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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54,
+No. 338, December 1843, by Various
+
+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: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: April 27, 2008 [EBook #25193]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Patricia Bennett, Jonathan
+Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Library of Early
+Journals.)
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+
+
+BLACKWOOD'S
+
+EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+No. CCCXXXVIII. DECEMBER, 1843. VOL. LIV.
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of each article.
+
+
+
+                          CONTENTS.
+
+
+        LECTURES AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY.                         691
+        SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC.                                 709
+        THE PURPLE CLOAK; OR, THE RETURN OF SYLOSON TO SAMOS.  714
+        LOVE AND DEATH.                                        717
+        THE BRIDGE OVER THE THUR.                              717
+        THE BANKING-HOUSE. A HISTORY IN THREE PARTS. PART II.  719
+        COLLEGE THEATRICALS.                                   737
+        LINES WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF BUTE.                     749
+        TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN. CONCLUSION.                     753
+        NOTES ON A TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES.   766
+        ADVENTURES IN TEXAS. NO. II.                           777
+        DEATH FROM THE STING OF A SERPENT.                     798
+        GIFTS OF TÉREK.                                        799
+        MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART VI.      801
+
+        INDEX TO VOL. LIV.                                     815
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+LECTURES AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
+
+HENRY FUSELI.
+
+
+At a time when the eye of the public is more remarkably, and we trust
+more kindly, directed to the Fine Arts, we may do some service to the
+good cause, by reverting to those lectures delivered in the Royal
+Academy, composed in a spirit of enthusiasm honourable to the
+professors, but which kindled little sympathy in an age strangely dead
+to the impulses of taste. The works, therefore, which set forth the
+principles of art, were not read extensively at the time, and had little
+influence beyond the walls within which they were delivered. Favourable
+circumstances, in conjunction with their real merit, have permanently
+added the discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds to the standard literature
+of our country. They have been transferred from the artist to the
+scholar; and so it has happened, that while few of any pretension to
+scholarship have not read the "The Discourses," they have not, as they
+should have, been continually in the hands of artists themselves. To
+awaken a feeling for this kind of professional reading--yet not so
+professional as not to be beneficial--reflectingly upon classical
+learning; indeed, we might say, education in general, and therefore more
+comprehensive in its scope--we commenced our remarks on the discourses
+of Sir Joshua Reynolds, which have appeared in the pages of Maga. There
+are now more than symptoms of the departure of that general apathy which
+prevailed, when most of the Academy lectures were delivered. It will be,
+therefore, a grateful, and may we hope a useful, task, by occasional
+notices to make them more generally known.
+
+The successors of Reynolds labour under a twofold disadvantage; they
+find that he has occupied the very ground they would have taken, and
+written so ably and fully upon all that is likely to obtain a general
+interest, as to leave a prejudice against further attempts. Of
+necessity, there must be, in every work treating of the same subject,
+much repetition; and it must require no little ingenuity to give a
+novelty and variety, that shall yet be safe, and within the bounds of
+the admitted principles of art. On this account, we have no reason to
+complain of the lectures of Fuseli, which we now purpose to notice. Bold
+and original as the writer is, we find him every where impressed with a
+respect for Reynolds, and with a conviction of the truth of the
+principles which he had collected and established. If there be any
+difference, it is occasionally on the more debatable ground--particular
+passages of criticism.
+
+In the "Introduction," the student is supplied with a list of the
+authorities he should consult for the "History and Progress of his Art."
+He avoids expatiating on the books purely elementary--"the van of which
+is led by Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Durer, and the rear by Gherard
+Lavresse--as the principles which they detail must be supposed to be
+already in the student's possession, or are occasionally interwoven with
+the topics of the lectures;" and proceeds "to the historically critical
+writers, who consist of all the ancients yet remaining, Pausanias
+excepted." Fortunately, there remain a sufficient number of the
+monuments of ancient art "to furnish us with their standard of style;"
+for the accounts are so contradictory, that we should have little to
+rely upon. The works of the ancient artists are all lost: we must be
+content with the "hasty compilations of a warrior," Pliny, or the
+"incidental remarks of an orator," (rhetorician,) Quintilian. The former
+chiefly valuable when he quotes--for then, as Reynolds observed, "he
+speaks the language of an artist:" as in his account of the glazing
+method of Apelles; the manner in which Protogenes embodied his colours;
+and the term of art _circumlitio_, by which Nicias gave "the line of
+correctness to the models of Praxiteles;" the foreshortening the bull by
+Pausias, and throwing his shade on the crowd--showing a forcible
+chiaroscuro. "Of Quintilian, whose information is all relative to style,
+the tenth chapter of the XII.th book, a passage on expression in the
+XI.th, and scattered fragments of observations analogous to the process
+of his own art, is all that we possess; but what he says, though
+comparatively small in bulk, with what we have of Pliny, leaves us to
+wish for more. His review of the revolutions of style in painting, from
+Polygnotus to Apelles, and in sculpture, from Phidias to Lysippus, is
+succinct and rapid; but though so rapid and succinct, every word is
+poised by characteristic precision, and can only be the result of long
+and judicious enquiry, and perhaps even minute examination." Still less
+have we scattered in the writings of Cicero, who, "though he seems to
+have had little native taste for painting and sculpture, and even less
+than he had taste for poetry, had a conception of nature; and with his
+usual acumen, comparing the principles of one art with those of another,
+frequently scattered useful hints, or made pertinent observations. For
+many of these he might probably be indebted to Hortensius, with whom,
+though his rival in eloquence, he lived on terms of familiarity, and who
+was a man of declared taste, and one of the first collectors of the
+time." He speaks somewhat too slightingly of Pausanias,[1] as "the
+indiscriminate chronicler of legitimate tradition and legendary trash,"
+considering that he praises "the scrupulous diligence with which he
+examined what fell under his own eye." He recommends to the epic or
+dramatic artist the study of the heroics of the elder, and the Eicones
+or Picture Galleries of the elder and younger Philostratus.
