since been reproduced by Lasham, Guildford, in one vol., at +one-and-sixpence; it was 14s. I consulted and partially read for it (as +I wanted accurate pictures of John's reign in England) the histories of +Tyrrell, Hollingshed, Hume, Poole, Markland, Thomson's Magna Charta, +James's Philip Augustus, Milman's Latin Christianity, Hallam's Middle +Ages, Maimbourg's Lives of the Popes, Ranke's Life of Innocent III., +Maitland on the Dark Ages, Ritson's Life of Robin Hood, Salmon's, +Bray's, and Brayley's Surrey, Tupper's and Duncan's Guernsey, besides +the British and National and other Encyclopaedias and Dictionaries as +required. It was a work of hard and quick and fervid labour, not an idle +piece of mere brain-spinning, and it may be depended on for +archaeological accuracy in every detail. More than thirty localities in +our beautiful county Surrey are painted in the book; of other parts of +England twelve; of France and Italy twelve; there are more than twenty +historical characters honestly (as I judge) depicted; and some fifteen +ideal ones fairly enough invented as accessories: I preferred Stephan +to the commoner Stephen, for etymological and archaeological reasons: it +is clearly nearer the Greek, and is spelt so in ancient records." + +King Alfred's own Poems. + +One of the rarest of the books I have written (if any bibliomaniac of +some future age desires to collect them) must always be "King Alfred's +Poems, now first turned into English metres;" for the little volume was +privately printed by Dr. Allen Giles, the edition being only of 250 +copies, which soon vanished, a few of them bearing Hall & Virtue's name +on a new title, and being dated 1850,--the majority hailing from the +private press aforesaid. I constructed it purposely for the "Jubilee +Edition of the Works of King Alfred," learning as well as I could (by +the help of Dr. Bosworth's Dictionary and a Grammar) in a few weeks a +little Anglo-Saxon,--and I confess considerably assisted by Mr. Fox's +prose translation of Boethius. There are thirty-one poems in all, some +being of Alfred's own, but the major part rendered by the wise king out +of Latin into the language of his own people to help their teaching. I +turned it into English verse in thirty-one different metres, each being +as nearly as I could manage in the rhythm of the original: there were no +rhymes in those days; alliteration was the only sort of jingle: in the +judgment of Mr. Fox and some other Anglo-Saxon critics my version was +fairly close, and for the poetical part of my own production at least +nothing is of the slipshod order of half rhymes or alternate prose and +verse--too common, especially in our hymnology--but honest double +rhyming throughout. Without transcribing the little volume I could not +give a true idea of it: but here shall come three or four samples:-- + + "Lo, I sang cheerily + In my bright days,-- + But now all wearily + Chaunt I my lays,-- + Sorrowing tearfully, + Saddest of men, + Can I sing cheerfully + As I could then?" &c. &c. + +Here is a verse of another:-- + + "O Thou that art Maker of heaven and earth, + Who steerest the stars, and hast given them birth, + For ever thou reignest upon Thy high throne, + And turnest all swiftly the heavenly zone," &c. + +Yet another:-- + + "What is a man the better, + A man of worldly mould, + Though he be gainful getter + Of richest gems and gold, + With every kind well filled + Of goods in ripe array, + And though for him be tilled + A thousand fields a day?" &c. + +Again:-- + + "I have wings like a bird, and more swiftly can fly + Far over this earth to the roof of the sky, + And now must I feather thy fancies, O mind, + To leave the mid earth and its earthlings behind," &c. + +And for a last word:-- + + "Thus quoth Alfred--'If thou growest old + And hast no pleasure, spite of weal and gold, + And goest weak,--then thank thy Lord for this, + That He hath sent thee hitherto much bliss, + For life and light and pleasures past away; + And say thou, Come and welcome, come what may.'" + +These are little bits taken casually: to each of the poems I have added +suitable comment in prose. Mr. Bohn in his well-known series has added +my verse to Mr. Fox's prose Boethius. + +The Anglo-Saxon preface to that volume commences thus: "Alfred, King, +was the translator of this book: and from book-Latin turned it into Old +English, as it is now done. Awhile he put word for word; awhile sense +for sense. He learned this book, and translated it for his own people, +and turned it into song, as it is now done." His Old English song, that +is, Anglo-Saxon alliteration, is all now modernised in this curious +little book of English metres. It was well praised by many critics; but +at present is out of the market. When I am "translated" myself, all +these old works of mine will rise again in a voluminous complete +edition. + + * * * * * + +"The Alfred Jubilee," on that great king's thousandth year, 1848, is one +of the exploits of my literary life, undertaken and accomplished by Mr. +Evelyn, the brothers Brereton, Dr. Giles, and myself in the year 1848, +chiefly at Wantage, where Alfred was born. We arranged meetings and +banquets in several places, notably Liverpool, where Mr. Bramwell Moore, +the mayor, gave a great feast in commemoration, a medal was struck, the +Jubilee edition of King Alfred's works was at least begun at Dr. Giles's +private printing-press, whilst at Wantage itself 20,000 people collected +from all parts for old English games, speeches, appropriate songs, such +as "To-day is the day of a thousand years" from my pen, collections for +a local school and college as a lasting memorial, and--to please the +commonalty--a gorgeous procession and an ox roasted whole, with gilded +horns and ribbons,--the huge carcase turned like a hare on a gigantic +spit by help of a steam-engine before a furnace of two tons of blazing +coal; and that ox was consumed after a most barbaric Abyssinian fashion +in the open air. My Anglo-Saxon Magazine came out strong on the +occasion,--but it is obsolete now; and I care not to use up space in +reprinting patriotic indignation: for let me state that, considered as a +national commemoration of the Great King, the chief founder of our +liberties, this Wantage jubilee was all but a failure; the British lion +slumbered, and it was flogging a dead horse to try to wake him up; very +few of the magnates responded to our appeal: but we did our best, +nevertheless, as independent Englishmen, and locally achieved a fair +success. + +If I went into the whole story with anecdotical detail, I should weary +my reader: let me only reproduce my song at the grand Liverpool banquet, +by way of ending cheerily. + + _The Day of a Thousand Years._ + + "To-day is the day of a thousand years! + Bless it, O brothers, with heart-thrilling cheers! + Alfred for ever!--to-day was He born, + Day-star of England, to herald her morn, + That, everywhere breaking and brightening soon, + Sheds on us now the full sunshine of noon, + And fills us with blessing in Church and in State, + Children of Alfred, the Good and the Great! + _Chorus_--Hail to his Jubilee Day, + The Day of a thousand years. + + "Anglo-Saxons!--in love are we met, + To honour a Name we can never forget! + Father, and Founder, and King of a race + That reigns and rejoices in every place,-- + Root of a tree that o'ershadows the earth, + First of a Family blest from his birth, + Blest in this stem of their strength and their state, + Alfred the Wise, and the Good, and the Great! + _Chorus_,--Hail to his Jubilee Day, + The Day of a thousand years! + + "Children of Alfred, from every clime + Your glory shall live to the deathday of Time! + Hereafter in bliss still ever expand + O'er measureless realms of the Heavenly Land! + For you, like him, serve God and your Race, + And gratefully look on the birthday of Grace: + Then honour to Alfred! with heart-stirring cheers! + To-day is the Day of a thousand years! + _Chorus_,--Hail to his Jubilee Day, + The Day of a thousand years!" + +This song was set to excellent music, and went well, especially in the +chorus. Several Americans were of our company, in particular, Richmond, +a literary friend of mine. At the dinner I had to make a principal +speech, and my cousin Gaspard of the Artillery (now General) answered +for the Army. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +SHAKESPEARE COMMEMORATION. + + +On the three-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon I +contributed an ode, to be found in my extant book of poems. Among the +notabilia of the feastings and celebration, I remember how Lord Houghton +raised a great laugh by his pretended indignation when the glee singers +greeted the guests at dinner as "Ye spotted snakes with double +tongue!"--Doubtless it was a Shakespearean old English piece of +music,--but stupidly enough selected for a complimentary greeting. My +ode was well received, but I'll say no more of that, as it can speak for +itself. Lord Leigh made us all very welcome at his splendid Palladian +mansion, and there I met Lord Carlisle, then Viceroy of Ireland, who +kindly told me that as he had known my father, and knew me, and my son +was then in Ireland (he was a captain in the 29th Regiment), he would +put him on his staff, as a third generation of the name. I am not sure +if this happened, for my son soon was sent elsewhere; and he has long +since gone to the Better Land. But Lord Carlisle's kindness was all the +same. At the ball I remember Lord Carlisle's diamonds hanging like a +string of glass chandelier drops at his button-hole with a Shakespeare +favour, and jingling perilously for chippings as he danced: for size +those half-dozen Koh-i-noors must be--foolishly--invaluable. + +At Stratford Church, either then or some while after, I strangely was +the means of saving Shakespeare's own baptismal font from destruction, +as thus: the church had been "restored,"--_i.e._, all its best patina +was polished away; and among the "improvements," I noticed a brand new +font. "Where is the old one?" "O sir, the mason who supplied the new one +took it away." So I called and found this font--quite sacred in +Shakespearean eyes as where their idol had been christened--lying broken +in a corner of the yard. Then off I went to the rector, I think it was a +Mr. Granville, expostulating; and (to make the matter short) with some +difficulty I got the font mended and put back again, as it certainly +never should have been removed. I have since been to Stratford, and find +that they use the new font, and have put the old one in a corner of the +nave. + +An odd thing happened to me in the church, where at the vestry I had +just signed my name as other visitors did. An American, utterly unknown +to me as I to him, came eagerly up to me as I was inspecting that +unsatisfactory bust and inscription about Shakespeare, and said, "Come +and see what I've found,--Martin Tupper's autograph,--he must be +somewhere near, for he has just signed: do tell, is he here?" I rather +thought he might be. "I've wished to see him ever since I was a small +boy. Do you know him, sir?" Well, yes, a little. "Show him to me, sir, +won't you? I'd give ten dollars for his autograph." After a word or two +more, my good nature gave him the precious signature without the +dollars,--and I shan't easily forget his frantic joy, showing the +document to all around him, whilst I escaped. + +Besides a Pindaric Ode to Shakespeare, to be found in my Miscellaneous +Poems, wherein many of his characters are touched upon, I wrote the +following sonnet, now out of print:-- + + _The Stratford Jubilee._ + + "Went not thy spirit gladly with us then, + Most genial Shakespeare!--wast thou not with us + Who throng'd to honour thee and love thee thus, + A few among thy subject fellow-men? + Yea,--let me truly think it; for thy heart + (Though now long since the free-made citizen + Of brighter cities where we trust thou art) + Was one, in its great whole and every part, + With human sympathies: we seem to die, + But verily live; we grow, improve, expand, + When Death transplants us to that Happier Land; + Therefore, sweet Shakespeare, came thy spirit nigh, + Cordial with Man, and grateful to High Heaven + For all our love to thy dear memory given." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +TRANSLATIONS AND PAMPHLETS. + + +The best of my unpublished MSS. of any size or consequence is perhaps my +translation of Book Alpha of the Iliad, quite literal and in its +original metre of hexameters: hitherto I have failed to find a publisher +kind enough to lose by it; for there are already at least twelve English +versions of Homer unread, perhaps unreadable. Still, some day I don't +despair to gain an enterprising Sosius; for my literal and hexametrical +translation is almost what Carthusians used to call "a crib," and +perhaps some day the School Board or their organ, Mr. Joseph Hughes's +_Practical Teacher_, may adopt my version. Its origin and history is +this: finding winter evenings in the country wearisome to my homeflock, +I used to read to them profusely and discursively. Amongst other books, +a literary daughter suggested Pope's Homer; which, as I read, after a +little while, I found to be so very free and incorrect a translation (if +my memory served me rightly) that I resolved to see what I could do by +reading from the original Greek in its own (English) metre. I soon found +it quite easy to be both terse and literal; and having rhythm only to +care for without the tag of rhyme, I soon pleased my hearers and in some +sort myself, reading "off the reel" directly from the Greek into the +English. + +This version is still unblotted by printer's ink: if any compositor +pleases he is welcome to work on the copy; which I can supply gratis: +only I do not promise to do more than I have done, Book Alpha. Life is +too short for such literary playwork. + +Here followeth a sample: quite literal: line for line, almost word for +word: my translation renders Homer exactly. I choose the short bit where +Thetis pleads with Jove for her irate son, because I am sure Tennyson +must have had this passage in his mind when he drew his word-picture of +Vivien with Merlin. + + "But now at length the twelfth morn from the first had arrived; + and returning + Came to Olympus together the glorious band of immortals, + Zeus the great king at their head. And Thetis, remembering the + cravings + Of her own son, and his claims, uprose to the surface of ocean, + And through the air flew swift to high heaven, ascending Olympus. + There she found sitting alone on the loftiest peak of the mountain + All-seeing Zeus, son of Kronos, apart from the other celestials. + So she sat closely beside him, embracing his knees with her + left hand, + While with her right she handled his beard, and tenderly stroked it, + Whispering thus her prayer to Zeus, the great king, son of + Kronos," &c. &c. + +Let that suffice with a _caetera desunt_. + +I need not say that I have written innumerable other, translated pieces, +from earliest days of school exercises to these present. There is +scarcely a classic I have not so tampered with: and (though a poor +modern linguist) I have touched--with dictionary and other help, a few +bits of Petrarch, Dante, &c.; examples whereof may be seen in my "Modern +Pyramid," as already mentioned. + + +Sundry Pamphlets. + +My several publications in pamphlet shape may ask for a page or +two,--the chief perhaps (and therefore I begin with it) being my "Hymn +for All Nations" in thirty languages, issued at the time of the first +great exhibition in 1851, due to a letter I wrote to the Bishop of +London on November 22, 1850, urging such a universal psalm. Mr. +Brettell, a printer, issued this curiosity of typography: for it has all +the strange types which the Bible Society could lend; and several other, +versions than the fifty published (some being duplicated) are in a great +volume before me, unprinted because neither England, nor Germany, nor +America could supply types for sundry out-of-the-way languages +contributed by missionaries in the four quarters of the world. My hymn +was "a simple psalm, so constructed as scarcely to exclude a truth, or +to offend a prejudice; with special reference to the great event of this +year, and yet so ordered that it can never be out of season." "This +polyglot hymn at the lowest estimate is a philological curiosity: so +many minds, with such diversity in similitude rendering literally into +all the languages of the earth one plain psalm, a world-wide call to man +to render thanks to God." Dr. Wesley and several others contributed the +music, and the best scholars of all lands did the literature: the mere +printing of so many languages was pronounced a marvel in its way; and I +have a bookful of notices, of course laudatory, where it was not +possible to find fault with so small a piece of literature. It may be +well to give the hymn admission here, as the booklet is excessively +scarce. + +The title goes--"A Hymn for all Nations," 1851, translated into thirty +languages (upwards of fifty versions). + + "Glorious God! on Thee we call, + Father, Friend, and Judge of all; + Holy Saviour, heavenly King, + Homage to Thy throne we bring! + + "In the wonders all around + Ever is Thy Spirit found, + And of each good thing we see + All the good is born of Thee! + + "Thine the beauteous skill that lurks + Everywhere in Nature's works-- + Thine is Art, with all its worth, + Thine each masterpiece on earth! + + "Yea,--and, foremost in the van, + Springs from Thee the Mind of Man; + On its light, for this is Thine, + Shed abroad the love divine! + + "Lo, our God! Thy children here + From all realms are gathered near, + Wisely gathered, gathering still,-- + For 'peace on earth, towards men goodwill!' + + "May we, with fraternal mind, + Bless our brothers of mankind! + May we, through redeeming love, + Be the blest of God above!" + +Beside this, I give from memory a list of others of the pamphlet sort, +perhaps imperfect:-- + +1. "The Desecrated Church," relating to ancient Albury,--whereof this +matter is remarkable; I had protested against its demolition to Bishop +Sumner, and used the expression in my letter that the man who was doing +the wrong of changing the old church in his park for a new one elsewhere +would "lay the foundation in his first-born and in his youngest son set +up its gates" (Josh. vi. 26); and the two sons of the lord of the manor +died in succession as seemingly was foretold. + +2. "A Voice from the Cloister," whereof I have spoken before. + +3. "A Prophetic Ode,"--happily hindered from proving true, only because +the Rifle movement drove away those vultures, Louis Napoleon's hungry +colonels, from our unprotected shores. There are also in the poem some +curious thoughts about the Arctic Circle, its magnetic heat, and +possible habitability; also others about thought-reading and the like; +all this being long in advance of the age, for that ode was published by +Bosworth in 1852. Also, I anticipated then as now-- + + "To fly as a bird in the air + Despot man doth dare! + His humbling cumbersome body at length + Light as the lark upsprings, + Buoyed by tamed explosive strength + And steel-ribbed albatross wings!" + +With plenty of other curious matter. That ode is extinct, but will +revive. + +4. So also with "A Creed, &c.," which bears the imprint of Simpkin & +Marshall, and the date 1870. Its chief peculiarities are summed up in +the concluding lines:-- + + "So then, in brief, my creed is truly this; + Conscience is our chief seed of woe or bliss; + God who made all things is to all things Love, + Balancing wrongs below by rights above; + Evil seemed needful that the good be shown, + And Good was swift that Evil to atone; + While creatures, link'd together, each with each, + Of one great Whole in changeful sequence teach, + Life-presence everywhere sublimely vast + And endless for the future as the past." + +For I believe in some future life for the lower animals as well as for +their unworthier lord; and in the immortality of all creation. Some +other poems and hymns also are in this pamphlet. + +5. My "Fifty Protestant Ballads," published, by Ridgeway, will be +mentioned hereafter. + +6. "Ten Letters on the Female Martyrs of the Reformation," published by +the Protestant Mission. + +7 and 8. "Hactenus" and "A Thousand Lines," most whereof are in my +"Cithara" and Miscellaneous Poems. + +9. A pamphlet about Canada, and its closer union to us by dint of +imperialism and honours, dated several years before these have come to +pass. + +10. Sundry shorter pamphlets on Rhyme, Model Colonisation, Druidism, +Household Servants, My Newspaper, Easter Island, False Schooling, &c. +&c. Not to mention some serial letters long ago in the _Times_ about the +Coronation, Ireland, and divers other topics. Every author writes to the +_Times_. + +11. As a matter of course I have written both with my name and without +it (according to editorial rule) in many magazines and reviews, from the +_Quarterly_ of Lockhart's time to the _Rock_ of this, not to count +numerous reviews of books _passim_, besides innumerable fly-leaves, +essayettes, sermonettes, &c. &c., in the _Rock_ and elsewhere. + +12. I was editor for about two years of an extinct three-monthly, the +_Anglo-Saxon_: in one of which I wrote nine articles, as the +contributions received were inappropriate. I never worked harder in my +life; but the magazine failed, the chief reason being that the monied +man who kept it alive insisted upon acceptance when rejection was +inevitable. + +13. Some printed letters of mine on Grammar, issued in small pamphlet +form at the _Practical Teacher_ office; and sundry others unpublished, +called "Talks about Science," still in MS. + +14. "America Revisited," a lecture, in three numbers, of _Golden Hours_. + +15. Separate bundles of ballads in pamphlet form about Australia, New +Zealand, Church Abuses, The War, &c. &c. + +Besides possibly some other like booklets forgotten. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +PATERFAMILIAS, GUERNSEY, MONA. + + +When I returned in the autumn of 1855 from my principal continental +tour, wherein for three months I had conducted my whole family of eleven +(servants inclusive) all through the usual route of French and Swiss +travel,--I committed my journal to Hatchard, who forthwith published it; +but not to any signal success,--for it was anonymous, which was a +mistake: however, I did not care to make public by name all the daily +details of my homeflock pilgrimage. The pretty little book with its fine +print of the Pass of Gondo as a frontispiece, nevertheless made its way, +and has been inserted in Mr. Gregory's list of guide-books as a +convenience if not a necessity to travellers on the same roads, though +in these days of little practical use: indeed, wherever we stopped, I +contrived to exhaust, on the spot all that was to be seen or done, with +the advantages of personal inspection, and therefore of graphic and true +description. The book has been praised for its interest and includes +divers accidents, happily surmounted, divers exploits in the milder form +of Alpine climbing (as the Mauvais Pas, which I touch experimentally at +the end of Life's Lessons, in "Proverbial Philosophy," Series IV.), +divers grand sights, as the Great Exhibition, close to which we lived +for some weeks in the Champs Elysees, and many pleasant incidents, as +greetings with friends, old and new, and other usual _memorabilia_. +Among these let me mention the honest kindliness of Courier +Pierre,--always called Pere by my children, with whom he was a great +favourite--the more readily because he has long gone to "the bourne +whence no traveller returns," so he needs no recommendation from his +late employer. This, then, I say is memorable. At Lucerne, as my +remittance from Herries failed to reach me, I seemed obliged to make a +stop and to return; but Pierre objected, saying it was "great pity not +to pass the Simplon and see Milan,--and, if Monsieur would permit him, +he could lend whatever was needful, and could be paid again." Certainly +I said this was very kind, and so I borrowed at his solicitation:--it +was L100, as I find by the journal; our travel was costing us L40 a +week. Well, to recount briefly, when, after having placed in our +_repertoire_ Bellinzona, Como, Milan, &c. &c., I found myself at Geneva, +and with remittances awaiting me, my first act was to place in Pierre's +hands L105,--and when he counted the notes, he said, "Sare, there is one +five-pound too many."--"Of course, my worthy Pierre, I hope you will +accept that as interest."--"Non, Monsieur, pardon; I could not, I always +bring money to help my families:"--and he would not. Now, if that was +not a model courier, worthy to be commemorated thus,--well, I hope there +are some others of his brethren on the office-books of Bury Street, St. +James's, who are equally duteous and disinterested. "Some people are +heroes to their valets; my worthy help is a hero to me:" so saith my +journal. Here's another extract, after two slight earthquakes at Brieg, +and Turtman (Turris Magna);--"Again a bad accident. One of our spirited +wheelers got his hind leg over the pole in going down a hill: at once +there was a chaos of fallen horses and entangled harness, and but for +the screw machine drag locking both hind-wheels we must have been upset +and smashed,--as it was, the scrambling and kicking at first was +frightful; but Paterfamilias dragged the younger children out into the +road, and other help was nigh at hand, and the providential calm that +comes over fallen horses after their initiatory struggle was at hand +too, and in due time matters were righted: that those two fiery +stallions did not kick everything to pieces, and that all four steeds +did not gallop us to destruction, was due, under Providence, to the +skill and courage of our good Pierre and the patient +Muscatelli."--Railways have since superseded all this peril, and cost, +and care: and trains now go _through_ the Simplon, instead of "good +horses, six to the heavy carriage, four to the light one," pulling us +steadily and slowly _over_ it: thus losing the splendid scenery climaxed +by the Devil's Bridge: but let moderns be thankful. "Paterfamilias's +Diary" has long been out of print, and its author is glad that he made +at the time a full record of the happy past, and recommends its perusal +to any one who can find a copy anywhere. My friend, the late Major Hely, +who claimed an Irish peerage, was very fond of this "Diary," and thought +it "the best book of travels he had ever read." + + +Guernsey. + +Guernsey is another of the spots where your author has lived and +written, though neither long nor much. He comes, as is well known, of an +ancient Sarnian family, as mentioned before. As to any writings of mine +about insular matters while sojourning there occasionally, they are +confined to some druidical verses about certain cromlechs, a few other +poems, as one given below--"A Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney,"--and +in chief that in which I "Raised the Haro," which saved the most +picturesque part of Castle Cornet from destruction by some artillery +engineer. Here is the poem, supposing some may wish to see it: +especially as it does not appear in my only extant volume of poems, Gall +& Inglis. It occurs (I think solely) in Hall & Virtue's extinct edition +of my Ballads and Poems, 1853, and is there headed "'The Clameur de +Haro,' an old Norman appeal to the Sovereign, 1850":-- + + "Haro, Haro! a l'aide, mon Prince! + A loyal people calls; + Bring out Duke Rollo's Norman lance + To stay destruction's fell advance + Against the Castle walls: + Haro, Haro! a l'aide, ma Reine! + Thy duteous children not in vain + Plead for old Cornet yet again, + To spare it, ere it falls! + + "What? shall Earl Rodolph's sturdy strength, + After six hundred years, at length + Be recklessly laid low? + His grey machicolated tower + Torn down within one outraged hour + By worse than Vandals' ruthless power?-- + Haro! a l'aide, Haro! + + "Nine years old Cornet for the throne + Against rebellion stood alone-- + And honoured still shall stand, + For heroism so sublime, + A relic of the olden time, + Renowned in Guernsey prose and rhyme, + The glory of her land! + + "Ay,--let your science scheme and plan + With better skill than so; + Touch not this dear old barbican, + Nor dare to lay it low! + + "On Vazon's ill-protected bay + Build and blow up, as best ye may, + And do your worst to scare away + Some visionary foe,-- + But, if in brute and blundering power + You tear down Rodolph's granite tower, + Defeat and scorn and shame that hour + Shall whelm you like an arrowy shower-- + Haro! a l'aide, Haro!" + +When my antiquarian cousin Ferdinand, the historian of "Sarnia" and our +"Family Records," saw these lines, he positively made serious +objection--while generally approving them--against my saying "six +hundred years," whereas, according to him, it was only five hundred and +ninety-three! he actually wanted me to alter it, or at all events insert +"almost,"--so difficult is it to reconcile literal accuracy with +poetical rhyme and rhythm. I seem to remember that he wrote to the local +papers about this. However, it is some consolation to know that these +heartfelt verses forced the War Office to spare Castle Cornet: the +Norman appeal by Haro being a privilege of Channel-Islanders to bring +their grievances direct to the Queen in council. As I have continually +the honour "Monstrari digito praetereuntium" in the _role_ of a +"Fidicen," I suppose that poetries in such a self-record as this are not +positive bores--they can always be skipped if they are--so I will even +give here a cheerful bit of rhyme which I jotted down at midnight on the +deck of a yacht in a half-gale off Cherbourg, when going with a +deputation from Guernsey to meet the French President in 1850:-- + + _A Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney._ + + I. + + "Sprinkled thick with shining studs + Stretches wide the tent of heaven, + Blue, begemmed with golden buds,-- + Calm, and bright, and deep, and clear, + Glory's hollow hemisphere + Arch'd above these frothing floods + Right and left asunder riven, + As our cutter madly scuds, + By the fitful breezes driven, + When exultingly she sweeps + Like a dolphin through the deeps, + And from wave to wave she leaps + Rolling in this yeasty leaven,-- + Ragingly that never sleeps, + Like the wicked unforgiven! + + II. + + "Midnight, soft and fair above, + Midnight, fierce and dark beneath,-- + All on high the smile of love, + All below the frown of death: + Waves that whirl in angry spite + With a phosphorescent light + Gleaming ghastly on the night,-- + Like the pallid sneer of Doom, + So malicious, cold, and white, + Luring to this watery tomb, + Where in fury and in fright + Winds and waves together fight + Hideously amid the gloom,-- + As our cutter gladly sends, + Dipping deep her sheeted boom + Madly to the boiling sea, + Lighted in these furious floods + By that blaze of brilliant studs, + Glistening down like glory-buds + On the Race of Alderney!" + +A few more words as to my Sarnian literaria. Victor Hugo, when resident +in Guernsey, had greatly offended my cousin (the chief of our clan) by +stealing for his hired abode the title of our ancestral mansion, Haute +Ville House: and so, when I called on him, the equally offended +Frenchman would not see me, though I was indulged with a sight of the +_bric-a-brac_ wherewith he had filled his residence, albeit deprived of +access to its inmate. Hugo was not popular among the sixties at that +time. Since then, Mr. Sullivan of Jersey published on his decease some +splendid stanzas in French, which by request I versified in English: so +that our spirits are now manifestly _en rapport_. + +I wrote also (as I am reminded) an ode on the consecration of St. +Anne's, Alderney, when I accompanied the Bishop to the ceremony: and +some memorable stanzas about the decent expediency of the Bailiff and +Jurats being robed for official uniform, since ornamentally adopted; but +before I wrote they wore mean and undistinguished "mufti." + +I had also much to do on behalf of my friend Durham, the sculptor, in +the matter of his bronze statue to Prince Albert,--advocating it both in +prose and verse, and being instrumental in getting royal permission to +take a duplicate of the great work now at South Kensington. My cousin +the Bailiff, the late Sir Stafford Carey, dated his knighthood from the +inauguration of the statue, now one of the chief ornaments of St. +Peter's Port,--the other being the Victoria Tower, also a Sarnian +exploit. + + +Isle of Man. + +Under such a title as this, "My Life as an Author," that author being +chiefly known for his poetry, though he has also written plenty of +prose, it is (as I have indeed just said) not to be reasonably objected +that the volume is spotted with small poems. Still, I must do it, if I +wish to illustrate by verse, or other extracts from my writings +(published or unprinted), certain places where the said author has had +his temporary _habitat_: now one of these is the Isle of Man,--where I +and mine made a long summer stay at Castle Mona. The chief literary +productions of mine in that modern Trinacria, whose heraldic emblem, +like that of ancient Sicily, is the Three legs of Three promontories, +are some antiquarian pieces, principally one on the sepulchral mound of +Orry the Dane:-- + + "In fifty keels and five + Rushed over the pirate swarm, + Hornets out of the northern hive, + Hawks on the wings of the storm; + Blood upon talons and beak, + Blood from their helms to their heels, + Blood on the hand and blood on the cheek,-- + In five and fifty keels! + + "O fierce and terrible horde + That shout about Orry the Dane, + Clanging the shield and clashing the sword + To the roar of the storm-tost main! + And hard on the shore they drive + Ploughing through shingle and sand,-- + And high and dry those fifty and five + Are haul'd in line upon land. + + "And ho! for the torch straightway, + In honour of Odin and Thor,-- + And the blazing night is as bright as the day + As a gift to the gods of war; + For down to the melting sand + And over each flaring mast + Those fifty and five they have burnt as they stand + To the tune of the surf and the blast! + + "A ruthless, desperate crowd, + They trample the shingle at Lhane, + And hungry for slaughter they clamour aloud + For the Viking, for Orry the Dane! + And swift has he flown at the foe-- + For the clustering clans are here,-- + But light is the club and weak is the bow + To the Norseman sword and spear: + + "And--woe to the patriot Manx, + The right overthrown by the wrong,-- + For the sword hews hard at the staggering ranks, + And the spear drives deep and strong: + And Orry the Dane stands proud + King of the bloodstained field, + Lifted on high by the shouldering crowd + On the battered boss of his shield! + + "Yet, though such a man of blood, + So terribly fierce and fell, + King Orry the Dane had come hither for good, + And governed the clans right well; + Freedom and laws and right, + He sowed the good seed all round-- + And built up high in the people's sight + Their famous Tynwald Mound; + + "And elders twenty and four + He set for the House of Keys, + And all was order from shore to shore + In the fairest Isle of the Seas: + Though he came a destroyer, I wist + He remained as a ruler to save, + And yonder he sleeps in the roadside kist + They call King Orry's Grave." + +It was at Castle Mona that I first met Walter Montgomery, who read these +very lines to great effect at one of his Recitations, and thereafter +produced at Manchester my play of "Alfred." He was, amongst other +accomplishments, a capital horseman, and when he galloped over the sands +on his white horse, he would jump benches with their sitters, calling +out "Don't stir, we shall clear you!" It would have required no small +coolness and courage to have abided his charge, and though I saw him do +this once, I question if he was allowed to repeat the exploit. + +In Douglas was also my artist-friend Corbould, visiting at the romantic +place of his relatives the Wilsons, who had to show numerous paintings +and relics of John Martin, with whom in old days I had pleasant +acquaintance at Chelsea and elsewhere. I remember that on one occasion +when I asked him which picture of his own he considered his +_chef-d'oeuvre_ I was astonished at his reply, "Sardanapalus's +death,--and therein his jewels." Martin's Chelsea garden had its walls +frescoed by him to look like views and avenues,--certainly effective, +but rather in the style of Grimaldi's garden made gay by artificial +flowers and Aladdin's gems, _a la mode_ Cockayne. At Bishop's Court too +we had a very friendly reception from Bishop Powys, and in fact +everywhere as usual your confessor found a cordial author's welcome in +Mona. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +NEVER GIVE UP, AND SOME OTHER BALLADS. + + +Sundry of my short lyrics have gained a great popularity: in particular +"Never give up," whereof there are extant--or were--no fewer than eight +musical settings. Of this ballad, three stanzas, I have a strange story +to tell. When I went to Philadelphia, on my first American tour in 1851, +I was taken everywhere to see everything; amongst others to Dr. +Kirkland's vast institute for the insane: let me first state that he was +not previously told of my coming visit. When I went over the various +wards of the convalescents, I noticed that on each door was a printed +placard with my "Never give up" upon it in full. Naturally I thought it +was done so out of compliment. But on inquiry, Dr. Kirkland didn't know +who the author was, and little suspected it was myself. He had seen the +verses, anonymous, in a newspaper, and judging them a good moral dose of +hopefulness even for the half insane, placed them on every door to +excellent effect. When to his astonishment he found the unknown author +before him, greatly pleased, he asked if I would allow the patients to +thank me; of course I complied, and soon was surrounded by kneeling and +weeping and kissing folks, grateful for the good hope my verses had +helped them to. And twenty-five years after, in 1876, I, again without +notice, visited Dr. Kirkland at the same place, scarcely expecting to +find him still living, and certainly not thinking that I should see my +old ballad on the doors. But, when the happy doctor, looking not an hour +older, though it was a quarter of a century, took me round to see his +convalescents, behold the same words greeted me in large print,--and +probably are there still: the only change being that my name appears at +foot. I gave them a two hours' reading in their handsome theatre, and I +never had a more intensely attentive audience than those three hundred +lunatics. The ballad runs thus,--if any wish to see it, as for the first +time:-- + + "Never give up! it is wiser and better + Always to hope than once to despair; + Fling off the load of Doubt's heavy fetter + And break the dark spell of tyrannical care: + Never give up! or the burden may sink you,-- + Providence kindly has mingled the cup, + And, in all trials or troubles, bethink you + The watchword of life must be Never give up! + + "Never give up! there are chances and changes + Helping the hopeful a hundred to one, + And through the chaos High Wisdom arranges + Ever success, if you'll only hope on: + Never give up! for the wisest is boldest, + Knowing that Providence mingles the cup, + And of all maxims the best as the oldest + Is the true watchword of Never give up! + + "Never give up! though the grapeshot may rattle + Or the full thunderbolt over you burst, + Stand like a rock,--and the storm or the battle + Little shall harm you, though doing their worst: + Never give up!--if Adversity presses, + Providence wisely has mingled the cup, + And the best counsel in all your distresses + Is the stout watchword of Never give up!" + +I can quite feel what a moral tonic and spiritual stimulant these +sentiments would be to many among the thousand patients under Dr. +Kirkland's care. + +I recollect also now, that once when I read at Weston-super-Mare, with +Lord Cavan in the chair, a military man among the audience, on hearing +me recite "Never give up," came forward and shook hands, showing me out +of his pocket-book a soiled newspaper cutting of the poem without my +name, saying that it had cheered him all through the Crimea, and that he +had always wished to find out the author. Of course we coalesced right +heartily. Some other such anecdotes might be added, but this is enough. + + * * * * * + +Year by year, for more than a dozen, I have given a harvest hymn to the +jubilant agriculturists: they have usually attained the honour of a +musical setting, and been sung all over the land in many churches. +Perhaps the best of them is one for which Bishop Samuel Wilberforce +wrote to "thank me cordially for a real Christian hymn with the true +ring in it." There are, or were, many musical settings thereof, the best +being one of a German composer. + + "O Nation, Christian Nation + Lift high the hymn of praise! + The God of our salvation + Is love in all His ways; + He blesseth us, and feedeth + Every creature of His hand, + To succour him that needeth + And to gladden all the land. + + "Rejoice, ye happy people, + And peal the changing chime + From every belfried steeple + In symphony sublime: + Let cottage and let palace + Be thankful and rejoice, + And woods and hills and valleys + Re-echo the glad voice! + + "From glen, and plain, and city + Let gracious incense rise; + The Lord of life and pity + Hath heard His creatures' cries: + And where in fierce oppression + Stalk'd fever, fear, and dearth, + He pours a triple blessing + To fill and fatten earth! + + "Gaze round in deep emotion; + The rich and ripened grain + Is like a golden ocean + Becalm'd upon the plain; + And we who late were weepers, + Lest judgment should destroy, + Now sing, because the reapers + Are come again with joy! + + "O praise the Hand that giveth, + And giveth evermore, + To every soul that liveth + Abundance flowing o'er! + For every soul He filleth + With manna from above, + And over all distilleth + The unction of His love. + + "Then gather, Christians, gather, + To praise with heart and voice + The good Almighty Father + Who biddeth you rejoice: + For He hath turned the sadness + Of His children into mirth, + And we will sing with gladness + The harvest-home of Earth." + +My "Song of Seventy," published more than forty years ago, has been +exceedingly popular; and I here make this extract from an early +archive-book respecting it:--"Dr. Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, was so +pleased with this said 'Song of Seventy' that he posted off to +Hatchards' forthwith (after seeing it quoted anonymously in the +_Athenaeum_) to inquire the author's name." It was published in "One +Thousand Lines." I composed it during a solitary walk near +Hurstperpoint, Sussex, in 1845, near about when I wrote "Never give up." + + * * * * * + +Of my several ballads upon Gordon (I think there were nine of them) I +will here enshrine one, printed in the newspapers of May 1884, and +perhaps worthiest to be saved from evanescence:-- + + "If England had but spoken + With Wellesley's lion roar, + Or flung out Nelson's token + Of duty as of yore, + We should not now, too late, too late, + Be saddened day by day, + Dreading to hear of Gordon's fate, + The victim of delay. + + "He felt in isolation + '_Civis Romanus sum_,' + And trusted his great nation + Right sure that help would come: + Could he have dreamt that British power + Which placed him at his post, + In peril's long-expected hour + Would leave him to be lost? + + "He lives alone for others,-- + Himself he scorns to save, + And ev'n with savage brothers + Will share their bloody grave! + Woe! woe to us! should England's glory, + To our rulers' blame, + Close gallant Gordon's wondrous story, + England! in thy shame." + +This was half prophetic at the time, and we all have grieved for +England's Christian hero ever since. + + * * * * * + +When Lord Shaftesbury's lamented death lately touched the national +heart, I felt as others did and uttered this sentiment accordingly:-- + + _The Good Earl._ + + "Grieve not for him, as those who mourn the dead; + He lives! Ascended from that dying bed, + Clad in an incense-cloud of human love, + His happy spirit met the blest above; + And as his feet entered the golden door, + With him flew in loud blessings of the poor; + While in a thrilling chorus from below-- + Millions of children, saved by him from woe, + With their sweet voices joined the seraphim + Who thronged in raptured haste to welcome him! + + "For God had given him grace, and place, and power + To bless the destitute from hour to hour; + And from a child to fourscore years and four, + All knew and lov'd the Helper of the poor, + O coal-pit woman-slave! O factory child! + O famished beggar-boy with hunger wild! + O rescued outcast, torn from sin and shame! + Ye know your friend--by myriads bless his name! + We need not utter it--The Good, The Great, + These are his titles in that Blest Estate." + +I was much touched and pleased with this little anecdote to the purpose. +Speaking casually to a bright-looking boy of the Shoeblack Brigade about +Lord Shaftesbury (the boy didn't know me from Adam), to find out how far +he felt for his lost friend, with tears in his eyes he quoted to my +astonishment part of the above, and told me that he and many of his +mates knew it by heart, having seen it in some paper. I never said who +wrote it (probably he wouldn't have believed me if I had) but left him +happy with some pears. + +Perhaps I may here add (and all this has been part of "My Life as an +Author") a couple of stanzas I wrote, (but never have published till +now) on another worthy specimen of humanity, mourned in death by our +highest:-- + + _In Memoriam J.B._ + + "Simple, pious, honest man, + Child of heaven while son of earth, + We would praise, for praise we can, + Thy good service, thy great worth; + Through long years of prosperous place + In the sunshine of the Crown, + With man's favour and God's grace + Humbly, bravely, walked John Brown. + + "Faithful to the Blameless Prince, + Faithful to the Widowed Queen, + Loved,--as oft before and since + Truth and zeal have ever been,-- + His no pedigree of pride, + His no name of old renown, + Yet in honour lived and died + Nature's nobleman, John Brown." + +Also, I will here give, as it appears nowhere else, a few lines to a +dying brother, for the sake of recording his hopeful last three words:-- + + _Dear Brother Dan's Latest Whisper._ + + "'Life unto life!' This was the whispered word + That from my dying brother's lips I heard + Faintly and feebly uttered, in the strife + Of Nature's agony,--'Life--unto--life!' + Yea, brother! for thou livest; death is dead, + And life rejoiceth unto life instead; + No sins, no cares, no sorrows, and no pains,-- + But deep delights, unutterable gains, + Now are thy portion in that higher sphere, + The heritage of God's own children here + Who loved their Lord awhile on earth, and now + Live to Him evermore in love--as thou!" + +And in this connection I will print here a psychological poem of mine, +not to be found in any other of my books:-- + + _Memory._ + + I. + + "When the soul passes Eternity's portal, + In that Hereafter of Being Elsewhere, + When this poor earthworm becomes an Immortal, + Risen to Life Incorruptible There; + If in some semblance of spirit and feature, + Still to be recognised one and the same, + Not in its entity quite a new creature, + But as a growth of the world whence it came,-- + + II. + + "Oh, what a river of gladness or sadness + Then must gush out from quick memory's well, + Infinite ecstasy, uttermost madness, + As the quick conscience greets Heaven--or Hell! + Whilst he reviews old scenes and past travels, + Grained in himself and engraved on his soul, + As the knit robe of his timework unravels + And his whole life is unmeshed to its goal. + + III. + + "Yea, for within him, far more than without him, + Works ever following, evil or good, + Happiness, misery, circling about him, + Plant a man's foot in the soil where he stood: + If he was sensual, sordid, and cruel, + Sensual, cruel, and base let him be, + If he have guarded his soul as a jewel, + Holy and happy and blessed be he! + + IV. + + "For that the seeds both of Hell and of Heaven + Darnel or wheat-corn, crowd memory's mart, + And though all sin be repented, forgiven, + Yet recollections must live in the heart: + Still resurrected each moment's each action + Comes up for conscience to judge it again, + Joy unto peace or remorse to distraction, + Growing to infinite pleasure or pain. + + + V. + + "Thy many sins were the ruin of others, + Though the chief sinner's own guilt may be waived: + What! shall the doom of those sisters and brothers + Not be a sorrow to thee that art saved? + Can utter selfishness be God's Nirwana, + Blest--with our brethren of blessing bereft? + Must not His Heaven seem poorer and vainer, + Where one is taken and others are left? + + VI. + + "Oh, there is hope in His mercy for ever-- + Yea, for the worst, after ages of woe, + Till on this side of the uttermost Never, + Even the devils His mercy may know! + Punished and purified, Justice and Reason + Well would rejoice if the Judge on His throne + Grant His salvation to all in full season, + Ruling, in bliss, all His works as His own. + + VII. + + "Every creature, redeemed and recovered + Through the One sacrifice offered for all, + Where sin and death so fatally hovered, + Mercy triumphant in full o'er the fall! + Thus shall old memories harmonise sweetly + With the grand heavenly anthem above, + As this sad life that was shattered so fleetly, + Then is made whole in the Infinite Love." + +It may count as one of my heresies in an orthodox theological sense, but +I certainly cling to the great idea of Eternal Hope; and, after any +amount of retributive punishment for purifying the "lost" soul, I look +for ultimate salvation to all God's creatures. This short and partial +trial-scene of ours is not enough to make an end with: we begin here and +progress for ever elsewhere. Evil must die out, and good must survive +alone for ever. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +PROTESTANT BALLADS. + + +Among my many fly-leaves, scattered by thousands from time to time in +handbills or in newspapers all over the world, those in which I have +praised Protestantism and denounced the dishonesty of our ecclesiastic +traitors have earned me the highest meed both of glory and shame from +partisan opponents. Ever since in my boyhood, under the ministerial +teaching of my rector, the celebrated Hugh M'Neile, at Albury for many +years, I closed with the Evangelical religion of the good old Low Church +type, I have by my life and writings excited against me the theological +hatred of High Church, and Broad Church, and No Church, and especially +of the Romanizers amongst our Established clergy. Sundry religious +newspapers and other periodicals, whose names I will not blazon by +recording, have systematically attacked and slandered me from early +manhood to this hour, and have diligently kept up my notoriety or fame +(it was stupid enough of them from their point of view) by quips and +cranks, as well as by more serious onslaughts, about which I am very +pachydermatous, albeit there are pasted down in my archive-books all the +paragraphs that have reached me. But, even as in hydraulics, the harder +you screw the greater the force, so with my combative nature, the more I +am attacked the more obstinately I resist. Hence the multitude and +variety of my polemical lucubrations,--mostly of a fragmentary character +as Sibylline leaves: some, however, appear in my "Ballads and Poems" +(among them a famous "Down with foreign priestcraft," circulated by +thousands in the Midlands by an unknown enthusiast),--and Ridgeway of +Piccadilly has published in pamphlet form my "Fifty Protestant Ballads +and Directorium," which originally appeared in the _Daily News_, and +_The Rock_: I have certainly written as many more, and among these one +which I will here reproduce as now very scarce, and lately of some +national importance: seeing that it was sent by my friend Admiral +Bedford Pim to every member of the two Houses of Legislature on the +Bradlaugh occasion, and was stated to have turned the tide of battle in +that celebrated case. + + _"So Help Me, God!"