+
+"The innumerable hints, maxims, anecdotes, descriptions, scattered over
+Lucian, Oelian, Athenaeus, Achilles Tatius, Tatian Pollux, and many
+more, may be consulted to advantage by the man of taste and letters, and
+probably may be neglected without much loss by the student." "Of modern
+writers on art Vasari leads the van; theorist, artist, critic, and
+biographer, in one. The history of modern art owes, no doubt, much to
+Vasari; he leads us from its cradle to its maturity with the anxious
+diligence of a nurse; but he likewise has her derelictions: for more
+loquacious than ample, and less discriminating styles than eager to
+accumulate descriptions, he is at an early period exhausted by the
+superlatives lavished on inferior claims, and forced into frigid
+rhapsodies and astrologic nonsense to do justice to the greater. He
+swears by the divinity of M. Agnolo. He tells us that he copied every
+figure of the Capella Sistina and the stanze of Raffaelle, yet his
+memory was either so treacherous, or his rapidity in writing so
+inconsiderate, that his account of both is a mere heap of errors and
+unpardonable confusion, and one might almost fancy he had never entered
+the Vatican." He is less pleased with the "rubbish of his
+contemporaries, or followers, from Condior to Ridolfi, and on to
+Malvasia." All is little worth "till the appearance of Lanzi, who, in
+his 'Storia Pittorica della Italia,' has availed himself of all the
+information existing in his time, has corrected most of those who wrote
+before him, and, though perhaps not possessed of great discriminative
+powers, has accumulated more instructive anecdotes, rescued more
+deserving names from oblivion, and opened a wider prospect of art, than
+all his predecessors." But for the valuable notes of Reynolds, the idle
+pursuit of Du Fresnoy to clothe the precepts of art in Latin verse,
+would be useless. "The notes of Reynolds, treasures of practical
+observation, place him among those whom we may read with profit." De
+Piles and Felibien are spoken of next, as the teachers of "what may be
+learned from precept, founded on prescriptive authority more than on the
+verdicts of nature." Of the effects of the system pursued by the French
+Academy from such precepts, our author is, perhaps, not undeservedly
+severe.
+
+"About the middle of the last century the German critics, established at
+Rome, began to claim the exclusive privilege of teaching the art, and to
+form a complete system of antique style. The verdicts of Mengs and
+Winkelmann, become the oracles of antiquaries, dilettanti, and artists,
+from the Pyrenees to the utmost north of Europe, have been detailed, and
+are not without their influence here. Winkelmann was the parasite of the
+fragments that fell from the conversation or the tablets of Mengs--a
+deep scholar, and better fitted to comment on a classic than to give
+lessons on art and style, he reasoned himself into frigid reveries and
+Platonic dreams on beauty. As far as the taste or the instruction of his
+tutor directed, he is right when they are; and between his own learning
+and the tuition of the other, his history of art delivers a specious
+system, and a prodigious number of useful observations." "To him Germany
+owes the shackles of her artists, and the narrow limits of their aim."
+Had Fuseli lived to have witnessed the "revival" at Munich, he would
+have appreciated the efforts made, and still making, there. He speaks of
+the works of Mengs with respect. "The works of Mengs himself are, no
+doubt, full of the most useful information, deep observation, and often
+consummate criticism. He has traced and distinguished the principles of
+the moderns from those of the ancients; and in his comparative view of
+the design, colour, composition, and expression of Raffaelle, Correggio,
+and Tiziano, with luminous perspicuity and deep precision, pointed out
+the prerogative or inferiority of each. As an artist, he is an instance
+of what perseverance, study, experience, and encouragement can achieve
+to supply the place of genius." He then, passing by all English critics
+preceding Reynolds, with the petty remark, that "the last is undoubtedly
+the first," says--"To compare Reynolds with his predecessors, would
+equally disgrace our judgment, and impeach our gratitude. His volumes
+can never be consulted without profit, and should never be quitted by
+the student's hand but to embody, by exercise, the precepts he gives and
+the means he points out." It is useful thus to see together the
+authorities which a student should consult, and we have purposely
+characterized them as concisely as we could, in our extracts, which
+strongly show the peculiar style of Mr Fuseli. If this introduction was,
+however, intended for artists, it implies in them a more advanced
+education in Greek and Latin literature than they generally possess. Mr
+Fuseli was himself an accomplished scholar. How desirable is it that the
+arts and general scholarship should go together! The classics, fully to
+be enjoyed, require no small cultivation in art; and as the greater
+portion of ancient art is drawn from that source, Greek mythology, and
+classical history and literature, such an education would seem to be the
+very first step in the acquirements of an artist. We believe that in
+general they content themselves with Lempriere's Dictionary; and that
+rather for information on subjects they may see already painted, than
+for their own use; and thus, for lack of a feeling which only education
+can give, a large field of resources is cut off from them. If it be said
+that English literature--English classics, will supply the place, we
+deny it; for there is not an English classic of value to an artist, who
+was not, to his very heart's core, embued with a knowledge and love of
+the ancient literature. We might instance but two, Spenser and
+Milton--the statute-books of the better English art--authors whom, we do
+not hesitate to say, no one can thoroughly understand or enjoy, who has
+not far advanced in classical education. We shall never cease to throw
+out remarks of this kind, with the hope that our universities will yet
+find room to foster the art within them; satisfied as we are that the
+advantages would be immense, both to the art and to the universities.
+How many would then pursue pleasures and studies most congenial with
+their usual academical education, and, thus occupied, be rescued from
+pursuits that too often lead to profligacy and ruin; and sacrifice to
+pleasures that cannot last, those which, where once fostered, have ever
+been permanent!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The FIRST LECTURE is a summary of ancient art--one rather of research
+than interest--more calculated to excite the curiosity of the student
+than to offer him any profitable instruction. The general matter is well
+known to most, who have at all studied the subject. Nor have we
+sufficient confidence in any theory as to the rise and growth of art in
+Greece, to lay much stress upon those laid down in this lecture. We
+doubt if the religion of Greece ever had that hold upon the feelings of
+the people, artists, or their patrons, which is implied in the
+supposition, that it was an efficient cause. A people that could listen
+to the broad farce of Aristophanes, and witness every sort of contempt
+thrown upon the deities they professed to worship, were not likely to
+seek in religion the advancement of art; and their licentious
+liberty--if liberty it deserved to be called--was of too watchful a
+jealousy over greatness of every kind, to suffer genius to be free and
+without suspicion. We will not follow the lecturer through his
+conjectures on the mechanic processes. It is more curious than useful to
+trace back the more perfect art through its stages--the "Polychrom," the
+"Monochrom," the "Monogram," and "Skiagram"--nor from the pencil to the
+"cestrum." Polygnotus is said to be the first who introduced the
+"essential style;" which consisted in ascertaining the abstract, the
+general form, as it is technically termed the central form. Art under
+Polygnotus was, however, in a state of formal "parallelism;" certainly
+it could boast no variety of composition. Apollodorus "applied the
+essential principles of Polygnotus to the delineation of the species, by
+investigating the leading forms that discriminate the various classes of
+human qualities and passions." He saw that all men were connected
+together by one general form, yet were separated by some predominant
+power into classes; "thence he drew his line of imitation, and
+personified the central form of the class to which his object belonged,
+and to which the rest of its qualities administered, without being
+absorbed." Zeuxis, from the essential of Polygnotus and specific
+discrimination of Apollodorus, comparing one with the other, formed his
+ideal style. Thus are there the three styles--the essential, the
+characteristic, the ideal.
+
+Art was advanced and established under Parrhasius and Timanthes, and
+refined under Eupompus, Apelles, Aristides, and Euphranor. "The
+correctness of Parrhasius succeeded to the genius of Zeuxis. He
+circumscribed the ample style, and by subtle examination of outline,
+established that standard of divine and heroic form which raised him to
+the authority of a legislator, from whose decisions there was no appeal.
+He gave to the divine and heroic character in painting, what Polycletus
+had given to the human in sculpture by his Doryphorus, a canon of
+proportion. Phidias had discovered in the nod of the Homeric Jupiter the
+characteristic of majesty, _inclination of the head_. This hinted to him
+a higher elevation of the neck behind, a bolder protrusion of the front,
+and the increased perpendicular of the profile. To this conception
+Parrhasius fixed a maximum; that point from which descends the ultimate
+line of celestial beauty, the angle within which moves what is inferior,
+beyond which what is portentous. From the head conclude to the
+proportions of the neck, the limbs, the extremities; from the Father to
+the race of gods; all, the sons of one, Zeus; derived from one source of
+tradition, Homer; formed by one artist, Phidias; on him measured and
+decided by Parrhasius. In the simplicity of this principle, adhered to
+by the succeeding periods, lies the uninterrupted progress and the
+unattainable superiority of Grecian art."