_ + + "'So help me, God!' my heart at every turn + Of life's wide wilderness implores Thee still + To give all good, to rescue from all ill, + And grant me grace Thy presence to discern. + + "'So help me, God!' I would not move a yard + Without my hand in Thine to be my guide, + Thy love to bless, Thy bounty to provide, + Thy fostering wing spread over me to guard. + + "'So help me, God!' the motto of my life, + In every varied phase of chance and change, + So that nought happens here of sad or strange + But 'peace' is written on each frown of strife. + + "For Thou dost help the man that honoureth Thee! + Ay, and Thy Christian-Israel of this land + That hitherto hath recognised Thy hand, + How blest above the nations still are we! + + "Yet now our Senate schemes to spurn aside + (On false pretence of liberal brotherhood) + The Heavenly Father of our earthly good, + Because one atheist hath his God denied! + + "What, shall this wrong be done? Must all of us + Groan under coming judgment for the sin + Of welcoming avowed blasphemers in + To vote with rulers who misgovern thus? + + "So help us, God! it shall not: England's might + Stands in religion practised and profest; + For so alone by blessing is she blest, + Christian and Protestant in life and light." + +To gratify an eminent friend who wished not to exclude Jews and +Mahometans from an open profession of godliness as they viewed the +question, I altered, in subsequent reprints, the last line, "Christian +and Protestant in life and light," to "Loving and fearing God in faith +and light:" though personally my sturdy Orangeism inclined to the +original. I will in this place give a remarkable extract in a letter to +me from Gladstone, to whom my faithfulness had appealed, exhorting him, +as I often have done, to be on the right side: we know how he quoted +Lucretius on the wrong: against which I wrote a strong protest in the +_Times_. I like not to show private letters,--but this is manifestly a +public one. He says: ... "I thank you for your note, and I can assure +you that I believe the promoters of the Affirmation Bill to be already +on the side you wish me to take, and its opponents to be engaged in +doing (unwittingly) serious injury to religious belief." It is strange +to see how much intellectual subtlety combined with interested +partisanship can be self-deceived, even in a man who believes himself +and is thought by others thoroughly conscientious. + +Amongst other of my recent notorious ballads of the polemic sort, I +ought to name a famous couple--"The Nun's Appeal," and "Open the +Convents"--which were written at the request of Lord Alfred Churchill, +and given to Edith O'Gorman, the Escaped Nun (otherwise the excellent +and eloquent Mrs. Auffray), to aid her Protestant Lectures everywhere: +she has circulated them over the three kingdoms, and is now doing the +like in Australia and New Zealand. + +In reply to some excellent members of the Romish Church, who have +publicly accused me of maligning holy women and sacred retreats, my +obvious answer is that I contend against the evil side both of nunneries +and monkeries, whilst I may fairly admit some good to be found in both. +My real protest is for liberty both to mind and body, and against +coercion of any kind, material or spiritual. Given perfect freedom, I +would not meddle with any one's honest convictions: "to a nunnery go" if +thou wilt; only let the resolve be revocable, not a doom for ever. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +PLAYS. + + +One of my latest publications is that of my "Trilogy of Plays," with +twelve dramatic scenes,--issued by Allen & Co., of Waterloo Place. The +first of the three, "Alfred," was put upon the stage at Manchester by +that ill-starred genius, Walter Montgomery, who was bringing it out also +at the Haymarket, a very short time before his lamentable death. He was +fond of the play and splendidly impersonated the hero-king, in the +opening scene having trained his own white horse to gallop riderless +across the stage when Alfred was supposed to have been defeated by the +Danes. The vision in act ii. scene i. was thrillingly effective; and the +whole five acts went very well from beginning to end, the audience being +preternaturally quiet,--which disconcerted me until my theatrical mentor +praised the silence of that vast crowd, as the best possible sign of +success: they were held enthralled as one man till the end came, and +then came thunder. Not thinking of what was expected of me in the way of +thanks for the ovation their concluding cheers assailed me with, I got +out of the theatre as quick as I could, and was half way to my hotel +when two or three excited supers rushed after me with a "Good God, Mr. +Tupper, come back, come back, or the place will be torn down!" so of +course I hurried to the front--to encounter a tumult of applause; +although I must have looked rather ridiculous too, crossing the stage in +my American cloak and brandishing an umbrella! However, no one but +myself seemed to notice the incongruity, and as I had humbly obeyed the +people's will, they generously condoned my first transgression. I ought +to record that my heroine Bertha was charmingly acted by Miss Henrietta +Hodgson, now Mrs. Labouchere, who will quite recollect her early triumph +in Martin Tupper's first play. My best compliments and kindly +remembrance I here venture to offer to her. + +The second play, "Raleigh," is very differently constructed; for whereas +the time of action in "Alfred" was three days,--that of "Raleigh" was +sixty years: in fact with the former I dramatised a single conquest, +with the latter the varied battles of a long life. I have several times +read all my plays before audiences at my readings, and know the points +that tell. In "Raleigh" the introduction of Shakespeare, the cloak +incident, the trial scene, Elizabeth's death, and the terrible climax of +the noble victim's execution on the stage, seemed chiefly to interest +and excite the audience. + +I wrote "Washington" principally to please my many friends in America, +whither I was going for a second time; but it rather damped me to find, +when at Philadelphia during its Grand Exhibition, and was giving +"Readings out of my own Works" through the Star Company, that my +_entrepreneur_ stoutly objected to my proposal to read this new play of +mine, with the remark,--"No, sir, our people are tired of George +Washington,--he's quite played out: give us anything else of yours you +like." As he was my financial provider, and paid well, of course I had +to acquiesce. + +Perhaps the most interesting thing in the play was the account of my +discovery of Washington's heraldry: here is part of the passage; the +whole being too long to quote: one asks "Coat-of-arms?--what was this +coat-of-arms?" and Franklin answers,-- + + "I'll tell you, friends, + I've searched it out and known it for myself, + When late in England there, at Herald's College + And found the Washingtons of Wessyngton + In county Durham and of Sulgrave Manor, + County Northampton, bore upon their shield + Three stars atop, two stripes across the field + Gules--that is red--on white, and for the crest + An eagle's head upspringing to the light, + It's motto, Latin, "Issue proveth acts." + The architraves at Sulgrave testify, + And sundry painted windows in the hall + At Wessyngton, this was their family coat. + They took it to their new Virginian home: + And at Mount Vernon I myself have noted + An old cast-iron scutcheoned chimney-back + Charged with that heraldry." + +In my first American Journal will be found more about this discovery of +mine--in 1851--then quite new even to Americans. Here in London, Mr. +Tuffley of Chelsea and Northampton has popularised the original +coat-of-arms with a view to ornamental jewellery for our Transatlantic +cousins. + +Among my twelve dramatic scenes, the most appropriate to mention in this +volume of personalia, are the two which detail certain perilous matters +affecting the lives of two ancient ancestors, the one on my mother's +side, the other on my father's. The latter records the historic incident +whereby John Tupper saved the Channel Islands for William and Mary +(receiving from them a gold collar and medal, now in our heraldry) and +enabling Admiral Russell to win his naval victory at La Hogue. The +former shows how nearly an Arthur Devis at Preston paid the penalty of +death owing to his strange resemblance to Charles Edward the Young +Pretender, for whom the savage Government of the time offered a reward +of L30,000 to any one who could catch him alive or dead. My mother's +ancestor was thus very nearly murdered in 1745 for his good looks, as a +life-sized portrait at Albury, and an ivory miniature here at Norwood, +help to prove. If any wish to know more about these matters, I dare say +that Messrs. Allen aforesaid have _one_ copy left: if not, consult +Mudie, that virtuous philanthropist who benefits the reading public at +the cost of the private author. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +ANTIQUARIANA. + + +My most literary antiquarianism was an article I wrote for the +_Quarterly Review_ on Coins, accepted by Lockhart and inserted in one of +the Nos. for 1843; he protested that "I could not be the Proverbial +Philosopher, as my looks were too like David's,--it must be my +father."--No, I replied, it is my father's son. However, when he read +and approved my Coin article, he began to be convinced. I give here his +letter to me on his acceptance:-- + + "Sir,--I am at present terribly overburdened with MSS., + and know not whether I can send a proof of your paper for some + weeks; but I like it much, and it shall be put into type as soon as + I can manage. I assure you I am greatly pleased, and sincerely your + obliged + + "J.G. Lockhart. + + "Sussex Place, _February 16, 1843_." + +I expostulated with him as to divers omissions for space' sake, and for +some unauthorised alterations; but editors are nothing if not +autocratic, as we all know. My article (I find it noted) was written on +the numismatic works of Cardwell and of Akerman, and took me ten days in +its composition, I tried Lockhart with a second article on "Ancient +Gems," but it failed to please. I never had an interview with him but +once, and then he seemed to me brusque and cynical at first, warming a +little afterwards. I have written also on Druidism; and the mystery of +Easter Island, which I take to be the remains of a submerged Pacific +continent, with its deified statues on the top of an extinct volcano. +And I have flung my pen into many other _melees_ of discussion both old +and new; for it may be stated as a feature in my literary life that I +have had, one after another, all the ologies on my brain, and have +personally made small collections of minerals, fossils, insects, and the +like: special hobbies having been agates picked up in my rambles on +every beach from Yarmouth to Sidmouth, and coins at Roman stations +wherever I found them; besides a host of numismatic treasures bought at +Sotheby's auction-room, but long since sold again, as well as sundry +Egyptian and other antiquities. In particular, the Roman discoveries at +Farley Heath in the neighbourhood of Albury were mainly due to my +juvenile antiquarianism, when as a student along with Harold Browne (now +Bishop of Winchester) we used to search for coins there, and found one +happy day a Gallienus: all which I recorded years after in a now scarce +booklet, "Farley Heath, and its Roman Remains," published, with +illustrations, by Andrews, Guildford. Ultimately the finds of coin (from +Nero to Honorius), some being rare and finely patinated, as well as +several small bronzes, and old British money, were given by Mr. Drummond +(who as lord of the manor employed labourers in the search for many +months) to the British Museum, where they fill a niche near the +prehistoric room. + +Some of our finds were very curious, _e.g._, we were digging in the +black mould of the burnt huts round the wall-foundations (all above +ground of said hectagonal wall having since been ruthlessly utilised by +parochial economists in making a road across the heath), and found +amongst other spoil a little green bronze ring,--which I placed on the +finger of our guest of the day, Mrs. Barclay of Bury Hill: oddly enough +it had six angles exactly like one of gold she wore as her +wedding-guard. Again; we had picked up some pieces of pottery decorated +with human finger-tips,--just as modern cooks do with pie-crust; a son +of mine said, perhaps we shall find a dog's foot on some tile,--and just +as he said it, up came from the spade precisely what he was guessing at, +the large footprint of dog or wolf stamped fifteen centuries ago on the +unbaked clay. Again; I was leaving for an hour a labourer in whose +industry and honesty I had not the fullest faith. So in order to employ +him in my absence, I set him to dig up an old thorn bush and told him to +give me when I returned the piece of money he would find under it. To my +concealed but his own manifest astonishment, he gave me when I came back +a worn large brass of Nero, saying with a scared face, "However could +you tell it was there, sir?" I looked wise, and said nothing. + +Among the rarest copper coins was one of Carausius (our English Carew), +with two heads on it symbolling the ambition of our native usurper to +assert empire over East as well as West, and among more treasure-trove +was a unique gold coin of Veric,--the Bericus of Tacitus; as also the +rare contents of a subterranean potter's oven, preserved to our day, and +yielding several whole vases. Mr. Akerman of numismatic fame told me +that out of Rome itself he did not know a richer site for old-world +curiosities than Farley; in the course of years we found more than 1200 +coins, besides Samian ware, and plenty of common pottery, as well as +bronze ornaments, enamelled fibulae, weapons of war, household +implements, &c., both of the old British and the Roman, the Anglo-Saxon, +and more recent periods; Farley having been a praetorian station on the +Ikenild highway. This is quite a relevant episode of my literary +antiquariana. As also is another respecting "My Mummy Wheat," a record +of which found its way into print and made a stir many years ago. It +grew from seeds given to me by Mr. Pettigrew out of an Amenti vase taken +from a mummy pit by Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, and very carefully +resuscitated by myself in garden-pots filled with well-sifted mould at +Albury; it proved to be a new and prolific species of the semi-bearded +Talavera kind, and a longest ear of 8-1/2 inches in length (engraved in +an agricultural journal) was sent by me to Prince Albert, then a zealous +British farmer. + +Here I will add a very interesting letter to me on the subject from +Faraday, the original being pasted among my autographs. It will be seen +that he excuses having published my letter to him, and refuses to be +called Doctor:-- + + "Royal Institution, _June 11, 1842_. + + "My dear Sir,--Your note was a very pleasant event in my + day of yesterday, and I thank you heartily for it, and rejoice with + you at the success of the crop. It so happened that yesterday + evening was the last of our meetings, and I had to speak in the + lecture-room. The subject was Lithotint: but I placed the one ear + in the library under a glass case, and after my first subject was + over read the principal part of your letter--all that related to + the wheat: and the information was received with great interest by + about 700 persons. Our President, Lord Prudhoe, was in the chair, + and greatly desirous of knowing the age of the wheat. You know he + is learned in Egyptian matters, and was anxious about the label or + inscription accompanying the corn. I hope I have not done wrong, + but I rather fear your letter will be published, or at least the + wheat part, for a gentleman asked me whether he might copy it, and + I instantly gave him leave, but found that he was connected with + the press, the _Literary Gazette_. I hope you will not object since + without thought on my part the matter has gone thus far. The news + is so good and valuable that I do not wonder at the desire to have + it,--Ever your obliged servant, + + "M. Faraday. + + "M.F. Tupper, Esq., + &c. &c. &c. + + "_P.S._--I am happy to say that I am plain Mr. Faraday, and if I + have my wish shall keep so.--M.F." + +An early volume of my so-called "Critica Egotistica" has many letters +and printed communications on this subject: but as not being a +recognised agriculturist myself, I did not wish it called by my +name,--so it is only known in the markets (chiefly I have heard in +Essex) as "Mummy Wheat." Talking of declined honours in nomenclature, I +may here mention that a new beetle, found by Vernon Wollaston and urged +by him to be named after the utterly "unsharded" me (who had however +gratified that distinguished entomologist by my poem on Beetles) was +respectfully refused the prefix of my name, as scarcely knowing a +lepidopt from a coleopt. _Ne sutor ultra crepidam._ If honour is to be +given, let it be deserved. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +HONOURS--INVENTIONS. + + +Authorship reaps honour in these latter days quite as much as it did in +the classic times of Augustus with Virgil and Horace for his intimates, +and of Petrarch crowned at the Capitol laureate of all Italy during the +vacancy of a popedom in the Vatican. Not but that, with or without any +titular distinction, authorship is practically the most noticeable rank +amongst us. Many will pass by a duke who would have stopped and waited +to have looked at a Darwin when he was in this lower sphere; and I am +quite sure that the grand presence of Alfred Tennyson would attract more +affectionate homage than that of any other ennobled magnate in the land. +As to his title, I was glad that his good taste and wisdom elected to be +called by his own honourable patronymic rather than haply Farringford or +Hazlemere: how can great names consent to be eclipsed in such obscure +signatures as Wantage or Esher, Hindlip or Glossop, Dalling or +Grimsthorpe? One gets quite at a loss to know who's who. + +My letter to the _Times_ of December 19, 1883, headed "Literary +Honours," in praise of Tennyson's elevation to the House of Lords, and +showing how in every age all nations except our own have given honours +to authors, literally "from China to Peru," elicited plenty both of +approval and of censure from journals of many denominations. As a matter +inevitable when Baron Tennyson was gazetted, the less euphonious Tupper +was stigmatised in the papers as desiring to be a Baron too,--at all +events, the _Echo_ said so, and the _Globe_ good-humouredly observed +that "he deserved the coronet." They little knew that in the summer of +1863 (as paragraphs in my tenth volume of "Archives" are now before me +to show) the same derided scribe was seriously announced as "about to be +raised to the peerage" all over England and America: see two available +and respectable proofs in the _British Controversialist_ (Houlston & +Wright) for July 1863, p. 79,--and Bryant's _Evening Post_ for September +17, 1863. I name these, as the reverse of comic papers,--and publishing +what they supposed true, as in fact was told me by the editors when +inquired of. At the time I repudiated the false rumour openly;--with all +the greater readiness, inasmuch as I dispute both the justice of +hereditary honour and the wisdom of hereditary legislation; to say less +of the "_res angusta domi_" which, in our Mammonite time and clime, +obliges money to support rank, even if, as in sundry late cases of +raising to the peerage, it does not purchase it. + +It is fair also to state as a fact, that when my father for the second +time refused his baronetcy, I, as eldest son, gave the casting vote +against myself, not to impoverish my four younger brothers,--all now +gone before me to the better world,--and that, for reasons mentioned +above, I certainly could not take it now. Let this suffice as my reply +to some recent sneers and strictures. + +As for letters of the alphabet attached to one's name, almost any one +nowadays may have any amount of them by paying fees or subscriptions; in +particular, America has given me many honorary diplomas. And for the +matter of gold medals, who can covet them, when even the creators of +baking-powder and sewing-machines are surfeited therewith. My poor +Prussian medal looks small in comparison. And then, as for knighthood, +that ancient honour has been lately so abused that vanity itself could +scarcely desire it, and even modesty now might hesitate in its +acceptance. + +Albeit I have thus spoken only incidentally and with seeming +carelessness about my Prussian medal, I am reminded that it will +interest readers if I here extract the Chevalier Buensen's letter to me +on the occasion. It runs thus in its integrity:-- + + "4 Carlton Terrace, _26th September 1844_. + + "My Dear Sir,--I owe you many apologies for not having + answered earlier your letter of the 2d of August. The fact is that + since that time I have been travelling all over England with the + Prince of Prussia. As to your work, I laid it myself before the + King, who perused it with great pleasure, when I was at Berlin. I + am now charged by His Majesty not only to express to you his thanks + for having thought of him in sending him a book replete with so + much Christian wisdom and experience, but also to present to you, + in his Royal name, the _gold medal_ for science and literature, as + a particular sign of regard. The medal will be delivered to you, or + a person authorised by you, at the office of the Prussian Legation, + any morning from 11 to 1 o'clock, Sunday of course excepted. + + "Allow me to avail myself of this opportunity to renew to you my + own thanks and the expression of my high regard, and believe me, + yours sincerely, + + "Buensen. + + "M.F. Tupper, Esq." + +Accordingly, I called myself and received the medal from the Chevalier, +with whom afterwards I had half-an-hour's talk, chiefly about German +history, in which by good fortune I was fairly posted, perhaps with a +prescience that the ambassador might allude to it. + + * * * * * + +An author, if he be a good man and a clever, worthy of his high +vocation, already walks self-ennobled, circled by an aureola of +spiritual glory such as no king can give, nor even all-devouring time, +"_edax rerum_," can take away. He really gains nothing by a title--no, +not even Tennyson; as in the next world, so in this, "his works do +follow him," and the "Well done, good and faithful" from this lower +world which he has served is but the prelude of his welcome to that +higher world wherein he hears the same "good and faithful" from the +mouth of his Redeemer. + + +Inventions. + +It may be worth a page if I record here sundry inventions of mine, +surely bits of authorship, which I found out for myself but did not +patent, though others did. As thus:-- + +1. A simple and cheap safety horse-shoe,--secured by steel studs +inserted into the ordinary soft iron shoes. + +2. Glass screw-tops to bottles. + +3. Steam-vessels with the wheels inside; in fact, a double boat or +catamaran, with the machinery amid-ships. + +4. The introduction of coca-leaf to allay hunger, and to be as useful +here as in Chili. + +5. A pen to carry its own ink. + +6. The colouring of photographs on the back. + +7. Combined vulcanite and steel sheathing. + +There were also some other small matters wherein authorial energy busied +itself. But although I had models made of some, and wrote about others, +no good results accrued to me. 1. As for the horse-shoes, blacksmiths +did _not_ want to lose custom by steel saving the iron. 2. For the +glass-stoppers, I had against me all the cork trade, and the +wine-merchants too, who recork old wines. 3. The steamers were never +tried on a large scale, and models are pronounced deceptive. 4. The coca +loses most of its virtues when in a dried state. 5. The pen (I had it +made in silver, a long hollow handle ending with a conical point) either +grew clogged if the ink was too thick, or emitted blots when too thin. +6. An establishment in Leicester Square has since worked on this idea. +7. I also troubled the Ordnance Office, and had an interview with Sidney +Herbert about two more futile inventions! one a composite cannon missile +of quoits tied together: another of a thick vulcanite sheathing for +ships, over either wood or iron. I have letters on these to and from +the office. Briefly, I did not gain fortune as an inventor: though I +urged my horse-shoe at least as a valuable thought, and one worth a +trial, to save our poor horses on asphalte pavements and in hard frosts. +It is a losing game to attempt to force an invention: so many vested +interests oppose, and so many are the competitors: moreover, some one +always rushes into the pool of Bethesda before you. + +I thought also that there might as well be "essence of tea," as well as +of coffee; but nothing came of it. Also amongst other of my addled eggs +of invention, I may mention that in my chemistry days as a youth I +suggested to a scientific neighbour, Dr. Kerrison, that glass might be +rendered less fragile by being mixed in the casting with some chemical +compound of lead,--much as now has come out in the patent toughened +glass. Also we initiated mild experiments about an imitation of volcanic +forces in melting pounded stone into moulds,--as recently done by Mr. +Lindsay Bucknall with slag:--but unluckily we found that the manufacture +of basalt was beyond our small furnace power: I fancied that apparently +carved pinnacles and gurgoyles might be cast in stone; and though beyond +Dr. Kerrison and myself, perhaps it may still be done by the hot-blast +melting up crushed granite. + + * * * * * + +Among these small matters of an author's natural inventiveness, I will +preserve here a few of the literary class: _e.g._, (1.) I claim to have +discovered the etymology of Punch, which Mark Antony Lower in his +Patronymica says is "a name the origin of which is in total obscurity." +Now, I found it out thus,--when at Haverfordwest in 1858 I saw over the +mantel of the hostelry, perhaps there still, a map of the Roman +earthwork called locally Punch Castle; and considering how that the +neighbouring hills are named Precelly (Procella, storm) as often drawing +down the rain-clouds,--that Caer Leon is Castrum Legionis, and that +there is a Roman bridge over the little river there still styled Ultra +Pontem--I decided at once that Pontii Castellum was the true name for +Punch Castle. Of course, Pontius Pilate and Judas appear in the mediaeval +puppet-plays as Punch and Judy,--while Toby refers to Tobit's dog, in a +happy confusion of names and dates. The Pontius of the Castle was Prater +of the Second Legion. (2.) Similarly, I found out the origin of "Humpty +Dumpty sat on a wall," &c., to refer to the death of William the +Conqueror (_L'homme qui dompte_), who was ruptured in leaping a burnt +wall at Rouen; being very stout,--"he had a great fall," and burst +asunder like Iscariot, while "all the king's horses and all the king's +men couldn't set Humpty Dumpty up again." We must remember that the wise +Fools of those days dared not call magnates by their real names,--nor +utter facts openly: so accordingly (3) they turned Edward Longshanks +into "Daddy Longlegs,"--and (4) sang about King John's raid upon the +monks, and the consequent famine to the poor, in "Four and twenty +blackbirds baked in a pie," &c.,--the key to this interpretation being +"a dainty dish to set before the king," John being a notorious glutton. +My friends at Ledbury Manor, where there is a gallery full of my uncle +Arthur's Indian pictures, will remember how I expounded all this to them +some years ago. In this connection of literary discovery, let me here +give my exposition of the mystic number in Revelations, 666,--which, +"_more meo_" I printed thus on a very scarce fly-leaf, as one of my +Protestant Ballads not in any book:-- + + "Here is wisdom--Let him that hath understanding count the number + of the Beast--for it is the number of a Man--and his number is six + hundred threescore and six."--Rev. xiii. 18. + + "Count up the sum of Greek numeral letters + 'Kakoi Episkopoi'--bishops all ill; + Strangely I note that those mystical fetters + Bind in their number this mystery still-- + Six hundred threescore and six is the total, + Spelling the number and name of a man, + Chief of bad bishops and lies sacerdotal, + That of all wickedness stands in the van. + + "Antichrist! what? can a feeble old creature, + Pope though they style him, be rank'd in his place + As the Goliath in fashion and feature + Warring gigantic with God and His grace? + Is he so great--to be dreaded, abhorred, + Single antagonist, braving God's wrath, + Bearing foul Babylon's seal on his forehead, + Chosen Triumvir with Sin and with Death? + + "Yea; the presumption of priestly succession + Make the _all one_ a whole Popedom of Time, + So that each head for his hour of possession + Wears the tiara of ages of crime: + Rome is infallible, Rome is eternal, + Rome is unchangeable, cruel, and strong, + Leagued with the legions of darkness infernal, + Crushing all right and upholding all wrong." + + Note.--The value of the Greek letters, as numerals, in the + two words above, is as follows:--The three kappas = 60, the three + omicrons = 210, the three iotas = 30, the two pis = 160, the one + sigma = 200, the one epsilon = 5, and the one alpha = 1; in all + exactly making 666. This is "a private interpretation" of the + writer's own discovery, not to be found elsewhere, and quite as + convincing as Lateinos and the inscription on St. Peter's. + +My friend Evelyn contributed to the perfection of the discovery. It was +he who suggested Kakoi to Episcopoi, to make up the number. There are +also some who say that our eccentric Premier's name sums up ominously to +the same three sixes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +COURTLY AND MUSICAL. + + +My several royal poems, some twenty in number, may deserve a short and +special notice; though it is far from my intention to detail any +gracious condescensions of a private nature. I may however state, as a +curiosity of literature, that the 35th of my "Three Hundred Sonnets," +published by Virtue in 1860, is headed "India's Empress," written +certainly twenty years before such a title was thought of, even by Lord +Beaconsfield in his pupa phase of D'Israeli. As very few have the +volume, long out of print, I will here produce that fortunate prophecy; +the "way chaotic" is the Sepoy Mutiny:-- + + "Our Empress Queen!--Victoria's name of glory + Added as England's grace to Hindostan: + O climax to this age's wondrous story, + Full of new hope to India, and to Man + In heathendom's dark places! For the light + Of our Jerusalem shall now shine there + Brighter than ever since the world began:-- + Yet by a way chaotic, drear and gory + Travelled this blessing; as a martyr might + Wrestling to heaven through tortures unaware: + Our Empress Queen! for thee thy people's pray'r + All round the globe to God ascends united, + That He may strengthen thee no guilt to spare + Nor leave one act of goodness unrequited." + +Another such curiosity of literature may this be considered: namely, +that the same versifier who in his youth fifty years ago saw the +coronation from a gallery seat in Westminster Abbey, overlooking the +central space, and wrote a well-known ode on the occasion, to be found +in his Miscellaneous Poems, is still in full force and loyalty, and +ready to supply one for his Queen's jubilee,--whereof words for music +will be found anon. Human life has not many such completed cycles to +celebrate, albeit I have lately had a golden wedding; alas! in a short +month after, closed by the good wife's sudden death: "So soon trod +sorrow on the heels of joy!" But I will not speak of that affliction +here and now: my present errand is more cheerful. + +With reference, then, to the many verses of mine which I have reason to +hope are honoured by preservation in royal albums, I wish only to say +that if some few have appeared among my other poetries in print, they +shall not be repeated here: though I may record that whatever I have +sent from time to time have been graciously acknowledged, and that I +have heretofore met with palatial welcomes. + +Perhaps I may say a word or two about my having for the best part of +half a century occasionally made my duteous bow at Court; which I +thought it right to do whenever some poetic offering of mine had been +received; in particular at the Princess Royal's marriage, when Prince +Albert specially invited me to Buckingham Palace, presenting me kindly +to the heir of Prussia, and bidding, "Wales come and shake hands with +Mr. Tupper" (my genial Prince will recollect it); and above all adding +the honour of personal conversation with Her Majesty. + +Of these thus briefly: also I might record (but I forbear) similar +condescensions at Frogmore; as also with reference to my little Masques +of the Seasons, and the Nations--wherein Corbould was pictorially so +efficient, and Miss Hildyard so helpful in the costumes--both at Osborne +and at Windsor. In gracious recognition of these Her Majesty gave me +Winterhalter's engravings of all the royal children, now at Albury, as +well as some gifts to my daughters. The Masques will be found among my +published poems. + +At Court I frequently met Lord Houghton, known to me in ancient days as +Monckton Milnes; and I remember that we especially came together from +sympathy as to critical castigation, _Blackwood_ or some other Scotch +reviewer having fallen foul of both of us, then young poets (and +therefore to be hounded down by Professor Wilson), in an article pasted +in an early volume of Archives, spitefully disparaging "Farquhar Tupper +and Monckton Milnes." + +Until these days every one wore the antiquated Queen Anne Court suit, +now superseded by modern garments, perhaps more convenient but certainly +not so picturesque. Bagwig and flowered waistcoat, and hanging +cast-steel rapier, and silken calves and buckled shoes,--and above all +the abundant real point lace (upon which Lord Houghton more than once +has commented with me as to the comparative superiority of his or +mine,--both being of ancestral dinginess, and only to be washed in +coffee)--these are ill exchanged for boots and trousers and straight +black sword, and everything of grace and beauty diligently tailored +away. When I last attended at St. James's in honour of Prince Albert +Victor's first reception, I was, among twelve hundred, one of only three +units who paid our respects in the stately fashions of Good Queen Anne: +and I was glad to be complimented on my social courage as almost alone +in those antiquated garments, and on my profusion of snow-white hair so +suitably suggestive of the powdered polls of our ancestors. I remember +my father in powder. + +On this last occasion it was, as I have said, especially to pay my +respects to the young Prince at his first _levee:_ both he and his +father with great kindness cordially shaking hands with the author of +the following stanzas. The young Prince stood between his father and his +kinsman, the Duke of Cambridge. + + "Albert Victor! words of blessing + Bright with omens of the best, + Truly one such names possessing + Shall be throned among the blest; + Albert,--sainted now and glorious, + Long time in his heavenly rest; + Victor,--everyway victorious + Like our Empress east and west! + + "Prince! to-day the Court bears witness + How, thy Royal Sire beside, + With due graciousness and fitness, + Dignity devoid of pride, + Thou (thy gallant kinsman near thee) + Dost with homage far and wide, + And the praise of all to cheer thee, + Humbly meet that glittering tide! + + "Prince, accept an old man's greeting, + Now some threescore and fifteen, + Who can testify how fleeting + Life and all its joys have been: + I have known thy Grandsire's favour, + And thy Parents' grace have seen; + And I note the same sweet savour + In the Grandson of my Queen!" + +As this is the Jubilee year, and I may not live to its completion,--for +who can depend upon an hour?--I will here produce what has just occurred +to my patriotism as a suitable ode on the great occasion. If short, it +is all the better for music, and I humbly recommend its adoption as +_libretto_ to some chief musical composer. + + _Victoria's Jubilee: for Music._ + + I. + + (_Major forte._) + + "Rejoice, O Land! Imperial Realm, rejoice! + Wherever round the world + Our standard floats unfurl'd, + Let every heart exult in music's voice! + Be glad, O grateful England, + Triumphant shout and sing, Land! + As from each belfried steeple + The clanging joy-bells sound, + Let all our happy people + The wandering world around, + Rejoice with the joy this jubilee brings, + Circling the globe as with seraphim wings!" + + II. + + (_Minor piano._) + + "Lo, the wondrous story, + Praise all praise above! + Fifty years of glory, + Fifty years of love! + Chastened by much sadness, + Mid the dark of death, + But illumed with gladness + By the sun of faith: + What a life, O Nations, + What a reign is seen + In the consummations + Crowning Britain's Queen!" + + + III. + + (_Finale.--Crescendo._) + + "Riches of Earth, and Graces of Heaven, + God in His love hath abundantly given, + More by a year than seven times seven, + Blessing our Empress, the Queen! + Secrets of Science, and marvels of Art, + Health of the home, and wealth of the mart, + All that is best for the mind and the heart, + Crowded around her are seen. + Honour, Religion, and Plenty are hers, + Peace, and all heavenly messengers, + While loyalty every spirit upstirs + To shout aloud, God save the Queen!" + +Here the words end, as brevity is wisdom. But the music, as a majestic +finale, might include touches of Rule Britannia, Luther's Hymn, and the +National Anthem. + +I have asked my friend Mr. Manns if he will set my words to music, but +his modesty declines, as he professes to be mainly a conductor rather +than a composer; and he recommends me to apply to some more famous +musician, as perhaps Sullivan, or Macfarren, or haply Count Gleichen. +All I can say is, nothing would be more gratifying to my muse than for +either of those great names to adapt my poetry to his melody. + +Suitably enough, I may here insert a page as to my own musical +idiosyncrasy as a bit of author-life. + + * * * * * + +Keble is said to have had no ear for a tune, however perfect as to rhyme +and rhythm; and there are those who suppose my tympanum to be similarly +deficient, though I persistently dispute it. Living (when at Norwood) +within constant free hearing of the best music in the world, at the +Crystal Palace, I ought to be musical, if not always so accredited; but +I do penitentially confess to occasional weariness in over long repeated +symphonies, where the sweet little _motif_ is always trying to get out +but is cruelly driven back,--in the endlessness of fugues, and what +seems to my offended ear the useless waste of tone and power in extreme +instrumentation, and in divers other disinclinings I cannot but +acknowledge as to what is called classical music. Accordingly, no one +can accuse me of being _fanatico per la musica_; albeit I am transported +too by (for example) Handel's largo in G, by the Prayer in Mose in +Egitto, the Lost Chord, Rossini's Tell, Weber's Freischutz and Oberon, +Tannhauser, Semiramide, and all manner of marches, choruses, ballads, +and national airs. In fact, I really do like music, especially if +tuneful and melodious, in spite of Wagner's apothegm, but some +symphonies might be better if curtailed,--except only Schubert's,--but +then his best is the Unfinished, and so the shortest. In my youth I +learnt the double flageolet, and could play it fairly. + +All this (wherein I am but the honest spokesman for many who do not like +to confess as much) is introductory in my authorial capacity to this +short poem, not long since pencilled in the concert-room and given to +Mr. Manns as soon as clearly written. I insert it here very much to give +pleasure to one who so continually ministers to the pleasure of +thousands; and I hope some day soon to greet him Sir August, as he well +deserves a knighthood. + + _A Music Lesson._ + + "Marvellous orchestra! concert of heaven, + Mingling more notes than the musical seven, + Harmonious discords of treble and base + In strange combinations of guilt and of grace-- + O whose is the ear that can hear you aright, + And note the dark providence mixt with the light? + Where, where is the eye that is swift to discern + This lesson in music the dull ear should learn,-- + That all, from the seraphim harping on high + Down, down to the lowest, fit chords can supply + To the paean of praises in every tone, + With thunders and melodies circling the Throne! + + "We are each a brief note in that wonderful hymn, + And to us its Oneness is hazy and dim; + We hear the few sounds from the viol we play, + But all the full chorus floats far and away: + Our poor little pipe of an instant is drown'd + In the glorious rush of that ocean of sound; + The player hears nothing beyond his own bars, + Whilst all that grand symphony reaches the stars: + Yet, though our piping seems but little worth + It adds to the Anthem Creation pours forth, + And, whether we know it or not, we can give + Not a note more or less in the life that we live. + + "Ah me! we are nothing--or little at best-- + But duty with greatness the least can invest: + One note on the flute or the trumpet may seem + A poor petty work for ambition's fond dream,-- + But what if that note be a need-be to blend + And quicken the score from beginning to end? + To show forth the mind of the Master, who guides + With baton unerring Time's mixture of tides, + The good with the evil, the blessing and bane, + The Amazon rushing far into the main, + Until, from this skill'd combination of notes, + Bound earth to the heavens His overture floats!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +F.R.S. + + +A page or two about my connection with the Royal Society may have some +small interest. When my father (who had long been a Fellow) died in +1844, I wished to give to the Society his marble bust by Behnes as a +memorial of honour to him; but my mother preferred to keep it, as was +natural. Meanwhile, however, some of my father's friends, and in +particular his old patron, Lord Melbourne, then recently elected, put me +up as a candidate, and as I find recorded in my Archive-book, vol. ii., +my certificate "was signed by Argyll, Bristol, Henry Hallam, Thomas +Brande, Dr. Paris, P.B.C.S., Sir C.M. Clarke, and Sir Benjamin Brodie: +in due time I was elected, and on the 8th of May 1845 was admitted by +Lord Northampton." At my election occurred this very strange and +characteristic incident. There was only one ball against me among +twenty-seven for me in the ballot-box; the meetings were then held at +Somerset House, the Society on a less numerous scale than at present, +and the elections easier and more frequent. When the President announced +the result, up jumped Lord Melbourne, begging pardon for his mistake in +having dropped his ball into the wrong hole!--an amusing instance of the +_laissez-faire_ carelessness habitual to that good-humoured Minister. + +As I have now been more than forty years a Fellow, I ought to be ashamed +to confess that I never contributed a Paper to its learned Proceedings; +all of which as they come to me I give appropriately enough to the +famous Wotton Library, belonging to my excellent friend Evelyn, heir and +successor to the celebrated John Evelyn of the Sylva, one of the +Society's founders. That I have seldom even read them is also a pitiful +truth; for the mysterious nomenclature of modern chemistry, the +incomprehensibility (to my ignorance) of the higher mathematics, the +hopeless profundity of treatises on the tides, dynamics, electricity, +and microscopic anatomicals, are, I am free to avow, worse to me than +"heathen Greek," nay (for I _can_ in some sort tackle that), more +difficult than the clay tablets of Assyria or a papyrus of Rameses II. +So I must confess to being an idle drone among the working bees. + +Only thrice have I ventured to ask questions of consequence, scarcely +yet answered by the pundits. One regards Spectrum Analysis: How can we +be sure that the lines indicative of gases and other elements are not +mainly due to the emanations from our own globe, swathed as it is by +more than forty miles of an atmosphere impregnated by its own salts and +acids in aerial solution? May we not be deducing false conclusions as to +the varying lights of stars and nebulae, if all the while to our vision +they are as it were clouded by our own smoke? Telescopes have to pierce +so thick a stratum of earth's aura and ether that it is expectable they, +would show us only our own composites in those of other worlds. The +spectra are varied, I know, but so may be our wrappings of atmosphere +from one night to another. Let this ignorant query suffice about Dr. +Huggins' great discovery. + +Again, I certainly (after some knowledge of strange facts) could have +wished that Mr. Crookes's philosophical spiritualism had met with a more +patient hearing than Dr. Carpenter or Mr. Huxley offered at the time; +and that Faraday's clumsy mechanical refutation of table-turning had not +been considered so conclusive. For there really are "more things in +heaven and earth, Horatio," &c., than even your omniscience is aware of; +and without pinning faith on Madame Blavatsky, or Mr. Hume, or any other +wonder-worker from America or Thibet, there doubtless are petty miracles +in what is called spiritualism (possibly some form of electricity) that +demand more scrutiny than our materialists will have the patience to +vouchsafe: I for one believe in human testimony even as to the +miraculous. + +For a third and last inquiry: justly indignant at the horrors of +Continental vivisection, and especially in our own humane England at Dr. +Ferrier's red-hot wires thrust into live monkeys' brains, I have often +vainly asked _cui bono_ such terrible cruelty? The highest authorities +are at variance with each other as to the practical utility in human +therapeutics of experiments upon agonised brutes; but all must be agreed +that, so far as morals are concerned, vivisection only hardens the heart +and sears the feelings and conscience of doctors who may surround the +dying-bed of our dearest, and very possibly make capital of peculiar +symptoms in their patient, by experiments transferred from dogs and +rabbits to himself! Single votes are useless against the annual list of +selected candidates, or I for one would have at all inconvenience +testified both at Oxford and in the Royal Society against the election +of a certain Professor whose glory lies in vivisection. + +For an appropriate end to these discursive sentences, let me add this +poetic morsel in my own vein. Mr. Butler of Philadelphia was quite right +in his judgment of my _indoles_: I "write by impulse on occasion." Here +is a very recent instance in point. I had lately visited Mr. Barraud's +painted-window works near Seven Dials, and when I told Mr. Herbert Rix, +our Assistant-Secretary, of what you may read below, he exhorted me to +put it into verse, which I did impromptu, and sent it to him: now thus +first printed:-- + + "I saw the artist in a colour-shop + Staining some bits of glass variously shaped + To map the painted window of a church, + And marvelled that the tintings all seemed wrong; + Red, green, and brown should have been interchanged + To show the colours right. Why did he use + His brush so carelessly, my folly asked. + 'Wait for the fire,--the fire will make all right, + The reds and greens and browns will change again, + Fusing harmoniously,' so Knowledge spake; + And thus a thought of wisdom came to me + Touching the truth, how kindly curative + Must be the pains and cares and griefs of life, + For that the furnace of adversity, + Melts to its proper good each seeming ill. + Again, I noticed how the artist chose + Not clear good glass, whether of plate or crown, + But common-looking stuff, bubbled and flawed, + As if selected for its blemishes + Rather than for transparent purity. + 'Why not choose better glass to paint upon?' + To this he answered, 'Wouldn't do at all. + My faces mustn't look lifeless and dull, + But, as instinct with motion, light and life, + Not in enamelled uniformity: + The sunshine cannot sparkle where all's smooth; + I choose the most imperfect panes to make + A perfect, vigorous picture.'--Then I learnt + How wonderfully Providence is pleased + To cause all evil things to help the good; + Nay, deeper, to ordain that good itself + Can scarcely be discerned without the harm + Of some companion-ill; even as gold + Is useless unalloyed; and Very Light + Unshadowed kills, as unapproachable; + And absolute unmitigated good + Alone is Godhead. Every creature here + (In this our human trial-world at least) + Is full of faults and spots and blemishes, + If only to set off his better self, + His talents, graces, excellent good gifts, + Burnt in the fire to brighter excellence + And fused harmonious into perfect man." + +I have often thought that our Great Teacher's parables were true +pictures of things around Him; He painted from living models, +"impulsively and on occasion." The prodigal son, the unjust judge, the +rich fool, the camel unladen to pass the narrow tunnel of the needle's +eye, the lost sheep, the found piece of money and the like,--all were +real incidents made use of by His wisdom, who spake as never man spake, +and did all things well. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +PERSONATION. + + +It has several times happened to me, as doubtless to others of my +brethren, to find that I have been personated, certainly to my +considerable discredit. Take these instances. When at Brighton, a fellow +had the effrontery to collect money in my name, and I suppose he +somewhat resembled me, as I heard more than once that I had been seen +here and there, where I undoubtedly was not, and proved an _alibi_. At +Bignor, where I went to see some Roman pavements on the property of a +Sussex yeoman of my name (very possibly a German cousin) the owner +received me with more than suspicion when I said who I was,--because +"the true Martin Tupper had been his guest for a week, and brought him a +book he had written," and one of mine then was lying on the table! But I +soon made it clear that he had been deceived, and that the real Simon +Pure was now before him. Divers other cases might be mentioned; however, +perhaps the most curious is this, and I extract the whole statement from +one of my scrap-books now before me. It is headed "An anecdote to +account for certain slanders," the date being August 1865:-- + +"I have heard it seriously asserted of me that I am a great pugilist! +and very far in conduct and manners from what one might expect, and so +forth. Now it has just come to my knowledge that a sporting publican +and dog-fancier, who called his public-house in the Waterloo Road 'The +Greyhound' (my crest), and has my name over the lintel, has claimed to +be the author, and is supposed to be myself! Mr. Payne (my publisher) +told me about the 'pugilist,' and said he had heard it in the clubs that +I was a match for Sayers,--as I conclude my sporting namesake is." In +America, too, I found that my double lived at Hardwick, Worcester Co., +N.Y., and that another Martin hailed from Buffalo. So, like poor Edgar +Poe, who had to suffer from the machinations of a profligate brother, +who gave Edgar's name whenever he got into a scrape, I may have +sometimes been credited with the sins of strangers. No one is free from +this sort of calumny. We all have heard of Sheridan's wicked witticism, +in that when taken up in Pall Mall for drunkenness, he gave his name +Wilberforce; and it is said that he got drunk on purpose to say so! My +venerable friend, Thomas Cooper, the pious and eloquent old Chartist, +has been similarly confused with Robert Cooper, the atheist, lecturer; +not but that Thomas had once been an atheist too. In this connection, +here is a curiously complicated case of _alibi_, which I abstract +_verbatim_ from one of my Archive-books. + +"On Sunday, the 17th of September 1848, I was all the afternoon and +evening at my house on Furze Hill, Brighton, quietly reading and +teaching my children, &c. Next day the 'Rev. J.C. Richmond (an American +friend) called with me on the Rev. Mr. Vaughan, and in the course of +conversation the latter said to me in a good-natured tone of rebuke: +'Some of my congregation tell me they saw you yesterday afternoon +smoking a cigar in a fly on the Marine Parade.' I had hardly time to +deny the soft impeachment, which I might well have done with emphasis, +as a loather of cigars, and as little as possible a traveller on +Sundays, when Richmond broke out with 'That's impossible; for I saw him +myself in Shoreham Church (five miles distant), and noticed that he went +away in the middle of the sermon, as I supposed, to get home to Mrs. +Tupper.' Mr. Richmond says he could have made oath that I had been +there, and that he told several persons after church that I 'had heard +part of the sermon in the afternoon.' So, upon human and trustworthy +evidence, I could have been proved to have been in three places at +once." + +My fetch similarly once rescued a young lady from death on Snowdon: at +least a stranger in company once came up to me, to thank me for my +prowess in having stopped his daughter's pony, which had run away down, +the mountain!--in vain I denied it:--and he addressed me by my name, +too! Somebody must have given him my card by accident. + +And let me here allude (if I can without indelicacy) to another sort of +personation of more financial importance to myself. Lately, I have seen +some not very refined nor considerate paragraphs in American papers (Mr. +Bok, a Brooklyn editor, has told me that more than four hundred repeated +them) to the effect that in the battle of life I had--truly +enough--suffered reverses, and needed material help from my many +professing friends. Moreover I have heard it stated that some sort of +collection was volunteered for me. Well, this may have been the case or +not; but anyhow the fact is (and it should be announced to those who may +have given--and wonder at no acknowledgment of their kindness having +come from me) that to this hour I have received nothing from America +(except a few dollars sent by one lady, and some more from a +Transatlantic relative), either on account of my so-called testimonial, +or these more recent paragraphs. The annoyance in my own mind, and in +the suspicion of some others round me, is the awkward fancy that sundry +small collections may have been intercepted. Possibly some other Martin +Tupper has the spoil. + +Another sort of dishonest personation whereto we are all liable, whether +authors or not, is the having imputed to us divers forged or garbled +sentiments, even in the immutability of print, I have now before me a +Boston copy of my first Proverbial published by one Joseph Dowe in 1840, +which, though stated to be "from the London edition," designedly omits +all allusion to the Trinity, even my whole essay thereon, for Mr. Dowe +as a Unitarian chose to make me one! Also, I have seen my name attached +to verses I never wrote, and have been claimed both by Swedenborgians +and Freemasons as a brother, while Jesuitry has otherwise traduced me. +Artists also as well as authors are similarly misrepresented; my +son-in-law, Clayton Adams, for instance, tells me that his name has been +added to landscapes he never painted, and that they sold by auction at +high prices. Modern society should punish such cheateries severely. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +HOSPITALITIES--FARNHAM, ETC. + + +Amongst other memorabilia in no particular order, let me set down a few +visits, longer than a mere call, to sundry persons and places of note. +As these, for instance. Annually during many years I used to be a guest +from Thursday to Monday at Farnham Castle, when the good Bishop's +venison was in season. Of course, at such a table I constantly met +celebrities, but a mere list of their names would be tedious, and any +public record of private hospitalities I hold to be improper. No doubt +the kindly and courtly Bishop Sumner held high festival like an ancient +Baron, at such a rate (for those were golden times from renewed leases +for the see) as no successor with a less unlimited income could well +afford. The grandeur of Farnham Castle died with him: and my good friend +from boyhood, Bishop Harold Browne, must not be blamed if with less than +half his means he cannot compete with him. + +I was enabled to gratify Bishop Sumner in a way that touched his heart, +as thus. A cousin of mine, De Lara Tupper of Rio Janeiro, a rich +merchant prince there, sent me, as a present for my Albury greenhouse, +two large bales of orchids, which, however, were practically useless to +me, as I had not that expensive luxury, a regular orchid-house. But I +knew that the dear Bishop had, and that orchid-growing was his special +hobby: accordingly all were transferred to Farnham, and I need not say +how gratefully accepted, as many roots proved to be most rare, and some +specimens quite unique. The good man gave me, _en revanche_, a splendid +Horace, in white vellum beautifully illustrated, and inscribed by him +"Gratiarum actio," now near me in a bookcase. The same South American +cousin sent me also a box of pines, oranges, and shaddocks just when +Garibaldi was our visitor at Princes Gate,--and I had the gratification +of giving many to him, not only because he mainly lived upon fruit, but +also because some of the said fruit came from the farm he and his first +wife, the well-beloved Anita, had once owned in South America. Later on, +Gladstone invited me to meet the hero at a reception in Carlton Gardens, +where I took note of Garibaldi, with his hostess on his arm, as he +walked in his simple red shirt, through a bowing lane of feathered +fashionables, whom he greeted right and left as if he had been always +used to such London high life. On that occasion I had the honour of +standing between Palmerston and Lord John Russell, who kindly conversed +with me, as also did the chief guest, specially thanking me for those +pines and oranges. + + +Parham. + +Another notable visit of some days, was one to Parham, the ancient--and +haunted--seat of my old friend both at Charterhouse and at Christ +Church, Robert Curzon, afterwards Lord de la Zouche, the great collector +of Armenian and other missals and manuscripts. With him (alas! no more +amongst us, and his son has dropped the "de la") I spent a joyful and +instructive time: out of doors we fished in the lake and rode about the +park among the antlered deer,--three heads and horns whereof are now in +our glass-porch entrance at Albury; indoors, there was the splendid +gallery of family armour from feudal days,--several suits of which +Curzon told me he had tried to wear on some occasion, but couldn't; most +were too small for him, though by no means a tall man; and those which +he could struggle into were too heavy. Then there was the interminable +companion gallery of full-length portraits, some of whom, probably the +wicked ancestors, _walked_! and I'm sure that when I slept in a +tapestried chamber under that gallery, I did hear footsteps--could it +be, horrible fancy! in procession? When I told Curzon this, he answered +that he had often heard them himself, from boyhood, but that familiarity +bred contempt: he said also, with a twinkle in his eye, that there _was_ +a room which was usually set apart for new-married couples, as such +would probably not be so much startled as lonely maids and bachelors +might be, at the whispered conversations across the bed! Moreover, evil +wings (possibly owls or bats, looking after glow-worm candles) +occasionally flapped at the casements. But Curzon was a humorist as well +as inventive. Perhaps one secret as to ghosts at Parham lay in the fact +that in the old thick walls were concealed staircases and "priests' +chambers," which possibly might be of use, even now, to vagrant lovers +(like Mr. Pickwick at Ipswich), or perhaps sleep-walkers,--or +burglarious, thieves. Anyhow, I liked to lock my bedroom door there,--as +indeed I do generally elsewhere, if lock and key are in good agreement; +for once I couldn't get out without the surgical operation of a +carpenter, having too securely locked myself in. This shall not happen +twice, if I can help it. Curzon's great glory, however, was his library, +full of rarities: he showed me, amongst other MSS., his unique purple +parchments, with gold letter types, being (if I remember rightly) +Constantine's own copy of the New Testament; and, to pass by other +curios, some tiny Elzevirs uncut: imagine his horror when I volunteered +to cut these open for him!--their chief and priceless wonder being that +no eye has ever seen, nor ever can see, the insides of those virgin +pages! I know there is such a rabies as bibliomania,--and I have myself, +at Albury, a "breeches" Bible, which belonged to a maternal ancestor, a +Faulkner, of course valued beyond its worth as a readable volume; and I +might name many other instances; but to esteem a book chiefly because it +has never been cut open, did strike my ignorance as an abnormal fatuity. +Curzon was one of our Aristotelians, as before mentioned. + + +Other Visits. + +I am also mindful of a very pleasant week spent long ago at Shenstone's +Leasowes, a beautiful estate near Birmingham, now being dug up for coal +even as Hamilton is, where in those days some good friends of mine +resided, of whom (now departed like so many others) I have most kindly +recollections. The hostess, a charming and intelligent lady of the old +school, wearing her own white ringlets, used to have many talks with me +about Emanuel Swedenborg, a half-inspired genius whom she much favoured; +the host, a genial county magnate, did his best to enable me to catch +trout where Shenstone used to sing about them, and tried to interest me +in farm improvements: but my chief memory of those days is this. Whilst +I was there, a splendid testimonial in silver arrived in a fly from +Birmingham, well guarded by a couple of police against possible roughs, +the result of a zealous gathering from his political supporters; and +that Testimonial, "little Testy" as I called it, was a source of care +and dilemma to everybody; for care, it was immediately locked away for +fear of burglars; and as to dilemma, the white elephant was too tall for +the centre of a table, and too short to stand upon the floor. It seemed +closely to illustrate to my mind that wise text about a man's life and +his possessions. The cheerful spirit of the mansion and its inmates +seemed quite subdued by this unwelcome acquisition. When at the +Leasowes, I produced some suitable poems which were very kindly +received: here is one of them, hitherto unprinted. + + _An Impromptu Sonnet._ + + _Ticked of at the Leasowes, Aug. 24, 1857, as per order._ + + "And so you claim a verse of me, good friend, + As from the inspiration of the place; + Well then,--from pastoral trash may taste defend + Your pleasant Leasowes, and the human race! + The Gentle Shepherd's day has had an end, + Nor even could melodious Shenstone here + (False and inflated, we must all allow), + Excite one glowing thought or pensive tear + Unless indeed of wrath or pity now: + Yet dearly can I love these tumbling hills + With roughly wooded winding glens between, + Set with clear trout pools link'd by gurgling rills + And all so natural and calm and green, + That served to enervate your Poetaster + But only strengthen now their Iron Master." + +I will also record a hospitable sojourn in old days at Northwood Park, +the splendid abode of Isle-of-Wight Ward (grandfather to my school and +college friend Ward of the Aristotle class and Oxonian persecution), +where I once spent a week in my father's time: and similarly a visit at +Lord Spencer's perfect villa near Ryde: and at other pleasant homes, +made to me frequently welcome, the chief being Wotton, the classic +mansion of one of my oldest friends. + +Also long ago,--see a former page,--I purposely dismissed with only a +word our lengthened visits in my father's day at Inveraray Castle with +the old Duke of Argyll, and Holkar Hall with Lord George Cavendish, as +private domesticities,--whilst a casual other few as at Ardgowan, +Rozelle, Herriard, Losely, and the like, gratefully on my memory, shall +be thus briefly recorded here: Ardgowan is the magnificent abode of my +friend Sir Michael Shaw-Stewart, after whose grandmother as my sponsor I +am named Farquhar; Rozelle, the hospitable mansion of Captain Hamilton, +where I sojourned many days, meeting the _elite_ of Ayr, and among them +the aged niece of Burns in the poet's own country; Herriard House, my +old school-friend Frank Ellis's heritage under his name of Jervoise, and +Losely--"of the manuscripts," where I have often visited my late +excellent friend James More Molyneux. + +Of course, like everybody else who may be lifted a trifle above the +crowd, I have experienced, almost annually, the splendid hospitalities +of the Mansion House and most of the City Companies: may they long +continue, and not be spunged away by Radical meanness! all classes are +united and gratified thereby, for the poorest get the luxurious +leavings, and the feasts are paid for by benefactors long departed from +the scenes of their successful merchandise. All that seeming prodigality +and luxury have good uses. But I will mention (of course without the +hint of a name or place) one only instance of excessive splendour, quite +needless and to my mind vulgar. A great magnate (not a royalty, I need +hardly say) invited four guests to dine with his home party; the four +were my father and mother, my brother Dan and myself, humble guests +enough; and yet behind each of twelve chairs stood a gorgeous flunkey in +powder and bright livery, with my lord's gentleman superadded in +undertaker's evening trim, while the Earl himself wore his star and +garter! Of course too the buffet and the table were loaded, with +resplendent plate. That, scene of ostentation has been on the gray +matter of my brain ever since young manhood, and I relieve myself now of +the reminiscence for the first and last time. In another page I speak of +Prince Astor's pure gold service when I dined with him at New. York; and +I have grateful memory of the almost palatial splendour wherewith a rich +publisher entertained his guest at his castle under Arthur's Seat; but +in every case (and I might name others) my heart's aspiration has been, +"Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for +me." Mr. Vanderbilt was not happy with his millions; neither probably is +poor Jack without a shot in his locker. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +SOCIAL AND RURAL. + + +In such a record of personals as this, it is fortunate both for the +author and his readers if he has never been one of those literary lions +who are merely histrionic creatures of society. It is a privilege not to +have to reproduce the common small-talk of ball-rooms and +garden-parties, nor to be obliged to make the most, after a +semi-libellous fashion, of after-dinner scandals, or gossip in the +smoking-room. Not having heard them he cannot well report racy +anecdotes, whereof sundry memoirs have been too full. In the happier +condition of a partial anchoritism I have escaped clubs, London seasons, +and country mansion gaieties; as a youth and to middle manhood a +stammerer, I would not willingly court the humiliations of chattering +society, and thereafter, up to to-day, a domestic country gentleman of +literary pursuits, I have avoided (as far as possible) fashionable +gatherings of every sort, social, theological, or political. Not that I +abjure--it is far otherwise--any kind of genial intercourse with my +fellows; a few friends are my delight, but I never would belong to a +club, though sometimes specially tempted by indulgence as to terms (more +than once having been offered a free and immediate entry), nor to any +society or charity that expected of me personal publicity or active +service,--albeit, once, and once only, I had to figure as a reluctant +chairman at Exeter Hall. Privacy has ever been my preference; whence it +will clearly be inferred how much I have had to sacrifice in the way of +self-denial when forced by circumstances to enact the "old man eloquent" +before assembled hundreds, sometimes thousands, as a public reader. +People who have made themselves acquainted with my "Proverbial +Philosophy" may remember that my Essay on Speaking contrasts the misery +of the man who cannot speak with the happiness of the emancipated +orator, and I have experienced them both; whilst it may be seen in what +I have written about silence and seclusion how cordially and perhaps +foolishly, as "wearing my heart on my sleeve," I have shown that I +greatly love to be alone, especially in what I am known to call "holy +silence;" in fact, as ill-nature may like to put it, I prefer my own +quiet company to that disturbed by the talk of other people. So much, +then, as to one cause for the scantiness in this self-memoir of expected +spicy anecdotes and perilous revelations. Not but that I could make +considerable mischief, and perhaps help my publisher in sales, if I +chose to make the most of the many celebrities, both American and +English, with whom I have had intercourse both at Albury and elsewhere. +My humble hospitalities and the constant welcome I have given to +strangers, have been like their author, proverbial; but that is no +reason why our converse, free and frank as private fellowship commands, +should be produced in print; naturally the host was ever generous, and +the guest--equally, of course--appreciative. + +Perhaps though, not quite always: and I am tempted here to say just one +unpleasant word about the only one of my many American guests, +hospitably, nay almost affectionately treated, who wrote home to his +wife too disparagingly of his entertainer, his son having afterwards had +the bad taste to publish those letters in his father's Life. One +comfort, however, is that in "The Memoirs of Nathaniel Hawthorne," that +not very amiable genius praises no one of his English hosts (except, +indeed, a perhaps too open-handed London one), and that he was not known +(any more than Fenimore Cooper, whom years ago I found a rude customer +in New York) for a superabundance of good nature. When at Albury, +Hawthorne seemed to us superlatively envious: of our old house for +having more than seven gables; of its owner for a seemingly affluent +independence, as well as authorial fame; even of his friends when driven +by him to visit beautiful and hospitable Wotton; and in every word and +gesture openly entering his republican and ascetic protest against the +aristocratic old country; even to protesting, when we drove by a new +weather-boarded cottage, "Ha, that's the sort of house I prefer to see; +it's like one of ours at home." That we did not take to each other is no +wonder. This, then, is my answer to the unkindly remarks against me in +print of one who has shown manifestly a flash of genius in "The Scarlet +Letter;" but, so far as I know, it was well-nigh a solitary one. + +One further curious illustration of an uncongenial guest is this: +Alexander Smith wrote a "Life Drama," full of sparkling poetic gems, +which at once made him popular, apparently with justice enough. I asked +him down to Albury, made much of him, praised warmly sundry _morceaux_ +of his (which I had marked in my copy), and to my astonishment received +the brusque reply, "O, you like those, do you? I shall alter them in +next edition:" as I found afterwards he did. He was a common-looking +man, with a rough manner, and a squint. As he seemed upset,--though why +I could not guess,--I tried in other ways to please him; as, by a ramble +in the woods and a drive in the waggonette: but all would not do,--his +day came to an end as gloomily as it began. Long after, I stumbled upon +the reason. I had then for the first time read Bailey's "Festus," and +found some passages therein very similar to Alexander's; thereafter, +other little bits from some other poets (I think Tennyson was one) +struck me. Little wonder, then, that I heard no more of Smith,--who +clearly had thought himself found out,--and so received my first +ignorance of his plagiaristic tendency as if I had known all about it: +and years after Aytoun had (as I was told) avenged justice by that +cleverest of spasmodic poetries, "Firmilian, by Percy Jones"--a +burlesque on Alexander Smith, and a book which the world has too +willingly let die. Let no one, however, after all this, fancy that I am +unaware of Alexander Smith's true merit. He very neatly fitted into his +mosaic word-pictures the titbits he had culled in his commonplace-book +out of many poets, and so utilised them. A self-made and self-taught +man, "elbow to elbow," as he told me, "with Jack, Tom, and Harry in a +workshop," as a designer of patterns, he had well and wisely made the +most of his scant opportunities of culture, and it is only a pity that +he did not allude to something of this in a preface. + +It is not for me to recall here much about the inevitable hospitalities +of an old country house, to which a not unkindly host often invited +English and foreign friends, whom something to do with authorship had +made celebrities. Do I not pleasantly remember the jolly haymaking, when +old Jerdan, calling out, "More hay, more hay!" covered Grace Greenwood +with a haycock overturned, and had greeted a sculptor guest +appropriately and wittily enough with "Here we are, Durham, all +mustered!" the "we" being besides others, Camilla Toulmin, George +Godwin, and Francis Bennoch? Do I not remember how much surprised we +were at the melodies whereof an old piano was capable when touched by +Otto Goldsmidt? Can I forget, also, how marvellously a young Canadian, +Joseph Macdougall, of Ottawa, extemporised on the same piano as only a +genius can (Mr. Assher was another), and sent me afterwards, as a +memory, a vast volume of American photographs, whereof he had +munificently prepaid the enormous sum of L6, 18s. for postage? And was +not our village stirred to its depths by the visit to Albury House of +two black gentlemen and a blue,--all in evening dress? + +It was President Roberts of Monrovia, attended by his secretary and +chief minister; for they came cordially to return thanks to one who had +helped a little in slave emancipation, under the influences of Elliott +Cresson, Dr. Hodgkin Garrison, and others,--and, moreover, had given a +gold medal for African literature, biennially to be competed for by +emancipated slaves;--whereof I have heard very little, since (by the +volunteered assistance of Mr. Taylor, the seal engraver) I gave it many +years ago: the medal was as large as a crown piece. President Benson, +also of Liberia, a magnificent ebon specimen of humanity, visited me +with his staff, not long before his lamented death--it was said, by +murder. + +Let me add now a word of kindly memory for some good friends long gone +to a better world, but once welcome guests at Albury. There was Benjamin +Nightingale, the enthusiastic antiquary; there was his _fidus Achates_, +Akerman, secretary to the Numismatic, whom I greatly pleased by enabling +him to catch a trout near my carriage gate; there was Chief Baron +Pollok, head of the Noviomagians: the eloquent Edwards Lester of +America, whose speech at a Literary Fund dinner to which I had treated +him was hailed by Hallam, Dickens, and others on the spot as _the_ +speech of the Society: and the Warrens of Troy, N.Y., about whose casual +visit this singular thing happened. For the first and only time in life +I had had the strange luck to catch at Netley Pond three perch of nearly +a pound each, and a fine trout of about two: I little knew then the +final cause thereof: in those days we could not easily get fish in the +country, unless indeed we caught it: now my eminent Transatlantic +stranger friends came on a Friday, and proved to be Roman Catholics: +could any piscatorial luck have been more timely? + +When a few days after I told of my sport to a neighbour (it was Captain +Russell of the Cleveland family), a great angler, he, of course, without +imputation of my veracity, hinted that he wished I might have such luck +again, as he would then come and dine with me. I answered at once, "Come +to-morrow, and see what I may have caught." He did,--and I produced from +the same old mill-head a three-pound trout,--to his astonishment, as it +had been my own to have caught it. I have never had such luck before or +since, though always a zealous angler in an unprofessional way. + +Let me not forget here also the beautiful "Albury Waltz," composed in +my drawing-room by Miss Armstrong, and published--it must be twenty +years ago now--by Robert Cocks, New Burlington Street: wherein by +request I originated the idea of song words for the dancers. This +singing as you danced has been often done since, but I suppose no one +then thought of it but myself since King David. I need say little more +about Albury visitors:--for many years there were plenty of them,--but +if one put down a tenth part of what even the faithless memory of old +age still retains, there would be no end to such inexhaustible +recordings. + +And here is an Alburian anecdote which may amuse, as illustrative of the +mental calibre of some of those myriads of untutored rustics whom our +partisan governors have made politically equal with the wisest in the +land. Three young friends came to spend a day with us, and for fun +brought in their pockets the absurd noses popular at Epsom races. We +came upon some turf-diggers, and my visitors mounted their masks to +mystify them. The clodpoles looked scared and very quiet, till I went up +to one of them who knew me,--of course I was in my natural +physiognomy,--and I said to him, "My friend, these are foreigners:" and +the poor ignoramus staring at those portentous noses said seriously, +"Ees, I sees they be." Clearly he thought all "furriners" were so +featured. + +Another specimen of agricultural intelligence is this: A labourer in my +field one day said to me, "Master, please to tell me where Jerusalem is, +because me and my mates have been disputing about it, and I says as its +in Ireland, because the Romans goes there!" He meant the Roman +Catholics! and he might have heard also that St. John's Pat-mos was in +fact an Irish bog, Pat's-moss: many of our legislative constituency +being found to believe _that_. + +But not only is the common labourer thus dense: take these two instances +of country guests at my table. One whom I had asked to meet two +Americans told me of his disappointment at not finding them--red men! +And another (this time a provincial parson) wanted me to expostulate +with my friend Hatchard (afterwards Bishop of Mauritius) because he +meditated in his philanthropy giving a drinking fountain to Guildford. +"Only think, a drinking fountain! surely you cannot approve?" The poor +man supposed it was one of those pumping apparatuses for spirits +presided over by barmaids! It is manifest that the schoolmaster was not +so much abroad a few years ago as he has been since board schools have +arisen. + +Amongst other specialities of ancient Albury House, which has 1561 on a +weathercock and 1701 on a kitchen wing, is the same peculiarity which +Tennyson told me at Farringford vexes him in his own less ancient +dwelling,--and which Pindar of old declared to be the privilege of +poets. We are, and have been for generations, a very house-hive of bees: +the whole front of two gables has them under its oak floors and panelled +walls throughout,--and when guests sleep in certain rooms they have to +be forewarned that the groans at midnight are not those of perturbed +spirits, but the hum and bustle of multitudinous bees. We cannot drive +them away, nor destroy them utterly,--as often has been attempted; and +if we did, the worry would be only worsened, as in that case hornets +would come and succeed to the sweet heritage of bee-dom. When the +stuccoed front of our house was demolished, to show the oaken pattern +(but it had to be re-roughcast to keep out the weather), there were +pailsful of honey carried off by the labourers, of course not without +wounds and strife: but in ordinary times it is a strange fact that our +bees never sting their hosts; be careful only to remain quiet, and there +is no war between man and bee. Two years ago a great comb was built +outside an eaveboard, probably because there was no room for more comb +inside. It is curious that it should have survived two hard winters. Is +not all this apposite, as suited (let Pindar and Tennyson bear witness) +to a poet's home? + +In this zoological connection (for bees are zoa) let me record that +there is a legend of a fox having been killed in our drawing-room (on +the ground-floor with French windows) during some tenancy in my +absence,--only fancy the havoc of such a strife! but all had been +cleared up before our return. Also, it is memorable (and I saw it +myself) that a hard-pressed stag from Sir Gilbert Heathcote's hunt took +refuge in our harness-room,--to the extreme horror of a gardener's boy, +who thought it was a mad donkey,--and no wonder, for as those brave +barbarian sportsmen get the antlers sawn off for fear of wounds to +themselves or their nobler dogs, the poor scared creature with its +uncrowned head and loppity ears is very donkey-like. + +Let me give another like homely anecdote of past days. + +We are all now so wrapt in security as country dwellers, guarded by the +rural police everywhere, that the following ludicrous incident may seem +hardly worth a word; but in the good old days, when poor Jack was such a +highway brigand that my nurses feared to take the children off the +premises, and when burglars were not infrequent callers at remote +residences, what happened long ago, on a certain dark winter's night, at +Albury, may amuse. Long after all had gone to bed, we heard with +trepidation stealthy steps crunching the snow round the house, and +_something_ that now and then touched the ground-floor doors and +windows, as if quietly trying to get in: at last _it_ fumbled at the +ancient hanging handle of the outside kitchen-door! Now was the time for +Paterfamilias to show his pluck, in the universal scare; so, armed +_cap-a-pied_, with candles held in the rear by the terrified household, +he valorously drew the bolts and flung open the heavy oaken door,--to +greet--his children's donkey, escaped somehow from its stable, and +trying to get indoors that cold night for warmth. Laugh as we might, and +as you may, the test of courage was all the same; and if this donkey +story is pounced upon by some critic or comic as a weak link in my chain +of autobiography, I only hope he will behave as bravely if a real +ruffian tries his doors and windows by night; by no means an improbable +hypothesis in these days of communistic radicalism. + +The old house itself may deserve a word. It came to me as a--shall I +say?--matrimony, from my mother; if patrimony means from a father, why +not matrimony from a mother? her great-uncle, Anthony Devis, having +bought it in 1780. He was a remarkable man in his way and before his +age; a good landscape painter (as Pilkington avouches), a collector of +pictures and curiosities,--mostly sold by executors at his death, aged +eighty-nine, though a full gallery remains at Albury; a carver too, and +a constructor of cabinets,--whereof two fine specimens (inlaid with +brecciated jaspers, and made of ebony and cedar from his own +turning-lathe) decorate our large drawing-room; and the oldest folk in +our village still remember the good old gentleman who always had +gingerbread in his pockets for them as children, and who was known by +them as the "man mushroom," seeing he was the first who ever had an +umbrella in the place! There was, however, another and a better reason +for this name, inasmuch as he built for himself an outer painting-room +on a hilltop near which he called Mushroom Hall, because it was just +like one (as a picture in our drawing-room testifies), being a circular +turret surmounted by a flat broad dome, with overshadowing eaves all +round. This strange summer-house has long vanished. + +Anthony came of a good old stock paternally, as the civic archives of +Preston, in Lancashire, testify; and his mother was Ann Blackburne, of +Marrick Abbey, Yorkshire,--the title-deeds whereof, old slip parchments +and maps from Henry II. to Henry VIII., I found in a chest at Albury, +and years after transmitted them to Lord Beaumont, the present owner; +albeit, as a boy, I had been allowed to cut off the seals and paste them +in a copy-book! All these deeds, and the history thereof, I had printed +in Nichols's Antiquariana. + + * * * * * + +The prominent feature of our village, so far as religion is concerned, +has for nearly fifty years been the fact of its being the headquarters +of the party originated by Edward Irving,--a full history whereof, +impartially and ably written by Mr. Miller of Bicester (whose +hospitality I have enjoyed for some days at Kineton), will be found at +Kegan Paul's, if any wish to read it. I have always lived on kindly +terms with my neighbours, though not quite of their faith; excellent +are many of them, and I am glad to number such among my friends, +specially as on neither side we meddle with each other's peculiar +opinions. I have known nearly all their twelve apostles, men of mark and +learning (especially John Tudor, a great Hebraist, and who was skilled +even in Sanscrit and the arrow-headed characters), and eleven of them +are among the dead, one only surviving in a vigorous old age to meet +(may it be so) the Lord at His coming. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +AMERICAN BALLADS. + + +My American Ballads, perhaps after "Proverbial Philosophy," the chief +cause of my Transatlantic popularities, had their origin at Albury. The +first of these and the most famous, as it induced several friendly +replies from American poets, was one whereof this below is the first +stanza. I wrote it in 1850, and read it after dinner to four visitors +from over the Atlantic to their great delectation, and of course they +sent MS. copies all over the States. It begins-- + + _To Brother Jonathan._ + + "Ho! brother, I'm a Britisher, + A chip of heart of oak, + That wouldn't warp or swerve or stir + From what I thought or spoke; + And you--a blunt and honest man, + Straightforward, kind, and true, + I tell you, brother Jonathan, + That you're a Briton too!" + +I would copy more here, but as the whole ballad (equally with the two +just following) is printed in my Miscellaneous Poems and still extant at +Paternoster Square, I refer my reader thereto if he wants more of it. +The next of note was one headed "Ye Thirty Noble Nations," and is +remarkable for this strange fact, viz., that I composed about the half +of those eighteen eight-line stanzas in a semi-slumber. I was as I +thought asleep, but I got out of bed and pencilled the ballad (or most +of it, for I added and amended afterwards) straight off, and went to bed +again, of course to sleep profoundly; when I got up next morning and +found the MS. on my table, it seemed like a dream, but it wasn't. Those +who are curious may look out this piece of "_quasi_ inspiration" in that +poem-book aforesaid. But here is the opening verse for those who cannot +get the volume in bulk:-- + + "Ye thirty noble Nations + Confederate in one, + That keep your starry stations + Around the Western sun,-- + I have a glorious mission, + And must obey the call, + A claim!--and a petition! + To set before you all." + +The claim being love for Mother Britain; the petition for freedom to the +slave. It was published in 1851. + +A third is chiefly noticeable for this. America had since my last +address to her as "Thirty Nations" added three more States; and I was +challenged to include them: which I did as thus; here are three of the +Stanzas in proof:-- + + "Giant aggregate of Nations, + Glorious Whole of glorious Parts, + Unto endless generations + Live United, hands and hearts! + Be it storm or summer weather, + Peaceful calm, or battle jar, + Stand in beauteous strength together, + Sister States, as Now ye are! + + "Charmed with your commingled beauty + England sends the signal round, + 'Every man must do his duty' + To redeem from bonds the bound! + Then indeed your banner's brightness + Shining clear from every star + Shall proclaim your joint uprightness, + Sister States, as Now ye are! + + "So a peerless constellation + May those stars together blaze! + Three and ten-times threefold Nation + Go ahead in power and praise! + Like the many-breasted goddess + Throned on her Ephesian car, + Be--one heart in many bodies, + Sister States, as Now ye are!" + +There are also several other like balladisms, and sundry sonnets, all of +which I had from time to time to greet my American audiences withal. And +thus before I paid my visits over there, the land was salted with ore +and the water enriched with ground-bait, so that when the poetaster +appeared he was welcomed by every class as a promoter of International +Kindliness. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +AMERICAN VISITS. + + +A vast volume is before me containing my first American journal, which I +sent over piecemeal in letters and newspaper clippings to Albury, where +my wife and daughters arranged them and kept them safely, till on my +return after three months travel I pasted them duly into this big book. +If I were to record a tithe of the myriad memorabilia there entered, the +present volume now in progress would not afford space even for a tithe +of that: and after all, the result would only appear as a record of +numerous private hospitalities (which I object to making public), of +sundry well-appreciated kindnesses, compliments, and tokens of honour +from stranger friends in many cities, and the numerous incidents that a +tourist visitor ordinarily experiences; most of which, although +paragraphed in a gossiping fashion through hundreds of the 3000 American +papers, are not worth recording here. In fact, I look at this enormous +volume with despair,--the more so that there is its other equally bulky +brother about my second visit,--and so intend to give only some samples +of both. The world is too full of books, and does not call out for +another American Journal. The main social interest of my two visits +consisted in the contrast shown between the one in 1851 and that in +1876, just a quarter of a century after; between in fact the extreme +drinking habits of one generation and the extreme temperance of another: +mainly due, amongst other causes, to the overflowing prosperities of the +middle of this century and the comparative adversities of its declining +years. "Jeshurun once waxed fat, and kicked,"--but since then he has +become one of the "lean kine:" wines and spirits were formerly in +abundance as well as hard dollars, but have now been replaced by the +cheaper water and discredited paper. Moreover, such shrewd and caustic +writers as the Trollopes and Dixon and Charles Dickens have done great +good service to their sensible and sensitive American brothers,--who, +far from resenting strictures which for the moment stung, took the best +advantage of their utterance in self-improvement. My first visit was +hospitably redolent of all manner of seductive drinks,--wherein, +however, I was (as they thought) too temperate; my second was as +hospitably plentiful so far as eating went, but iced water (wherein I +was temperate too) appeared solitarily for the universal beverage: +though even in the most teetotal homes this English guest was always +generously allowed his port or Madeira or even his whisky if he wished +it. Temperance was a fashion, a _furore_, on my second visit, as its +opposite had been on my first: and on each occasion, I persisted in a +middle course, the golden mean,--which I know to be proverbially a +wisdom though not at present universally so accepted. + +It is hopeless for me to look through the multitudinous large quarto +pages of my first diary and its letters, comments, paragraphs, &c.; they +are only too full of compliments and kindnesses from friends in many +instances passed away: and I will simply record two or three of the more +public hospitalities which greeted me. + +One of these was a grand dinner with the Maryland Historical Society at +Baltimore, May 13, 1851, my late friend Mr. Kennedy in the chair as +president, while Sir Henry Bulwer and myself supported him right and +left, some hundreds of other guests also being present. Of course all +was very well done, luxuriously and magnificently; but perhaps the best +thing I can do (if my reader's patience and my present tired penmanship +will approve it) is to extract from a newspaper, the _Baltimore Clipper_ +of the above date, a _precis_ of my speech on the occasion. Some +distinguished gentleman having proposed my health,--"This brought to his +feet Mr. Tupper, who, having expressed his thanks in an appropriate +manner, and acknowledged his superior gratitude to the Author of all +good, alluded to that international loving-kindness which he avowed to +be one main errand of his life; and he very happily brought in Horace's +prophetical description of England and America in their relation of +mother and child, 'O matre pulchra filia pulchrior.' He followed by +relating some striking incidents of the good feeling which pervades the +old country in favour of her illustrious offspring. One we cannot fail +to give was that the Royal Naval School at Greenwich had inserted his +well-known ballad 'To Brother Jonathan' in a collection published for +the use of the Royal Navy. The speaker then paid an eloquent compliment +to the literature of America--her poets, statesmen, historians, and +divines. He rejoiced that 'Insular America and Continental England' were +so intimately and inseparably intermingled in the authorial productions +of the human mind, as well as bound together by the strongest ties of +nature and religion, of lineage, laws, and language. Adverting to the +wise piety of such associations as the one before him, he exhorted to +keep together the records of the past, that they may sanctify the +present and be an encouragement to good and a warning against evil for +the future. He commented severely upon the vandal act of the British +troops under General Ross in burning the national archives at +Washington. In this connection he introduced the beautiful lines from +Milton:-- + + 'Lift not thy spear against the Muse's bower; + The great Emathian conqueror bid spare + The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower + Went to the ground.' + +In conclusion, Mr. Tupper related an interesting fact, which in his mind +suggested what should be to Americans a pleasing idea--possibly a +discovery--as to the origin of the national flag. On making a pilgrimage +just lately to Mount Vernon, he was forcibly struck by the circumstance +that the ancient family coat-of-arms of the illustrious Washington +consisted of three stars in the upper portion of the shield, and three +stripes below; the crest represented an eagle's head, and the motto was +singularly appropriate to American history, 'Exitus acta probat.' Mr. +Tupper said he could not but consider this a most interesting +coincidence. He thought the world might well congratulate America upon +being the Geographical Apotheosis of that great unspotted character, +who, while he yet lived, was prospectively her typical impersonation. +The three stars by a more than tenfold increase have expanded into +thirty-three; the glorious Issue has abundantly vindicated every +antecedent fact; and your whole emergent eagle, fully plumed, is now +long risen from its eyrie and soars sublimely to the sun in heaven." I +may venture as an end to all this to quote a bit from my home letter. +"At 6 o'clock, and thereafter till 12, I was the honoured guest at the +enclosed splendid banquet. Our English ambassador sat on one side of the +chairman and I on the other; the newspaper will save me all the trouble +of a long account; but it was altogether one of the best triumphs I have +ever achieved: see the papers. My dinner was very light, terrapin soup, +_pate de foie gras aux truffes_, and sweetbread: with a deluge of iced +water, and very little wine. My two speeches raised whirlwinds of +applause, and took the company by storm. It was a most important +opportunity for me, and, by God's help, I met it manfully. All the +principal people of Maryland were there, besides our own minister; with +Lady Bulwer in a side room and that nice young fellow Lytton; and there +were many other distinguished strangers. You should have heard the +shouts and cheers which greeted the points of my speech, and the after +congratulations crowded about me. I begin to feel that if I had had +common chances I should have been an orator. When I kindle up, my +steam-horse goes off, and carries all his audience with him. While I was +speaking, the people moved up _en masse_, and they gave me three cheers +upstanding when I had done." + + * * * * * + +Another memorable event was a grand dinner given to Washington Irving +and myself, as chief guests amongst others, by Prince Astor at his +palatial residence in New York. As for the profusion of gold plate, +glittering glass, innumerable yellow wax-candles in ormolu chandeliers, +and general exhibition of splendid and luxurious extravagance, and all +manner of costly wines and rarest gourmandise, I never have seen its +like before or since; and more than this (if I may state the fact +without much imputation of vaingloriousness), the intellectual treat +was, to my _amour propre_ at least, of a still more exquisite character, +when our host protested to his company in a generous and genial speech +that, if he could make the exchange, he would give all his wealth for +half the literary glory of Washington Irving and Martin Tupper! We +whispered to each other we heartily wished he could. I strangely missed +visiting Irving at his own home, though urgently invited to it; but +somehow other pressing engagements hindered, and so it was not to be. + +On the same day with the Astorian dinner, Mr. Davis, a man of high +social position, had urged me to dine with him, but I could not come as +engaged till the evening. Now he, a local poet himself, had asked me in +divers stanzas of fair rhyme; and so, not willing either to beat him in +versification or to let him beat me, I made this epigrammatic reply in +dog-Latin, which was taken to be rather 'cute:-- + + "Certes, amice Davis, + Ibo quocunque mavis, + Sed princeps Astor primo + Me rapuit ad prandium; + Cum me relinquit, imo + In me videbis handyum." + +This skit was well appreciated. I met at his house divers celebrities, +as indeed I did at many other splendid mansions, especially at the +Mayor's, Mr. Kingsland: I hear he is the third personage in rank in the +United States, and he lives with the grandeur of our London Lord Mayor. +I went with him on the 22d of March 1851 to one of the most magnificent +affairs I ever attended. Here is an extract from my home-letter journal +of same date:-- + +"Mr. Kingsland, the Mayor, came early to invite me to a grand day, being +the inauguration of the Croton Waterworks. Went off with him at 10 from +the City Hall in a carriage and four followed by forty new omnibuses and +four, some with six horses, and caparisoned with coloured feathers and +little flags, besides a number of private carriages; a gay procession, +nearly a mile long, containing all the legislature and magnates of New +York State and of the city--several hundreds." They visited in turn +divers public institutions, and at most of them I had to speak or to +recite my ballads, especially at a Blind Asylum, where, after an address +from a blind lady (the name was Crosby), "at the request of the Governor +of the State and the Mayor, I answered on the spur of the moment in a +speech and a stave that took the room by storm," &c. &c. And so on for +other institutions, and to the opening of the Croton Aqueduct. But there +is no end to this sort of vainglorious recording. As Willis says in his +_Home Journal_ at the time, "Mr. Tupper is among us, feeling his way +through the wilderness of his laurels, and realising his share of +Emerson's 'banyan' similitude,--the roots that have passed under the sea +and come up on this side of the Atlantic rather smothering him with +their thriftiness in republican soil." I suppose by thriftiness he meant +thrivingness. + +My first acquaintance with N.P. Willis arose in this, way. He had (as I +have mentioned before) been in the habit of quoting month after month in +his own paper passages from my "Proverbial Philosophy," believing that +book to be an obscure survival of the Shakespearean era, and that its +author had been dead some three centuries. When he came to town, I +called upon him at his lodging near Golden Square, walking in plainly +"_sans tambour et trompette_" but simply announcing the then +young-looking author as his old Proverbialist! I never saw a man look so +astonished in my life; he turned pale, and vowed that he wouldn't +believe that this youth could be his long-departed prophet; however, I +soon convinced him that I was myself, and carried him off to dine in +Burlington Street. Afterwards we improved into a friendship till he went +the way of all flesh in Heaven's good time. + +Perhaps another notable matter to record is that President Fillmore +invited me to meet his Cabinet at dinner in the White House, and that I +there "met and conversed immensely with Daniel Webster, a colossal +unhappy beetle-browed dark-angel-looking sort of man, with a depth for +good and evil in his eye unfathomable; also with Home Secretary Corwen, +a coarse but clever man, who had been a waggon-driver; and with Graham, +Secretary of the Navy, and with Conrad, Secretary at War, both gentlemen +and having lofty foreheads; and with many more, including above all the +excellent President," &c. &c. It was no small honour to meet such men on +equal terms. + +If I allowed myself to quote more from my first visit to America, it +could only amount to variations of the same theme,--the great kindness +of all around me to one, however humble, who had shown himself their +friend both by tongue and pen. My books and my ballads had made the way +to their affections, and so the author thereof reaped their love. + +A little before my departure on this first visit this notable matter +happened, and I will relate it in an extract from my last letter +homeward. + +"The happy thought occurred to me to call on Barnum, as I had brought +him a parcel from Brettell; and, through him, to leave a card of respect +for Jenny Lind. Barnum received me most graciously, and favoured me with +two tickets for Jenny's concert to-night, whereof more anon. Meanwhile I +thought of sending to Jenny, through Barnum, a pretty little copy of +'Proverbial Philosophy,' with a pretty little note,--whereof also more +anon. Called on Edwards by good providence, and found that J.C. Richmond +had misled me--he isn't to be married till next week. A nice visit to +Major Kingsland and his good wife:--I find that my oratory has gone +everywhere, and has made quite a sensation. Think of my stammering +tongue having achieved such triumphs.--I do hope you get the papers I +send. A card at Lester's, Union Hotel, as to Mary M. Chase.--Dined.--A +full feast of reason with George Copway, the Redman chief, a gentleman, +an author, and a right good fellow. Meeting also Gordon Bennett, the +great New York Heraldist, who sat next me at dinner, when we had plenty +of pleasant talk together; also Squier, the celebrated American Layard, +who has discovered so much of Indian archaeology, a small, good-looking, +mustachioed, energetic man: also Tuckerman, the amiable poet: also +Willis, a good sort of man, just now much calumniated for having shown +up English society in his books,--but a kindly and a clever every way. +Mrs. Willis called and carried off Willis, and I took Tuckerman under my +wing to the monster concert at Castle Garden. The immense circular +building, full of heads (it holds 8000!) and lighted by 'cressets' of +gas, put me in mind of Martin's illustration of Satan's Throne in +Milton! The concert, as per programme, was a cold and dull affair +enough,--though Lind did terrible heights and depths in the Italian +execution line,--but after the concert came this beautiful episode. +Barnum hunted me out from the two or three acres of faces,--because the +fair and melodious Jenny had expressed to him an urgent wish to see me. +When I got to her boudoir, where Barnum introduced me, I really thought +she would have cried outright,--as feeling herself a stranger in a +foreign land, and in the presence of an old unseen book-friend; for it +seems,--as she told me in beautiful slightly broken English,--that my +poor dear 'Proverbial Philosophy,'--which I never thought she had seen +till I gave it to her,--has been to her 'such a comfort, such a comfort, +many days;' and she was 'so glad, so ver glad,' to see me,--and she +looked so unhappy,--though the immense hall was still echoing with those +tumults of applause,--and she clasped my hand so often, and would hardly +let it go, and made me sit and talk with her, for I was 'her friend,' +and really seemed like a child clinging to its elder brother. I was +quite sorry to leave her,--and when, putting aside all idle musical +compliments, I tried to cheer her by the thought,--how nobly and +generously for many good purposes she was using the melodious gift of +God to her, poor Jenny only looked up devoutly, and shook her head, and +sighed, and seemed unhappy. However, it was time to go, so with another +hearty shake-hands, and 'my love to _dear_ England,' Jenny Lind and I +took leave. This testimony as to my book's good use for comfort,--she +will 'read more now she sees me,'--is very pleasing,--it is much to do +poor Jenny good, who does good to so many others. I think I've forgotten +to say that great old Webster, the Secretary of State, avows that he +'always after hard work refreshes his mind' with that book: and--I might +fill volumes with the same sort of thing. God has blessed my writings to +millions of the human race! And from prince to peasant good has been +done through this hand, incalculable.--God alone be praised." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +SECOND AMERICAN VISIT. + + +After the long interval of five-and-twenty years, filled up with many +more such volumes and fly-leaves, I called again by pressing invitation +on my American constituency, and found them as warm and generous and +hospitable as before. This time I was six months a guest among +them,--literally so, for I found myself passed on from home to home, and +almost never took my bed at an hotel. The chief feature of this visit +was that I posed everywhere as a public "reader from my own works," and +met with generally good success, in spite of the terrific winter weather +manfully encountered half the time. Everybody knows what extremities of +cold are endured both in the North-Eastern States and in Canada. At +Baltimore I have seen the snow piled almost man-high on each side of the +middle lane dug for the tramway,--in New York men skated to their +offices; at Ottawa the thermometer was 25 deg. below zero, and at Montreal +it was everywhere deep snow (glorious for sleighing), icicles yard long +outside the windows,--and of course smaller audiences to a frozen-up +lecturer. Yet many came nevertheless, and I am pleased to remember among +them good Bishop Oxenden and his family. In spite, then, of positively +Arctic influences, as I had to do it, I did it bravely; and sent home +needful dollars, and came back with a pocket full too. All this is +surely part of an author's lifework; so I am writing appositely. + +Among notabilia of this second visit, which was crowded like the former +with abundance of private hospitality and of public honours,--I may +record these briefly. Dr. Talmage, my kind and liberal host for two +lengthened visits, gave a grand reception on October 26, 1876, to +William Cullen Bryant and myself, which was attended by Peter Cooper, +Judges Neilson and Reynolds, Mayor Schroeder, Professors Crittenden and +Eaton, with some hundred more; the chief features of the evening being +Bryant's poetical recitations and mine. On another occasion I read my +Proverbial Essay on Immortality at the Tabernacle before 7000 people at +Dr. Talmage's special request: and of course at Chickering Hall, the +Brooklyn Theatre, and other places I had to give Readings to large +audiences. The Lotos Club and other genial hosts gave me complimentary +dinners. Mr. Hulbert, the well-known editor, made a _partie carree_ +(only four of us to consume some of the rarest delicacies) for Lord +Rosebery, Mr. Barnum and myself: and in fact my journal overflows with +elaborate hospitalities. It was the Centennial Year, and at Philadelphia +I found abundant welcome, especially as an inmate of the genial homes of +Mr. Roberts, the eminent Dr. Levis, the excellent Mrs. Fisher, and of +Mr. Pettit, the clever artist who painted my portrait complimentarily. +Of course I did the Great Exhibition thoroughly, and was quite surprised +at its splendour and extent; I think that the thirty-three States were +represented by no fewer than 180 ornamental edifices full of special +products and treasures. At Niagara I stayed twice for a week each, with +the kindest of hosts, the Rev. Mr. Fessenden and his good wife, and saw +the great cataract in all the magnificence of winter as well as autumn. +Also at the pleasant homes, of Mr. Lister in Hamilton, at Toronto, +Kingston, and above all Montreal, my new but old book friends were full +of liberal greetings, and everywhere I had to exhibit myself as a Reader +from my own works; a specialty not common, as combining both author and +orator. At Toronto, the ministers, Mr.--now Sir John--Macdonald, and +Dr.--now Sir Charles--Tupper were my principal welcomers; and I dined +then with the Cabinet, as in 1851 I had with Lord Elgin's in (I think) +the same hall. At Ottawa I found myself full of friends, and visited +Lord Dufferin. At Montreal the wealthy merchant, Mr. Mackay of Kildonan +(since departed and gone up higher), was my generous host: and there in +one of the hardest winters known I often made acquaintance with the +splendid gallop of his sleighs, all furs and colour and delightful +excitement: on one occasion having nearly had nose and ears frost-bitten +till my neighbour with his fur gloves and snow rubbed life into them +again. With Dr. Dawson of M'Gill University I had plenty of geological +talk, especially about the new found Eozoa of the St. Lawrence +stratum,--and with his clever son, and my cousin, Professor Selwyn. +Thereafter I went south, the welcome guest of other cousins, the +Vaughan-Tuppers of Brooklyn, among my most hospitable friends over +there: and we routed out all about our family in America, as recorded +for ten generations in Freeman's "History of Massachusetts." And I +feasted at Mr. Trocke's on trout from "Tupper Lake" in the +Adirondacks,--the name coming from an ancestor, not as after me, though +sometimes thought so; and I met with many points both of family and of +authorial interest. Then I was entertained by the New England Society, +which, amongst abounding luxuries, still produces as a characteristic +dish the frugal pork and beans of Puritan times. And the Century and +other Clubs made me free of them. And of course Longfellow, Bryant, +Fields, Biglow, O.W. Holmes, and many others, opened their houses and +hearts to me. And I met and dined in company with General Grant and all +sorts of other celebrities,--and so did all I hoped to do. Going south, +Brantz Mayer at Baltimore, my cousin the Rev. Dr. Tupper (Bishop of the +Baptists), and many others are memorable. Stay, I will give a casual +extract from my home-letter, No. 39, of my second visit, giving several +names. + +"Jan. 18, 1877, evening. Took an oyster tea at Brantz Mayer's, and read +to a party several things by request, especially as to the souls of +animals. Judge Bond called for me there in his carriage, and took me (as +invited by the President) to a great assemblage of Baltimore magnates +(inaugurating the John Hopkins University), where I had casually quite +an ovation, meeting literally hundreds of friends: I cannot pretend to +remember many names, but these will remind me of others: General +McClellan, General Ellicott (cousin to our Bishop), Carroll, the State +Governor, no end of professors, among them Sylvester, who knew my +brother Arthur at the Athenaeum, plenty of judges, presidents of +institutions, doctors, journalists, lawyers, and many fine figure-heads +of elderly magnates; each and all knew me as an early book friend, and I +had quite to hold a court for two hours, receiving each as introduced, +and having to say something pretty to him. Mr. Weld (of Lulworth), +married to a rich Baltimorean, takes to me monstrously, and with Mr. +President Gilman is going to manage a Reading here for me on my return +from the South. He took me after the great event to the Maryland Club +(making me a member for a month), and we had a glass of wine together, +meeting again several of the bigwigs migrated like ourselves for +something better than iced-water! for the odd thing is that, although +the eating luxuries were profuse at this grand banquet,--whole salmons, +bolsters of truffled turkey, oysters in every form, and plenty of +terrapines, canvas-back ducks, and other costly comestibles,--not a drop +of anything but water (except indeed tea and coffee) was to be had, the +excuse being that at least some of the party would be sure to take too +much; so all are mulcted for a few as usual." But my American journals +are full of that sort of thing, and this honest extract may serve as a +sample. I never guessed how crowded up by popularities a poor author may +be till I had crossed the Atlantic and reaped the kindness of Greater +Britain. + +After all this, I went down South,--where I have seen brilliant +humming-birds flying about, some two or three days after I had waded +through deep snow northwards; my chief host, and a right worthy one, +being a good cousin, S.Y. Tupper, President of the Chamber of Commerce +at Charleston, S.C. With him and his I had what is called over there a +good time, and indited several poetical pieces under his hospitable +roof, in particular "Temperance" (see a former page). Also I wrote there +another stave of mine which caused great discussion in the States, +because I, reputed a Liberian and Emancipator, was supposed to have +recanted and turned to be South instead of North; but I was only just +and true, according to my lights. Here is the peccant stave, only to be +found in Charleston and other American papers of February 1877, +therefore will I give it here:-- + + _To the South_. + + "The world has misjudged you, mistrusted, maligned you, + And should be quick to make honest amends; + Let me then speak of you just as I find you, + Humbly and heartily, cousins and friends! + Let us remember your wrongs and your trials, + Slander'd and plunder'd and crush'd to the dust, + Draining adversity's bitterest vials, + Patient in courage and strong in good trust. + + "You fought for Liberty, rather than Slavery! + Well might you wish to be quit of that ill, + But you were sold by political knavery, + Meshed in diplomacy's spider-like skill: + And you rejoice to see Slavery banished, + While the free servant works well as before, + Confident, though many fortunes have vanished, + Soon to recover all--rich as before! + + "Doubtless, there had been some hardships and cruelties, + Cases exceptional, evil and rare, + But to tell truth--and truly _the_ jewel 'tis-- + Kindliness ruled, as a rule, everywhere! + Servants, if slaves, were your wealth and inheritance, + Born with your children, and grown on your ground, + And it was quite as much interest as merit hence + Still to make friends of dependents all round. + + "Yes, it is slander to say you oppressed them; + Does a man squander the price of his pelf? + Was it not often that he who possessed them + Rather was owned by his servants himself? + Caring for all, as in health so in sicknesses, + He was their father, their patriarch chief; + Age's infirmities, infancy's weaknesses + Leaning on him for repose and relief. + + "When you went forth in your pluck and your bravery, + Selling for freedom both fortunes and lives, + Where was that prophesied outburst of slavery + Wreaking revenge on your children and wives? + Nowhere! you left all to servile safe keeping, + And this was faithful and true to your trust; + Master and servant thus mutually reaping + Double reward of the good and the just? + + "Generous Southerners! I who address you + Shared with too many belief in your sins; + But I recant it,--thus, let me confess you, + Knowledge is victor and every way wins: + For I have seen, I have heard, and am sure of it, + You have been slandered and suffering long, + Paying all Slavery's cost, and the cure of it,-- + And the great world shall repent of its wrong." + +I need not say what a riot that honest bit of verse raised among the +enthusiasts on both sides. I spoke from what I saw, and soon had reason +to corroborate my judgment: for I next paid a visit on my old Brook +Green school-friend, Middleton, at his burnt and ruined mansion near +Summerville: once a wealthy and benevolent patriarch, surrounded by a +negro population who adored him, all being children of the soil, and not +one slave having been sold by him or his ancestors for 200 years. +According to him, that violent emancipation was ruin all round: in his +own case a great farm of happy dependants was destroyed, the inhabitants +all dead through disease and starvation, a vast estate once well tilled +reverted to marsh and jungle, and himself and his reduced to utter +poverty,--all mainly because Mrs. Beecher Stowe had exaggerated isolated +facts as if they were general, and because North and South quarrelled +about politics and protection. Mrs. Stowe, I hear, has learnt wisdom, as +I did,--and now like me does justice to both sides. There is no end to +extracts from my journals, if I choose to make them; but I think I will +transcribe four stanzas which I gave to Williams Middleton in February +1877, on my departure, as they bring together past and present:-- + + "Ancient schoolmate at Brook Green + Half a century ago + (Nay, the years that roll between + Count some fifty-eight or so),-- + Oh, the scenes 'twixt Now and Then, + Life in all its grief and joys,-- + Meeting Now as aged men + Since the Then that saw us boys! + + "There's a charm, a magic strange, + Thus to recognise once more, + Changeless in the midst of change + Mind and spirit as of yore; + Even face and form discerned + Easily and greeted well, + While our hearts together burned + At school-tales we had to tell. + + "Mostly dead, forgotten, gone,-- + Few old Railtonites of fame + (Here and there we noted one), + Yet we find ourselves the same! + Sons of either hemisphere + We can never stand apart, + With to me Columbia dear + And my England in your heart. + + "You, of good old English stock,-- + I--some kindred of mine own + Pound themselves on Plymouth Rock, + Five times fifty years agone; + So, I come at sixty-six, + All across the Atlantic main, + With my kith and kin to mix, + And to greet you once again!" + +I may here record that, accompanied by Middleton, I watched at an +alligator's hole with a rifle, but the beast would not come out, perhaps +luckily for me, if I missed a stomach shot; that I was prevented from +bringing down a carrion vulture, it being illegal to kill those useful +scavengers; that I caught some dear little green tree frogs; that I +noted how the rice-fields had become a poisonous marsh; that I noticed +the extensive strata of guano and fossil bone pits, securing some large +dragon's teeth, and with them sundry flint arrow-heads, suggestive of +man's antiquity; that I lamented over the desolation of my friend's +mansion and estate, and in particular to have seen how outrageously the +Federals had destroyed his family-mausoleum, scattering the sacred +relics of his ancestors all round and about. This was simply because he +had been a Confederate magnate, and had owned patriarchally a multitude +of slaves, born on the spot through two centuries. He and his kind +brother, the Admiral,--my friendly host at Washington,--have joined the +majority elsewhere; but I heard from him and others down South the truth +about American slavery. + +For remainder rapid notice. Paul Hayne the poet is remembered well; and +the fine old great-grandmother with eighty-six descendants of my name; +and thereafter came the inauguration of President Hayes, an account +whereof I wrote to the English papers; and hospitalities at the White +House, and records of plenty more Readings and receptions; and all about +Edgar Poe at Baltimore, and my acquaintance with Henry Ward Beecher, and +my final New York hospitalities, and my pamphlet "America Revisited," +written on board the return steamer the _Batavia_,--and so an end +hurriedly. + +This was my last farewell to my million friends, published in Bryant's +paper;-- + + _Valete!_ + + "A last Farewell--O many friends! + I leave your love with saddened heart; + And so my grateful spirit sends + This answering love before we part: + I thank you tenderly each one, + I praise your goodness, dear to tell, + And, well-remembered when I'm gone, + Alike will yearn on you as well. + + "A last Farewell--O my few foes! + I fear'd you not, by mouth or pen, + But to the battle bravely rose, + A man to fight his fight with men: + And though the gauntlet I have run + You shall not say he fail'd or fell, + Truly recording when I'm gone, + He fought and won his victories well. + + "My last Farewell--O brothers both! + No foes at all, but friends all round; + Albeit now homeward, little loth, + To dear old England I am bound-- + Accept this short and simple prayer + (A cheerful verse, no parting knell), + To every one and everywhere + My thankful blessing, and Farewell!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +ENGLISH AND SCOTCH READINGS. + + +I have another vast volume before me, recounting my English and Scotch +Reading Tours, with full details of innumerable home kindnesses and +hospitalities, from Ventnor in the South to Peterhead in the North, +which I need not particularise. I gave twenty-one "Readings from my own +Works" southward, in a dozen towns with a regular _entrepreneur_, who +was my _avant courier_ everywhere, making all arrangements, placarding, +advertising, hiring halls, engaging reporters, and the like; when all +was ready, I used to come forward, as the General does at a review,--and +then succeeded the sham-fight and division of the spoils of war--if any; +for, to say truth, our partnership did not prove lucrative, so we parted +with mutual esteem, and I resolved to accomplish all the rest of my +projected tour alone; a great effort and a successful one, for I +"orated" all through Scotland, from Ayr to Peterhead (far north of +Aberdeen), often to very large audiences (as at Glasgow, where the +number was said to be three thousand) and always to fair ones, the +Scotch being much more given to literature than the West of England. I +could give innumerable anecdotes of the splendid as well as kindly +welcome I received from great and small,--for as I now had no attending +agent I was all the more eagerly treated as a solitary guest,--and I +found myself handed on from one rich host to another all through the +land, with numerous book friends everywhere ready and willing to make +all arrangements freely at each town and city. So the tour paid better +every way, albeit the toil and excitement of being always to the front, +either on platforms or at dinner-parties, was excessive though not +exhausting. It is astonishing what one can do if one tries, and if the +sympathy of friends and a really good success are at hand to cheer one. +I wish there was space here to say more about all this; but the great +book before me would print up into several volumes. I will only, add, as +below, an interesting extract from this diary, just before I had parted +with my worthy agent aforesaid:--"He has told me some curious anecdotes +about eminent _artistes_ whom he has chaperoned, _e.g._ Thackeray came +to Clifton to give four readings on the Georges; the first reading had +only three auditors, the second not one; so Thackeray went away. Bellew +is uncertain; sometimes having empty benches, sometimes overflowing +ones, according to the programme, whether serious or laughable. Tom Hood +gave a lecture on Humour, which was so dull that the audience left him. +Miss Glyn Dallas often reads 'Cleopatra,' magnificently too, to empty +benches. Sims Reeves draws a vast audience, but sometimes at the last +moment refuses to sing (probably paying forfeit) because he is always +afraid of something giving way in his throat. Dickens, though with +crowded audiences, was not liked, nor nearly so good as Mr.---- +expected: he carried about with him a sort of show-box, set round with +lights and covered with purple cloth, in the midst of which he appeared +in full evening costume with bouquet in button-hole, and, as Mr.---- +said, 'very stiff.' Mr.---- has just engaged Madame Lemmens Sherrington +and six others for sixty-three concerts at a cost of L4000, for he says +that good music--after low humour--is the best thing to pay. May his +spirited speculation prosper!" Thus much for my quotation of Mr.---- 's +experiences. + +It may interest a reader if I give, quite at haphazard, a list of one of +my readings: "Welcome; Adventure; Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow; +All's for the Best; Energy; Success; Warmth; Be True; Of Love; The Lost +Arctic; The Way of the World; Cheerfulness." All these may be found in +my Miscellaneous Poems and "Proverbial Philosophy." I varied the +programme--of about an hour and a half each (sometimes two)--frequently +through my fifty readings on this side of the Atlantic, as well as +through my hundred over there. How strange that the stammerer should +have so become the orator!--I thank God for this. + +Before a final end to this brief record of my home-readings, I will add +another page of short extracts from this diary: "Though I continually +read for nearly two hours at a stretch (and that sometimes twice a day +too) I take no intervals, and hardly anything but a sip of water. Energy +and electrical effort are stimulants enough." "I always exert myself +quite as much for few as for many; perhaps more so." "No one ever can +read well or hold his audience if he doesn't feel what he reads." "Some +of the clergy are no great friends of mine; one told me to-day that +'perpetual dearly beloved brethren had spoilt him for eloquence, and he +didn't care to hear mine.'" This was at Salisbury, in a coffee-room. +"Cathedral towns are always dullest and least sympathetic with +lecturing laymen; for example, at Bristol, Salisbury, Worcester, +Gloster, and the like. Are the clerics jealous of lay spouters? +Dissenting ministers and Presbyterians seem far more genial." "I +travelled about fifteen hundred miles by rail, besides coaches and +carriages. My aggregate of paying hearers was about sixteen thousand, +the bulk being old book-likers. The gain was nearly four times as much +as the cost, good hospitality having been the rule." "I read publicly +(private readings additional, as often asked after dinners, &c.) +twenty-nine proverbial essays and thirty-eight poems; repeated according +to popularity by request to two hundred." I only do not name some of my +generous Scotch and English hosts for fear of seeming to have forgotten +others by omission; and the list is too lengthy for full insertion; as +also is the long story of my adventures and experiences in the +hospitable North. + + +Miscellaneous Poems. + +Before dismissing thus curtly, my great Scottish exploit (which, by the +way, anticipated by three years my second American visit, but I would +not disjoin that from my first) I ought to give some account of the +publication of my Miscellaneous Poems by Gall & Inglis at Edinburgh, and +of some few of the hospitalities connected therewith, though not +revealing domesticities, as against my wholesome rule. + +An odd thing happened to me at Mr. Inglis's dinner-table, where I met +several literary celebrities. I had just read, and was loud in my +praises of a then anonymous work, "Primeval Man Unveiled," and I asked +my neighbour, an aged man, if he knew that extraordinary book? +Whereupon the whole table saluted the questioner with a loud guffaw; for +I was speaking to its author, whom I had innocently so bepraised. +However, my mistake was easily forgiven, as may be imagined. I found +that the said author was Mr. Inglis's near relative, Mr. Gall,--so my +new publisher and I were immediately _en rapport_. + +There are two simultaneous editions of this book of my poetry--one +called the Redlined and the other the Landscape; the first on thick +paper, and with eight steel engravings, the latter having every page +decorated in colours with beautiful borderings of scenery. The volume +contains about one-half or less of all the mass of lyrics I have +written, some of the pieces having been in earlier books of my poetry, +as Ballads and Poems, Cithara, Lyrics of the Heart and Mind, Hactenus, A +Thousand Lines, &c. &c.; and they date, though not printed in systematic +order, from my fifteenth year to beyond my sixtieth. Fly-leaf lyrics +have been continually growing ever since now to my seventy-sixth. + +Here are a few further random, extracts from my Scotch +diary:--"Arbroath, _Sunday, Nov. 2, 1873_.--What a comfort it +is for once to feel utterly unknown; for even my luggage has only a +monogram, and here at the White Hart I am No. 15, and a commercial gent +to all appearance: really, it is quite a relief to be some one else than +Martin Tupper." + +"Read J.S. Mill's autobiography; poor wretch! from his cradle brought up +as an atheist by a renegade father, he can have been hardly more +responsible for his no faith than a born idiot. However, in these +infidel last times, and with our very broad-church and no-church +teachings, a man has only to be utterly godless (so he be moral) to +make himself a name for pure reason. I'd sooner be the most +unenlightened Christian than such a false philosopher. Let a Goldsmith +say of me, 'No very great wit, he believed in a God,' for I refuse to +deny one, like the Psalmist's fool." "I throw myself so into my +readings, that I almost forget my audience, till their cheering, as it +were, wakes me up,--and I feel every word I say: if I didn't, that word +would fall dead. There is a magnetism in earnestness,--an electric +power; I am in a way full of it when reciting, and I am aware of it +flowing through the mass of my audience." "It was a touching thing to me +to hear the aged Mr. B---- conduct his family worship, singing like an +old Covenanter the harmonious Puritan dirgy hymn, reading the Bible most +devoutly, and praying (as only Presbyterians can pray) from the heart +and not from a formal liturgy, earnestly and eloquently; he prayed also +for me and mine, and I thank God and him for it." "My host at Ayr drove +me in his waggonette to see the mausoleum at Hamilton Palace, with its +wonderful bronze doors after Ghiberti, and its inlaid marble floor, much +of which is of real verd antique in small pieces. Then we went down +among the dead men, and inspected the coffins of nearly all the Dukes of +Hamilton. It is an outrage to have expended so much (L100,000) on this +senseless mausoleum, and to have left close by and within sight of the +great Grecian palace those filthy crowded streets of poverty and +disease--the wretched town of Hamilton--as a contrast to profuse +extravagance. The last Duke, the very Lord Douglas who was in the same +class with me at Christ Church, and is supposed to have personated me in +Tom Quad, has a very graceful temple of Vesta all to himself, with his +bust in the middle: his father lies, of all heathenish absurdities, in a +real antique Egyptian sarcophagus, into which it is said he was fitted +by internal scoopings, the Duke being taller than its former tenant, the +Pharaoh. All this done, we drove through some rugged parts of the High +Park, to see magnificent oaks, much like some at Albury, in hopes of +coming upon the famous wild cattle, grey, with black feet, ears, tail, +and nose, and stated to be untameable. To our great satisfaction we did +see a herd of thirty-four feeding quietly enough; had we been walking +instead of driving we might have fared poorly as hunted ones: though I +confess I saw at first no fierceness in the lot of them; but when the +herd sighted us, and began ominously to commence encircling our gig, +under the guidance of a terrible bull, we turned and fled, as the +discreeter part of wisdom; Captain Hamilton, my host, telling me that if +they charged us we must jump out and swarm up a tree! I was glad to be +out of such a fearful escapade as that." "As to diversities in the +Scotch Church, after seeing many clerical specimens of each kind, I +judge that (generally) the Established Scotch gives itself the superior +airs of the Established English; the Frees are the most intellectual; +the U.P.s most pious; the Scottish Episcopal getting excessively high; +and some other varieties growing far too broad and pantheistic. I don't +wonder to hear Papists say that Protestantism is breaking up; no two +parsons are agreed on all points, some on none." + +As for social hospitalities, I found them either splendid or kindly--or +both--everywhere; and will only name Captain Hamilton of Rozelle, Sir +Michael Shaw Stewart of Ardgowan, Mr. Boyd of Glasgow, Mr. Gall and Mr. +Nelson of Edinburgh, Mr. Arthur of Paisley, and such other millionaire +hosts as James Baird, William Dickson, and the like, as among my +wealthiest and kindest welcomers. + +Of course, when a guest for a week at Rozelle, I paid due homage to +Burns in his own territory; visiting his natal cottage, his funeral +cenotaph, Alloway Kirk, the Auld Brig, &c. &c.--all these in company +with the millionaire iron-master and most enthusiastic admirer of +Tam-o'-Shanter, Mr. James Baird. When he took me to his magnificent +castle hard by, he said to me "Ye're vera welcome to ma hoose,"--and I +entered to inspect his gallery of pictures: among them I noticed, with +surprise at such an incongruous subject for a painting, an ugly red +factory in course of building, and a man on a ladder leaning against it, +with a hod on his shoulder. To my inquiry about this, he replied, "Yon's +mysel',--I'm proud to say; that's what I was, and this is what I am." He +had made, while yet a workman, some discovery about cold blast or hot +blast (I don't know which) and gained enormous wealth thereby. He is the +man who gave half a million of money to the Scotch Established Church. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +ELECTRICS. + + +I have something of interest to say about the first laying of the +electric telegraph across the Atlantic. Sir Culling Eardley invited a +number of savants, among them Wheatstone and Morse, and others, both +English and American, to a great feast inaugurating the completion of +the cable: and I, amongst other outsiders, had the honour of being +asked. I had written, and after dinner I read, the verses following, +which had the good and great effect of originating the first message +(see the seventh stanza) which was adopted by acclamation and sent off +at once; being only preceded, for courtesy-sake, by a short friendly +greeting from Queen to President, and President to Queen. The heading +runs in my book as "The Atlantic Telegraph." + + "World! what a wonder is this, + Grandly and simply sublime,-- + All the Atlantic abyss + Leapt in a nothing of time! + Even the steeds of the sun + Half a day panting behind, + In the flat race that is run, + Won by a flash of the mind! + + "Lo! on this sensitive, link-- + It is one link, not a chain-- + Man with his brother can think + Spanning the breadth of the main,-- + Man to his brother can speak + Swift as the bolt from a cloud, + And where its thunders were weak + There his least whisper is loud! + + "Yea; for as Providence wills, + Now doth intelligent man + Conquer material ills, + Wrestling them down as he can,-- + And lay one weak little coil + Under the width of the waves, + Distance and Time are his spoil, + Fetter'd as Caliban slaves! + + "Ariel?--right through the sea + We can fly swift as in air; + Puck?--forty minutes shall be + Sloth to the bow that we bear: + Here is Earth's girdle indeed, + Just a thought-circlet of fire,-- + Delicate Ariel freed + Sings, as she flies, on a wire! + + "Courage, O servants of light, + For you are safe to succeed; + Lo! you are helping the Right, + And shall be blest in your deed. + Lo! you shall bind in one band, + Joining the nations as one, + Brethren of every land, + Blessing them under the sun! + + "This is Earth's pulse of high health + Thrilling with vigour and heat, + Brotherhood, wisdom and wealth, + Throbbing in every beat; + But you must watch in good sooth + Lest to false fever it swerve,-- + Touch it with tenderest truth + As the world's exquisite nerve! + + "Let the first message across-- + High-hearted Commerce, give heed-- + Not be of profit or loss, + But one electric indeed: + Praise to the Giver be given, + For that He giveth man skill, + Glory to God in the Heaven! + 'Peace upon earth, and goodwill!'" + +Another Electric poem of mine called "The First Message," also in Gall's +edition, was sent over by telegraph to America. What a miserable muddle, +by the way, those meddlesome revisers have made of The Angel's +Message;--preferring a dubious sigma to a comma, they have utterly +spoilt that sublime trilogy by making "Peace upon earth, goodwill +towards men," read "Peace upon earth among men in whom he is well +pleased." How clumsy and how ungrammatical, _in_ whom! The whole dear +Bible has been terribly damaged by their 36,000 needless alterations in +the New Testament (not 100 having been really necessary), and I know not +how many more myriads in the Old, but happily their Version falls dead, +and will soon be as forgotten as Dr. Conquest's "Bible with 20,000 +emendations," whereof I now possess a somewhat scarce copy in the +library at Albury. I have less than no patience with those principally +clerical revisers; albeit for their chairman, Dr. Ellicott, I retain a +pleasant memory from Orkney recollections in old days. + + * * * * * + +But this is a digression, wrung from me by my righteous wrath against +those who have done their worst to spoil for us The Angel's Message, the +first word uttered by the telegraphic wire under the sea. + +Returning to the subject of Electrics I have something of interest to +say which will be news to my readers. One day when casually dipping into +Addison's _Spectator_ at Albury, I made the following discovery which I +recorded in the newspapers at the time, and give the extract now fully +as thus:-- + +In the 241st No. of Addison's _Spectator_, bearing date Thursday, +December 6th, 1711, and as signed "C." (one of the letters of the mystic +Clio), by the great Joseph Addison himself, occurs the following +remarkable anticipation of our presumably most modern discovery. Those +who have access to the London edition of the _Spectator_ of 1841, +published by J.J. Chidley, 123 Aldersgate Street, can verify the +verbatim faithfulness of the following extract from page 274:-- + +"Strada, in one of his Prolusions (Lib. II. prol. 6), gives an account +of a chimerical correspondence between two friends by the help of a +certain loadstone, which had such virtue in it, that if it touched two +several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the +other, though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time, and +in the same manner. He tells us that the two friends, being each of them +possessed of one of those needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing +it with four-and-twenty letters, in the same manner as the hours of the +day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed one of the +needles on each of these plates in such a manner that it could move +round without impediment, so as to touch any of the four-and-twenty +letters. + +"Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they +agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain +hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this +their invention. + +"Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them +shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately +cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write anything to +his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words +which he had occasion for, making a little pause at the end of every +word or sentence, to avoid confusion. + +"The friend in the meanwhile saw his own sympathetic needle moving of +itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By +this means they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed +their thoughts to one another in an instant over cities or mountains, +seas or deserts. + +"If Monsieur Scudery, or any other writer of romance, had introduced a +necromancer, who is generally in the train of a knight-errant, making a +present to two lovers of a couple of these above-mentioned needles, the +reader would not have been a little pleased to have seen them +corresponding with one another when they were guarded by spies and +watchers, or separated by castles and adventures. + +"In the meanwhile, if ever this invention should be revived or put in +practice, I would propose that upon the lover's dial-plate there should +be written not only the four-and-twenty letters, but several entire +words which have always a place in passionate epistles, as flames, +darts, die, language, absence, Cupid, heart, eyes, hang, drown, and the +like. This would very much abridge the lover's pains in this way of +writing a letter, as it would enable him to express the most useful and +significant words with a single touch of the needle.--C." + +Thus far Addison, a hundred and seventy years ago, and Strada (whoever +he may be, for ordinary biographical dictionaries ignore him), perhaps +fifty before him, and the two unknown experimentalists, perhaps twenty +beyond that, making in all two hundred and forty or fifty years ago as +the date of electrical invention: whereof we see no further mention in +the _Spectator_. But is it not also among the "Century of the Marquis of +Worcester's Inventions"?--as is possible; the scarce volume is not near +me for reference. Let the curious reader who can, turn to it and see. +Meanwhile, how strangely Addison and Strada have anticipated the +dial-plate, and the needles, and the letters, and the short forms for +common words, all so familiar to our telegraphists. Verily there is +nothing new under the sun. + + * * * * * + +Extract from my Archive-book, No. 8. Date October 15, 1856. + +"I was again an electric guest, this time at the Great Albion dinner +(Liverpool) to Mr. Morse, whom I had met at Erith and in America. A day +or two afterwards I sent him a letter of invitation to Albury, enclosing +the sonnet below; and not knowing his London address I posted it to my +brother Charles in London for him to read and forward. Lucky enough that +I did so, for Mr. Morse had just sailed for America: so Charles had both +prose and poetry telegraphed to him in New York,--and the Company would +not charge any money for it! This is perhaps the only time a sonnet +ever travelled by telegraph, and certainly the only time it ever so +travelled gratis." + +Here it is, for which I had a very complimentary and grateful note from +"Samuel F.B. Morse, as an ardent admirer," &c. As never in print till +now, I trust it will be acceptable to my readers. Mr. Morse's published +speech was religiously high-minded and true-hearted, as indicated in the +sonnet. + + _To Professor Morse, in pleasant memory of October 10, 1856, + at the Albion._ + + "A good and generous spirit ruled the hour; + Old jealousies were drowned in brotherhood, + Philanthropy rejoiced that skill and power, + Servants to science, compass all men's good; + And over all Religion's banner stood, + Upheld by _thee_, true Patriarch of the plan + Which in two hemispheres was schemed to shower + Mercies from God on universal man. + Yes, this electric chain from East to West + More than mere metal, more than Mammon can, + Binds us together kinsmen, in the best + As most affectionate and frankest bond, + Brethren at one, and looking far beyond + The world in an electric union blest." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +THE RIFLE: A PATRIOTIC PROPHECY. + + +There is an extinct pamphlet, now before me, published by Routledge in +1860, entitled "The Rifle Movement Foreshown in Prose and Verse from +1848 to the Present Time,"--from my pen,--which proves that, in +conjunction with my friend Evelyn and a few others, I may justly claim +to have originated that cheap defence of England, at Albury, more than a +dozen years before it was thought of anywhere by any one else. Take the +trouble to read the following longish extract from the fifth edition of +the above, and please not to omit the leash of ballads wherewith it +ends. + +"And now, next, about this Rifle pamphlet. Every page carries its date +honestly, and several very curiously. In some of the editions there +appears a rifle ballad of mine, written in 1845, and published in 1846 +(in the first issue of my Ballads and Poems--Hall & Virtue) with the +strange title "Rise Britannia, _a Stirring Song for Patriots in the Year +1860_:" an anticipation by fourteen years of the actual date of the +Rifle Movement. In all the editions, the papers on 'Cheap Security' +(being Talks between Naaman Muff (a Quaker), Till (a commercial gent), +Dolt (a philanthropist), Funker (an ordinary unwarlike paterfamilias), +and a certain Tom Wydeawake (patriotic but peculiar)) contain detailed +allusions, though written several years before any definite existence, +to the National Rifle Association, and to exactly such annual prize +gatherings of riflemen as those at Wimbledon Common and Brighton Downs, +and this latest at Blackheath. The discouragements of Tom Wydeawake and +his few compeers were remarkable. He himself might fairly have claimed +the honours of origination, discussed some two or three years ago, but +he left them to others--_Sic vos non vobis_, &c." + +"Without mentioning names, several--since distinguished as prominent in +Rifledom--were once, to my certain knowledge, and still to be evidenced +by their extant letters, bitterly opposed to the whole movement,--and I +cannot conclude these remarks better or more appositely than by adding +here, with real dates, the three following ballads, which tell their own +tale briefly and suggestively." I print them here, as they are now to be +found nowhere else. + +The first, published in newspapers during June 1859 (following several +others of a like character, with my name or without it), was the origin +of the Volunteers' motto--being headed + + _Defence not Defiance._ + + "Nearer the muttering thunders roll, + Blacker and heavier frowns the sky,-- + Yet our dauntless English soul + Faces the storm with a steady eye; + Hands are strong where hearts are stout; + Our rifles are ready--look out! + + "No one wishes the storm to roll here-- + No one cares such a devil to raise,-- + And in brotherhood, not in fear, + Only for peace an Englishman prays,-- + Yet he may shout in the midst of the rout, + Our rifles are ready--look out! + + "Keep to your own, like an honest man, + And here's our hand, and here's our heart, + Let the world see how wisely you can + Play to the end a right neighbourly part,-- + But if mischief is creeping about, + Our rifles are ready--look out! + + "No defiance is on our lips, + Nothing but kindliness greets you here; + Still, in the storm our dolphin ships + Round the Eddystone dart and steer,-- + And on shore--no doubt, no doubt-- + Our rifles are ready--look out! + + "Not Defiance, but only Defence, + Hold we forth for humanity's sake,-- + And, with the help of Omnipotence, + We shall stand when the mountains quake: + Only in Him our hearts are stout; + Our rifles are ready--look out!" + + _A Rhyme for Albury Club._ + + "A rhyme for the Club, for the brave little Club + That stoutly went forward when others held back, + And, reckless of many a sneer and a snub, + Steer'd manfully straight upon Duty's own tack,-- + Though quarrelsome peacemongers did their small worst, + In spite of their tongues and in spite of their teeth, + We stood up for England among the few first, + With rifles and targets on Surrey Blackheath! + + "Time was when Tom Wydeawake, ten years agone, + Toil'd to arouse dull old Britain betimes, + By example--he shouldered his rifle alone, + By precept--he showered his letters and rhymes,-- + With bullets he peppered old Sherborne's hillside, + With ballads and articles worried the Press,-- + The more he was sneer'd at, the stronger he tried, + And would not be satisfied short of Success. + + "And now is his Fancy the front of the van, + And England an archer, as in the past years, + And stout middle age carries arms like a man, + And all the young fellows are smart Volunteers: + And Herbert, and Elcho, and Spencer, and Hay, + And Mildmay, and all the best names in the land + On a national scale achieve grandly to-day + What Wydeawake schemed with his brave little band! + + "Then cheers for the Queen! for the Club! and the Corps! + For Grantley, and Evelyn, and Sidmouth, and all; + With Franklin, and Mangles, and six dozen more, + The first to spring forth at Britannia's call! + And long may we live with all peaceably here-- + For olive, not laurel, is Glory's true wreath-- + But if the wolf comes, he had better keep clear + Of a Club of crack shots upon Surrey Blackheath!" + + _July 1860._ + +And the third is a small record of our Easter Monday's Review, 1864, +alluding to the present universality of the Rifle Movement contrasted +with its originally small beginnings on the same spot. + + _Surrey Blackheath._ + + "Surrey Blackheath! old scene of beginnings + Humble enough some dozen years back, + Gather to-day's rich harvest of winnings, + Sprung of that sowing in Memory's track; + Reap your revenges in honour and pleasure;-- + Thousands of riflemen arm'd to the teeth-- + Crowds by ten thousands, in holiday leisure, + Throng the wild beauties of Surrey Blackheath! + + "We were the first our rifles to shoulder, + First to wake England (though voted a bore); + First in this nation who roused her, and told her + She must go arm'd to be safe, as of yore! + Those were the days before corps and their drilling, + When the true patriot was check'd with a snub,-- + So, on Blackheath, devotedly willing, + Stood your first riflemen--Albury Club! + + "Yes, we stood _here_, in spite of their coldness, + Duty's first marksmen--whate'er should betide,-- + Conquering Success--the sure fruit of boldness-- + World-witnessed now by this field-day of pride! + And though they laugh'd at Tom Wydeawake's fancies, + Olives and laurels combine in his wreath; + For, the world's peace--in England's and France's-- + Sprung of that sowing on Surrey Blackheath!" + + _March 5, 1864._ + +Lord Lovelace will remember how much he opposed our rifle-club,--as in +those days illegal, and so the Lord-Lieutenant of Surrey might not +sanction it: but now his Lordship is our leading volunteer. Besides the +three ballads above, I wrote seven others which rang round the land, and +some of them, as "Hurrah for the Rifle," and "In days long ago when old +England was young," have been sung at Wimbledon and other gatherings. + +It may be worth while, seeing the ballads are hopelessly out of print, +if I here transcribe a few stanzas from divers other staves I penned in +the early days of Rifledom. First, from "Rise, Britannia," before +mentioned, which was "written and printed in 1846, and then headed, by a +strange anticipation, a stirring song for patriots in the year 1860:" +reproduced in my now extinct "Cithara," in 1863: I wrote it to be sung +to the tune of "Wha wouldna fecht for Charlie:" even as afterwards I +adapted my "In days long ago when old England was young" to "The +roast-beef of old England," published with my own illustration by Cocks +& Co.:-- + + "Rise! ye gallant youth of Britain, + Gather to your country's call, + On your hearts her name is written, + Rise to help her, one and all! + Cast away each feud and faction, + Brood not over wrong nor ill, + Rouse your virtues into action, + For we love our country still, + Hail, Britannia! hail, Britannia! + Raise that thrilling shout once more, + Rise, Britannia! rule, Britannia! + Conqueror over sea and shore!" + +After three stanzas which I will omit, the last is + + "Rise then, patriots I name endearing,-- + Flock from Scotland's moors and dales, + From the green glad fields of Erin, + From the mountain homes of Wales,-- + Rise! for sister England calls you, + Rise! our commonweal to serve, + Rise! while now the song enthrals you + Thrilling every vein and nerve,-- + Hail, Britannia! hail, Britannia! + Conquer, as thou didst of yore; + Rise, Britannia! rule, Britannia! + Over every sea and shore!" + +Another noted alarum, sounded in January 1852, commences thus:-- + + "Englishmen, up! make ready your rifles! + Who can tell now what a day may bring forth? + Patch up all quarrels, and stick at no trifles,-- + Let the world see what your loyalty's worth! + Loyalty?