+
+In speaking of Timanthes as the competitor with Parrhasius, as one who
+brought into the art more play of the mind and passions, the lecturer
+takes occasion to discuss the often discussed and disputed propriety of
+Timanthes, in covering the head of Agamemnon in his picture of the
+sacrifice of Iphigenia. He thinks it the more incumbent on him so to do,
+as the "late president" had passed a censure upon Timanthes. Sir Joshua
+expressed his _doubt_ only, not his censure absolutely, upon the
+delivery of the prize at the Academy for the best picture painted from
+this subject. He certainly dissents from bestowing the praise, upon the
+supposition of the intention being the avoiding a difficulty. And as to
+this point, the well-known authorities of Cicero, Quintilian, Valerius
+Maximus, and Pliny, seem to agree. And _if_, as the lecturer observes in
+a note, the painter is made to waste expression on inferior actors at
+the expense of a principal one, he is an improvident spendthrift, not a
+wise economist. The pertness of Falconet is unworthy grave criticism and
+the subject, though it is quoted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He assumes that
+Agamemnon is the principal figure. Undoubtedly Mr Fuseli is
+right--Iphigenia is the principal figure; and it may be fairly admitted,
+that the overpowering expression of the grief of the father would have
+divided the subject. It might be more properly a separate picture. Art
+is limited; nothing should detract from the principal figure, the
+principal action--passion. Our sympathy is not called for on behalf of
+the father here: the grief of the others in the picture is the grief in
+perfect sympathy with Iphigenia; the father would have been absorbed in
+his own grief, and his grief would have been an unsympathetic grief
+towards Iphigenia. It was his own case that he felt; and it does appear
+to us an aggravation of the suffering of Iphigenia, that, at the moment
+of her sacrifice, she saw indeed her father's person, but was never
+more--and knew she was never more--to behold his face again. This
+circumstance alone would justify Timanthes, but other concurrent reasons
+may be given. It was no want of power to express the father's grief, for
+it is in the province of art to express every such delineation; but
+there _is_ a point of grief that is ill expressed by the countenance at
+all; and there is a natural action in such cases for the sufferer
+himself to hide his face, as if conscious that it was not in agreement
+with his feelings. Such grief is astounding: we look for the expression
+of it, and find it not: it is better than receive this shock to hide the
+face. We do it naturally; so that here the art of the painter, that
+required that his picture should be a whole, and centre in Iphigenia,
+was mainly assisted by the proper adoption of this natural action of
+Agamemnon. Mr Fuseli, whose criticism is always acute, and generally
+just and true, has well discussed the subject, and properly commented
+upon the flippancy of Falconet. After showing the many ways in which the
+painter might have expressed the parent's grief, and that none of them
+would be _decere, pro dignitate, digne_, he adds--'But Timanthes had too
+true a sense of nature to expose a father's feelings, or to tear a
+passion to rags; nor had the Greeks yet learned of Rome to steel the
+face. If he made Agamemnon bear his calamity as a man, he made him also
+feel it as a man. It became the leader of Greece to sanction the
+ceremony with his presence: it did not become the father to see his
+daughter beneath the dagger's point: the same nature that threw a real
+mantle over the face of Timoleon, when he assisted at the punishment of
+his brother, taught Timanthes to throw an imaginary one over the face of
+Agamemnon; neither height nor depth, _propriety_ of expression was his
+aim.' It is a question whether Timanthes took the idea from the text of
+Euripides, or whether it is his invention, and was borrowed by the
+dramatist. The picture must have presented a contrast to that of his
+rival Parrhasius, which exhibited the fury of Ajax.
+
+Whether the invention was or was not the merit of Euripides, certainly
+this is not the only instance wherein he has turned it to dramatic
+advantage. No dramatist was so distinct a painter as Euripides; his mind
+was ever upon picture. He makes Hecuba, in the dialogue with Agamemnon,
+say, "Pity me, and, standing apart as would a painter, look at me, and
+see what evils I have,"
+
+     [Greek: Oichteiron hêmas, os grapheus t apostatheis,
+     Ida me chanathrêson, oi echô chacha.]
+
+And this Hecuba, when Talthybius comes to require her presence for the
+burial of Polyxena, is found lying on the ground, _her face covered_
+with her robe:--
+
+     [Greek: Autê pelas sou, nôt echous epi chthoni,
+     Talthubie, keitai, sugchechleismenê peplois.]
+
+And in the same play, Polyxena bids Ulysses to cover her head with a
+robe, as he leads her away, that she might not see her mother's grief.