--selfishness, cowardice, terror + Stoutly will multiply loyalty's sum, + When to astonish presumption and error + Soon the shout rises--the brigands are come!" + +After four stanzas of happily unfulfilled prognostication, the last is-- + + "Up then and arm! it is wisdom and duty; + We are too tempting a prize to be weak: + Lo, what a pillage of riches and beauty, + Glories to gain and revenges to wreak! + Run for your rifles, and stand to your drilling; + Let not the wolf have his will, as he might, + If in the midst of their trading and tilling + Englishmen cannot--or care not to--fight!" + +One only stanza more, the last of another also in 1852. + + "Arm then at once! If no one attack us + Better than well, for the rifle may rust; + But if the pirates be coming to sack us, + Level it calmly, and God be your trust! + Only, while yet there's a moment, keep steady; + Skilfully, duteously, quickly prepare,-- + Then with a nation of riflemen ready, + Nobody'll come because no one will dare!" + +In those days of a generation back, so great was the scare everywhere of +Napoleon's rabid colonels a-coming that I remember my brother Arthur +counselling me to sink our plate down a well for safety; and Mr. +Drummond in a pamphlet exhorted the creation of refuges round the coast +by getting the owners of mansions to fortify them as strongholds, +filling the windows with grates and mattresses, and loopholing +garden-walls for shots at marauders on the roads! + +Yet, so sleepy was the British Lion that neither Drummond nor I, nor +even the _Times_, which I invoked, could wake him up for many years: and +the Volunteer movement did not take effect till Louis Napoleon kindly +urged Palmerston to check his rabid colonels by a bold front of +preparation. + +I am minded to finish with a mild anecdote which carries its moral. Now, +understand that I never pretended to be a crack shot, though I did make +fair practice through "the Indian twist," the sling supporting one's +arm; if I hit the target occasionally, I was satisfied. But it once +happened (at Teignmouth, where I was a casual visitor) that, seeing a +squad of volunteers practising at a mark on the beach, I went to look +on, and was courteously offered a shot, being not unknown by fame to +some of them. The target was at some 500 yards (say about a third of a +mile), so it was not likely I could hit it, with a chance rifle, perhaps +carelessly sighted; yet, when I did let fly, to the loud admiration of +the others and to my own astonishment (which of course I did _not_ +reveal), the marker signalled for a bull's eye! Entreated to do it +again, this prudent rifleman modestly declined, for he remembered Sam +Slick's lucky shot at the floating bottle; it was manifestly his wisdom +not to risk fame won by a fluke. So the moral is, don't try to do twice +what you've done well once. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +AUTOGRAPHS AND ADVERTISEMENTS. + + +A word or two about autographs, surely a topic suitable to this book: in +fact, I have sometimes preferred to spell it authorgraphs: most public +men are troubled nowadays with this sort of petty homage, and I more +than suspect that some collectors make merchandise of them; "my valuable +collection" being often the form in which strangers solicit the +flattering boon. Once I had a queer proof as to the money value of my +own,--as thus: I went quite casually into an auctioneer's in Piccadilly, +to a book-sale; a lot of some half-dozen volumes were just being knocked +down for next to nothing (such is our deterioration in these newspaper +days) when the wielder of Thor's fateful hammer, dissatisfied at the +price, asked for the lot to look at,--and coming amongst others to a +certain book with handwriting in it, said, "Why, here's one with Martin +Tupper's autograph,"--on which a buyer called out, "I'll give you +eighteenpence more for that,"--suggestive to me of my auction value,--as +I have sometimes said. If, however, the more than hundreds (thousands) I +have been giving for these fifty years, really have so easily gratified +friends known or unknown, I am glad to be in that way so much a gainer. +Americans in particular ask frequently, and sometimes with wisely +enclosed stamped and addressed envelopes, which is a thing both +considerate and praiseworthy; but a very different sort and not easily +to be excused are those who send registered albums by post for one's +handwriting, expecting to have them returned similarly at no small cost. +Longfellow told me of this kind of young lady taxation, and mentioned +that he once had to pay twelve shillings for a registered return quarto. +I dare say that our popular Laureate has had similar experiences. + +The most "wholesale order" for my signature was at New York in 1851, +when at a party there my perhaps too exacting hostess put a large pack +of plain cards into my hand, posted me at a corner table with pen and +ink, and flatteringly requested an autograph for each of her 100 guests! +of course, even this was graciously conceded,--though rather too much of +a good thing, I thought. + +There is wisdom (some have hinted to me) in preferring a card to a sheet +of paper; not only because "I promise to pay" might possibly be written +_ab extra_ over one's signature, but also because (and far more +probably) any special "fad," political, social, or religious, might be +added above--to all seeming--your written approbation: _e.g._, I was +told in America that my autographed opinion in favour of Unitarianism +had been so seen at Boston. Some zealots for a "cause" even go so far as +that. My safe course is to write "the handwriting of so-and-so," where +from total ignorance of my correspondent I cannot honestly say "I am +truly yours." + +Other forms of authorial homage are to be met with in the way of +complimentary photographs, and oil or water-colour portraits. Like all +other book celebrities, I have had to stand for minutes or sit for days, +dozens of times; and seeing that, wherever I have been on my Reading +Tours, on this side of the Atlantic or the other, photographic "artists" +have continually "solicited the honour," the result has been that I used +to keep "a book of horrors," proving how variously and oftentimes how +vulgarly one's features come out when the impartial sun portrays them. +As with the contradictory critiques about one's writings, so also is it +with the conflicting apparitions of comeliness or ugliness in the +heliotyped exploits of different--some of them +indifferent--photographers. Several, however, have succeeded well with +me; as Sarony in New York, Elliott & Fry of Baker Street and Brighton, +Negretti & Zambra at the Crystal Palace, and divers others; but one need +not reckon up "our failures," as Brummell's valet has it. + +As to the several oil portraitures of me, there is extant a splendid +full-length of myself and my brother Dan, with large frilled collars and +the many-buttoned suits of the day, when we were severally ten and nine +years old, now hanging at Albury, painted by my great-uncle, Arthur +William Devis, the celebrated historical painter: this has been +exhibited among works of the British old masters in Pall Mall. Also, +there is one by T.W. Guillod, in my phase as an author at twenty-seven; +another is by the older Pickersgill, so dark and lacking in Caucasian +comeliness that the engraving therefrom in one of my books makes me look +like a nigger, insomuch that some Abolitionists claimed me as all the +more their favourite for my black blood! On the other hand, Mr. Edgar +Williams has made me much too florid; while recently that rising young +artist, Alfred Hartley, has caught my true likeness, and has depicted me +aptly and well, as may now be seen in the picture-gallery of the Crystal +Palace. Then Mr. Willert Beale (Walter Maynard by literary _nom de +pinceau et de plume_, for he is both a painter and an author) has lately +portrayed me in crayons, life-sized, an unmistakable likeness; and years +ago Monsieur Rochard, in a large water-coloured drawing, made me look +very French, quite a _petit-maitre_, in which disguise I was engraved +for some book of mine: all the above, except Rochard's, having been done +complimentarily. In America Mr. Pettit's life-sized oil portrait is the +most noticeable. + + * * * * * + +Two queer anecdotes I must give about another form of author-worship to +which we poor vain mortals are occasionally exposed, viz., what Pope +called in Belinda's case "The Rape of the Lock." I can remember (as once +by Lady---- in London) more than one such ravishment attempted if not +accomplished; but most especially was I in peril at the Philadelphian +Exhibition when three duennas who guarded some lady exhibitors (too +modest to ask themselves) pursued a certain individual, scissors in +hand, like Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, in vain hope of sheared +tresses; had they been, like many of our American sisters, both juvenile +and lovely, very possible success might have crowned their daring; or, +instead of the three seductive graces, had they posed as three +intellectual muses, I might have succumbed; but a leash of fates obliged +a rapid retreat. And for a second queer anecdote take this: a 'cute +negro barber had persuaded me to have my hair cut, to which suggestion, +as it was hissing hot weather, I agreed. He had a neat little shop close +to a jeweller's; next morning I passed that shop and noticed my name +placarded there, surrounded by gold lockets, for that cunning nigger and +his gilded friend were making a rich harvest of my shaved curls. Sambo +can be as sharp as Jonathan, when a freeman, if he likes. + +"Interviewing" is another sort of homage nowadays to popular authorship; +in America it is very rife,--and I never came to any city but, +immediately on arrival, two or three representatives of opponent editors +would call, and very courteously request to be allowed to turn me inside +out, and then to report upon me: I only remember one or two cases (which +I will not specify) wherein my inquisitor was not all I could have +wished, or treated his patient victim more unkindly than perhaps a +venial native humour might make necessary. Almost always the scribes +were fair and gentlemanly. And in next morning's papers it was a +pleasing excitement to find that one's extorted opinions on all manner +of topics--social, religious, and political--were published by tens of +thousands in conflicting newspapers, which took partisan views of the +_obiter dicta_ of an illustrious being. I have many of these recorded +conversations and comments thereon pasted down in the scrap-books +aforesaid. In England, also, one does not escape; and indeed the +pleasure of being examined for publication is here less mixed; for on +this side of the Atlantic it has been found dangerous to report what +might be damaging to a man socially or financially; although, however, +no judicial notice is taken of ridicule or false criticism; and therein +an author (however little he may care for it) can be libelled to any +extent and without all remedy. Not but that some of the society papers +have treated my unworthiness generously enough,--in particular, Edmunds' +_World_, which, with too great severity and too little justice, has been +taught to tell all truths charitably, if smartly,--and therefore I was +glad to welcome his pleasant accredited interviewer, Mr. Becker, a year +or two ago at Albury, who compliments me, not quite accurately perhaps, +on "good looks and a passion for heart's-eases." Also, the gentleman who +represents the _Glasgow Mail_ did his work wisely and kindly: and Mr. +Meltzer of the _New York Herald_; and I might name some others, not +excepting my Sydenham friend, Mr. Leyland, who lately wrote a very +pleasant paper about me at Norwood for a Philadelphian journal. + + +As to Advertising. + +A word about advertisements, surely an authorial topic. The absurdly +extravagant profusion in which thousands of pounds are now being +continually flung away in advertising, is one which was never approved +by me, and as long as my books remained in print, at my suggestion they +all got sold without it. At present there are almost none in the market +except Proverbial Philosophy, my Poems, Stephan Langton, and Dramas, and +these still live and sell as before, after a silent life of many years. +I suppose advertising must answer, or it would not be persisted in; and +certainly the newspapers (that chiefly live thereby) exhort all to crowd +their columns, if they wish to win fortune: but how the perpetual and +reiterated obtrusion of such single words as Oopack, or Syndicates, or +Beecham's Pills, or Argosy Braces, or Grateful and Comforting, &c. &c., +can prove seductive baits, I do not see nor feel: the shameless amount +of space they fill in our newspapers, and especially the impertinent way +in which they intrude upon us while reading, as interleaved into books +and magazines, so entirely disgusts me that I have often declared I +would rather go without "tea, coffee, tobacco, or snuff" (this is a +phrase, for the two latter I abominate) than deign to patronise those +persistent advertisers A, B, C, D, or E. And yet I do know a splendid +church at Eastbourne wholly built of pills,--and Professor Holloway's +ointment has produced a palatial institute, and another wholesale +advertiser tells me he spends L30,000 a year on notices and paragraphs, +to gain thereby L50,000,--and so one cannot but acquiesce in Carlyle's +cynical dictum, so cruelly alluded to by Dean Stanley in his funeral +sermon at Westminster, that there are in our community "26,000,000, +mostly fools," otherwise how can folks be weak enough to be forced to +pay for "goods," or "bads," merely by dint of reiteration? + +There is, however, one form of advertisement which I have found to +pay,--and that is not praise, but abuse. A certain article, written as I +was told by Alaric Watts, and stigmatising my readers as idiots, and +their author as a bellman, was said to have actually sold off 3000 +copies at a run; and Hepworth Dixon's attack in some other paper--I +forget the name--was so lucrative to me in its results that I entreated +him at Moxon's one day to do it again. + +Once I took it into my head to collect and publish a page of adverse +criticisms (if I can find a copy it shall be printed here) to excellent +sale-effect as regarded my tales. And I remember hearing at a +publisher's, that when a book didn't sell through puffing, their Herald +of Fame upstairs was directed to abuse it, and in one case a society +novel by a lady of title was prosecuted (by management) for libel, in +order to get off the edition. That publishing-house used to advertise in +"five figures"--that is, upwards of L10,000 a year, and was +professionally antagonistic to another, from which it had sprung +originally. The critical organs of the one house always used to run down +the publications of the other. And I daresay other Sosii are aware of +the like mutual warfare going on even now. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + +KINDNESS TO ANIMALS. + + +As to my several efforts in print to hinder cruelty to animals, beside +and beyond what a reader may already find in my published books, let me +chiefly mention these two fly-leaves, widely circulated by the Humane +Society in Jermyn Street; to wit, "Mercy to Animals," and my "Four +anti-Vivisection Sonnets." The latter I must preface with an interesting +anecdote. Before Louis Napoleon was Emperor, I accompanied a deputation +from Guernsey to Cherbourg, met him, had pleasant speech with him, and +gave him a book ("Proverbial Philosophy"), thus making his personal +acquaintance; which many years after I utilised as thus. The horrors of +that infernal veterinary torture-house at Alfort, where disabled cavalry +horses were on system vivisected to death, had been known to us by +letters in the _Times_, of course denouncing the criminality: I remember +reading that one poor old horse survived more than threescore +operations, and used to be led in daily strapped with bandages and +plaisters amid the cheers of the demoniacal students!--and this excited +me to make a strong personal effort to stop the outrages at Alfort. +Accordingly I wrote from Albury a letter to the Emperor (if I kept and +can find a copy I will print it here) as from one gentleman to another +fond of his horse and dog, exhorting him to interfere and hinder such +horrors. I told him that I purposely did this in a private way, and not +through any newspaper or minister, because I wished him to cure, +_proprio motu_, a crying evil whereof he was ignorant and therefore +innocent: leaving the issue of my appeal to his own generous feeling and +to Providence, but otherwise not expecting nor requesting any reply. I +therefore got none; but (whether _post hoc_ or _propter hoc_ I do not +know) the result was that vivisection at Alfort was suspended at once, +though how long for is unknown to me. As, after all this, many may like +to see my four sonnets before-mentioned, I have no room to place here +more than one: it is fair to state that they are easily procurable for a +penny at the S.P.C.A. office in Jermyn Street. They were written by me +in the train between Hereford and London, at the request of a lady, the +chatelaine of Pontrilas Court, for a bazaar at Brighton. + + "If ever thou hast loved thy dog or horse, + Or other favourite affectionate thing, + If thou dost recognise in God the source + Of all that live, their Father and their King, + Stand with us on this rescue;--for the force + Of sciolists hath legal right to seize + Such innocents to torture as they please, + Alive and sentient, with demoniac skill; + Ungodly men! hot with the lawless lust + Of violating Nature's holiest fane, + Breaking it open at your wicked will,-- + Yet shall ye tremble!--for the Judge is just; + To Him those victims do not plead in vain, + On you for aeons crowd their hours of pain." + +When I was last at Boston my spirit was stirred by what I have poetised +below: it has only appeared in some American papers, but I hope will be +acceptable here. + + _The Omnibus Hack._ + + "Worn, jaded, and faint, plodding on in the track, + I praise your great patience, poor omnibus hack; + In whose sad gentle eyes my spirit can trace + The gloom of despair in that passionless face, + While way-wearied muscles, strain'd out to the full + And cruelly check'd by the pitiless pull, + With little for food, but of lashes no lack, + Force me to pray for you, omnibus hack! + + "Yes I--if I can pity you, omnibus hack, + For nerves all atremble and sinews awrack, + How should not his Maker, the Father above, + Be just to His creature, and grant him His love? + Why may not His mercy give somewhat of bliss + In some better world to compensate for this, + By animal pleasure for animal pain, + Receiving their lives but to give them again? + + "And which of us isn't an omnibus hack, + With galls on his withers and sores on his back,-- + Buckled to circumstance, driven by fate, + And chain'd on the pole of a oar that we hate-- + Yon ponderous Past which we drag fast or slow + On the coarse-mended Present, this dull road we go, + Hard-curb'd on the tongue and no bearing-rein slack, + Ah! who of us isn't that omnibus hack? + + "Yet great is the comfort considering thus + That God doth take thought as for him so for us; + That we shall find rest, reward, and relief + Outweighing, outpaying all pain and all grief; + That all things are kindly remembered elsewhere, + The shame and the wrong and the press and the care, + The evils that keep all better aback, + And make one feel now but an omnibus hack. + + "An omnibus hack?--and only a drudge?-- + Is Duty no more in the eyes of the Judge? + He set thee this toil; His providence gave + These bounds to His freedman; yes, free--not a slave! + And if thou wilt serve Him, content with thy lot, + Cheerfully working and murmuring not, + Be sure, my poor brother--whose skies are so black-- + Thou art His dear child, though an omnibus hack!" + +My "Mercy to Animals," a simple handbill, has done great good, as it has +prose instructions about loading, harnessing, &c. It also is to be had +for a penny at Jermyn Street aforesaid: here is the first verse:-- + + "O boys and men of British mould, + With mother's milk within you! + A simple word for young and old, + A word to warn and win you; + You've each and all got human hearts, + As well as human features, + So hear me, while I take the parts + Of all the poor dumb creatures." + +For my own part I have done it all my life. Those of my book-friends who +have my Miscellaneous Poems may refer in this connection to verses +therein on "A Dead Dog" and "A Dead Cat," and to those on "Cruelty." +Also in "Proverbial Philosophy," especially as to the "Future of +Animals," and their too shameful treatment in this world, one good +reason for a compensative existence. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + +ORKNEY AND SHETLAND. + + +I took my family to these Northern Isles of the Sea in 1859, sailing +from Aberdeen in a once-a-week steamer; some of our passengers were +notable, as Dasent of the Norse Tales (since Sir George) and his sons, +Day the Oxonian in Norway, Ellicott, now Bishop of Bristol, Biot +Edmondstone, and some others, inclusive of our noble selves. It was a +dark night and a dense fog, and we had perilously to thread our careful +way through the herring-fleet, fog-horns blowing all night, whilst our +distinguished party bivouacked on deck, every cabin having been secured +by folks crowding to the Kirkwall fair; and so we enjoyed a seagoing +experience which, however cold and dark, was warmed and brightened by +the conversation of clever friends all night through. + +Next day, jumping into a boat on the top of a wave (it was very rough +weather), I and a few others landed at Wick, and witnessed the +extraordinary scene of a herring harvest being cured. Much as at +Cincinnati they say pigs walk in, and come out at the other end of a +long gallery salted and smoked,--live herrings are within some three +minutes killed, cleaned, pickled, and tubbed by the fishermen's wives +and daughters in their brightest caps and jewellery, for the whole scene +is a fair and a festival. + +In due time we arrived at Kirkwall, where we stayed a fortnight, in the +course of which we were soon invited to Mr. Balfour's castle at +Shapinshay. I call to mind in that mediaeval-looking stronghold (but it +is a modern structure) his splendid banqueting-room, lighted by the +illuminated points of twelve stags' heads, each having twelve tynes, +thus 144 of them, ranged on the sides of that baronial hall: the castle, +of grey granite in the Norman style, having its own gasometer, all the +light was gas; this struck me as a remarkable feature inside: on the +outside was one quite as memorable. Those sterile-looking isles of the +North Sea are so swept by stormy winds as to be absolutely treeless: +insomuch that it is jocularly said, that for cutting down a tree at +Kirkwall, the penalty is _death!_ simply because no trees exist there. +Well, the wealthy Baron of Shapinshay conquers nature thus; he has dug +round the castle vast hollow gardens (not a continuous moat) in which +flourishes a profusion of flowers and shrubs and even trees,--till +arboriculture is cut shear off, if it dares to look over the mounds. I +put it thus:-- + + "When to the storm-historic Orcades + The wanderer comes, he marvels to find there + A stately palace, towering new and fair, + Bedded in flowers, though unbanked by trees, + A feudal dream uprisen from the seas: + And when his wonder asks,--Whose magic rare + Hath wrought this bright creation?--men reply, + Balfour's of Balfour: large in mind and heart, + Not only doth his duteous care reclaim + All Shapinshay to new fertility, + But to his brother men a brother's part + Doing, in always doing good,--his fame + Is to have raised an Orcade Arcady, + Rich in gems of Nature as of Art." + +At Kirkwall we could not help noticing what a fine race of men and +women, blue-eyed and yellow-haired, many of these Northerners are; at +St. Magnus Cathedral they trooped in looking like giants, seeming taller +perhaps because the pews are on a dead level with the floor. Of course +we duly did all the sights of the place, in the way of the ruinous +bishop's palace and so forth, and received hearty welcomes from both +high and low, the isolation of those parts conducing to the popularity +of strangers; to say less of any greed for the cash of tourists. + +I made there good acquaintance also with Aytoun, the poet of Dundee and +Montrose, of whom it is rememberable that he used to read all through +Scott's novels every year. I thought it a marvellous feat, but at any +rate he told me so. He was sheriff of all those northern regions; and +writer, amongst other things, of "Hints for Authors" in _Blackwood_, +which for their wit and sense ought to be reprinted: but when I urged it +in Princes Street, I found such a booklet was not to be--nor "Firmilian" +either--which is a pity, as both are admirable for humour. He was a +zealous florist and fruitist; the white currants trained by him upon +walls were as large as grapes. + +Among these Isles of Thule palpable evidences of the Gulf Stream are +frequent; besides that it warms the northern seas so well that snow and +ice are not too common there as in much lower latitudes they are with +us--it is the fact that most of the seafaring men have for snuff-boxes +the large brown circular beans from Mexico floated on tropical seaweed, +full of hand coral, and found on the island beaches westwardly. Another +notable matter in these Orcades is the strange disproportion between the +sexes, eleven women to one man, as Mr. Hayes, the Lerwick banker, told +me; this being due to the too frequent drowning of whole boat's crews: +hence, one often sees women at the oar. A pleasanter thing to mention is +the Fair Isle hosiery, the patterns whereof in the woven worsted are +distinctly Moorish, just like those at Tangiers; said to be a survival +of some wreck from the Spanish Armada cast upon the shore, with of +course its crew and contents, the local manufacture of said patterns +having been kept up ever since, with dyes derived from seaweeds, and +from flowers. I frequently observed how diligent in knitting the island +women were (reminding me of those notable spinsters of Herodotus) +working the needles all the while they tended cattle, and with the pile +of some costly shawl upon their heads while they fidget at the fringe; +its various devices being of natural unstained wools, white, grey, or +brown. In those interesting islands I can dimly recall many other +noticeable things and people, everywhere having received the warm +welcome which is usually the privilege of a bookwright all the world +over; visiting the Stones of Stennis with Mr. Petrie, the Celtic tower +of Scalloway with Aytoun, and divers similar antiquities, as Maeshow and +other refuges of the Picts and Troglodytes. + +At Lerwick two of the boatmen who took us to shore from the steamer +surprised me by quotations from my old book--even the common folk being +full of literature. They are so separate from the great world, and have +so little to do, that they cannot help being hard readers,--even of me. +A haberdasher told me that though there are in the short summer plenty +of simple wild-flowers, there is naturally a dearth all the year round +of the brighter and more highly-coloured cultivated kinds; and so these +being scarce and female vanity rather common, there is a large trade in +artificial fuchsias, pinks, and roses, &c., thus constantly making +chapel and church quite gay; the same ladies who so bedizen themselves +on the Sabbath going about all the week carrying burdens of peat, +bare-footed and kilted to the knee on account of the bogs, among which +they have to chase those small shaggy equines, the Shetland ponies. By +the way Mr. Balfour at Oronsay had a special breed of his own, and +showed us a pair of little darlings which he valued at L100 apiece. The +true race, stunted and shaggy from climate, is rare in these days; and I +suspect may be picked up cheaper at Aldridge's than at Shapinshay. + +On our return voyage we skirted the whole north of Scotland, having had +the rare chance of the steamer which once a year is chartered to take +back the herring-fishers from Thurso to the Hebrides. But first Sir +George Sinclair most hospitably entertained us at Thurso Castle, whose +grim battlements frown flush over the Arctic Sea: all within the walls +luxurious warmth, and without them wrecks and desolation. So also with +the garden; on one side of the high wall greenhouses and flower-beds in +the Italian style,--on the other, in strange contrast, the desolate wild +ocean, which you see through windows of thick plate-glass let into the +walls. At Thurso town I conversed with the local genius, Robert Dick, +made of world-wide fame since by that kind-hearted and clear-minded +author, Samuel Smiles, the said genius being a noted self-taught +naturalist, who as a small baker struggled with poverty through life, to +be inconsistently rewarded after death by a national monument; his +fellow-townsmen let the living starve to deify him when dead. Cervantes +and his like have met the same fate elsewhere. Leaving Thurso for the +Hebrides, in company with no fewer than 700 Gaelic fishermen, we passed +the magnificent cliffs of Cape Wrath in a pleasant calm,--which next day +when we had reached Stornoway turned to a furious storm: had we +encountered it with those 700 loading the deck it would infallibly have +wrecked us,--as it did many other vessels on that night. + +Sir James Matheson was our great host at Stornoway, who treated me and +mine with magnificent hospitality. If I had wished to shoot a buck or to +catch a salmon (the kilted gillie stood ready with his tackle), I might +have done so and welcome; but there was no time to spare for anything +but a visit to the prehistoric temple of Callanish, where the stones +strangely enough are set in the form of a cross instead of the ordinary +circle; and to a Pictish tower, and other antiquities,--which I +preferred to sport. + +Sir James's piper always wakes the guests a'mornings, parading round the +terraces with his bagpipes, and after dinner, as usual at the feasts of +Highland magnates, he marches round the table in kilt and flying tartans +with his drone-like dirge or furious slogan,--being rewarded on the spot +with whisky from the chief. + +Here I will cease my quick reminiscence of that pleasant northern +travel, though I might recount many noticeable matters about Skye and +its dolomite Cuchullins, Staffa, Iona, and Oban, where The MacDougal +allowed us to see and handle (an unusual honour) the famous brooch of +Lorne, the loss of which saved The Bruce's life, when he broke away from +his captor, the then MacDougal; leaving tartan and shoulder-brooch in +his grasp. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + +LITERARY FRIENDS. + + +Among the many literary men and women of my acquaintance there are some +(for it is not possible to enumerate all) of whom I should like to make +some mention; and, _place aux dames_, let me speak of the ladies first. +In my boyhood I can recollect that astronomical wonder of womankind, +_Mrs. Mary Somerville_, a great friend of my father's; she seemed to me +very quiet and thoughtful, and so little self-conscious as to be humbly +unregardful of her genius and her fame. Strangely enough I first met her +in the same drawing-room in Grafton Street (she lived and died at +Chelsea) where I acted a silent part years after in some private +theatricals with _Miss Granville_ (met during my American visit in her +then phase of a German Baroness), herself an authoress and a cantatrice, +daughter of Dr. Granville, the well-known historian of Spas. I +recollect, too, in those early times, _Mrs. Jameson_, then a celebrated +writer, and a vivacious leader of literary society; and much nearer this +day, _Mrs. Beecher Stowe_, whom I found too taciturn, and as if scared +at the notice she excited, quite to realise one's expectation of a +famous lioness. With her I have since broken a lance in the interest of +Byron, whom I considered maligned in the matter of his "sweet sister," +and accordingly wrote on his behalf a vindicatory fly-leaf of poetic +indignation. Another lance, too, have I broken in favour of _Ouida_, as +against a newspaper critic who had tried to crush her "Moths;" I had met +her before that, and did my little best in her defence, receiving from +her from Italy a charming letter of acknowledgment. "Ouida" is not +generally known to have been the nursery name of "Louisa" de la Ramenay, +just as "Boz" was of Dickens. Both "Ouida" and _Miss Braddon_, whom also +I have seen as Mrs. Maxwell, remind me of that great and not seldom +unfairly judged genius, Georges Sand. There remains a worthy duplicated +friendship of later years, _Mr._ and _Mrs. Carter Hall_, of whose +geniality and kindness I have often had experience; also _Mr._ and _Mrs. +Grote_, my learned and agreeable neighbours at Albury; also _Lady +Wilde_, admirable both for prose and poetry on Scandinavian subjects, +and her eloquent son _Oscar_, famous for taste all the world over; and +as another duplicate the Gaelic historian and cheerful singer, _Charles +Mackay_, with his charming daughter, the poetess. + + * * * * * + +Of celebrated men whom I have not previously mentioned in this volume, +there is _Rogers_, the poet, with whom I once had an interview at his +artistic house in St. James's Place; _Carlyle_, of course, well known to +me by books, but personally only in a single visit, when I found him in +Cheyne Row cordially glad to greet me;--after a long talk, taking my +leave with a hearty "God bless you, sir," his emphatic reply, as he saw +me to the door, was, "And good be with you!" + +It was a coincidence, proving (as many things do) the narrowness of the +world, that he was living very near to the house where in my young days +I had wooed my cousin. + +Near at hand also (in Cheyne Walk) I have visited _Haweis_, the eloquent +preacher of St. James's, Marylebone; he lives in the picturesque +old-fashioned house that was Rossetti's, and when I called there last +Mr. Haweis showed me the strangest and most unwieldy testimonial that +any public man surely ever received, in the shape of a ton-weight bell +hung in its massive frame and placed in his sanctum, which, when +touched, gave out melodious thunder. This giant-gift had been sent to +him from Holland in recognition of his musical genius, especially in the +matter of campanology. And this word "musical" reminds me of Mr. +Haweis's noble self-sacrifice in giving up his idolised violin that he +might concentrate all his energies on religious teaching; when I asked +to see his famous "Straduarius," worth three hundred guineas, and found +it unstrung, I expressed my disappointment at not having had the chance +of hearing its dulcet tones drawn out by himself, but it lies dumb, +though he is eloquent. Of course I have visited the great _Tennyson_ at +Farringford, and remember him showing me the tree overhanging his garden +fence, which "Yankees" climb to have a look at him. _Browning_ also, +_tantum vidi_, I met at Moxon's, a grandly rugged poet; contrasted with +the Laureate he seems to me as Wagner is to Mendelssohn. _Mortimer +Collins_ has given us "a happy day" at Albury, coming in _a pied poudre_ +on one of his dusty walks through Surrey, as recorded in his book; how +he enjoyed his tumbler of cool claret and the ramble with my son through +the Albury woods as a most genial Bohemian! _Dickens_ I have met several +times, and he gave me good hints on my first American visit; a man full +of impulsive kindliness and sincerely one's friend. His son _Charles_ +also I have occasionally met, the worthy successor to his illustrious +father: I may here state that many of the articles and poems in +_Household Words_ are from the pen of my youngest daughter. _Richard +Owen_, too, now worthily K.C.B., our most famous comparative anatomist, +I am privileged to number among my true friends; he was one of those who +stood sponsor to me when I was to receive a civil service pension. Also +I knew for many years my late Surrey neighbour, _Godwin Austen_, the +geologist; and I have met _Pengelly_, with whom I searched Kent's +Cavern; and _Dr. Bowerbank_, the great authority as to sponges, and my +then hobby choanites; he gave me certain microscopic plates of Bacilli +which I was glad to transfer to my worthy and eminent friend, _Stephen +Mackenzie_, Physician and Lecturer to the London Hospital. _Matthew +Arnold_ also, with whose celebrated father I was in early youth nearly +placed as a pupil, I have sometimes encountered; and _Shirley Brooks_, +_Albert Smith_, and _Mark Lemon_, once a chief of _Punch_, who acted +Falstaff without padding; and the genial _John Tenniel_, our most +exquisite limner in outline; the venerable _Thomas Cooper_ also, now in +his old age the zealous preacher of a faith he once as zealously +attacked: an excellent man, and vigorous both in prose and verse. My old +friend from boyhood, _Owen Blayney Cole_, must not be forgotten; year +after year for some forty of them he has sent me reams of his poetry. +_Edmund Yates_, than whom a kindlier, cleverer, and better-hearted man +does not exist, I have known for years; his father and mother having +been frequent guests at our house in Burlington Street; and I +sympathised indignantly with him in his recent editorial trouble wherein +he was used so hardly. I remember also how he dropped in upon me at +Albury one morning just as I happened to be pasting into one of my +Archive-books a few quips and cranks anent my books from _Punch_: he +adjured me "_not_ to do it! for Heaven's sake, spare me!" covering his +face with his hands. "What's the matter, friend?" "_I_ wrote all these," +added he, in earnest penitence, "and I vow faithfully I'll never do it +again!" "Pray, don't make so rash a promise, Edmund, and so unkind a one +too: I rejoice in all this sort of thing,--it sells my books, +besides--'I'se Maw-worm,--I likes to be despised!'" "Well, its very +good-natured of you to say so; but I really never will do it again:" and +the good fellow never did--so have I lost my most telling advertisement. +I must also not forget to praise that humorous novelist, the late _Frank +Smedley_,--a remarkable instance of the triumph of a strong and cheerful +mind over a weak and crippled body, with whom I have many reminiscences +as a brother author. It was wonderful to see how he enjoyed--from his +invalid chair--"the dances and delights" he could not take part in; and +one day I remember finding him unusually exhilarated, as he was just +come from a wedding-breakfast,--"rehearsing, rehearsing," he laughingly +shouted. Poor fellow,--the victim of an accident in infancy, he lived +strapped and banded with steel springs,--but as a gracious compensation +Heaven gave him a seeming unconsciousness of his helpless condition, and +added the happy mind to make the best of this world while looking +forward to a better. And let me not neglect to record, however +slightly, a few more recent authorial friendships much valued by me +among my Norwood neighbours. I will begin with _J.G. Wood_, perhaps our +best naturalist, especially in matters entomological. Never were there +more humorous no less than instructive lectures than his, illustrated +admirably as they are by his own graphic chalk-sketches on the spot: and +if any one wishes to be convinced that animals have souls, let him read +the said Rev. J.G. Wood's "Man and Beast." Next will I mention _Dr. +Cuthbert Collingwood_, famous as a naturalist and voyager among the +China seas, a poet also, well proved by his "Vision of Creation," and a +thoughtful writer on religion and metaphysics. There is _Dr. Zerffi_, +too, whose varied orations on history and other topics have filled our +Crystal Palace with his advanced wisdom for fifteen years. There is +_Birch_ the sculptor, author of the "Godiva" and "The Last Call," +exhibited here, and well appreciated by me as another _Durham_,--really +a metempsychosis of character. Among literary ladies here I may mention +as my friends _Madame Zerffi_, _Miss Mary Hooper_, and _Miss Ellen +Barlee_,--all noted in their several departments, the first as an +eloquent lecturer like her husband, the second known by her domestic +essays, and the third for religious writings. I will add as casually +encountered by me hereabouts _George MacDonald_, whose magnificent +presence in the pulpit is as memorable as his conversation at the +dinner-table, and the interest of his books; and _Lord Ronald Gower_, +creator of that finest group of modern statuary "the Apotheosis of +Shakespeare," exhibited at the Crystal Palace, where, as well, as by +correspondence, I have had with him much pleasant intercourse. + +And here may come a brief memory I wrote lately of Colonel Fred. Burnaby +for an American editor. + +"I am asked to give a short note of personal reminiscence about my +lately departed friend, Colonel _Fred. Burnaby_, with whom I was +intimate for three years before his death. Every one has read his +popular life, and heard of his many exploits; how alone in mid-air he +navigated a balloon across the Channel; how he accomplished, in spite of +State telegrams to the contrary, his adventurous and patriotic ride to +Khiva in dead winter and defying perils of all sorts; how he stood six +feet four in his stockings (with another foot to be added to that +magnificent specimen of manhood when in jack-boots and in his plumed +helmet); how he was strong enough to bind a kitchen poker round his +neck, to crack cobnuts in his fingers, and to carry a pair of Shetland +ponies upstairs under his arms,--how also the genial giant, quite the +Arac of Tennyson's Princess, was the gentlest and kindest and least +dangerous of knights-errant (unless, indeed, his just wrath was aroused +by anything mean or insolent, when doubtless he could be terrible), and +how he was the idolised of men, especially his own brother giants of the +Royal Regiment of Blues, and naturally was also the adored of women +wherever he showed himself. This Admirable Crichton had every social +accomplishment, but as he was also gifted with a knowledge of many +tongues, even to Turkish and Arabic, beyond the more familiar French, +German, Italian, and Spanish, of course he must dare all sorts of +perilous travel, if only to prove that he was no carpet-knight, no mere +'gold stick' at court, or silver-casqued statue at the Horse Guards. So +he fearlessly risked his life in all ways on every possible occasion +which the War Office routine gave him on holiday. + +"Khiva and Kars, and of late at last the fatal Mahdi war, had +fascinations for him of danger which his thirst for active service (too +much refused to him as obliged officially to be a stay-at-home) had not +power to resist; and we all know how gallantly, if indeed too rashly, he +fought and fell on what his Viking blood loved best as a deathbed, the +field of battle. For he came of an old Teutonic family, and on his +mother's side was also a direct descendant, as he told me himself, of +our heroic and gigantic King Edward III., whom he is said greatly to +have resembled, as the portrait at Windsor Castle proves. We were +talking about ancestry and the anecdote came out naturally enough. + +"In politics a strong Conservative, he, with characteristic antagonism, +chose radical Birmingham for his coveted seat in Parliament, but alas! +he has not lived to hazard the election. He was a neat, fluent, and +epigrammatic speaker, as potent with his tongue as with his sword; and +as for the pen (albeit his handwriting must have puzzled compositors), +the myriads of readers who have enjoyed his stirring books in print, can +testify how brilliant and eloquent he was for the matter of authorship. +He told me of a new novel--of the satirico-political sort--which he had +written for the press, but as yet we hear nothing definite of its +publication. + +"My own personal acquaintance with the familiar 'Fred. Burnaby' was +confined to several hospitable dinner-parties at the house of his +relative, Lady W----, my near neighbour and friend at Norwood, about +which I might anecdotise to any extent; but I never allow myself to +record private conversation nor to reveal domesticities. All such are +sacred in my memory, and on principle I despise the modern +mischief-maker whose reminiscences are practically reminuisances. On a +certain public occasion, however, Burnaby stood by me, to my great +pleasure and advantage, and let me record his kindness thus. When I gave +my lecture on Flying at the Royal Aquarium, he most appropriately took +the chair, and made some excellent remarks. Altogether, let my +testimony, however brief, however inadequate, to the merits of Fred. +Burnaby be this: I lost in his too sudden death a friend, as I had +hoped, for many years to come, and my regrets are for him as one of the +noblest of mankind. Let me add a word further, as the worthy witnessing +of one, quite a kindred spirit, whose acquaintance I made some long time +back, and look for great things from his energy and enterprise, and +multifarious talents,--_Charles Marvin_, then the famous Eastern +Pioneer, who in his book on Asia, says: "Yes, our Burnabys, our Bakers, +our MacGregors, our Gordons--these are the real pillars of the Empire. +These are the men who confer provinces upon England, who risk their +lives to guard them. When the world is a little older, and the working +man's vote is worth more than the statesman's opinion, then the splendid +achievements of such men will be more generously appreciated: and the +warm English feeling expended to-day on torpid, stupid, unpatriotic +party politicians will be directed towards heroes whose steady undaunted +patriotism, in face of public indifference and bureaucratic disdain, +conveys a moral as grand as their careers." + + +A Dining-out Anecdote. + +As I have before said, not having been much given to society, nor +therefore a professional parasite of Amphitryon (though sometimes +tempted to his side as "a lion," but more often vainly, for I always +refused if I could), I have an instructive anecdote to give about a +celebrated conversationist, whom I will not name nor indicate even by +initials. One evening I found myself compelled to accompany him to a +great man's banquet--_nota bene_, it was after I had well recovered +speech--and so I found myself at his chambers perhaps ten minutes too +soon. He called to me from his dressing-room, bidding me to amuse myself +till he was ready. Now, on the study table were laid several books, +open, with weights to keep them so: and I glanced from one to another to +while away the time. Then up came his brougham, and off we went. At +dinner my "diner-out" started a topic, whereof innocently enough I +remembered instantly a suitable epigram. Not long after another subject +gave me occasion to tell a witty story, which somehow came to me at the +moment. My "friend" asked me with a keen glance where I had read it, and +at once I recollected those open books and understood the position, +resolving mischievously to outflank the manaeuverer. Accordingly, at each +opportunity, with seeming innocence, I "wiped his eye," as they say at a +_battue_, and certainly reaped the anecdotic "_kudos_" Mr. So-and-so had +cunningly contrived and hoped to achieve for himself. I confess it was +vicious of me, but who could help taking the benefit of such a chance? +Hosts should beware of wits who cram their jokes and anecdotes. Years +after I met the same gentleman at another entertainer's table, where I +found him in my presence not quite the livener-up they had expected, and +he seemed a little shy of me; probably he thought me an omniscient, for +I never told the poor man I had found him out. I fear he has departed +to a world where genuine truthfulness is more accepted as a virtue than +in this. + + +A Mormon Guest. + +Quite recently I have had a visit from a young American, who brought me +a letter from a so-called cousin--at all events a namesake--in the Far +West, asking me to tell her about her German ancestry. My visitor was +good-looking, well-dressed, fair-spoken, and gentlemanly; also well-bred +and well-to-do. I will not indicate his name, but I may state that he is +a near relative of the eminent electrician who illuminates so +magnificently the fountains at South Kensington. Of course, as pleased +with his manners and deportment, I kept him to luncheon; and finding +that he hailed from Utah, naturally asked if he knew Salt Lake City and +the Mormons there. Certainly; he lived not a hundred miles from the +city, and those were his own people: as a Mormon himself from infancy, +he had nothing but good to say of them, and we in England had been very +much misled by Mrs. Stenhouse and other travellers. As to plurality of +wives, not two per cent. of their whole 200,000 had more than one wife. +His own father, a rich merchant and a church-hierarch, a "stake" of the +tabernacle (much as we should say a pillar), had but one--his own dear +mother--and he scarcely knew any one with more. It was quite a European +misjudgment that many followed Brigham Young's doctrine, which never had +been Joseph Smith's,--and the present chief, Taylor, had but one. He +showed us many cabinet photographs of Salt Lake City, his own family, +leading Mormons, and the like: especially of the Old Tabernacle, like a +monstrous tortoise, and one from a finished drawing of the new, of even +more tasteless architecture, being the most gigantic piece of +perpendicular ever perpetrated, and full of unsightly windows. When +asked about the golden book,--well he had never seen it, but believed in +it thoroughly; because all the twelve apostles had seen it and he +trusted their testimony. Eleven of those apostles were now dead, one +only surviving. (Just as with our friends of Mr. Irving's sect at +Albury, which arose in the same year as Mormonism.) We had never set +eyes on the originals of our own Scriptures--in fact, they did not +exist--but believed the witnessing of others, as he did. He himself was +not a missionary, but would go if he was sent by the Church; though he +mightn't like it, he was bound to, obey, authority, &c. &c. + +I had plenty more talk with him, and found him intelligent, modest, and +in every way a remarkably agreeable young fellow: and I added to my +mental _repertoire_ of better judgments that on Mormonism,--even as +heretofore Mr. Sinnett has taught me not utterly to despise Buddhism, +Dr. Wilkinson to revere Swedenborgianism, and a few other people I might +name who are true believers, to be charitable as to other sorts of +strange isms: once I met a very religious clergyman who still held by +Johanna Southcote; and we have all heard how Lady Hester Stanhope had an +Arab horse always ready saddled for Messiah when He is to ride into +Jerusalem; and how some other person had a gold spoon and fork laid +daily at his table for the sudden coming of a Divine Guest! Our personal +lesson is to be tolerant of all manner of innocent enthusiasms, to hear +both sides and bear with all opinions,--sometimes finding to our +astonishment that black sheep may after all be whiter than they looked, +and that uncharitable prejudice is but another name for ignorant folly. +Before taking leave of my Mormon guest, I ought to report that he was +teetotal, handsome, taciturn rather than talkative, a hunter among the +Rockies, an author himself, and of course an old book-friend, so I made +him happy with some autographic poetries. + +With reference to "Joe Smith's" own theological creed, there is a very +neat and notable _precis_ of it on p. 171 of a bright little book I have +lately read, titled "Frank's Ranche, or my Holiday in the Rockies," +easily accessible. That creed is so good that when I read it aloud to my +homeflock they said, "Why, we believe all that!"--and as to the evil +matter of many wives, not only did the original Joseph repudiate that +doctrine, but his namesake son, still a chief among the Mormons, does +the same, and so far has seceded from the Brigham heresy: which a son of +mine says is not bigamy, but Brighamy. + +A few forgotten anecdotes may here find place: take these twelve as +samples of many more such trivials which memory may have at the bottom +of her well, if she only dipped for them. + +1. A banknote experience: when a very small child I used to be taken to +the Postford paper-mill at Albury by my nurse, who had a follower (or a +followed) in the foreman there. While they talked together, I was +deputed to amuse myself by making banknote paper, as thus: a spoonful of +pulp put into a shallow tray of wire and shaken deftly made a small +oblong of paper duly impressed with Britannia and water-marked: being +then dried on a flannel pad. Many years after, when I was preparing for +Oxford under Mr. Holt at Postford House, there was discovered a secret +cupboard in the wall of his drawing-room which was found to contain +several forged plates for printing banknotes: and this discovery +accounted for the recent suicide of a Mr. H----, a previous owner of the +paper-mill, who evidently feared exposure and conviction. No one now is +allowed to make banknote paper, except the honourable firm of Messrs. +Portal, which has the monopoly thereof: but when I was a child, any one +might do it, and if there was a forger handy, fraud was possible to any +extent. Our "Newland's Corner" on Merrow Downs is so called from Abraham +Newland, whose name is printed on old banknotes as F. May is on new +ones, and who owned Postford Mill. Hence the word "Sham-Abram" for a +forged note. + +2. A noted piscatorial editor wishes me to record now I once caught a +trout with its own eye--as thus: I was whipping the Tillingbourne, and +hooked a fish foul, for it dropped off leaving an eye on the hook. In my +vexation I made a cast again over the same spot where I had thrown, and +actually caught that eager wounded fish with its own eye. + +3. When I was a guest of Captain Hamilton at Rozelle, Ayr, he told me +that he and all the crew had seen the sea-serpent!--but that his admiral +had interdicted all mention of it in the log for fear of ridicule: on +which I told him what I had seen of the same sort. When crossing the +great Herring Pond in the _Arctic_, the passengers were all summoned on +deck from dinner to see that mystery of the deep, the sea-serpent. It +was very rough at the time, and certainly within a little distance some +apparent monster hundreds of feet long was rolling on the top of the +waves: _but_ as some portions of it spouted, we soon saw there nothing +but a school of whales, the big bull leading and the cows and calves +following in a line. This looked like the real thing,--but wasn't. From +other evidence, however, and the Rev. J.G. Wood supplies one, I do +believe there are such monsters of the deep whose nest is in the +Sargasso Sea. + +4. Here is a curious item of my biography. When I was in Canada in 1851, +at an hotel in Kingston, the waiter comes to tell me that two persons +wanted to see me on special business. Admitted, there appeared a very +decent man and woman dressed in their best, and with ribbons and +flowers. What might they want with me? Please, Mr. Tupper, that you +would marry us! My good man, I can't, I'm not a clergyman. Oh but, sir, +you write religion, and we like your books, and we've come across from +New York State to Canada to get married,--so please, &c. &c. Of course, +I did not please, and as to marriage at all gave them Punch's celebrated +advice to persons about to marry, Don't. On which the hapless pair +departed sorrowfully. If I _had_ read the service over them, possibly +their respectable consciences might have been satisfied,--and as with +Romeo and Juliet a lay friar Lawrence would have sufficed. Moreover, +there's no penalty from one State to another: and even on board ship the +captain may read services, and on land the Consul marries. + +5. A picture story. I am invited to a dinner where a rich New Yorker has +asked some connoisseur friends to inspect his new purchase, a Raffaelle +Madonna and child, for which he has just given a fabulous amount of +dollars. I was asked for special judgment as an artistic Englishman. +Well: the drawing was perfect; but I didn't like the colouring: I knew +the picture, having seen the original somewhere on the Continent: but +this couldn't be a copy, as it was less than life-size; so, while most +of the other guests praised profusely, I requested to withhold my +opinion of its merits till I could examine it in daylight,--which, as I +was to sleep in the house, was easy next morning. When my eager host +appeared, I took him alone after breakfast into his study, and proved to +him what, alas! I had too truly suspected, that however well painted +with the over-accuracy of a miniature and absolutely correct as was the +drawing,--his prize Raffaelle was after all only an oil-coloured +engraving! This he wouldn't believe, triumphantly showing me the ancient +canvas at the back: but when I told him that between that canvas and the +paint he would find paper, and when a penknife scratch under the +frame-edge proved it,--he naturally stormed at the dealer who had taken +him in, until I suggested a disgorging of the dollars, and promising my +own silence as to the discovery, left him a wiser man and a grateful. + +6. How often the poor letter H has crushed oratory and destroyed +eloquence! Do I not remember how notably a late Lord Mayor raised the +echoes of the Egyptian Hall to an explosion of laughter, by commencing +grandiloquently, "When hi survey the dignity of my 'igh position," &c. +&c.; and similarly what a disastrous effect a certain preacher caused in +church by the announcement, "This is the hare, come let us kill him?" +But we all know the mysteries of H and W: AEsop Smith wrote a fable about +them, whereof this is the finale: "H," said King Cadmus, "one of my +oldest friends! never can I spare your respectable presence; your +ancestor is the throat-uttered Heth of Moses; even as you, dear W, are +descended from the stately digamma of Homer. Believe me, I value both of +you all the more for graceful ambiguities: mystery is priceless to your +king, and your usage is obscure: therefore do I lay upon you higher +honour. Henceforth, ye vowel magnates, and you my faithful commons +consonants, take heed that no one be accounted literate or eloquent who +places these my oldest friends in a dilemma. Their right use is a +mystery; so be it; but woe be unto those whose innate want of taste +profanes that mystery. Honour be to H, and worship be to W; and let +those who misuse their secret excellences dread the vengeance of King +Cadmus!" + +7. Yet a seventh whimsical anecdote rises to the surface. When Prince +Albert was made a fellow of Lincoln's Inn, and dined in the New Hall, I +was present at the banquet. There was a roast joint and one bottle of +port to each mess of four barristers: one would think a supply more than +ample: however, some thirsty souls wanted more wine for the great +occasion, and the complaint found utterance ludicrously thus. When the +National Anthem was sung, some young lawyer who gave the solos, with a +good tenor voice and no end of dry humour, raised a gale of laughter and +applause by singing very devoutly-- + + "Long to reign over us + _Happy and glorious,_ + _Three half-pints 'mong four of us,_ + God save the Queen!" + +Of course, plenty more bottles were the result,--and the genial Prince +Albert laughed as heartily as the rest of us. + +8. Yet another anecdote, in these days of professional mendicancy not +uninstructive. One day when calling on the Rev. Robert Anderson, at +Brighton, a begging visitor came in, calling himself a Polish refugee, +and speaking broken English: Mr. Anderson in his kindness was just about +to open his purse, when I said to both of them, "I happen to know a +little Polish, and wish to ask a few questions:" accordingly, I rapped +out at intervals, with an interrogating air, the opening lines of the +Antigone of Sophocles! on which that "banished lord," stammering out +that he had been out of Poland so many years that he had forgotten the +language, bowed himself from the room as a--discovered, impostor. + +9. The recent lamentable fire at Kegan Paul's, wherein so much authorial +wealth was cremated,--and especially no fewer than six of the works of +that clever authoress, Emily Pfeiffer,--reminds me of an irrevocable +loss sustained by "Proverbial Philosophy" owing to Oudinot's capture of +Rome in 1849: for it so happened that the Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna +had, as instructress to his nieces, a lady who afterwards became Mrs. +Robinson of South Kensington Museum: she, a great admirer of the work, +translated my book for them into Italian, and had it printed at Rome, +where unluckily both the whole MS. and the finished sheets were all +burnt in the city's bombardment. I have since asked Mrs. Robinson if she +could possibly reproduce it: but--the occasion passed, there is now +neither time nor need for it, and so my Italian version has no +existence, except possibly as photographed on the "blue ether" whither +Professor Tyndall hopes to go. A similar fatality, we may remember, +affected Sir Isaac Newton through his little dog Diamond: and my friend +in old days, Gilbert Burnett, the botanist, had to rewrite his index, a +heartrending labour, because a careless housemaid lit a fire with it. + +10. And this further reminds me of the perils to which an author's MSS. +are perpetually exposed; _e.g._, before I put a spring lock on my study +at Albury (where, by the way, I wrote several of my early Proverbial +chapters with a child on my knee) I used to find my papers regularly put +out of order by the maid arranging the room; and upon my cautioning her +not to destroy anything, I was horrified by the unconscious Audrey's +instant reply, "O sir! I never burns no papers but what is spoilt by +being written on." Again, I remember to have cautioned my Suffolk +friend, Mrs. Crabtree, who had a fine library, not to keep her servants +short of firepaper, as they might possibly help themselves out of bound +books; whereat she was indignant, as if I was traducing a favourite +menial: however, I went round with her, unfortunately proving the +delinquency by exhibiting several handsome volumes with middle leaves +torn out!--Once more, in the prehistoric days when we sported with loose +powder and shot and paper wadding, I was a guest for some days in +September with James Maclaren at Ticehurst, and recollect his horror at +finding that the luncheon sandwiches were wrapped in some of his most +precious MSS.--for he was writing a treatise on finance, and these +leaves were covered with calculations--and that his shooting-party were +ramming down their charges with the recorded labour of his brains! It +was at Maclaren's that I once tasted squirrel; his woods were infested +with the pretty creatures, which the keeper shot, and after keeping the +skin gave the carcase to the cook: it tasted like very nutty rabbit: but +I protested it was a greater outrage than lark-pudding, which I had +recently seen at the Judges' Sentence dinner at Newgate, and said it was +a shame to eat the sweet songsters. At Maclaren's I learnt the origin of +"high" as applied to eatables. His game-larder was a tower of many bars, +the lowest containing a to-day's shooting, the next yesterday's, and so +forth, always moving up; hence the stalest were at the top, and so most +serviceable as least fresh. Trench on words would approve this reason +for "high" game. + + 11. _Providence._ + + I. + + "Lo! we are led; we are guided and guarded + Carefully, kindly, by night and by day; + Punish'd belike, or haply rewarded, + As we go wrong or go right on the way; + Wisdom and Mercy, twin angels of kindness, + Take by both hands the child lost in the night, + Leading him safely, in spite of his blindness, + Guiding him well through the dark to the light. + + II. + + "All things are ordered,--the least as the greatest; + Motes have their orbits as fixt as a star,-- + And thou may'st mark, if humbly thou waitest, + Providence working in all things that are: + Nothing shall fail in its ultimate object, + Good must outwrestle all evil at last; + God is the King, and creation His subject, + And the great future shall ransom the past. + + III. + + "Ay, and this present,--perplexing, degrading-- + None may despise it as futile or worse; + Swift as it flieth, dissolving and fading, + 'Tis the wing'd seed of some blessing or curse. + Telescope, microscope,--which hath most wonder? + Infinite great, or as infinite small? + Musical silence, or world-splitting thunder?-- + He that made all things inhabits them all. + + IV. + + "Yea; for this present,--each inch and each second + Hath its own soul in a thought or a word; + Ev'n as I watch, God's finger hath beckon'd, + Ev'n as I wait, God's whisper is heard! + Trifles, some judge them, that finger, that whisper,-- + But on such pivots vast issues revolve; + Those are the watchful reminders of Mizpah, + Jazer and Bethel, Life's secret to solve! + + V. + + "Mizpah,--for carefulness, honour, uprightness; + Jazer,--by penitence, meekness, and faith; + Bethel,--in foretastes of gladness and brightness,-- + These are the keynotes to life out of death: + Providence bidding, and prudence obeying, + Thou shalt have peace from beginning to end,-- + Thankfully, trustfully, instantly praying, + Walking with God as thy Father and Friend." + +12. Apropos to my mention of Mortimer Collins' visit to Albury on +another page, I make this extract from his "Pen Sketches by a Vanished +Hand," vol. i. pp. 167, 168:-- + +"_A Walk through Surrey._ + +"At Albury I called upon a poet,--one whom critics love to assail, but +who derides critics and arrides the public. Pleasant indeed is the fine +old house, with emerald lawn and stately trees, wherein he resides. Not +Horace in his Sabine farm, nor Catullus at Tiburs, had a more poetic +retreat than the author of "Proverbial Philosophy" at Albury. But, like +Catullus, the advent of May had set the poet longing for a flight far +away: + + "'Jam ver egelidos refert tepores, + Jam coeli furor aequinoctialis + Jucundis Zephyri silescit auris; + Jam mens praetrepidans avet vagari + Jam laeti studio pedes vigescunt.' + +And he was about to take wing for sea-side resorts, and the soft +cyclades of the Channel, beloved by Victor Hugo. + +"Right hospitable was he; a bottle of cool claret cheered the dusty +wayfarer, and an hour's pleasant talk was even more cheering. Hence I +walked through Albury Park towards Gomshall." + +The exquisite bit from Catullus will best excuse my otherwise +egotistical quotation. + +A few more anecdotes about literary men and things may here find place. +Take these respecting _Thackeray_, and _Leech_, both of which immortal +humorists were my schoolfellows at the Charterhouse; but, as I have +said, they having the misfortune to be merely lower-form boys, and your +present scribe ranging as a dignified Emeritus, of course there was then +a great gulf between us, pleasantly to be bridged over in after life. +Thackeray's career has long been fully detailed in public, and I can +have little to add of much consequence; but I call to mind how that +quiet small cynic--so gigantic in all senses afterwards--used to +caricature Bob Watki and the other masters on the fly-leaves of his +classbooks, to the scandal of myself and other responsible monitors; +these illustrated classics having since been sold by auction at high +prices. But "My School-Days" have recorded all that. + +As to Leech, who probably adorned his books similarly, he, being a +day-boy and allowed for safety to scuttle out of the playground before +school broke up, came not equally under our surveillance in those days; +but long years after, when that genial and witty friend and true +gentleman was my guest at Albury, I had great delight in his company, +and he helped cleverly to illustrate (along with divers other artists) +my "Crock of Gold" and "Proverbial Philosophy," and in part "The +Anglo-Saxon." I remember a characteristic little anecdote about him, as +thus:-- + +We went angling together to Postford Pond, on a fine hot day, thinking +less of possible sport than of sandwiches and sherry, and an idle lounge +on a sloping bank in the shade, and haply (though for myself I am no +smoker) the calmly contemplative cigar. As we lay there, in +_dolce-far-niente_ fashion, all at once Leech jumped up with a vigorous +"Confound that float! can't it leave me at peace? I've been watching it +bobbing these five minutes, and now it's out of sight altogether--hang +it!" With that hearty exclamation of disgust pulling up a brilliant +two-pound perch, the glory of the day! Next week's _Punch_ had a +pleasant comic sketch of this petty incident, thereby immortalised by +the famous "bottled leech." + +It always struck me that Tenniel and he were a well-matched pair, in +kindliness, cleverness, and good looks; and I never can think of one +without the other--_arcades ambo; par nobile fratrum_. + +Thackeray lived to have his full revenge of Dr. Birch, in our day the +reigning tyrant of Charterhouse; and Russell well deserved his +castigation both by pen and pencil. + +Let me also give a brace of home sketches of Longfellow. I have had two +principal interviews with him in his beautiful home at Cambridge, +Massachusetts, at the wide interval between those visits of twenty-five +years. Of the first of these I record a few words from my American MS. +journal in 1851, adding some unwritten thoughts and recollections. On +April 16th, then, in the year just named, Longfellow wrote to me +cordially, and with much kindly appreciation, and soon after, calling on +me at Boston, took me off in his carriage over the flooded lowlands to +the ancient (for America) University of Cambridge, where the Queen +Anne-like colleges are nestled in fine old elms. He treated me, of +course, most hospitably, and had asked several friends to meet the +traveller; but one, a chief guest, was otherwise engaged, and so I +missed Lowell, to my great disappointment. It is not my "form" to detail +private conversation, nor to describe the Lares and Penates of sacred +domesticity; but I may reveal generally that I spent several golden +hours of intellectual communion with the Abbott Laurences, Ticknor, +Fields, Prescott, and Everett--illustrious names, which will +sufficiently indicate the reception they gave me. At this time of day I +cannot remember the thousand "winged speeches" that flew about that +genial board, and, as I failed, from conscientious motives, to record +them in my journal, I will not invent, after thirty-four years have +passed over my memory, with their crowds of other words and fancies. Be +this enough: I recollect to have asked Longfellow why he wrote +Excelsi_or_, and not the more grammatical Excelsi_us_, as the title to +one of his most famous poems. The reason is a curious one; he wrote +those stirring verses, by request, on the motto for the New York +coat-of-arms, which is legended not quite accurately, Excelsi_or_. And +when, in the same line of thought, I inquired why he named a German +story "Hyperion," with no apparent reason from classical associations, +he pertinently enough answered me by pronouncing the name _huper-iown_, +("going higher"), the story being a tale of progress in human character. + +And now to leap over twenty-five years, at which interval I paid my +second visit to America in 1876, when again I had the privilege of being +Longfellow's guest in the same historic abode where Washington had once +his headquarters. My kind-hearted host insisted on my occupying the same +arm-chair I had before, and which since, he said, had been the throne of +Dickens and Thackeray, and every book-celebrity that had visited +Cambridge. Among invited guests unable to come was Oliver Wendell +Holmes, but I soon after made up for this loss by having a long talk +with that shrewd and amusing writer at Boston; and once more, alas! no +Lowell, whom I missed again, though I had waited for him that quarter of +a century! Longfellow, out of compliment (so he kindly said) to his +English guest, had specially provided pheasants and Stilton cheese, +among such more Transatlantic delicacies as wild venison (from Tupper +Lake, in the Adirondacks), and canvas-back ducks from Baltimore; to say +less of terrapin soup, whereof the unhatched eggs of tortoises are the +_bonne-bouche_! After dinner he gave me an apple from Beaupre, +Evangeline's farm, the pips whereof I sent to Albury for planting. +Longfellow was much interested to hear that my collateral ancestor had +married Martha, the heiress of "the Vineyard" in Rhode Island. Mr. +Fields, on this festive occasion, recited some of Mark Twain's humour, +and I had to give sundry of my American ballads, and the host himself +his exquisite "Psalm of Life;" my "Venus," in reply to his "Mars," +having appeared, and been praised by him, some years before. And this +meagre record is all I care, or have space, to give of that feast of +reason and flow of soul. + +With _Charles Kingsley_, however seldom we met, I had strong sympathy in +many ways, as a man of men, to be loved and admired; but chiefly we +could feel for each other in the matter of stammering,--a sort of +affliction not sufficiently appreciated. Kingsley conquered his +infirmity, as I did mine, and rose to frequent eloquence in his public +ministrations: privately his speech would often fail him, and was his +"thorn in the flesh" to the end. + +I remember a most pleasant day spent with him about the fishponds and +cascades of Wotton,--and I noted how skilfully he threw the fly some +five-and-twenty feet under the bushes, to the wonder of a gaping trout, +soon to find its lodging in the creel: and our kind host may still +recollect, as I do, how charming was our intercourse that day with the +genial author of "Yeast," "Alton Lock," "Hypatia," "Westward ho!" and +other of our favourites. I have met Kingsley later, in his cloistered +nest, as Canon of Westminster, and remember how heartily he expressed +his abundant charity for all sorts of miserable sinners, especially +about one of whom I came to speak, for there never lived a more +universal excuser of human imperfection than Charles Kingsley. His bust, +very like him, is in a side chapel of the Abbey, near the west door. +With the learned and eloquent Canon Farrar, too, I have held converse in +the same Broad Sanctuary, though but briefly. Harrison Ainsworth has +often crossed my orbit. In particular, as a very early contributor to +his magazine (wherein, by the way, my "Flight upon Flying" originally +appeared, to be afterwards reproduced at the Royal Aquarium a year or +two ago), I was among his invited guests at Kensal Manor house, for the +inauguration of his magazine, meeting Douglas Jerrold, Blanchard, Albert +Smith, and others of like note. Also, at Lord Mayor's feasts we have +periodically met, and at Literary Fund dinners. I may mention that when +we came near one another a few years since, at the Mansion-House, an +American friend with me was startled at the resemblance between +Ainsworth and myself: in fact, our photographic portraits have often +been mutually sold for each other, and I remember in a shop window +seeing my name written under a photo clearly not myself, however like; +and my daughter with me said "It must be a mistake, for you never had +such a waistcoat as that," it being a brilliant plaid: so we went in to +set matters right, and the shopman, in correcting the mistake, observed +he didn't wonder, we were so alike: furthermore, on the outside cover of +a cheap edition of Ainsworth's "James II.," his portrait is the very +counterpart of one painted, by Rochard, long years ago, of myself. + +I was well acquainted, fifty-five years ago, with three eminent men, who +afterwards became viceroys, as their fellow classman and collegian at +Christ Church. At that time two of them were only younger sons in their +"pupa" or pupil phases of Ramsay and Bruce, and wore the same commoner's +gown as myself; the third, though a "tuft" by courtesy, had not yet come +to his heritage. All these three succeeded one another in the high +position of a Governor-General of India, and were famous architects of +our imperial greatness. I remember on either side of me in Biscoe's +memorable Aristotle class before mentioned, the young Ramsay, afterwards +Dalhousie, that great pro-consul who annexed a third of our Indian +Empire; and the young Bruce, afterwards Elgin, famous from Canada to +China; the former slim, ascetic, and reserved; the latter a perfect +contrast, being stout, genial, and outspoken; while Canning, tall and +good-looking, with curly dark hair and florid complexion, is mentionable +also for his fluency of speech and cordiality of manner--hereditaments, +doubtless, of his distinguished father. Of Lord Elgin I have many +pleasant memories, especially when he hospitably received me at Toronto, +whither he had recently migrated from Montreal (as I thought unwisely), +because the French Canadians there had insulted him. In this connection +I may give an anecdote to the point. Soon after my return from America +in 1851 I dined with my neighbour at Albury, Henry Drummond, the +humoursome M.P., always not a little good-naturedly mischievous. He knew +that I had not approved of Lord Elgin's petulant removal of his +viceroyal establishment from Montreal to Toronto, and cunningly resolved +to draw me out before witnesses on the matter. Now I had taken in to +dinner an elderly Scotch lady unknown to me, and sat next to her of +course. Soon my lively host somewhat unfairly asked me about my visit to +Canada, and what I thought of the then notorious flight of the Governor +to far distant Toronto,--forcing me to express my disapproval, which +naturally as an honest man I did, on which my left-hand neighbour, a +lady of rank whom I knew, whispered "Mind what you are saying, you took +in his mother." Accordingly, I had frankly to turn and say, "And I'm +sure Lady Elgin will agree with me, and you too, Mr. Drummond, for no +captain should fly from his post because he's laughed at." This candid +speech was fortunately applauded all round the table, and not least by +the friendly Countess and the baffled mischief lover. + +Lord Elgin most kindly interested himself in the restoration of the +Brock monument at Queenstown Heights, which had then recently been +damaged by gunpowder, and is since rebuilt: my good reason for asking +his aid being that Sir Isaac Brock was my near relative (his mother +bearing my name), and that he had saved Canada by his death in victory. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + +A FEW OLDER FRIENDSHIPS. + + +It is only fair and right that I make special mention of some +friendships of many years, connected more or less with literary matters. +Among such names in the past occurs one, if not very eminent, to me at +least very kindly, that of Benjamin Nightingale, an antiquarian friend +for nearly forty years. We first became acquainted in Sotheby's auction +room, where I perceived at once his generous nature, by this token: we +had been competing for a miscellaneous lot of coins, which he +bought,--and then lifting his hat he asked me which of them I had +specially wanted; these I indicated, of course thinking that he meant me +to buy them of him,--but he immediately insisted upon giving them, if I +would allow him. This fair beginning led to better acquaintance, often +improved under our mutual roof-trees. It was his ambition to be my +Boswell, as he has sometimes told me; and probably there are bundles +somewhere of _his_ MSS. and of _our_ antiquarian letters (he wrote very +well), about which I have vainly made inquiry of a near relative, who +knew nothing about them. Some day they'll turn up. + +Nightingale was much pleased to find himself recorded in my "Farley +Heath," as to both verse and prose. He has been in the Better World some +twelve years, and his widow gave me the collections he called his +Tupperiana. + +I confess that the following poem wherein my genial friend figures,--and +which many judges have liked as among my best balladisms, is one reason +for this record of B.N. + + _Farley Heath._ + + "Many a day have I whiled away + Upon hopeful Farley Heath, + In its antique soil digging for spoil + Of possible treasure beneath; + For Celts, and querns, and funereal urns, + And rich red Samian ware, + And sculptured stones and centurions' bones + May all lie buried there! + + "How calmly serene, and glad have I been + From morn till eve to stay, + My men, no serfs, turning the turfs + The happy livelong day; + With eye still bright, and hope yet alight, + Wistfully watching the mould, + As the spade brings up fragments of things + Fifteen centuries old! + + "Pleasant and rare it was to be there + On a joyous day of June, + With the circling scene all gay and green + Steep'd in the silent moon; + When beauty distils from the calm glad hills, + From the downs and dimpling vales; + And every grove, lazy with love, + Whispereth tenderest tales! + + "O then to look back upon Time's old track, + And dream of the days long past, + When Rome leant here on his sentinel spear + And loud was the clarion's blast;-- + As wild and shrill from Martyr's Hill + Echoed the patriot shout; + Or rush'd pell-mell with a midnight yell + The rude barbarian rout! + + "Yes; every stone has a tale of its own, + A volume of old lore; + And this white sand from many a brand + Has polish'd gouts of gore; + When Holmbury Height had its beacon light, + And Cantii held old Leith, + And Rome stood then with his iron men + On ancient Farley Heath! + + "How many a group of that exiled troop + Have here sung songs of home, + Chanting aloud to a wondering crowd + The glories of old Rome! + Or lying at length have basked their strength + Amid this heather and gorse, + Or down by the well in the larch-grown dell + Water'd the black war-horse! + + "Look, look! my day-dream right ready would seem + The past with the present to join,-- + For see! I have found in this rare ground + An eloquent green old coin, + With turquoise rust on its Emperor's bust-- + Some Caesar, august lord, + And the legend terse, and the classic reverse, + 'Victory, valour's reward!' + + "Victory--yes! and happiness, + Kind comrade, to me and to you, + When such rich spoil has crown'd our toil + And proved the day-dream true; + With hearty acclaim how we hail'd by his name + The Caesar of that coin, + And told with a shout his titles out, + And drank his health in wine! + + "And then how blest the noon-day rest, + Reclin'd on a grassy bank, + With hungry cheer and the brave old beer, + Better than Odin drank; + And the secret balm of the spirit at calm, + And poetry, hope, and health,-- + Ay, have I not found in that rare ground + A mine of more than wealth?" + +Another long-time friend also of the antiquarian sort was Walter +Hawkins, with whom I was intimate for many years. His private collection +of coins and curiosities was even larger and costlier than +Nightingale's, and was given by his administratrix to the United Service +Museum, where I believe the bulk of it (perhaps morally mine) still +remains in cases not yet unpacked. He died suddenly, to my great +financial loss; for he was very fond of me, offering himself sponsor and +giving his name to a son of mine; and as a rich old bachelor he used, to +make humorously half promises of benefits to come. In fact, he had +called in his lawyer to take instructions for a new will, and partly at +least had erased or destroyed the old one of a twelve years agone, when, +one raw and wintry morning, he insisted upon seeing a lady from and to +her carriage without his hat (punctilio being his _forte_ and his +fault), caught cold, took to his bed, and was dead in four days! +Accordingly a relative with whom he had not been on the best of terms +for years, administered to his half will, and succeeded to his +possessions. Such is life and its futile expectations. + +Walter Hawkins had many peculiarities: one was this. At great cost he +was long building for himself a tomb at Kensal Green, which he would not +let me see till it was finished: he then triumphantly exhibited to my +astonished eyes a domed marble temple with four bronze angels blowing +trumpets east, west, north, and south,--and waited for my approval, +which honestly I could not give. I heard nothing more of this small +mausoleum, for he was a taciturn man: but when, some year or two after, +I went to his funeral and looked in vain for the temple-tomb, I found it +had vanished, and in its stead was a plain marble slab with his simple +name and birthday on it, and a blank left for the date of his death. +Manifestly he had repented of the vaingloriousness of those herald +angels and their dome; and practically took the hint of my dispraise in +the adoption of that humbler tombstone. + +Here is another characteristic trait: some navvy had found an old rusty +anchor near the Thames Tunnel, one of Brunel's ruinous follies,--now, as +we all know, finished and utilised by a railway. This anchor, a small +one, probably lost by some "jolly young waterman," Mr. Hawkins +maintained was Roman; and he had made for it a superb crimson case lined +with satin, which hung on his drawing-room wall at Hammersmith as a +decoration. He was also proud of possessing the paw of the Arctic bear +which had attacked Captain Parry, but from which he escaped, as also did +the bear, for no one is said to have shot the beast: however, there was +the paw in proof: and there were divers other uncommon properties. + +One of the most curious matters about my friend was this: the anagram of +his name in full (and he always wrote Esquire and not Esq.) exactly +describes him, with his peculiarity of greeting one with "_Oh_, I'm so +glad to see you!" and with his usual signature "W.H.," which also he +put on a medal for good conduct to youths, and gave my son one of those +"W.H. medals." Now the words "Oh, Walter Hawkins, Esquire," makes +anagrammatically, "W.H., who likes rare antiques!" exactly his +idiosyncrasy as a man and a collector. + +We all know how strangely "The Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone, +M.P.," spells, "I am the Whig M.P. who'll be a traitor to England's +rule:"--may it not prove to be prophetic. And still more strange is the +fact that the words "William Ewart Gladstone" spell "Erin, we will go +mad at last!" which seems only too likely. Another curious anagram is +this,--in a far different vein: "Christmas comes but once a year," makes +"So by Christ came a rescue to man." There's no end to these petty word +miracles. + +But to revert to our theme and to conclude it. As a West India merchant, +Mr. Hawkins one day sent me down to Albury a hogshead of sugar and some +sacks of rice, to be given (or, as he preferred it, sold at half price +for honour's sake and not to pauperise) to my poorer neighbours for a +Christmas gift. Well, to please him, I tried to sell, and only raised +the rancour of the shopkeepers, who declared I was competing with them +as a grocer: then I gave, with the same experience that soup charity had +before taught me, to wit, that poor quarrelled with poorer, and both +with me, for more or less given. So I was glad when it all came to an +end. It is very difficult, as many a Lady Bountiful knows, to be +charitable on a wide scale: _e.g._ once, in my country life, I tried to +recommend brown bread and oatmeal; and got nothing by it but ill-will, +as if wishing to starve the poor by denial of wheat-flour. + +Most of us have been checked in such silly efforts to do good through +forgetfulness of the fact that usually the poorest are the proudest. +Even the luxurious _debris_ of London Club kitchens must be flung into +swill-barrels for pigs, because starving men and women will not demean +themselves to ask for it at the buttery-hatch. Moreover, that such are +often extravagant too, everybody has found out--here's an instance: In +my legal days, I now and then of course relieved poor folk, and +sometimes passed through Seven Dials: casually, I looked in upon an old +couple to whom I had occasionally given a trifle, believing them to be +near starvation; and I found them roasting a brace of partridges--or was +it quails? for they were waistcoated with bacon,--and I had the charity +to hope they had _not_ stolen them! Anyhow, I never called there again. +And, while I am in Seven Dials, let me record another useful small +experience. There was a lapidary handy, who had at times cut my +beach-found choanites for me. One day I found him making scarabaei out of +bits of agate and lapis lazuli. "Who gave you an order for these," said +I. "Well, sir, I don't rightly know his name; but he was a furriner." +"Was the name Signor----?" "That's it, sir." Then I set off straight to +Sotheby's where I knew the Signor's Egyptian antiquities were soon to be +sold, and duly forewarned the auctioneer of these forgeries. I need not +detail how at the sale he put buyers on their guard, exposing the fraud, +and condemning the peccant scarabaei to extinction. I wonder how many +Grecian bronzes and copper Buddhas have been cast in Birmingham! + + * * * * * + +Yet another old friend for many years, so far literary in that he was a +sculptor, is to be recorded in Joseph Durham: it was he who, more than +thirty years ago, modelled in life and made in marble after death my +beautiful three-year old daughter, little Alice, epitaphed in my poems. +Of Durham's nobleness of character I can here give a charming trait. I +used to go about once a week--sometimes less often--to Alfred Place to +see how Durham was getting on with the statue (a sleeping infant), and +one day, to my astonishment, I perceived that instead of any progress +having been made in the work, it had, miraculously to me, retrograded; +not half so near completion as it was last week. As I was wondering and +perhaps not well pleased, Durham said, "I had hoped you would not call, +till I had made it look as it did last week,--and then you needn't have +known it." "Known what, friend?" "Well, only this; I came to a stain in +the marble, and as I resolved you should have everything of the best,--I +took another block, and have worked at it night and day, in hopes you +wouldn't find me out. There's the other figure, under that cloth." Now, +considering that the new block involved a cost of some twenty +pounds,--and that the old one might have been artificially doctored, and +that anyhow the risk and loss were equitably as much, mine as his,--and +further that the young sculptor had little more than daily bread, if +that,--I do say all this proves Durham to have been the noble fellow I +found him to be for years. He is long gone, like so many other friends, +to that Brighter World. His life-story in this was a touching one, as he +told it to me; and I think known to very few besides myself. In youth he +loved and was beloved; but friends and circumstances hindered; so she +married some one else who, to Durham's constant horror and indignation, +treated his wife brutally: till, one happy day, he died in some fit, +probably from his own excesses. And then--here comes the sad +climax--when Durham, having achieved fortune and fame, offered himself +to his old love, the now rich widow, she deliberately turned away with a +refusal, and broke his heart! Was it any wonder that his grief sometimes +sought the solace of voluntary forgetfulness, or that certain false +friends of his I wot of have in their teetotal Pharisaism made the evil +most of an occasional infirmity, and have blackened even with printer's +ink the memory of one of God's and Nature's true noblemen! Besides my +little daughter in marble (so charmingly asleep that, in the Royal +Academy, we heard one lady whisper to another, Hush, don't talk so loud, +you'll wake her!)--besides _that_, his _chef-d'oeuvre_, as I always +think, he modelled the bust of her father, now in the Crystal Palace +Gallery,--but would not accept any payment for it! So like Durham,--who +in many secret ways was ever generous and trying to do good: he was +always self-forgetful and only too modest. _Apropos_, I remember that +when Lord Granville asked the sculptor of Prince Albert's statue at +South Kensington "Whether the Queen, who was so well pleased, could do +anything for him"--suggestive, no doubt, of a knighthood--the dear +unselfish Durham replied, "Thank you, my Lord,--if her Majesty's +pleased, I'm satisfied." So that chance for a title was thrown +heedlessly away,--but we always called him "Sir Joe" ever after: +specially among the "Noviomagians," a band of antiquaries who used to +dine together jovially at many pretended and picturesque sites of the +undiscoverable Noviomagus, and among them I have met and numbered as my +friends Chief Baron Pollok, George Godwin, Francis Bennoch, Thomas +Wright, Thornbury and Fairholt and other noted names, some of them still +among the living. + +It gave me great pleasure as a Guernseyman to have been chiefly +accessory to a duplicate in bronze of the Good Prince's statue by Durham +being set up at the Pierhead of St. Peter's Port. Interest was exerted +by me to get royal permission for a new cast from the original, +Government giving the metal of old cannons; a collection from house to +house was made throughout the island, granite to any extent was on the +spot, meetings were held, and I had the pleasure to see Durham's grand +work inaugurated there, and to find him welcomed by all the +"Sixties"--ay, and the "Forties" too--with the hospitality for which +Sarnia was in those days proverbial. + + * * * * * + +In this brief record of my literary life, I ought not to ignore sundry +true and constant book-friends known to me only by correspondence, and +that in some cases through many years. I cannot touch them all, and +shrink even from mentioning one or two, for fear of seeming to omit +others; but I will endeavour to do my best and wisest in the matter. + +Foremost, then, among those unseen favourers of your author is the +Baroness Stanislas von Barnekow, of Engelholme, in Sweden; with whom +during fifteen years I have interchanged certainly fifty letters, if not +more, hers at least being full of the utmost kindliness, cleverness, and +(for a foreigner) even truly poetic eloquence. This tribute to her +talents and warm feelings is only a debt of gratitude. She it was who +voluntarily translated into Swedish my two first series of "Proverbial +Philosophy," and many of my lyrics in "Cithara;" and naturally I was +willing to answer her in kind (for the Baroness is an excellent and +well-known poetess in her own land), but, as unfortunately the Swedish +tongue is not among my few accomplishments, I was glad to turn to a +diligent and authorial eldest daughter of mine, who learnt the language +for me, and responded to our unseen friend with many of her poems +rendered into English verse, as she had similarly favoured mine in +Swedish. My said daughter afterwards improved upon the idea by several +more like translations, since published in book-form, as some from the +Sagas, and in particular many original poems of much merit from the pen +of King Oscar and Princess Eugenie, which greatly pleased them, as their +photographs and autographs testified; the Baroness's brother, Count Von +Wrede, who is the King's Chamberlain, having kindly given facilities. I +trust that my old "friend unseen," Stanislas, will not be displeased by +this proof that I remember with appreciation her many expressions of +esteem for my unworthiness. + +Next, I do not know that I have mentioned the late learned Norman poet, +_George Metivier_, as having long ago translated my "Proverbial +Philosophy" into French; he died at a great age, I think past ninety, +and was highly honoured by his native Guernsey, through life and death; +I remember him with much gratitude for his labour of love in respect of +my book. Through many years also I have corresponded with another Norman +poet, _John Sullivan_, whose very clever French poems I have often +versified into English for him, and he has returned the compliment by +sending translated fly-leaves of mine over the Gallic world. + +Let one more in this authorial category be the excellent and learned +_Canon R.C. Jenkins_, whom I have known from his childhood, and who in +these latter years has routed out for me, chiefly out of Zedler's +"Genealogical Encyclopaedia," the heraldry and ancestry of my own +Thuringian pedigree; the Canon being one of our keenest antiquaries in +that line, and having German at his fingers' ends. He comes, as I do, +from old Lutheran stock, and is full both of prose and poetry of a high +class. My best regards to him and his. + +The _Rev. Wm. Barnes_, of Dorset dialect fame, is another memory; as +also in years past the late _Chevalier de Chatelain_, a relative of my +Norwood friend, _Victor de Pontigny_, a well-known musical authority. + +No doubt I have corresponded with most of the literary men of my day, +from Tennyson to--well, I will not sound a bathos, but I do not publish +private notes without permission, and in fact there would be no end of +such printed amenities of literature battledored and shuttlecocked from +one to another. I may, however, mention as a good habit of mine (is it +not a good one?) that, whenever I like a book, I take leave to thank its +author, and have usually received, _en revanche_, warm letters of their +gratitude from many, especially if young ones. Surely it is proper in a +veteran so to encourage a juvenile or even a mature brother, should he +seem to deserve it. As also, be it known, that sometimes I have taken up +the pen faithfully and honestly to rebuke: in these realistic and +atheistic days there are some modern writers, both of prose and poetry, +older or younger, who have reason to thank me for timely +expostulations,--if they have attended to my friendly strictures. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + +POLITICAL. + + +Throughout my lengthened spell of life I never was anything of a zealous +politician. Well acquainted, as I have been, with many men of all manner +of opinions, and having had much the schooling of Ulysses, who had "seen +the cities of many men and had known their minds," I know perfectly well +that there are in every school of thought good men, and bad men too, +whatever may be their alleged principles, and I am quite willing to +believe in an _honest_ man, and stand by him if need be. In that spirit, +for many years when I was a West Surrey voter (indeed I am so still), I +used to give one of my votes to Briscoe, the Whig, and the other to +Drummond, the Tory, because I knew and trusted both of them for upright +men as well as personal friends, and they sat together as our +Parliamentary representatives. As a matter of course, nobody understood +my duplex voting,--for they were partisans and I was not,--so in that as +in some other matters I have always been a dark horse, quite +independent, and of the broadgauge pattern rather than of the narrow. +For instance, having known him from youth to age, I do not even yet +despair of Gladstone; though I have remained much where we both began, +whilst he has gone down lower, step by step, to a zero of--what is +it?