+
+     [Greek: Komiz, Odysseu, m'amphitheis peplois chara.]
+
+But in the instance in question, in the Iphigenia, there is one
+circumstance that seems to have been overlooked by the critics, which
+makes the action of Agamemnon the more expressive, and gives it a
+peculiar force: the dramatist takes care to exhibit the more than common
+parental and filial love; when asked by Clytemnestra what would be her
+last, her dying request, it is instantly, on her father's account, to
+avert every feeling of wrath against him:--
+
+     [Greek: Patera ge ton emon mê stugei, posin te son.]
+
+And even when the father covers his face, she is close beside him,
+_tells him that she is beside him_, and her last words are to comfort
+him. Now, whether Timanthes took the scene from Euripides or Euripides
+from Timanthes, it could not be more powerfully, more naturally
+conceived; for this dramatic incident, the tender movement to his side,
+and speech of Iphigenia, could not have been imagined, or at least with
+little effect, had not the father first covered his face. Mr Fuseli has
+collected several instances of attempts something similar in pictures,
+particularly by Massaccio, and Raffaelle from him; and he well
+remarks--"We must conclude that Nature herself dictated to him this
+method, as superior to all he could express by features; and that he
+recognized the same dictate in Massaccio, who can no more be supposed to
+have been acquainted with the precedent of Timanthes than Shakspeare
+with that of Euripides, when he made Macduff draw his hat over his
+face." From Timanthes Mr Fuseli proceeds to eulogize Aristides; whom
+history records as, in a peculiar excellence, the painter of the
+passions of nature. "Such, history informs us, was the suppliant whose
+voice you seemed to hear, such his sick man's half-extinguished eye and
+labouring breast, such Byblis expiring in the pangs of love, and, above
+all, the half-slain mother shuddering lest the eager babe should suck
+the blood from her palsied nipple."--"Timanthes had marked the limits
+that discriminate terror from the excess of horror; Aristides drew the
+line that separates it from disgust." Then follows a very just criticism
+upon instances in which he considered that Raffaelle himself and Nicolo
+Poussin had overstepped the bounds of propriety, and averted the
+feelings from their object, by ideas of disgust. In the group of
+Raffaelle, a man is removing the child from the breast of the mother
+with one hand, while the other is applied to his nostrils. Poussin, in
+his plague of the Philistines, has copied the loathsome action--so,
+likewise, in another picture, said to be the plague of Athens, but
+without much reason so named, in the collection of J. P. Mills, Esq. Dr
+Waagen, in his admiration for the executive part of art, speaks of it as
+"a very rich masterpiece of Poussin, in which we are reconciled by his
+skill to the horrors of the subject."
+
+In the commencement of the lecture, there are offered some definitions
+of the terms of art, "nature, grace, taste, copy, imitation, genius,
+talent." In that of nature, he seems entirely to agree with Reynolds;
+that of beauty leaves us pretty much in the dark in our search for it,
+"as that harmonious whole of the human frame, that unison of parts to
+one end, which enchants us. The result of the standard set by the great
+masters of our art, the ancients, and confirmed by the submissive
+verdict of modern imitation." This is unphilosophical, unsatisfactory;
+nor is that of grace less so--"that artless balance of motion and
+repose, sprung from character, founded on propriety, which neither falls
+short of the demands, nor overleaps the modesty of nature. Applied to
+execution it means that dexterous power which hides the means by which
+it was attained, the difficulties it has conquered." We humbly suggest,
+that both parts of this definition may be found where there is little
+grace. It is evident that the lecturer did not subscribe to any theory
+of lines, as _per se_ beautiful or graceful, and altogether disregarded
+Hogarth's line of beauty. Had Mr Hay's very admirable short works--his
+"Theory of Form and Proportion"--appeared in Mr Fuseli's day, he would
+have taken a new view of beauty and grace. By taste, he means not only a
+knowledge of what is right in art, but a power to estimate degrees of
+excellence, "and by comparison proceeds from justness to refinement."
+This, too, we think inadequate to express what we mean by taste, which
+appears to us to have something of a sense, independent of knowledge.
+Using words in a technical sense, we may define them to mean what we
+please, but certainly the words themselves, "copy" and "imitation," do
+not mean very different things. He thinks "precision of eye, and
+obedience of hand, are the requisites for copy, without the least
+pretence to choice, what to select, what to reject; whilst choice,
+directed by judgment or taste, constitutes the essence of imitation, and
+alone can raise the most dexterous copyist to the noble rank of an
+artist." We do not exactly see how this judgment arises out of his
+definition of "taste." But it may be fair to follow him still closer on
+this point. "The imitation of the ancients was, _essential_,
+_characteristic_, _ideal_. The first cleared nature of accident, defect,
+excrescence, (which was in fact his definition of nature, as so
+cleared;) the second found the _stamen_ which connects character with
+the central form; the third raised the whole and the parts to the
+highest degree of unison." This is rather loose writing, and not very
+close reasoning. After all, it may be safer to take words in their
+common acceptation; for it is very difficult in a treatise of any
+length, to preserve in the mind or memory the precise ideas of given
+definitions. "Of genius, I shall speak with reserve; for no word has
+been more indiscriminately confounded. By genius, I mean that power
+which enlarges the circle of human knowledge, which discovers new
+materials of nature, or combines the known with novelty; whilst talent
+arranges, cultivates, polishes the discoveries of genius." Definitions,
+divisions, and subdivisions, though intended to make clear, too often
+entangle the ground unnecessarily, and keep the mind upon the stretch to
+remember, when it should only feel. We think this a fault with Mr
+Fuseli; it often renders him obscure, and involves his style of
+aphorisms in the mystery of a riddle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SECOND LECTURE.--This lecture comprises a compendious history of modern
+art; commencing with Massaccio. If religion gave the impulse to both
+ancient and modern, so has it stamped each with the different characters
+itself assumed. The conceptions the ancients had of divinity, were the
+perfection of the human form; thus form and beauty became godlike. The
+Christian religion wore a more spiritual character. In ancient art,
+human form and beauty were triumphant; in modern art, the greater
+triumph was in humility, in suffering; the religious inspiration was to
+be shown in its influence in actions less calculated to display the
+powers, the energies of form, than those of mind. Mere external beauty
+had its accompanying vices; and it was compelled to lower its
+pretensions considerably, submit to correction, and take a more
+subordinate part. Thus, if art lost in form it gained in expression, and
+thus was really more divine. Art in its revival, passing through the
+barbarity of Gothic adventurers, not unencumbered with senseless
+superstitions, yet with wondrous rapidity, raised itself to the noblest
+conceptions of both purity and magnificence. Sculpture had, indeed,
+preceded painting in the works of Ghiberti Donato and Philippo
+Brunelleschi, when Massaccio appeared. "He first perceived that parts
+are to constitute a whole; that composition ought to have a centre;
+expression, truth; and execution, unity. His line deserves attention,
+though his subjects led him not to investigation of form, and the
+shortness of his life forbade his extending those elements, which
+Raffaelle, nearly a century afterwards, carried to perfection." That
+great master of expression did not disdain to borrow from him--as is
+seen in the figure of "St Paul preaching at Athens," and that of "Adam
+expelled from Paradise." Andrea Mantegna attempted to improve upon
+Massaccio, by adding form from study of the antique. Mr Fuseli considers
+his "taste too crude, his fancy too grotesque, and his comprehension too
+weak, to advert from the parts that remained to the whole that inspired
+them; hence, in his figures of dignity or beauty, we see not only the
+meagre forms of common models, but even their defects tacked to ideal
+torsos." We think, however, he is deserving of more praise than the
+lecturer was disposed to bestow upon him, and that his "triumphs," the
+processions, (at Hampton Court,) are not quite justly called "a copious
+inventory of classic lumber, swept together with more industry than
+taste, but full of valuable materials." Yet when it is said, that he was
+"not ignorant of expression," and that "his Burial of Christ furnished
+Raffaelle with composition, and even "some figures and attitudes," the
+severity of the opinion seems somewhat mitigated. Luca Signorelli, more
+indebted to nature than the study of the antique, "seems to have been
+the first who contemplated with a discriminating eye his object; saw
+what was accidental, and what essential; balanced light and shade, and
+decided the motion of his figures. He foreshortened with equal boldness
+and intelligence." It was thought by Vasari, that in his "Judgment,"
+Michael Angelo had imitated him. At this period of the "dawn of modern
+art, Leonardo da Vinci broke forth with a splendour which distanced
+former excellence; made up of all the elements that constitute the
+essence of genius; favoured by education and circumstances--all ear, all
+eye, all grasp; painter, poet, sculptor, anatomist, architect, engineer,
+chemist, machinist, musician, man of science, and sometimes empiric, he
+laid hold of every beauty in the enchanted circle, but without exclusive
+attachment to one, dismissed in her turn each." "We owe him chiaroscuro,
+with all its magic--we owe him caricature, with all its incongruities."
+His genius was shown in the design of the cartoon intended for the
+council-chamber at Florence, which he capriciously abandoned, wherein
+the group of horsemen might fairly rival the greatness of Michael Angelo
+himself; and in the well-known "Last Supper," in the refectory of the
+Dominicans at Milan, best known, however, from the copies which remain
+of it, and the studies which remain. Fra Bartolomeo, "the last master of
+this period, first gave gradation to colour, form and masses to drapery,
+and a grave dignity, till then unknown, to execution." His was the merit
+of having weaned Raffaelle "from the meanness of Pietro Perugino, and
+prepared for the mighty style of Michael Angelo Buonarotti." Mr Fuseli
+is inspired by his admiration of that wonderful man, as painter,
+sculptor, and architect.