--inverted ambition, whither I cannot willingly descend with him; +and yet, I do not count him an enemy: he follows his conscience, as I do +mine. Here was my judgment of the Man thirty years since, printed in No. +53 of my "Three Hundred Sonnets": + + "Gladstone, through youth and manhood many a year + My constant heart hath followed thee with praise + As 'good and faithful;' in thy words and ways + Pure-minded, just, and simple, and sincere: + And as, with early half prophetic ken + I hailed thy greatness in my college days, + The coming man to guide and govern men, + How gladly that instinctive prescience then + Now do I see fulfill'd--because, thou art + Our England's eloquent tongue, her wise free hand + To pour, wherever is her world-wide mart, + The horn of plenty over every land; + Because, by all the powers of mind and lip + Thou art the crown of Christian statemanship." + +That high praise was once well-deserved, and was cordially given: but +since, alas! according to my lights I have seen fit more than once to +"palinode." The great man's rock of peril, whereon to wreck both his +country and himself, is that fatal eloquence by which all are captured, +but (as with birdlime) are captured to their loss. But I will not +reproduce invidiously--as if false to a fifty years' friendship--any +harsh reproach, however conscientious, whereby I may have publicly +withdrawn my praise. Rather will I pass on,--and after my own fashion +will here show my ambidextrous muse in a brace of political unpublished +lyrics on either side. + + "_Popularis Aura._" + + "Liberty! dragg'd from the fetters of kings, + Liberty! dug from the cell of the priest-- + Rise to thy height upon zenith-borne wings! + Spread to thy breadth from the west to the east! + Slow, through the ages, unbound limb by limb, + Thou hast been rescued from tyranny's maw, + Only glad service still yielding to Him + Who ruleth in love by the sceptre of law! + + "Nations have torn thee by fierce civil strife + From the usurpers who trod them to mud; + Saints at the stake gave up agonised life + That superstitions be drown'd in hot blood! + Theirs was the battle--the conquest is ours-- + Free souls and bodies the death-wrestled prize + Won from bad kingcraft, despoiled of its powers, + Wrench'd from false priestcraft in spite of its lies! + + "God made the freeman, but man made the slave, + Forcing his brother the shackle to wear; + But all those fetters are loosed in the grave, + King, priest, and serf meeting equally there; + Here, too, and now, in these swift latter days, + Freedom all round is humanity's right; + Thought, speech, and action, enfranchised all ways, + Eager for service in Liberty's might." + +That may be truly labelled Liberal: the next, in honour of Beaconsfield, +may be fairly ticketed Tory: + + I. + + "Great Achiever, first in place + England's son of Israel's race! + Man whom none could make afraid, + Self-reliant and self-made,-- + Potent both by tongue and pen + In the hearts and mouths of men, + Wielder in each anxious hour + Of the mighty people's power, + Wise to scheme, and bold to do, + Who can this be,--history, who? + + II. + + "Heaper of a new renown + Even on Victoria's crown, + Mightiest friend of blessed peace + By commanding wars to cease, + Paralysing faction still, + Swift in act and strong of will, + Forcing every foe to cower + Under Britain's patient power, + Like himself, firm, frank, and true, + Who can this be,--justice, who?" + +For other of my politicals, take this common-sense essay from my pen, +hitherto unpublished:-- + + * * * * * + +IS THE ONE-VOTE SYSTEM RIGHT OR WRONG? + +In a nation self-governed through its own representatives, it seems +reasonable to admit that each citizen should have a vote; each citizen, +we say, simply as such; whether male or female, labourer, pauper, civil, +military, naval, or official, every one not convicted of crime nor an +attested lunatic, of full age, of sufficient capacity (evidenced by +being able to read and write), celibate or married, rich or poor,--every +person in our commonwealth should equitably, it may well be conceded, +have his or her single vote in the government of the country. Poverty is +no crime, therefore the Workhouse should not disfranchise; sex is no +just disqualification, therefore the woman should have her vote as +freely as the man, for surely marriage ought not to suffer derogation +and disgrace by denial of the common right of citizenship as its +penalty; the soldier, sailor, policeman, government-official, and any +other class which may now be deprived of their birthright by law or +custom, should certainly be admitted to the poll like other patriotic +citizens; in short, manhood suffrage, it may be theoretically argued, is +just and wise--manhood of course including womanhood, as suggested +above; for even a wife either sides with her husband or controls him in +common cases; and in the less usual instances where he rules, there need +be no more tyranny about political matters than about domesticities, and +so the home would scarcely be any the worse even for partisan zeal. + +However, whilst admitting the theoretical propriety of a one vote for +each citizen in the state, there remains to be considered the higher +practical justice of many having more than one. Numbers alone are not +the strength of a people; if of inferior quality they are rather its +weakness. For the Parliament of England representation is demanded of +all the virtues, talents, and acquirements, not certainly of the vice, +ignorance, poverty, and other evils more rife among the lower rungs of +the social ladder than to those above them. The single vote system (so +far as the franchise has any influence at all) depresses and demoralises +every class, as reducing all to one dead level. The ballot plan is now +law and cannot well be done away with; but it is manifestly a +humiliation for intelligence to have to sign with "his mark" in order +that ignorance may thus feel itself on an equality; and for honest +geniality to be hushed into silent secresy, that it may not put to shame +the cunning fraud of a partizan who wishes to hide his real opinion. +However, it is now too late to mend the ballot-box: let it be, and let +the single voter use it if he pleases. + +Another and a wiser scheme presents itself, practically (if possible) +even now to avert the national ruin wrought by the machinations of a +rash and blind self-seeking spirit of party, often, seen "hoist by its +own petard," though too liable to destroy the foundations of society in +the explosion. Shortly and simply, the scheme is this. Let every man, +high or low, add to his one vote others as he may and can. Be there a +vote for the Victoria Cross, another for the Albert Medal, another for +long good-service in the household or the farm, another for any such +intellectual exploits among the poor as Samuel Smiles has recorded; all +these being accessible to the humblest, and so elevating them thus far. +And now to ascend a few rungs, let additional votes be given to owners +of a stated number of acres, to possessors of a certain amount of money, +to those who have been deemed worthy of public honours, and the like. A +little further, let every mayor of a town have his official vote, and +the Presidents of the Royal Society and Royal Academy, and perhaps two +or three other chiefs of science and art; and so forth. + +Thus, then, we might get, by way of counterpoise to the voting power of +a bare and overwhelming proletariat, the worthier and far sweeter voices +of those who have virtues and excellences of various kinds to recommend +them,--so that if the lowest constituent counts for one, the highest may +add up to six or eight. And thus, while no one of the mob is denied his +one vote, those who rise above the crowd receive the more than one they +have earned by good-doing or position, and plump them all accordingly to +the worthiest candidate. + +The method of ascertaining and ensuring such votes might be this. Let +each man who has more than his single suffrage apply for the paper +specially prepared to indicate the additional votes. They might be much +as thus:-- + +_Surplus Claims--One Vote each._ + +For the Victoria Cross Signature of Claimant. +For the Albert Medal ditto. +For faithful domestic service in one + family twenty-five years ditto. +For field-work on the same farm thirty years ditto. +As a famous self-taught naturalist ditto. +As owner in fee of 50 acres ditto. +As possessed of L1000 in Government funds ditto. +As publicly selected for honour by the Queen ditto. +As mayor of such a city ditto. +As President of the Royal Society ditto. +As President of the Royal Academy ditto. + &c. &c. &c. + +Heavy penalties should attach to false claimants, who would be readily +found by their own signatures. + +All these surplus votes, openly avowed, of course, and not kept secret +as the single one in the ballot-box, would be counted up in the scores +of the several candidates. + +The surplus-voting papers should be applied for, be supplied, and be +returned when filled up--by post, and so all such voting be accomplished +on paper, as in the elections for Oxford University, &c. It is a +barbarism and anachronism at this time of day to insist on the great +cost and inconvenience of a personal appearance, in many cases +impossible. + +If our people in every class, and our legislators of whatever party, are +dissatisfied with the present system of representation as by no means +showing the nation at its best, and thus practically a mistake, let +them consider this suggestion; one made long ago by the writer as proved +by his published works. + + _The Voter's Motto._ + + I. + + For Church and State! our father's honoured toast; + Dear England's ancient bulwark and her boast: + Must we now cease to build and man the wall + At base Sanballat's and Tobiah's call? + Shall Atheistic scorn and Jesuit guile + Make Nehemiah quit his work awhile, + That their Arabian host may tear all down, + And trample in the dust our Zion's crown? + May God avert it! No surrender! No! + We will not yield the battle to the foe, + Nor shall the children of our fathers thus + Betray the heritage they left to us! + + II. + + For Church and State! While so we dread no storm, + Let no man shrink from wise and just Reform; + But with a firm and faithful, yet kind, hand, + Prune cankers and corruptions from the land: + Humble the pride of priestcraft! we are each + Brother to him who doth Christ's gospel preach, + And--though a trivial shibboleth offend-- + One who serves God and man shall be my friend: + Ay, and some loaves and fishes should be given + By the rich state to Ministers of Heaven! + So shall both Church and State survive this strife, + And dwell at peace with all, as man and wife. + + III. + + For Church and State!--Yea: though the King of Heaven + As bridegroom to the Church Himself was given, + Yet is He symbolled in this earth-bound sphere + By the throned presence of our Sovereign here; + And, ev'n as man and wife in figure show + Christ and his spiritual spouse below, + So by the eye of faith we gladly scan + Our double duty--both to God and man-- + In yielding hearts to love, minds to obey + Religion's mandate and the Ruler's sway, + Defending timely, ere it be too late, + Our threatened fortresses of Church and State! + +As to the disputed matter of Protection, I am for Free Trade so far only +as regards the matter of provisions; but I desire Fair Trade on the +reciprocity system where manufactured articles and their raw material +are concerned. We absolutely require free food,--but are being ruined by +the bad bargain of one-sided Free Trade otherwise. Our ships (Mr. +Brockelbank tells me) go out empty, and return full; exports fail, but +imports are redundant. + +As a final word about my politics, which I suppose may be called +Liberal-Conservative, I am free to confess that I am only too +half-hearted and am rather of Talleyrand's mind in the matter, "surtout +point de zele." However, I heartily side with any one who protests +against hereditary pensions, especially in the case of royal +illegitimates, as also against the glaring impropriety of ceasing to +exact legacy and probate duties beyond a certain sum, thus favouring the +millionaire, as well as of excusing the highest of our society from all +manner of taxation. These pieces of favouritism to the rich and great +are only too reasonable causes of popular discontent, and must ere long +cease. I would shut up half the public-houses in spite of all the +brewers in the Lords and Commons; and for Church matters, parishioners +should have some control over their pastors. If ever our Establishment +is overthrown, that catastrophe will be due to clerical faults and +defaults, rather than to lay apathy or hostility. If rectors were less +tyrannical, congregations would love them better; and if curates were +more inclined to Luther than to Rome, the Protestant heart of England +would the gladlier appreciate their zeal and capabilities. As to the +social mischief of Trades' Unions, an organised conspiracy of employed +against employers, fatal to both, I have often exposed that evil in +newspapers, though anonymously. It is an outrage on the honest working +man with a family, that even in starving times he is obliged by paid +demagogues to refuse work and wages unless he will give the least labour +for the most pay, as the worst of his mates are glad to be forced to do: +while the wicked absurdity of strikes, smashing factory windows and +destroying machinery in order to coerce unfortunate masters to pay +higher wages than they can afford, is climaxed by those brigand +processions of idle roughs who go about bawling, "We've no work to do, +and wouldn't do it if we had." The British workman (of course with many +exceptions) has become a byword for everything unpleasant, which both +large contractors and small employers avoid if they can: drink, bank +holidays, radical spouters, the conceit of being better than their +betters, and above all that suicidal iniquity of strikes, seem in these +latter days to have generally demoralised a race of citizens of whose +virtues our commonwealth once was proud. No wonder that John Bull had to +go to Germany to finish his Law Courts. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + +A CURE FOR IRELAND. + + +In connection with the above, I will here print for the first time a +paper written long ago on the now rife subject of a cure for Irish +misery; at all events partially. Ireland has been with me a theme for +many kinds of literature; from that usual sort of authorship, letters in +the _Times_, to journalising on occasion, balladising in or out of +season, and now and then a political squib or graver article. I have +known that hapless land well in old days from Giant's Causeway to Cape +Clear; have been a guest in several noted homes, as with geological +Enniskillen and astronomical Crampton; know the natives well, and how +they have been taught by priests and demagogues to hate the Sassenach, +and, like most well-meaning men, who, after every kind effort, find +themselves utterly misunderstood, am (as a merely private and quite +unprejudiced politician) entirely at a loss to know how to please that +impracticable people, or to mend their miserable condition. However, +that in my authorial fashion I _have_ tried, let the following paper +prove; written and published nearly thirty years ago. + + * * * * * + +"Nations think and feel and act much as individuals do; for, after all, +the largest crowd of men is, only an aggregate of units. If contempt +provokes a man to anger, and avowed neglect forces him into indolence +and hopelessness, we shall see the same result in masses as we do in +single persons; and the causes which may have generated hatred and +despair will everywhere and everywhen find cures in their contraries, +honour being accorded in the place of contempt, and kindly care instead +of cold indifference. Thus, the far too common phrase, 'No Irish need +apply,' has doubtless wrought infinite ill-feeling; and the Levite's +chilling rule of 'passing by on the other side' evermore arouses +indignation nationally no less than individually. + +"Now, it cannot be denied in an ethnological sense that the Celtic +nature is peculiarly sensitive; any more than it can be denied +historically that its good feelings have been too often systematically +crushed, and its generous impulses seared. If the Teutonic mind +illustrates in sterner traits the manhood of human intelligence, the +Celt shows its gayer youthfulness, if not indeed the lighter phases of +its reckless childhood: and it has been a second nature for the Saxon to +hold mastery over the Celt, as a weaker race is everywhere subject to a +strong one. Moreover, opposition in religious creed has had its evil +influences, scarcely yet extinct, however caustically such a cure may in +vain have been hitherto attempted. + +"We must take nations as we find them: the Keltoi and the Sakai, always +at contrariety, do not seem to have altered in character from the +earliest prehistoric reports of old Herodotus even to our own times, +more than three thousand years. Racial peculiarities are known to +survive the actual transplantation to new lands; see in especial the +Irish of America; as the Roman poet has it, 'Those who cross the sea +may change their sky, but not their mind.' Therefore it is that a +far-seeing and philosophical statesmanship should ever deal +specifically--and as if individually--with national character; for +example, if we would convert the typical Irish mind from (must we say +it?) hatred of England to the love of her, we must commence as we would +in domestic life, by somehow managing to please our too sensitive +sister, by showing her our sympathies, and by treating her with honour +instead of contemptuous indifference; thus investing her with 'the +garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.'" + +It is a quarter of a century since the writer of this paper published in +the course of a book of his, now somewhile out of print ("The Rides and +Reveries of AEsop Smith"), the following short chapter, on page 322, here +reproduced textually. It was headed "The Unsunned Corner," and runs +thus:-- + +Ireland came upon the _tapis_, and AEsop said, when his turn came to +speak: One of my fields, on the wrong slope of a hill-side and +surrounded by trees, scarcely ever sees the sun; and by consequence its +crops are short when arable, and when in pasture its grass sour, and the +hay musty. + +And why then, he went on to say, shouldn't Ireland have a palace--a +Balmoral at Killarney, or another Osborne at Killiney? + +Poor Erin is that unsunned corner of our Empire's field; and it seems a +thousand pities that the kingdom of Ireland should be denied some such +special royal home as is even found rather superfluously at the camp at +Aldershot. What if one of those lovely arbutus-wooded islands at the +foot of M'Gillicuddy's Reeks were fitted with a Swiss cottage for the +Queen? Or if Bantry Bay supplied its marble for a royal castle near Cape +Clear? Or if the railroad to Galway were supplied with a gilt carriage +or two to waft Majesty and children to some western palace in Connemara? + +Think you such gleams of sunshine wouldn't fertilise that poor neglected +field, nor make its crops abundant, and its peasants happy? Think you +that the gold mine of Royal bounty, and the graciousness of Royal +favour, would not work a blessed change for grateful Ireland? Try it, O +good Queen!--a Viceregal Court, excellent as ours is now, is but a sorry +substitute for the real Majesty, nickel for silver, electrotyped plate +instead of the true golden buffet: not without snobbism too, and +toadyism and vulgarism and other detestable small heresies. If but once +in three years Victoria's rural Court were housed in an Irish palace, +her presence would do more for happiness, prosperity, and patriotism +than all of these that Maynooth grants have ever hindered. + + * * * * * + +Thus AEsop Smith in 1858 delivered his mind on the matter. It is by no +means pretended or supposed that a palatial residence would of itself +cure Irish evils and misfortunes; but it might be a step towards this +good result, and at any rate would remove one very allegible accusation +of neglect: Ireland should enjoy the like privileges with her sister +kingdoms England and Scotland: and however inadequate, _per se_, such a +simple prescription may seem as "AEsop Smith" suggests, his advice +contains at least one very obvious and easy cure for Irish disaffection; +and I am not aware that either by pamphlet or in Parliament it has yet +been seriously mooted. The Celts are a folk of essentially loyal +instincts; but (much as Americans often are heard to complain in their +own behalf) they have, as an independent nation, no seen and known +object for their loyalty. Since the days of Brian Boroime at his mythic +court of Tara, the Irish people have hardly set eyes upon the monarch of +their country: perhaps (if we except the conquering William of the +Boyne) our elderly Adonis, George the Fourth, was the sole specimen of +English Majesty that has illuminated Ireland; until our gracious Queen +herself made two very short but notable visitations in 1849 and 1853: +yet even in the Georgian instance, unfavourable as personally it must +have been, the enthusiastic reception he met with some sixty years ago +at the hands of his Irish subjects is still remembered after two +generations with a grateful and effusive loyalty. Imagine, if only from +such an example as this, what might be the beneficent effect of our good +Queen periodically visiting her kingdom of Ireland, and permanently +having there some such happy homestead as Osborne or Balmoral; if also, +in her absence, one of the princes of our Royal house represented his +Imperial mother as Viceroy; and if in their train the tide of +aristocracy, wealth, and fashion flowed in upon impoverished Ireland. It +is not easy to calculate the advantages of such a social revolution as +this; and surely, in spite of many obvious objections, such an +experiment might be worth the trial. + +A beginning might avowedly be made in the right direction, by building +or purchasing some suitable castle as a permanent palace for Ireland's +Queen; say, for old association's sake, at Tara, if anyhow +adaptable,--or any other picturesque neighbourhood connected with some +ancient chieftain of the Irish quasi-heptarchy; wherein a Royal +Establishment might be commenced, in present proof of the serious +intention as to an early future residence: the mind of the people might +be thus prepared for the speedy coming of their Sovereign and her Court, +and would be softened and gratified by the evident confidence and +good-feeling thus shown; as well as their condition materially benefited +by the necessary expenditure that must be laid out locally in labour and +materials, giving work to the needy, and so helping to cure Erin's chief +disease,--poverty to the verge of famine. As to actual +life-peril,--every due precaution being taken,--the happy result of such +a humanising experiment might fairly be left to the generous native +loyalty of a kindly treated people, and to the gracious guardianship of +God's good providence. I am sure that present Royalty would neither be +boycotted nor burked. We remember with what generous cordiality our +Prince and Princess were received by all classes and creeds in their +recent brave visit to Ireland. + + * * * * * + +I cannot honestly pretend to have always taken quite so amiable a view +of Celtic matters. I plead guilty to having more than once assailed in +print Daniel O'Connell and his kind, and to have written a pair of once +famous poetical fly-leaves, "Erin go bragh" and "Hurrah for Repeal!" +copies of which (beyond my archived ones) can now only be found in the +Ballad Collection of the British Museum, which I used to supply with my +Sibyllines, at a chief librarian's request: I forget the name, but he +collected such placards. I fear the two above were not very +complimentary: but what can one do for a perverse people, who complain +of it as a wrong that they are excused the Queen's taxes? Also I wrote +certain famous letters on Ireland, especially four long ones signed +"T.," in the _Times_ of January 1847. + + * * * * * + +In Ireland I have caught a salmon at Killarney and cooked it too on an +arbutus stake; I have bruised my shins at the Giant's Causeway; I have +been an honoured guest at classical Florence Court; have picked up +native gold at Avoca; have done the Round Towers, possibly Phoenician +Baal-temples; have handled Brian Boroime's harp; and have been shocked +everywhere by the poverty and degradation of that musical barbarian's +miserable because idle people. What can be done for those who will not +help themselves? + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + +SOME SPIRITUALISTIC REMINISCENCES. + + +Having often been asked to put on record my few and far-between +experiences of spiritualism, as on several occasions I have verbally +related them, I have hitherto neglected or declined to do so, on account +of having really seen little, whereas many others have seen far more. +And on the whole it is to me rather an unwelcome task from several +considerations; first, because I have never wished to add, by my +apparent testimony, to the rising tide of unwholesome superstition in +that or any other direction; secondly, because I had always a crowd of +more important matters to look after, and, perhaps, was inclined to +indolence in the "_dolce far niente_" respecting things of less +consequence to myself; and thirdly, in chief, because, albeit I have +seen and heard a few of the petty miracles (avouched for otherwise by +thousands of better witnesses) inexplicable to my own reason, I yet +entirely abjure and renounce this so-called spiritualism as any part of +my personal belief. In particular, it seems to me quite an inconclusion +to give to the spirits of the dead, or to any other existences, good or +evil (unless, indeed, by possibility to ourselves as magnetically and +sympathetically influenced by some metaphysical potencies whereof we +know next to nothing), the seemingly miraculous powers exhibited, +however weakly and childishly, in numberless _seances_, privileged to +possess among the company an ecstatic medium between (as is assumed) +themselves and beings immaterial. + +The little I have seen and heard shall, however, now, upon a reasonable +call, be related simply and honestly, without any theory beyond what is +parenthetically alluded to in my last sentence, and with no attempt at +explanation, but only the expression of this truth, viz., that no +collusion apparently was possible (according to my judgment) in any of +the following manifestations, and that I promise only to state plain +facts, however, others may seek to expound them. Of course, where +cunning and dishonesty may contrive conjuring tricks it is not worth +while to treat such "manifestations" seriously, but I speak of what +seemed to be genuine, if trifling, marvels. + +To begin, then, with my earliest experience, written down the same +evening, and sent to the _Brighton Gazette_, from which I give an +extract. The date is Thursday, January 25th, 1849; the host, the late +Mr. Howell, of Hove; the performer, Alexis, pupil of M. Marcillet, who +accompanied him. After clairvoyance, induced by passes, Alexis is +blindfolded carefully, and then, with the host's own pack of cards, wins +blindfolded at games of ecarte with myself. Next, a French book, brought +by an incredulous physician, was placed open upon the forehead of +Alexis, who read aloud some lines of it. This experiment, with +variations, was several times repeated. The third was my own test. I had +sealed up something unknown to all the world but myself in twelve +envelopes of white paper. Alexis, placing the parcel on his forehead, in +broken and difficult enunciation, said "it was writing, two names, both +commencing with M; one of them an English name, the other French, or +some language not English; that the first contained four letters, the +second six (being really nine)," but he failed to give the names, which +were Mary Magdalene. It was suggested that if they had been written in +French his mind might have more easily discerned them. After this, +several locks of hair and sealed-up parcels, watches, and lockets, were +(with some unsuccessful attempts) guessed at, seemingly to the +satisfaction of the ladies and gentlemen who had respectively brought +them for explanation. The last experiment regarded a large bon-bon box +covered up, in which the host himself had concealed a mystery. Alexis +described it as wrapped in several folds, graven all round, oval, a +portrait of a young person of eighteen, but done a long time ago, set in +gold, "femme habillee en blanc; elle est morte, la tete au droit." In +all these respects the object was faithfully described, in particular to +the "long time ago," which, by a date on the portrait, was found to be +1769. And there were some other experiments, but Alexis, as appearing to +be well-nigh worn out with mental exertion, was then mercifully +unmesmerised. + +I may mention, by the way, that the said host at whose house Alexis +attended was a firm believer in the power of the human will, and as +connected therewith, in mesmerism, whereby he used to cure people of +headaches and other infirmities; and, at length, through his +philanthropic and energetic attraction to himself of other folks' +disorders (for he fancied he imbibed for his own behoof the pains he +drained _ab extra_), he unhappily became a paralytic, dying not long +after. One of his less perilous attempts at the miraculous, I remember +was this: he brought a street Arab into his drawing-room, and put a +half-crown down on the carpet for him to pick up if he could, and keep +for himself; however, this the boy found, to his wonderment, to be +practically impossible, seeing that Mr. Howell had secretly willed that +he could not and should not pick up the prize. But such efforts of a +man's strong will are well evidenced in numerous other instances, and +serve to prove that no spiritual interferences beyond our noble selves +are essential to such mysteries. + +Amongst other reminiscences of the marvellous, I may refer to a private +exhibition in the Berners Street Hotel, to which I was invited by Mrs. +Washington Phillips (of whom more anon), to investigate Mr. Vernon's +influence over a little girl some twelve years old. The child's +specialty was an alleged capability of reading without eyesight, the +back of her head low down on the nape doing duty in the way of vision. +To omit numerous other successful examples (some failing, which I +thought so far evidences of the absence of collusion), I will detail my +own conclusive experiment. But let me anticipate an objection relating +to the exhibitor himself. Some of our party, a very distinguished one, +and known to each other, kept Mr. Vernon in conversation at a distance, +while the child was reading our thoughts, or the actual words of print +unknown to ourselves, quite independently of his manipulations; he +having first comatised her into a mesmeric state of trance. The invited +guests were told, as in the Alexis case, that we might bring our own +tests; and I had put into my pocket a small volume of Milton, from which +she might read on the nape of her neck, if she could. We had previously +bandaged her eyes, even to plaistering them up; and were only bidden to +be careful not to let the handkerchief cover the place of reverted +seeing on her neck. I stood behind the child, and, without knowing where +I opened my little Milton, placed the expanded volume on the back of her +head; and forthwith, slowly and with difficulty, as a child might, she +read two lines of blank verse, which I and all immediately verified! +Now, I state a fact which I cannot explain; for I myself had not seen +the lines, so my own brain was not read: neither could Mr. Vernon nor +any one else have been concerned in the matter. I believe this sort of +thing to be well-known to spiritualists, and they may, for aught I know, +refer it to angelic or necromantic interposition: whereas, what +physicians tell us of hypochondria is, perhaps, a mysterious explanation +nearer the mark. + +The same child, refreshed into an abnormal ecstasy, taking the hands of +several of our party professed to read their thoughts, with admitted +success in some instances. With me she failed, but then I was not +considered _en rapport_. Female believers are always much more +susceptible than masculine sceptics. However, I certainly had proof of +the child's marvellous power in this slight matter following. Two young +ladies had successfully brought her in spirit, into their mother's +drawing-room in Berkeley Square, the child graphically explaining all +she saw as she was mentally led along, and on being asked if she noticed +anything new and pretty on the mantel-piece, she got up and placed +herself in an attitude of dancing, and she said there was a figure and +it was clothed in lace. This was true; it was a bisque statuette of +Taglioni. On being led round the room, still in spirit and +clairvoyante, the child strangely described wax-flowers under a glass, +and laughed heartily at "Taffy riding his goat,"--a china ornament which +she could have known nothing of. + +With respect to the lady who invited us, I can relate a strange story +wherewith the Brighton doctors in 1848 were familiar. Mrs. P. had an +invalid daughter subject to violent headaches, and as she had read of +the remedial powers of mesmerism from Chauncey Townsend's book, +privately resolved to try and cure her, and soon set her to sleep by the +usual "passes." However, when after twelve and even eighteen hours the +girl could not be awakened, Mrs. P. and her husband (a clergyman, who +knew nothing of the cause) were alarmed and summoned doctor after +doctor, to wake her, if they could. But all was in vain, until some one +turning to the peccant and magical volume found that by the simple +process of reversing the passes the abnormal slumber might be made to +cease. This was done at once, and all came more than right, for the girl +woke up without her usual headache, and was cured from that hour. At +this time of day, after thirty years and more, society having become +wiser, and bur medical men more physiologically hygienic, we all now wot +of mesmerism, and innumerable cases of cure through that mysterious form +of catalepsy. + +For another small experience, I have several times been among a crowd of +others at public exhibitions of those who speak off-hand in prose or +verse, "inspirationally" as they call it, but as the outer world prefer +to believe, improvisatorially, and certainly amid such gifted persons +Mrs. Cora Tappan stands out prominently in my memory. At the Brighton +Pavilion I gave her for a theme to be versified on the spot extempore +my own heraldic motto, "L'espoir est ma force," and to my astonishment, +in a burst of rhymed eloquence she rolled off at least a dozen four-line +stanzas on Hope and its spiritual power. Some one else among the +audience gave the subject of cremation, and forthwith the lady descanted +with terrific force on funeral pyres and the horrors of Gehenna; whilst +a male performer affected to personate sundry well-known dead orators of +past days (for as the inspirers were supposed to be disembodied spirits +no living orators were allowable), and he certainly imitated both voices +and topics with singular success. But everybody has heard of this sort +of thing, sufficiently remarkable as a mental effort; and we have all +similarly witnessed the more material marvels of Maskelyne and Cook, +known to be mechanical contrivances which are still riddles to the +world. + +Again, there are those who draw and paint in a condition of spiritual +ecstasy; and I remember visiting a public exhibition in Bond Street, +exclusively of most curious and intricate pictures, asserted to have +been inspired by dead artists, some being elaborate flourishings of +scenes and figures, said to be thus depicted as with lightning speed. As +to living artists, there are in existence several excitable youths and +damsels who write and draw very rapidly in an ecstatic state; and I +myself possess a dreamy conglomerate of microscopic faces crowded +together, and stated to have been drawn thus instantaneously to prove to +us "the cloud of witnesses," "the innumerable company of angels," by +whom we are continually surrounded. + +I pretermit with brief mention sundry inexplicable wonders, such as +those wherewith the spiritualistic papers are frequently full, only +stating that I was one of those who investigated the case of the Rev. +Mr. Vaughan's pew-opener, at St. James's, Brighton, whose daughter was +thought to be "bewitched." Certainly, strange knockings accompanied her +when she came in at my call, much like those I heard many years ago at +Rochester, U.S.; and her mother (a pious and credible widow) assured me, +with tears of unfeigned anxiety, that the chairs and stools followed her +about!--a statement only half credible, when we reflect that there is an +animal magnetism as well as a mineral one, and that we know nothing of +the reasons of either. Our ignorance on such matters is so profound that +we may fairly be credulous unless we obstinately refuse altogether our +belief in human testimony; but if we dare to do this, higher interests +are endangered than spiritualistics. Our religion is mainly based upon +credible evidence. + +There is certainly much that is mysterious in the toy they call +"Planchette," a triangular thin slab of polished wood on a couple of +small wheels, with a pencil at the apex. Hands laids upon this by two +persons properly conditioned, will give apparent vitality and volition +to the small machine, and make the pencil seem to write of itself in +answer to expressed (or meditated) questions. At a wealthy mansion in +South Kensington, for instance, I saw two charming young Italian ladies, +sisters, covering rapidly sheet after sheet with the abstrusest essays +on occult subjects, given to them to write upon inspirationally; and the +chief wonder was (as a learned friend by me well observed) where the +knowledge came from, so seemingly infused into two unscientific young +girls. Afterwards the said learned friend tried Planchette with me, and +we were considerably startled to find that when I asked of the +so-called spirits, "What think ye of Christ?" the pencil under our +unconsciously-guided hands made answer, "With the utmost reverence!" I +need not assure mankind that neither my friend nor I (both incredulous +and unwilling witnesses) lent ourselves or one another to any deception, +and were mentally inclined, if at all, to the expectation that the +"spirits" might rather blaspheme than bless. It is right to mention +that, beyond the pair of young ladies and our two selves, only the host +and hostess were in the room; of whom I have this further wonder to +report, viz., that the host, whom I must not specify by name without his +leave, is afflicted with blindness, notwithstanding which and his +alleged incompetence towards poetry as an old naval officer, his wife +showed me several copybooks full of blank verse written by him in a hand +unlike his own, and supposed by them to be inspired by Young, as a +continuation of his "Night Thoughts." The captain and his lady also told +us how frequently flowers and sweetmeats (!) were showered on them from +the ceiling at their domestic dual _seances_: and on another occasion a +lady showed my wife and me a paper of seed pearls, alleged to have been +flung into her lap from the heavens--through the ceiling--by her +departed lord and master! Similarly, a lady well known in the +professedly spiritualistic circles, deposited round her chair, in the +dark, at Mr. S.C. Hall's, a profusion of bouquets--probably from Covent +Garden;--and that, notwithstanding the hostess had herself searched the +lady before the _seance_, as it was known that Mrs. G's special gift +from the spirits was the multitudinous creation of flowers! Really, +there must be a stand somewhere made to credulity; but, at all events, +the venerable host and hostess believed this, on what seemed to them +reasonable evidence, and quite forgave me for not believing it too. + +And this brings me, naturally enough, to give a detailed account of the +two best and last _seances_ I ever took the trouble to attend; for I +have, during many years, entirely avoided such exhibitions, as generally +childish, mentally unwholesome, and to some people dangerously +seductive. I had several times asked my worthy friends last alluded to, +to give me and a friend of mine, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, the +privilege of "assisting" at a _seance_ under their experienced guidance: +and accordingly we were invited to meet Mr. Home, the high priest of +spiritualism, a quiet, well-mannered gentlemanly person enough, known to +our host from his birth. The other guests were a countess, the widow of +a colonel, and a distinguished physician; in all we numbered eight. My +friend and I were requested privately, by our host, to conceal our +probable incredulity if we desired the favour of the "spirits" in the +way of manifestations; and as these were what we came for, besides our +own polite desire to do at Rome as the Romans do, we readily assented to +the reasonable request. After the usual greetings and small talk of the +day, and tea and coffee and so forth, we all took seats round the +drawing-room circular table, a very weighty one, as I proved afterwards, +on a gigantic central pillar, and covered with a heavy piece of velvet +tapestry; and before commencing the special business we came for, I was +pleased to hear our host propose that we should all kneel round the +table and offer up prayer: this he did, simply and beautifully, in some +words, extemporary, closing with a Church collect and the Lord's +Prayer. On my expressed approval of this course, when we rose, Mr. Home +said it was always his custom, as a precautionary measure against the +self-intrusion of evil spirits: admittedly a wisdom, even if it seemed +somewhat unwise and perilous to be more or less courting the company of +such unpleasant guests, if a _seance_ (as experienced afterwards) did +not happen to be made safe by exorcism. And now the gaslights bracketed +round the room were put as low as possible, making a dim, religious +semi-darkness; however, as there was a bright fire in the grate, and +some small scintillae of gas, and one's eyesight soon gets accustomed to +any diminution of light, we could soon see nearly as well as usual. This +"gloaming" is a common condition in _seances_, and for aught any one +knows may be an electrical _sine qua non_ as needed for animal +magnetism; albeit some paid professionals may possibly find darkness a +very useful veil for cheatery. While we were chatting round the +table,--and Mr. Home enjoined this as better than the silent sobriety I +looked for--suddenly the table shuddered, and a cold wind swept over our +hands laid upon it. "They are coming now," said Mr. Home, which +everybody seemed glad of, though that cold wind felt to me not a little +"uncanny," but I said nothing in disparagement, for fear of stopping a +"manifestation." Soon loud knocks were heard, apparently from the middle +of the table, and on sundry spirits being alleged to be present, Mr. +Home proceeded to question them through the ordinary clumsy fashion, of +the alphabet, and some unimportant answers were elicited, which I fail +to remember and in common honesty must not invent. We were soon to see +stranger things; and I suppose the _seance_ was exceptionally +successful, as I afterwards noticed some of it in print. For while we +were looking and expecting, suddenly the table began to tilt this way +and that, and then as if by an effort the ponderous mass, with all our +hands still upon the velvet pall, positively mounted slowly into the +air, insomuch that we were obliged to rise from our chairs and stand to +reach the surface. I could see it at least two feet from the carpet, and +Mr. Home invited me to take especial notice that none of the company +could possibly be lifting the table; indeed, the strength of all of us +combined would have been barely enough for such a heavy task. Of course, +every one else but myself and friend supposed that the "spirits" had +kindly done this miracle to please us; but I unfortunately said "Oh! +Mrs. Hall! it will crush your chandelier!" (one of Venice glass, very +precious)--at which unbelieving remark, probably, the spirits took +umbrage, for at once the table ceased ascending, and with a slow +oscillation descended very gently on to the carpet. This sort of petty +miracle is a frequent experience among the spiritualists, and how it is +effected I cannot imagine. There could be no contrivance or machinery in +our host's drawing-room, as must be the case imitatively at the Egyptian +Hall; none of the company could be conspiring to deceive, and more than +all, that huge, heavy table rising up against the law of gravitation was +enough to chase away all incredulity. One fact is stronger than fifty +theories; and one reliable success overweighs a thousand failures. I +testify to that which I have seen. + +But more, and more wondrous, was to follow. All at once Mr. Home flung +himself back in his chair, looking wild and white; and then rising +slowly and solemnly, went to the still bright fire, into which he +thrust his unprotected hands, and taking out a double handful of live +coals, placed them--as a fire offering--upon Mr. Hall's snow-white head, +combing the hair over them with his fingers, all which our host appeared +to receive more than patiently--religiously. Thereafter Mr. Home placed +them in the Countess's blonde-lace cap, and carried them, as a favour +vouchsafed by the spirits, to each of us, to hold in our hands. When he +came to me, Mr. Hall said: "My friend, have faith." "Yes," I answered, +"and courage, too;" whereupon I was blest with a good handful of those +wonderful coals, still hot enough to burn any skin; but, somehow or +other, I felt no pain and had no mark. Here was another law of nature +put to shame, in the miraculous fact that fire was seemingly deprived of +the power of burning. How this could be, I cannot guess; but I record +manfully the fact as witnessed. After this, an accordion held under the +table by Mr. Home with one hand, the other being upon the table, +positively played a tune of itself--"Ye banks and braes o' bonnie +Doon"--requested by Dr. Chambers, "that being the tune his dead child +loved so." I was requested to look under the table to see the +"spirit-hand" operating near the carpet; but I saw nothing except the +vitalised accordion expanding and contracting of itself, being held +tightly at the upper handle by Mr. Home. Some of the company, however, +claimed to see and to shake hands with the child, and Mr. Home requested +me to ask for a similar favour by placing my hand open under the table; +this, accordingly, I ventured to do, with the result of feeling my thumb +sensibly touched and thrilled, which I was told was a good sign of +favour from the spirits--albeit in my own mind I remembered what our +omniscient Shakespeare sings at the mouth of one of the Macbeth +witches, + + "By the pricking of my thumbs + Something wicked this way comes"-- + +and failed to feel quite comfortable. Soon, however, Mr. Home said: "The +accordion is leaving my hand;" and I saw the mysterious thing crawling +on the floor like a lame dog till it got into a corner. Of course, I +suspected a secret string; but all at once it moved out and came back, +moaning AEolianly as it went, and stood up beside the chair of Mrs. +Colonel N.S., who patted it lovingly; thence passing behind me it went +and stood beside the Countess, who also caressed it; and then Mr. Home +said: "Now ask the spirit to come to you;" whereto I acceded, and the +accordion crept near me, as if unwillingly, and stood up; but when I +touched it the thing shrank from my unsympathetic hand, and fell down +flop. + +After this, I noticed that my naval friend was staring with all his eyes +at something over our military widow's head, and that his hair (it is +red, which colour is very spiritualistic) stood on end as with fear. +"What's the matter, P.?" I asked. "Don't you see it?" responded he. +"What?" "The grey figure behind Mrs. N.S., bearded like an Egyptian +Sphinx." "That's the Colonel!" exclaimed Mr. Hall, and the widow bowed +religiously, with a "Dear! is it you?" On this, as my friend was +terribly frightened, we soon took leave; and when we went home, I found +that he was so pursued by "spirits" rapping all about him, that he +actually vacated his own room and slept in mine, for protection against +the invisible, on two chairs till morning broke; when he feared the +spirits no longer. I may mention that this insight into an immaterial +world (he having been inclined before to pyrrhonism) quite altered his +career, and that soon after he took holy orders. In this connection I +may state, that according to a printed account I have seen, both Mr. and +Mrs. Hall were converted from avowed materialism by spirit +manifestation, and that when the question of "_Cui bono?_" is raised, +his experience and that of divers others (the aforesaid Dr. Chambers in +particular) will avouch for the practical usefulness of these +inexplicable marvels. + +But I must have done, with only one other reminiscence soon after that +at Ashley Place. This time the venue is Fitzroy Square, and the company +(to omit needless detail) was a polyglot one, consisting chiefly of a +German merchant, a Hebrew financier, a French governess, my naval friend +aforesaid, who was quick at Latin, and I, who more or less remembered my +Greek. Of course English was represented in the two only other guests; +and it will be seen how strangely philology enters into this my next and +concluding anecdote. After plenty of other rappings and noises (I +noticed by the way that all the metal things in the room, as castors and +cruets--it was a dining-room--and wine coolers and bronze chandelier, +were clicked and clanged), and after the usual stupid alphabet questions +and answers had been exhibited; after also the heavy mahogany table on +five substantial pillars had been miraculously moved about the room and +tilted, as we failed to effect at the _finale_ when we tried; all at +once a thundering knock quite shook the table and startled us, on which +Dr. Connell, our (unprofessional) medium for the nonce, as he had seen +more of spiritualistics than we had, called for the alphabetical test +to ascertain who it could be that knocked so furiously, for the blows +were often repeated. So then, by the slow method of letter by letter, he +made out the name "Jamblic," and then gave it up in despair, as he said +it was a mischievous imp that was sporting with us; but the knocks still +continued, and some one suggested that perhaps this strange name was +foreign, and that his own language would please the incensed spirit +better than English. Accordingly, he was addressed by the assembled +circle severally in French, German, Hebrew, and Latin, all in vain; when +I bethought me of Greek and the Pythagoreans and spoke out "_Ei su +Iamblicos_" (Art thou Iamblicus?)