+
+"Sublimity of conception, grandeur of form, and breadth of manner, are
+the elements of Michael Angelo's style. By these principles, he selected
+or rejected the objects of imitation. As painter, as sculptor, as
+architect, he attempted--and above any other man, succeeded--to unite
+magnificence of plan, and endless variety of subordinate parts, with the
+utmost simplicity and breadth. His line is uniformly grand. Character
+and beauty were admitted only as far as they could be made subservient
+to grandeur. The child, the female, meanness, deformity, were by him
+indiscriminately stamped with grandeur. A beggar rose from his hand the
+patriarch of poverty; the hump of his dwarf is impressed with dignity;
+his women are moulds of generation, his infants teem with man; his men
+are a race of giants. This is the 'terribile via' hinted at by Agostino
+Caracci; though, perhaps, as little understood by the Bolognese as by
+the blindest of his Tuscan adorers, with Vasari at their head. To give
+the appearance of perfect ease to the most perplexing difficulty, was
+the exclusive power of Michael Angelo. He is the inventor of epic in
+painting, in that sublime circle of the Sistine chapel which exhibits
+the origin, the progress, and the final dispensations of theocracy. He
+has personated motion in the groups of the cartoon of Pisa; embodied
+sentiment on the monuments of St Lorenzo; unraveled the features of
+meditation in the prophets and sibyls of the Sistine chapel; and in the
+'Last Judgment,' with every attitude that varies the human body, traced
+the master trait of every passion that sways the human heart. Though, as
+sculptor, he expressed the character of flesh more perfectly than all
+who went before or came after him, yet he never submitted to copy an
+individual--Julio the Second only excepted; and in him he represented
+the reigning passion rather than the man. In painting, he contented
+himself with a negative colour, and as the painter of mankind, rejected
+all meretricious ornament. The fabric of St Peter's scattered into
+infinity of jarring parts by Bramante and his successors, he
+concentrated; suspended the cupola, and to the most complex, gave the
+air of the most simple of edifices. Such, take him for all in all, was
+Michael Angelo, the salt of art; sometimes, no doubt, he had his moments
+of dereliction, deviated into manner, or perplexed the grandeur of his
+forms with futile and ostentatious anatomy; both met with armies of
+copyists, and it has been his fate to have been censured for their
+folly." This studied panegyric is nevertheless vigorous--emulous as that
+of Longinus, of showing the author to be--
+
+     "Himself, the great sublime he draws."
+
+It hurries away the mind of the reader till it kindles a congenial
+enthusiasm, we have the more readily given the quotation, as it is not
+an unfair specimen of Mr Fuseli's power, both of thought and language.
+Our author is scarcely less eloquent in his eulogy of Raffaelle which
+follows. He has seized on the points of character of that great painter
+very happily. "His composition always hastens to the most necessary
+point as its centre, and from that disseminates, to that leads back, as
+rays, all secondary ones. Group, form, and contrast are subordinate to
+the event, and common-place ever excluded. His expression, in strict
+unison with, and inspired by character; whether calm, agitated,
+convulsed, or absorbed by the inspiring passion, unmixed and pure, never
+contradicts its cause, equally remote from tameness and grimace: the
+moment of his choice never suffers the action to stagnate or expire; it
+is the moment of transition, the crisis, big with the past, and pregnant
+with the future."
+
+It is certainly true--the moment generally chosen by Raffaelle, is not
+of the action completed, the end--but that in which it is doing. You
+instantly acknowledge the power, while your curiosity is not quenched.
+For instance, in the cartoon of the "Beautiful Gate," you see the action
+at the word is just breaking into the miracle--the cripple is yet in his
+distorted infirmity--but you see near him grace and activity of limb
+beautifully displayed, in that mother and running child; and you look to
+the perfection which, you feel sure, the miracle will complete. This is
+by no means the best instance--it is the case in all his compositions
+where a story is to be told. It is this action which, united with most
+perfect character and expression, makes the life of Raffaelle's
+pictures. We think, however, that even in so summary a history of art as
+this, the object of which seems to be to mark the steps to its
+perfection, the influence of Pietro Perugino should not have been
+omitted. He is often very pure in sentiment, often more than bordering
+on grace, and in colour perhaps superior to Raffaelle. Notwithstanding
+Mr Fuseli's eulogy of Raffaelle, we doubt if he fully entered into his
+highest sentiment. This we may show when we comment on another lecture.
+While Rome and Tuscany were thus fostering the higher principles of art,
+the fascination of colour was spreading a new charm to every eye at
+Venice, from the pencils of Giorgione, and of Titian. Had not Titian
+been a colourist, his genius was not unequal to the great style; perhaps
+he has admitted of that style as much as would suit the predominant
+character of his colouring. He worked less with chiaroscuro than colour,
+which he endowed with all the sentiment of his subject. Mr Fuseli
+considers landscape to have originated with Titian.