--on which, as if with joy at having +been discovered, there was a rush of noises and knocks all round the +room (my perfervid imagination fancied the flapping of wings), and +immediately after there ensued a dead silence! So we soon broke up and +went home. Opening my classical dictionary at Iamblicus, I read what I +certainly had not seen or thought of for more than thirty years, that he +was an author on "the mysteries of the Egyptians," and was bracketed +with Porphyry as a professor of the black art. Was then this unpleasant +visitor to Fitzroy Square no other than that magician redivivus? An +awkward possibility. + +And now to bring these scattered reminiscences to a practical +conclusion. What can I, what can my readers decide, on a rational +consideration of the whole matter? It is, no doubt, very baffling to +judge how rightly to think about it. I have stated a few facts that have +come under my own personal knowledge; but there are thousands of others +similar and even more extraordinary, which numerous persons quite as +credible as I am can vouch for in like manner to be true facts while +remaining unexplained miracles. For myself, I must suspend judgment; +waiting to see what in these wonderful times--some further development +of electricity, for example, may haply produce for us. After recent +marvels of the telephone, microphone, photophone, and I know not what +others, why should not some Edison or Lane Fox stumble upon a form of +psychic force emanating from our personal nervous organisation, and +capable of operating physically on all things round us, the immaterial +conquering the material it pervades? Some such vague theory as to +spiritualistic manifestations may be a far more rational as well as +pleasing explanation of these modern marvels than to suppose that our +dead friends come at any medium's summons to move tables, talk bad +grammar, and play accordions; or that angels, good and evil, are allowed +to be employed in mystifying or terrifying the frivolous assisters at a +_seance_. + +Beyond and after this, I might add, but for its too great length, the +indisputable testimony of certain friends of mine as to inexplicable +writings on locked slates and paper, the revelation of secrets, nay +visible apparitions, and both records of the secret past and revelations +of the still more secret future afterwards fulfilled,--to all which I +cannot, as an honest man and a believer in human evidence, refuse to +give a distinct testimony, even though conjurors perpetually baffle our +confused judgment. + +In this connection I will extract from one of my Archive-books the +curious story of a mysterious key in which my family are still +interested: for the secret is not yet solved. In the fourteenth volume, +then, of my Archives occurs this long note, accompanied by the drawing +which I made years ago of the weird-looking key: with a loose ring +handle, a threefold staircase body, and a strangely ringed column. + +"My father died in his sleep, December 8, 1844, at Southwick House, in +Windsor Park, on the same night after its owner, Lord Limerick, had also +died there in his arms, my father having been his medical friend for +thirty years. My father used to carry in his pocket a strange key, +whereof the figure was very unusual, as it folded up, and though large +he carried it in his pocket habitually: and he used to say in his +quietly humorous and reserved manner, 'under that key lies a fortune;' +my mother and I and others remember this well. When I came to be +executor, there was nearly nothing to guide me as to the amount of my +father's property,--and I certainly did not succeed in realising all +that he was supposed to have acquired. It was wonderful that with his +large income he left so little. So, we all thought that some hoard +locked by this key contained the missing treasure; my father's habitual +taciturnity, and secretiveness favouring this idea. But, nowhere could +the lock to fit it be found; nowhere either at banks or lawyers or +anywhere about our old house in Burlington Street or at Albury, appeared +the chest or cupboard containing the fancied accumulations; and to this +hour, June 12, 1873, nearly thirty years after my father's sudden death, +has the mystery not been cleared up. Once, on an occasion of a +spiritualistic _seance_ at Mr. Carter Hall's, I handed the said key to +Mr. Home when entranced, and he shuddered at it, and uttered the name +'Elizabeth Henderson,'--which I thought at the time a bad guess, as one +utterly unknown to me: but oddly enough it proved to be the name of the +Queen's housekeeper at Windsor. However, on inquiry nothing further came +of this, for she was not in office when my father died at the Park. +To-day I have taken the key to a Miss Hudson, a clairvoyante, who never +saw me before, nor was told my name, nor my errand, except that I laid +that key silently before her. She can tell me very little, except that +the mystery is soon to be cleared up, and that certain spirits (from +description possibly my mother and brother William) much wish it. I gave +no sort of clues, but the medium guessed at my father's character, and +at the long lapse of time since the loss of the chest, and at the hiding +of it in some 'bank,'--whether underground or at a banker's did not +appear. The medium's 'attendant spirit'--one 'Daisy, an Indian +papoose'--says it is 'in a dark place, like a vault, and mouldy.' I am +urged to inquire further. Miss Hudson, a common-looking but respectable +woman of about thirty,--living in a lodging near Bloomsbury +Square,--utterly ignorant who I was and all about me,--said (in her +spirit voice) that I was a writer of books, and did great good, and was +inspired by two spirits, one of the fair and lively sort all in white, +and the other an old philosopher--a strange guess at my mixed medley of +writings. Miss Hudson promised me that I should soon know the secret of +the key, because the spirits wished it, and because there was a blue +magnetic circle round the key." + + * * * * * + +_P.S._--It is only proper to state that up to this present writing, +January 13, 1886, I have heard nothing at all from the spirits +aforesaid, and that the family key is as mysterious as ever. My own +reasonable explanation of the medium's half true guesses is that she +might have read my own dim thoughts about the matter: naturally I would +think of my dead mother and brother and myself; and thought-reading is a +form of animal magnetism which some people possess more than others. + +Of late, as we all know, Mr. Cumberland and others have exhibited their +mysterious powers of perceiving and expounding the secret thoughts of +those who chose to be thus mentally vivisected: and I myself have this +small experience to record. Asked in a drawing-room to think of +something, the hostess answered my thought by "I don't know what it +means, but there's a great deal of green with a white star going round +and round in it." "Quite true," was my reply, "I was thinking of Ewhurst +windmill." + +In my anonymous prophetic ode, "Things to Come" (Bosworth, 1852, long +out of print), at its eleventh section, thought-reading and other like +metaphysicals are strangely anticipated, ending with-- + + "Into some other wicked man's mind + His foolish brother is peeping to find, + Caught in foul excitement's snare, + The Lying Future there!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + +FICKLE FORTUNE. + + +Ever since Schiller wrote his famous song about a poet's heritage (ay, +and long before that, as it will be long years hence), authorship has +been noted for anything rather than wealth; albeit, nowadays, we have +had such fortunate scribes as Dickens and Thackeray and Trollope, who +severally have left piles of well-earned money behind them; though they +all had encountered previous mischances before. Accordingly, in this +true record of my life, I must not omit its reverses, for, though born +with a silver spoon in my mouth (perhaps a bismuth one, such as in my +chemical days I melted in hot tea), and always having had plentiful +surroundings, there has been often much also of financial embarrassment, +though not always nor usually from the author's fault. I am not going to +accuse others any more than myself, only hinting that it has been costly +to be a sleeping-partner, especially when the chief fails; that it is +discouraging to economic thrift when the investments wherein you place +your savings come to an untimely end; that in particular the Albert Life +Insurance was a notorious swindle, wherein more than twenty years' of +banked-up prudent earnings, besides the original policy, vanished in an +hour; that my early efforts to win fortune were stumped from impediment +of speech; and that some of those on whom I depended, as well as others +dependent on me, met with misfortunes, deserved or undeserved. Anyhow, I +have just now no reason to complain of bursting barns or inflated +money-bags. Everybody knows (so I need not blink it) that some time ago +a few friends kindly got up a so-called testimonial for my benefit; but +that sort of thing had been overdone in other instances; and it is small +wonder that (although certainly not quite such a fiasco as with Ginx's +Baby) the trouble and care and humiliation are scarcely compensated +where the costs and defaults are considerable: however, I desire +heartily to thank its promoters and contributors, one and all; even +those who promised but never paid. + +With reference to other efforts, my two Transatlantic visits, and divers +reading tours at home, show that self-help never was neglected, as, +indeed, former pages will have proved. Accordingly, as Providence helps +those who help themselves, or at all events endeavour to do so, I still +lean on the heraldic motto, given to General Volkmar von Tophere by +Henri Quatre, "L'espoir est ma force." I will here add two American +anecdotes whereby it might seem that heretofore I have unwittingly +jilted Fortune when she would have blest me with her favour. + +I had just landed in New York after a stormy fortnight in the _Asia_ (it +was A.D. 1851) and taken up my quarters at the Astor House, to +rest before friends found me out. But my arrival had been published, and +before, in private, I had taken my first refreshment, the host, a +colonel of course, came and asked if I would allow a few of my admirers +to greet me. Doubtless, natural vanity was willing, and through my +room, having doors right and left, forthwith came a stream of +well-wishers all shaking hands and saying kind words for an hour and +more; at last they departed, all but one, who had come first and boldly +had taken a chair beside me: when the crowd were gone, he bluntly (or +let it be frankly) said, "I'm one of the richest men in New York, sir, +and I know authors must be poor; I like your books, and have told my +bankers (naming them) to honour any cheques on me you may like to draw." +"My dear sir," I replied, "you are most considerate, and all I can say +is, if I have the misfortune to lose this packet (it was a roll of +Herries's circular notes) I shall gladly accept your offer; but just now +I have more than I want--L300." "Well then, sir, come and stay at my +house, Fifth Avenue." "This is very kind, but several friends here have +specially invited me, so I am compelled to decline." "Then, sir, my +yacht in the harbour is at your service." "Pardon me, but I would rather +forget all memories of the sea at present,--with due thanks." "Then, +sir, my carriage has been waiting at the hotel all this time, let me +have the honour of taking you to see Mrs. So-and-so, who is anxious to +meet you." Of course I could not refuse this, nor the occasional loan of +his handsome turn-out whenever other friends let me go. Who knows how +nearly I then missed smiles from the blind goddess, by my sturdy refusal +of her favours, for I heard afterwards that the wealthy Mr.---- was +childless! Again, at Baltimore, after my Historical dinner (see a former +page), comes up to me a very shabby-looking man, as I thought to beg. He +sidled up and whispered that he wanted me to go home with him. I'm +afraid I rather snubbed him; but was sorry for it afterwards, when told +that he was the rich old miser So-and-so, who had never taken a fancy to +any one before. What a dolt I must have been to snub away the possible +codicil of a millionaire! + + * * * * * + +On page 3 of this book I proposed no mention of private domesticities or +of personal religious experiences--the one being of interest merely to +my family, the other a matter between God and the soul. However, the +recent sudden death of one for fifty years my faithful friend and +companion in marriage, urges me to record here simply her many excellent +qualities, which must not be passed by without a regretful word as if I +were a Stoic, or as if my dear good wife of half a century could be +silently forgotten by her bereaved husband and children. I began this +biography when she was in her usual health and spirits, but soon after +its commencement a fit of apoplexy took her unconsciously from our happy +circle,--and we are made to feel by this affliction, as also by another +over leaf, how truly "in the midst of life we are in death." Her body +awaits the Resurrection in Albury Churchyard, and her spirit lives with +us in affectionate remembrance. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + +DE BEAUVOIR CHANCERY SUIT: AND BELGRAVIA. + + +My lamented son, Henry de Beauvoir, active and athletic, was killed in +South Africa by the most unlikely accident of being jolted off the front +seat in a rutty road and crushed to death under the wheel of an +ox-waggon creeping at two miles an hour! This sad event occurred on May +31, 1871: and the newspapers at the time, both British and South +African, fully recorded not only the accident but the heroism of the +brave youth, the kind but unavailing assiduities of friends, and the +municipal honours accorded to him at his funeral, when the mayor and +council, the volunteers and chief inhabitants of King William's Town +(every window shuttered) followed him to the grave, where Archdeacon +Kitton read the solemn service; and some months after, a marble +headstone was placed over his remains. His two brothers have written +some touching stanzas to his memory: but they are private. + +I mention all this sadness now by way of publicly acknowledging the +kindness of Archdeacon Kitton and, other friends at King William's Town, +not forgetting a most friendly officer of the American navy, from whom +we have received many excellent letters and presents from all round the +world, ever since he was among the first to break to us the death of my +son, now fifteen years ago: I desire, then, cordially to thank T.G. for +these kindnesses: as also Mr. Robertson, of Brechin, N.B., whose son +was Henry's African comrade, with him at the time of the catastrophe, +and following him to the grave. + +Henry having been for good ancestral reasons christened de Beauvoir, +reminds me of a memorable matter of our family history which, as it is +on record, I will here relate. In the days of King James I. (to quote +with pedantic omissions from a pedigree), one Peter de Beauvoir, +descended from a younger branch of the ducal house of Rutland, had an +eldest son, James, whose daughter Rachel married Pierre Martin (my +spiritual sponsor after Martin Luther), and her daughter married a Carey +of Guernsey, whose descendant married my grandfather. Peter's second +son, Richard, married a Priaulx, also related to us, and her daughter +married a Benyon, in Charles II.'s time, whose descendant is now the +millionaire, Sir Richard Benyon de Beauvoir of Reading, &c. &c. Now, +this is the strange fact which has always puzzled me as well as others. +The old De Beauvoir was a very thrifty miser, and died two hundred years +ago possessed of great wealth, which has increased enormously up to our +day, seeing he had landed property in the north of London, now including +De Beauvoir Town. + +In the second generation, his grand-daughters Rachel Martin of the elder +branch and Marie Priaulx of the younger, contended at law for the +inheritance after some intestacy: and a terrible lawsuit raged in +Chancery for 150 years, between the Tuppers and the Benyons,--and was +carried even to the House of Lords, being finally decided in my memory +for the Benyons. I remember my uncle saying he would not take thirty +thousand pounds for his individual chance,--but my less sanguine father +cared not to join in the lawsuit,--saying he would not "throw good +money after bad." For my own judgment, and I can speak as an old +conveyancing barrister (though without business or experience) of nearly +fifty years' standing, our side as the elder had the best right, though +the two sisters might well and wisely have shared in a compromise. But +somehow it came to be decided that the younger claimant of that vast +property must have _all_,--and the elder be strangely left out in the +cold. After the conclusion of the Lords, further litigation was +hopeless: so those whom I now represent (as almost the "last of the +Abruzzi") must acquiesce in getting nothing, while the opponent side has +the good luck to possess, as Dr. Johnson has it, "wealth beyond the +dreams of avarice." Such is life,--and law: the most obstinate and the +richest win: the less pertinacious and the poorer are allowed to fail: +it is a process of Darwin's survival of the fittest. All this is now +"too late to mend:" but I do hope that if ever I go to Engelfield +Castle, Sir Richard will be kindly and genial to his far-off cousin, who +(but for some legal quibble unknown) might have dispossessed him. + +My father numbered among his patients the Duke of Rutland, and I have +heard him say that they half-humorously called each other cousins. + + +A Lost Chance in Belgravia. + +In this connection of possible good luck that never happened, let me +record this. + +Another of my father's patients was the long deceased Earl Grosvenor, +grandfather of the present Duke of Westminster; and about him I have a +tale to tell, which shows how nearly we might have been possessed of +another vast property--but we missed it. One day in my boyhood, I +remember my father coming home after his round and telling my mother +that he had a great mind to buy "the five fields" of Lord Grosvenor's, +because he thought London might extend that way. Those five fields are +now covered with the palatial streets of Belgravia,--but were then a +dismal marshy flat intersected by black ditches, and notorious for +highway robbery, as a district dimly lit with an oil lamp here and +there, and protected by nothing but the useless old watchman in his box: +it is the tract of land between Grosvenor Place and Sloane Street. His +lordship had a reputation for parsimony, and he fancied it a bargain if +he could sell to my father those squalid fields for L2000,--so he +offered them to him at that price. When my mother heard of this, she was +dead against so extravagant an outlay for that desolate region; so much +dreaded by her whenever her aunt's black horses in the old family coach +ploughed their way through the slush (MacAdam had not then arisen to +give us granite roads) to call on an ancient relative, Mr. Hall, who +possessed a priceless cupboard of old Chelsea china, and lived near the +hospital. A tradition existed that the said family waggon had once been +"stopped" thereabouts by some vizored knight of the road, and this +memory confirmed my mother's disapproval of the purchase. So my father +was dissuaded, and declined the Earl's offer. I don't suppose that if he +had accepted it the property would long have been his, but must have +changed hands directly he had doubled his investment: otherwise, imagine +what a bargain was there!--However, nobody can foresee anything beyond +an inch or a minute, and so this other chance of "wealth beyond the +dreams of avarice" long ago faded away. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + +FLYING. + + +A lecture which I gave at the Royal Aquarium on September 28, 1883, on +the Art of Human Flight, attracted at the time a good deal of newspaper +notice; my friend Colonel Fred. Burnaby being in the chair, supported by +several other aeronautical notables. From a rough copy by me I have +thought fit to preserve the exordium here, just as spoken. + + * * * * * + +"'Tis sixty years since,"--as the title-page to Waverley has it,--'tis +sixty years since a little Charterhouse schoolboy of thirteen called on +one Saturday afternoon (his half-holiday) at a shabby office up a court +in Fleet Street, with a few saved-up shillings of pocket-money in his +hand. His object was secretly to bribe a balloon agent to give him a +seat in the basket on the next flight from Vauxhall: however as, either +from prudential humanity or commercial greed, the clerk stated that five +pounds was the fixed price for a place, and as the aforesaid little +gentleman could only produce ten shillings, the negotiation came to +nothing,--and I, who had coveted from my cradle the privilege that a +bird enjoys from his nest, was fortunately refused that juvenile voyage +in the clouds: whereof when I told my excellent mother, her tearful joy +that I had _not_ made the perilous ascent affectionately consoled my +disappointment. + +So it is that, as often happens throughout life, and I am a living proof +of it, our Failures prove to be the best Successes: for certainly if my +boyish whim had been granted, and I had thereafter taken habitually to +such aeronautical flights, at once perilous and unsettling, that young +Carthusian would scarcely have stood before you this day as an ancient +Proverbial Philosopher. + +However, let that pass: I only acted--as oftentimes I since have longed +to act--on the desire we all feel to have "the wings of a dove, and fly +away and be at rest,"--floating afar from the dross and dust of earth +into the blue expanse of the heavenly ether:--a thing yet to be +accomplished!--or I will confess to be no prophet: in these days of +electricity, concentrated and accumulative after the fashion of M. +Faure, aided perhaps by some lighter gas, some condensed form of tamed +dynamite,--these elevating and motive powers being helped by exquisite +mechanism either as attached to the human form (if the flier be an +athlete) or quickening a vehicle with flapping wings impelled by +electricity, in which he might sit (if said flier is as burdened with +"too solid flesh" as some of us)--these mixed potencies, I say, of +electricity and gas, ought at this time of the day to be so manipulated +by our chemists and mechanicians as to issue--very soon too--in the +grand invention than would supersede every other sort of +locomotion,--human flight. + +I once met at Baltimore, and since elsewhere, a clever young American +mathematician and engineer, Henry Middleton by name, who showed me, at +his father's place in South Carolina, parts of a model energised by the +motive-powers of gas and electricity, which he hoped would successfully +solve the problem of flying; but the Patent Office at Washington was +burnt down soon after, and in it I fear was his machine. At all events I +have heard nothing of his project since. + +I may mention, too, that I believe I have among my audience this evening +Mr. De Lisle Hay, the author not only of that recent very graphic book +"Brighter Britain," but also of another, more cognate to our present +topic, entitled "Three Hundred Years Hence," now out of print, though +published only three years ago. In this latter work he has a chapter on +"Our Conquest of the Air," and imagines a lighter gas called by him +"lucegene," as also a bird-like human flight very much as I had +conceived it forty-one years ago. He tells me also that the best vehicle +for flying might be an imitation of the sidelong action of a flat fish +in water; but how far he has worked upon this idea I know not. Possibly, +if in the room, he may tell us after I release you. + +It is most worthy of notice, that in the almost solitary Biblical +instance of winged angels (see Isaiah vi. 2, and a corresponding passage +in Ezekiel--all other angelic ministers being represented as +etherealised men) these are somewhat like birds in outline, though +having more wings,--with twain covering the head so as to cleave the +air, with twain to cover the feet so as to be a sort of tail or rudder, +while with twain they did fly: even as Blake, and Raffaelle, and some +other painters have depicted them. I mentioned this once to Professor +Owen, our great natural philosopher, in a talk I had with him on human +flight, and he thought such seraphim very remarkable in the light of +analogous comparative anatomy. + +Ovid also in a passage before me advocates our imitation of birds if we +would fly bodily: in his "De Icari Casu," he says (with omissions)-- + + "Naturamque novat: nam ponit in ordine pennas + A minima coeptas, longam breviore sequenti: ... + Sic imitentur aves: geminas libravit in alas + Ipse suum corpus, motaque pependit in aura." + +Which, being interpreted, means this,-- + + "Nature he reproduces, ranging fine + From least to longest feathery plumes aline, + Thus imitating birds, that on the air + With balanced wings are poised in lightness there." + +Whilst our noble Laureate in "Locksley Hall" goes in for aerial +machines, "Argosies of magic sails," and "airy navies grappling in the +central blue." + +As to that essay of mine published in the first number of Ainsworth's +Magazine, August 1842, long before the Patent Aerial Company started +their projects, and very much noticed at the time,--Mr. Claude Hamilton +ingrafted it in his work on Flying; the Duke of Argyll in a note before +me commends this principle of copying nature as the true one; a Signor +Ignazio of Milan in 1877 adopted almost exactly my Flying Man,--which +was for the lecture enlarged from Cruikshank's etching of my own sketch: +an aerial flapping machine, a sort of flying wheelbarrow, was some +twenty years ago exhibited at Kensington: whilst in the _Daily +Telegraph_ for July 10, 1874, you will find recorded the untimely death +of one M. de Groof, the Flying Man, who unhappily perished at Cremorne +after a successful flight of 5000 feet. All these are on record. + +Extract from Proverbial Philosophy (Series iv. p. 375). + + _Of Change and Travel._ + + "All of us have within us the wandering Crusoe spirit; + We come of Norse sea-rovers, and adventurers full of hope: + And man was bade to tame his earth, to rule it and subdue it,-- + Whereby our feet-soles tingle at an untrod Alpine peak-- + But shall we not fly anon with wings, to shame these creeping paces, + Even as steam hath worked all speed on land and sea before? + Is not this firmament of air part of the human heritage, + Which man must conquer duteously, as first his Maker willed? + There needeth but a lighter gas, well-tutored to our skill, + The springing spirit to some shape of delicate steel and silk,-- + A bird-like frame of Daedalus, and gummed Icarian plumes, + Ancient inventions, long forgotten, to be found anew! + When shall the chemist mix aright this rarer lifting essence + To make the lord of earth but equal to his many sparrows? + When will discovery help us to such conquest of the air, + And teach us swifter travel than our creeps by land and water?" + +And finally from my "Three Hundred Sonnets" hear Sonnet No. 189-- + + "_Spirit._" + + "Throw me from this tall cliff,--my wings are strong, + The hurricane is raging fierce and high, + My spirit pants, and all in heat I long + To fly right upward to a purer sky, + And spurn the clouds beneath me rolling by; + Lo thus, into the buoyant air I leap + Confident and exulting, at a bound + Swifter than whirlwinds happily to sweep + On fiery wing the reeling world around: + Off with my fetters!--who shall hold me back? + My path lies there,--the lightning's sudden track + O'er the blue concave of the fathomless deep,-- + O that I thus could conquer space and time, + Soaring above this world in strength sublime!" + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + +LUTHER. + + +I gave a second lecture, one on Luther, at the same place, and on the +like solicitation of Mr. Le Fevre, President of the Balloon Society; the +date being November 9, 1883. + +Of this lecture, not to be tedious, I will here give only the +peroration. + +"And now, in conclusion, let us answer these reasonable questions: What +has Martin Luther done and suffered that we at this distant interval of +four centuries should reverence his memory with gratitude and +admiration? What was the lifework he was raised up to do, and how did he +do it? and what influence have his labours of old on the times in which +we live?--We must remember that in the sixteenth century priestcraft had +culminated to its rankest height of fraud, cruelty, vice, and +superstition: the lay-folk everywhere were its serfs and victims, not to +mention also numbers of the worthier clerics who hated but could, not +break their bonds. Luther was the solitary champion to head and lead +both the remonstrant layman and the better sort of monk up to the then +well-nigh forlorn hope of combating Antichrist in his stronghold: Luther +broke those chains for ever off the necks of groaning nations,--freeing +to this day from that bitter bondage not alone Germany, Sweden, France, +and England, but the very ends of the earth from America to China: +without the energies of Luther nearly four hundred years ago, and the +living spirit of Luther working in us now, we should be still in our own +persons adding to the Book of Martyrs in the flames of the Inquisition, +still immersed in blankest ignorance, with the Bible everywhere +forbidden, and scientific research condemned, still cringing slaves at +the feet of confessors who fraudulently sell absolution for money, still +both spiritually and politically the mean vassals of an Italian priest +instead of brave freemen under our English Queen. Luther relit the +well-nigh, extinguished lamp of true religion, and it shines for him all +the more gloriously to this hour: Luther refreshed the gospel salt that +had through corruption lost its savour, until now it is more antiseptic +than ever as the cure of evil, more purifying than ever as the quickener +of good: Luther, under God's good grace and providence, has rescued the +conscience and reason of our whole race from the thraldom of +self-elected spiritual despots, who worked upon the superstitious fears +of men as to another-world in order to strengthen their own power in +this: Luther, for the result of his great labours, is more to us now +than ever was the fabulous Hercules of old,--for he has cleansed the +real Augaean stable,--more than any mythical William Tell,--for he has +ensured the boon of everlasting liberty, more to us than a whole army of +so-called heroes in conquest, patriotism, or even local +philanthropy,--for the enemies he fought and vanquished were our +spiritual foes,--the country he opened to us is the heavenly one,--the +good-doing, he inaugurated is wide as the world, and shines an electric +universal threefold light of faith, hope, and charity." + + _Luther._ + + _Written by request, for the four-hundredth anniversary of his + birth._ + + "Martin Luther! deathless name, + Noblest on the scroll of Fame, + Solitary monk,--that shook + All the world by God's own book; + Antichrist's Davidian foe, + Strong to lay Goliath low, + Thee, in thy four-hundredth year, + Gladly we remember here. + + "How, without thy forceful mind, + Now had fared all human kind,-- + Curst and scorch'd and chain'd by Rome, + In each heart of hearth and home? + But for thee, and thy grand hour, + German light, and British power, + With Columbia's faith and hope, + All were crush'd beneath the Pope! + + "God be thank'd for this bright morn, + When Eisleben's babe was born! + For the pious peasant's son, + Liberty's great fight hath won,-- + When at Wittenberg he stood + All alone for God and good, + And his Bible flew unfurl'd, + Flag of freedom to the world!" + +The Reverend E. Bullinger set this to excellent music; and it was +translated for Continental use into German, French, Swedish, and +Hungarian in the same metre. + +As quite a cognate subject here shall be added my ballad on Wycliffe, +also written by request:-- + + _Wycliffe._ + + "Distant beacon on the night + Full five centuries ago,-- + Harbinger of Luther's light, + Now four hundred years aglow,-- + Priest of Lutterworth we see + All of Luther-worth in thee! + + "Lo, the wondrous parallel,-- + Both gave Bibles to their land; + While, the rage of Rome to quell, + Princes stood on either hand, + John of Gaunt, and Saxon John, + Cheered each bold confessor on. + + "Both are rescuers of souls, + Cleansing those Augaean styes-- + Superstition's hiding holes, + Nunneries and monkeries; + Both gave liberty to men, + Bearding lions in their den! + + "Wycliffe, Luther! glorious pair, + Great Twin Brethren of mankind; + Conscience was your guide and care, + Purifying heart and mind; + Both before your judges stood, + 'Here I stand, for God and good.' + + "Each had liv'd a martyr's life, + Still protesting for the faith; + Yet amid that fiery strife, + Each escap'd the martyr's death; + Rescued from the fangs of Rome, + Both died peacefully at home." + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + +FINAL. + + +A few last words as to sundry life-experiences. Whether we notice it or +not, we are guided and guarded and led on through many changes and +chances to the gates of death in a marvellously predestined manner; if +we pray about everything, we shall see and know that, as Pope says, + + "In spite of wrong, in erring reason's spite, + One truth is clear, whatever is, is right;" + +and the trustful assurance that the highest wisdom and mercy and power +orders all things will give us comfort under whatever circumstances. I +believe in prayer as the universal panacea, philosophically as well as +devoutly; and that "walking with God" is our highest wisdom as well as +our deepest comfort. + + * * * * * + +Let no man think that a sick-bed is the best place to repent in. When +the brain is clouded by bodily ailment there is neither capacity nor +even will to mend matters; a man is at the best then tired, lazy, and +dull, but if there is pain too all is worse. Listen to one of my old +sonnets, and take its good advice:-- + + "Delay not, sinner, till the hour of pain + To seek repentance: pain is absolute, + Exacting all the body, all the brain, + Humanity's stern king from head to foot: + How canst thou pray, while fever'd arrows shoot + Through this torn targe,--while every bone doth ache, + And the soared mind raves up and down her cell + Restless, and begging rest for mercy's sake? + Add not to death the bitter fear of hell; + Take pity on thy future self, poor man, + While yet in strength thy timely wisdom can; + Wrestle to-day with sin; and spare that strife + Of meeting all its terrors in the van + Just at the ebbing agony of life." + +I have great faith in first impressions of intuitive liking or +disliking. Second thoughts are by no means best always nor even often. +Charity sometimes tries to induce, one to think better of such a person +or such a situation than a first feeling shrinks from,--but it won't do +for long: the man or the place will continue to be distasteful. My +spirit apprehends instinctively the right and the true; and through life +I have relied on intuitions; which some have called a rashness, +recommending colder cautions; but these latter have seldom paid their +way. A country parson was right in his diagnosis of Iscariot's character +as that of "a low mean fellow;" and he judged reasonably that all the +patient kindliness of One who strove to make such His "own familiar +friend" was so much charity almost thrown away, except indeed as to +spiritual improvement of the charitable. + + * * * * * + +It is right that in a book of self-revelations, like this genuine +autobiography, some special recognition should be made before its close +of gratitude to the Great Giver of all good, and of the spiritual +longings of His penitent. These feelings I prefer to show after the +author's poetic custom in verse. Let the first be a trilogy of +unpublished sonnets lately written on + + _What We Shall Be._ + + I. + + "We--all and each--have faculties and powers + Here undeveloped, lying deep within, + Crush'd by the weight of circumstance and sin; + Latent, as germs conceal their hidden flowers, + Till some new clime, with genial suns and showers + Give them the force consummate life to win: + Even so we, poor prisoners of Time, + Victims of others' evil and our own, + Cannot expand in this tempestuous clime, + But full of excellences in us sown, + Must wait that better life, and there, full blown, + In spiritual perfectness sublime + The prizes of our nature we shall gain, + Which now we struggle for in vain--in vain!" + + II. + + "Who does not feel within him he could be + Anything, everything, of great and good? + That, give him but the chance, he could and would + Soar on the wings of triumph strong and free? + And think not this is vanity, for he, + If one of Glory's heirs, is of the band + 'I said that ye are gods!'--on this we stand + Through the eternal ages infinite, + Growing like Christ in hope and love and light + As grafted into Him: there shall we see, + And know as we are known; no hindrance then + Shall bind our wings, or shut our eyes or ears; + Led upward, onward, through ten million years, + We shall expand in spirit,--but still be Men." + + III. + + "Each hath his specialty; we see in some + Music or painting, eloquence or skill, + With, or without, an effort of the will, + As by spontaneous inspiration come + Ev'n in this mingled crowd of good and ill, + To make us hail a Wonder:--but Elsewhere + Without or let or hindrance we shall use + Forces neglected here, but nurtured there; + Till all the powers of every classic Muse, + Ninefold, may dwell in each--as each may choose: + Since Heaven for creatures must have creature gifts, + Not only love, religion, gratitude, + But also light, and every force that lifts + Man's spirit to the heights of Great and Good." + +For a second take my recent open protest against the pestilential +atheism so rife in our midst:-- + + I. + + "My Father! everpresent, everwise, and everkind,-- + The Life that pulses at my heart, the Light within my mind,-- + My Maker, Guardian, Guide, and God, my never-failing Friend, + Who hitherto hast blest me, and wilt bless me to the end,-- + How should I not acknowledge Thee in all my words and ways, + And bring my doubts to Thee in prayer, the prayer that turns to + praise? + How can I cease to trust Thee, who hast guided me so long, + And been from earliest childhood to old age my strength and song? + + II. + + "My Father! Great Triunity! For Thou art One in Three, + The mystery of mysteries, a threefold joy to me,-- + What deep delight to dwell upon the philosophic plan + Of Thy divine self-sacrifice in God becoming man, + And taking on Thyself in Christ the sins and woes of all + Redeemed to higher glory from the ruin of their fall, + As humbled and enlightened and enlivened into love, + By the Pure Spirit of sweet peace, the-heart-indwelling Dove! + + III. + + "My Father, Abba, Father! For Thou callest me Thy child, + As in Thy holy Jesus and Good Spirit reconciled,-- + O Father, in this evil day when atheism is found + Dropping its poison seeds about in all our fallow-ground, + Shall I keep coward silence, and ungenerously forget + The Friend that hitherto hath helped me--and shall help me yet? + Shall unbelief, all unabashed, proclaim that God is Not,-- + Nor faith with honest zeal be quick this hideous lie to blot? + + IV. + + "Ho! Christian soldier,--to the front! and boldly speak aloud + The dear old truths denied by yonder Sadducean crowd,-- + That every inch and every instant we are guided well + By Him who made, and loved, and loves us more than tongue can tell; + That, though there be dread mysteries of cruelty and crime, + And marvellous long-suffering patience with these wrongs of time, + Still, wait a little longer, and we soon shall know the cause + For every seeming error in the Ruler's righteous laws! + + V. + + "A little longer, and our faith and hope and works of love + Shall reap munificent reward in those blest orbs above, + Where He (who being God of old became our brother here) + Shall welcome us and speed us on' from glorious sphere to sphere, + Until before His Father's throne the Spirit with the Son + Shall give to every Christian then the crown his Lord hath won; + And through the ages in all worlds our wondrous ransomed race + Shall bless the Universal King of Providence and Grace!" + +For a third, my testimony as to the wonders that surround us: I have +called this poem The Infinities. + + I. + + "Lift up your eyes to yon star-jewelled sky, + Gaze on that firmament caverned on high,-- + Marvellous universe, infinite space, + Studded with suns in fixt order and place, + Each with its system of planets unseen, + Meshed in their orbits by comets between, + Worlds that are vaster than mind may believe, + Whirling more swiftly than thought can conceive, + O ye immensities! Who shall declare + The glory of God in His galaxies there? + + II. + + "Look too on this poor planet of ours, + Torn by the storms of mysterious powers, + Evil contending with good from its birth, + Wrenching in battle the heartstrings of earth,-- + Ah! what infinities circle us here, + Strangeness and wonderment swathing the sphere! + Providence ruleth with care most minute, + Yet is fell cruelty torturing the mute, + Infinite marvels of wrong and of right, + Blessing and blasting each day and each night. + + III. + + "All things in mystery; riddles unread; + Nothing but dimness of guesses instead; + Only beginning, where none see the end, + Nor where these infinite energies tend; + Saving that chrysalis-creatures are we, + Till we grow wings in that aeon-to-be! + Everything infinite: Nature, and Art, + The schemes of man's mind, and the throbs of his heart; + Infinite cravings for better, and best, + Tempered by infinite longings for rest. + + IV. + + "Then, as the telescope's miracle drew + Infinite Heaven's vast worlds into view, + So doth the microscope's marvel display + Infinite atomies, wondrous as they! + A mere drop of water, a bubble of air, + Teems with perfections of littleness there; + Infinite wisdom in exquisite works + All but invisible everywhere lurks, + While we confess as in great so in small, + Infinite skill in the Maker of all. + + V. + + "And there be grander infinities still, + Where, in Emmanuel, good has quench'd ill; + Infinite humbleness, highest and first, + Choosing the doom of the lowest and worst; + Infinite pity, and patience,--how long? + Infinite justice, avenging all wrong, + Infinite purity, wisdom, and skill, + Bettering good through each effort of ill, + Infinite beauty and infinite love, + Shining around and beneath and above!" + +And let this simple hymn be the old man's last prayer, bridging over the +long interval of well-nigh fourscore years between cradle and grave with +a child's first piety:-- + + _Love and Life._ + + "'My son, give Me thine heart;' + Yes, Abba, Father, yes! + Perfect in goodness as Thou art, + I will not give Thee less. + + "But I am dark and dead, + And need Thy grace to live; + Father, on me Thy Spirit shed, + To me that sunshine give! + + "Thus only can I say + When Thou dost ask my love, + I will return in earth's poor way + Thy gift from heaven above. + + "There is no good in me + But droppeth from on high, + Then quicken me with life from Thee, + That I may never die. + + "For if I am a son-- + O grace beyond compare!-- + A child of God, with Jesus one, + In Him I stand an heir; + + "In Him I live and move, + And only so can give + An immortality of love, + To Thee by whom I live. + + "Then melt this heart of stone, + And grant the heart of flesh, + That all I am may be Thine own, + Renewed to love afresh." + +About the much-vexed question of Eschatology and the final state of the +dead, I have long since grown to the happy doctrine of Eternal +Hope--ultimately for all; perhaps even siding with Burns, who (as the +only logical way of eliminating evil) gives a chance to the "puir Deil:" +albeit the path for some must be through the terrible Gehenna of fire to +purify, and with few stripes or many to satisfy conscience and evoke +character. As for that text in Ecclesiastes about the "tree lying where +it fell," commonly supposed to prove an unchanging state for ever,--it +is obvious to answer that when a tree _is_ cut down, its final course of +usefulness only then _begins_, by being sawn up and converted into +furniture; much as when a human being's work here is finished, he is +taken hence to be utilised elsewhere. Everlasting progress is the law of +our existence, whether here or elsewhere,--no stopping, far less +annihilation. And then the character of our Maker is Love, this Love +having satisfied Justice by self-sacrifice, and nothing is more +reiterated in the Psalms than that "His mercy endureth for ever;" which +cannot be true if bodies and spirits--even of the wicked--are to be +condemned by Him to endless torment. Adequate punishment, and that for +the wretched creature's own improvement, is only in accordance with the +voice of reason, and the voice of inspired wisdom too; for though our +Lord Christ warns against a fearful retribution (involved in the phrase +of "the undying worm and the unquenchable fire," as He was looking over +the wall of Jerusalem into Tophet and the valley of Hinnom where the +offal from the thousands of sacrifices was perpetually rotting and being +burned, so taking his parable from an incident, as usual)--He yet "went +and preached after death to the spirits in prison," probably to those +who were then enduring some such purgatorial punishment. After all, this +sentence of King Solomon as to a fallen tree, so often misapplied, is +not one of the higher forms of inspiration; even St. Paul qualifies his +own sometimes; and there are several disputable texts in Proverbs: and, +if taken literally for exposition, we all must admit that the felling, +of a tree is the immediate precursor to its further life of usefulness. +Let us, then, rationally hope that the dead in Christ will be improved +from good to better and best; and that even those who have failed to +live for Him in this world may by some purifying education in the next +come finally to the happy far-off end of being saved by Him at last. + +The words everlasting and forever are continually used in Scripture to +indicate a long time,--not necessarily an eternity (see Cruden for many +proofs). Moreover, if all hope of improvement ends with this life (a +doctrine in which such extremes as Atheism and Calvinism strangely +agree), what becomes of all the commonest forms of humanity, its +intermediate failures, too bad for a heaven and too good for a hell; to +say less of insane, idiotic, and other helpless creatures; and the +millions of the untaught in Christendom, who never have had a chance, +and billions of the Heathen brutalised through the ages by birth and +evil custom? Yes; for all there must be in the near hereafter continuous +new chances of improvement and hopes of better life. + +There is one poem in the volume superadded to my Dramatics which I will +introduce here, as it is quite a _tour de force_ in its way of double +rhyming throughout, and has, moreover, excellent moral uses: so I wish +it read more widely. + + _Behind the Veil._ + + "Mysteries! crowding around us, + How ye perplex and confound us,-- + Each our ignorance screening + Hidden in words without meaning! + + "Who knoweth aught that is certain + Veil'd behind mystery's curtain? + Seeing the wisest of guesses + Foolishness only expresses. + + "Ancestry? ruthlessly moulding + Bodies and souls in unfolding; + How such a mixture confuses + Judgment's indulgent excuses,-- + + "While the derivative nature, + Still a responsible creature, + Yields individual merits, + Biassed by what it inherits. + + "Circumstance? mighty to fashion + Instant occasion for passion, + Gripping with clutch of a bandit + Weakness too weak to withstand it,-- + + "What? shall it mar me or make me? + Neither, till faith shall forsake me-- + For, with good courage to nerve me, + Circumstance only can serve me! + + "Destiny? doth it then seem so? + Or can the will we esteem so, + Change the decree at a bidding, + Us of that destiny ridding,-- + + "If with no fatalist weakness, + Battling in boldness and meekness, + We are determined to master + Every defeat and disaster? + + "Providence? ordering all things, + Both of the great and the small things, + Equally each of us guiding, + Guarding, destroying, providing,-- + + "Fixt, beyond human forecasting, + Both as to blessing and blasting,-- + Yet, though we darkly discern Him, + Quick'ning the prayer that may turn Him! + + "Evil?--O direst enigma, + Whispered and terrible stigma + By fools to the Good One imputed, + As if everlastingly rooted! + + "How so? shall wrong to no ending + Still with the Right be contending? + Must not the bitterest leaven + Melt in the mercy of Heaven? + + "Or can old Baal, the sun-god, + Boast there are two gods, not one god, + Satan, the rebel infernal, + Regent with Christ the Supernal? + + "Come, blessed end, through the ages, + When no more wickedness rages, + When no iniquity hinders, + But sin is burnt down to its cinders!-- + + "Cruelties?--somehow permitted,-- + With its mute victims unpitied, + Tortured in nature's defiance + On the false pretext of science,-- + + "Shall not some aeon of gladness, + Balance the throes of pain-madness,-- + Must not the crime of the cruel + Burn into souls as its fuel? + + "Never can wisdom's creation + Be stultified annihilation, + But every poor unit that liveth + Shall live in the life that He giveth,-- + + "Yea, for that aeon of glory, + Revealed in millennial story, + When earth with beatified features, + Shines the new Heaven of creatures. + + "Death? Is it all things, or nothing? + Either the Spirit unclothing + Unto new living for ever,-- + Or the dread penalty--never! + + "Death,--if thou art but the portal, + Leading to glories immortal, + Why should we tremble to near thee, + How be the cowards to fear thee, + + "Since the worlds blazing above us, + Peopled by angels who love us, + Stand our fatherly mansions, + Fitted for spirits' expansions? + + "Where are the dead? and what doing? + Still their old trifles pursuing? + Or in the trance of a slumber, + Crowded by dreams without number?-- + + "Dreams of unspeakable sadness, + Breams of ineffable gladness,-- + As the quick conscience remembers + Evil and good in their embers,-- + + "As it lives over in quiet, + Time and its orgies of riot, + Or the good gifts and good graces, + Bright'ning its happier phases,-- + + "As it sees photograph'd clearly, + Crystalised sharply and nearly, + Life and its million transactions, + Fancies and feelings and factions,-- + + "Every prayer ever uttered, + Every curse ever muttered, + All the man's lowest and highest,-- + These are thyself, when thou diest! + + "Filling thee, after thy measure, + From the full river of pleasure, + Or, as the fruit of thy sowing, + Pangs of remorse ever growing,-- + + "In thee all Heaven upspringing, + Or its dread opposite flinging + Blackness and darkness about thee,-- + Both are within, not without thee! + + "Yet,--in that darkness, we grope for + Somewhat far off, yet to hope for, + That through some future repentance, + Justice may soften its sentence. + + "Ere from the dead He had risen, + 'He preached to the spirits in prison,'-- + Is this a text that His aid is + Still to be hoped for in Hades? + + "'Wrath may endure for a season,' + Both in religion and reason,-- + But if its end must be never, + Where is His mercy for ever'? + + "Ay,--after long retribution, + Mercy may drag from pollution + Souls that have suffered for ages, + Working out sin's bitter wages,-- + + "So that the end shall be glorious, + Good over evil victorious, + And this black sin-night of sorrow, + Blaze into gladness to-morrow!" + +And so I make an end of this autobiography, with the humble prayer that +I may have grace given to finish my course in this life usefully and +with honour, at peace with God and man; mindful of that caution of +Tellus, the Athenian, as recorded by Herodotus, "not to judge any man +happy until he is dead;"--the Christian adds, "and is alive again!" + +Let me conclude with some noble lines of Ovid in his Epilogue to the +Metamorphoses, which I have Englished below:-- + + "Jamque opus exegi: quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignes, + Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas. + Cum volet illa dies, quae nil nisi corporis hujus + Jus habet, incerti spatium mihi finiat aevi,-- + Parte tamen meliore mei super alta perennis + Astra ferar: nomenque erit indelebile nostrum. + Quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terris, + Ore legar populi; perque omnia saecula fama + Si quid habent veri vatum praesagia VIVAM." + + "Now have I done my work: which not Jove's ire + Can make undone, nor sword nor time nor fire. + Whene'er that day, whose only powers extend + Against this body, my brief life shall end, + Still in my better portion evermore + Above the stars undying shall I soar. + My name shall never die; but through all time + Whenever Rome shall reach a conquer'd clime, + There, in that people's tongue, shall this my page + Be read and glorified from age to age:-- + Yea, if the bodings of my spirit give + True note of inspiration, I shall live!" + +THE END. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes + +Page 44: added closing parenthesis after "contempt]!" +Page 296: added closing parenthesis after "patriotic but peculiar" +Page 297: removed opening parenthesis after "Rifledom--were once to a + comma" + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's My Life as an Author, by Martin Farquhar Tupper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY LIFE AS AN AUTHOR *** + +***** This file should be named 17558.txt or 17558.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/5/5/17558/ + +Produced by Stacy Brown Thellend, Robert Connal and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by the Bibliotheque nationale de France +(BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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