+
+"Landscape, whether it be considered as the transcript of a spot, or the
+rich combination of congenial objects, or as the scene of a phenomenon,
+dates its origin from him:" so of portrait, he says--"He is the father
+of portrait painting, of resemblance with form, character with dignity,
+and costume with subordination." The yet wanting charm of art--perfect
+harmony, was reserved for Correggio. "The harmony and grace of Correggio
+are proverbial; the medium which, by breadth of gradation, unites two
+opposite principles, the coalition of light and darkness, by
+imperceptible transition, are the element of his style." "This unison of
+a whole predominates in all that remains of him, from the vastness of
+his cupolas to the smallest of his oil pictures. The harmony of
+Correggio, though assisted by exquisite hues, was entirely independent
+of colour; his great organ was chiaroscuro in its most extensive
+sense--compared with the expanse in which he floats, the effects of
+Leonardi da Vinci are little more than the dying ray of evening, and the
+concentrated flash of Giorgione discordant abruptness. The bland,
+central light of a globe, imperceptibly gliding through lucid demi-tints
+into rich reflected shades, composes the spell of Correggio, and affects
+us with the soft emotions of a delicious dream." Here terminates the
+great, the primal era. Such were the patriarchs of modern art. Here, it
+may be said, terminated the great discoverers. Mr Fuseli pauses here to
+observe, that we should consider the characteristic of each of these
+painters, not their occasional deviations; for not unfrequently did
+Titian rise to the loftiness of conception of Michael Angelo, and
+Correggio occasionally "exceeded all competition in expression in the
+divine features of his _Ecce Homo_." If Mr Fuseli alludes to the _Ecce
+Homo_ now in our National Gallery, we cannot go along with him in this
+praise--but in that picture, the expression of the true "Mater dolorosa"
+was never equaled. Art now proceeds to its period of "Refinement." The
+great schools--the Tuscan, the Roman, the Venetian, and the
+Lombard--from whatever cause, separated. Michael Angelo lived to see his
+great style polluted by Tuscan and Venetian, "as the ostentatious
+vehicle of puny conceits and emblematic quibbles, or the palliative of
+empty pomp and degraded luxuriance of colour." He considers Andrea del
+Sarto to have been his copyer, not his imitator. Tibaldi seems to have
+caught somewhat of his mind. As did Sir Joshua, so does Mr Fuseli
+mention his Polypheme groping at the mouth of his cave for Ulysses. He
+expresses his surprise that Michael Angelo was unacquainted with the
+great talent of Tibaldi, but lavished his assistance on inferior men,
+Sebastian del Piombo and Daniel of Volterra. We think he does not do
+fair justice to the merits of these undoubtedly great men. We shall have
+occasion hereafter to notice his criticism on the great work of
+Sebastian, in our National Gallery. We are surprised that he should
+consider Sebastian del Piombo deficient in ideal colour, and that the
+lines of Daniel of Volterra are meagre and sterile of idea--his
+celebrated Descent from the Cross being in its lines, as tending to
+perfect the composition, and to make full his great idea, quite
+extraordinary. Poor Vasari, who can never find favour with our author,
+is considered the great depravator of the style of Michael Angelo.
+
+At the too early death of Raffaelle, his style fell into gradual decay.
+Still Julio Romano, and Polidoro da Carravaggio, "deserted indeed the
+standard of their master, but with a dignity and magnitude of compass
+which command respect."
+
+The taste of Julio Romano was not pure enough to detach him from
+"deformity and grimace" and "ungenial colour." Primaticcio and Nicolo
+dell Abate propagated the style of Julio Romano on the Gallic side of
+the Alps, in mythologic and allegoric works. These frescoes from the
+Odyssea at Fontainbleau are lost, but are worthy admiration, though in
+the feeble etchings of Theodore van Fulden. The "ideal light and shade,
+and tremendous breadth of manner" of Michael Angelo Amerigi, surnamed
+Il Caravaggi, are next commended. "The aim and style of the Roman school
+deserve little further notice here, till the appearance of Nicolo
+Poussin." His partiality for the antique mainly affected his style. "He
+has left specimens to show that he was sometimes sublime, and often in
+the highest degree pathetic." Mr Fuseli takes occasion, by contrasting
+"the classic regularity" of Poussin with the "wildness of Salvator
+Rosa"--we think unnecessarily, because there seems to be no true point
+of comparison, and unjustly to censure that great, we may say, that
+original painter. We have noticed occasionally a capricious dislike in
+our author to some artists, for which we are at a loss to account. That
+Salvator should "hide by boldness of hand his inability of exhibiting
+her (Nature) impassioned," is a sentence that will scarcely meet with an
+assenting critic. The wealth and luxury of Venice soon demanded of art,
+to sacrifice the modesty of nature to ostentation. The principle of
+Titian was, however, followed by Tintoretto, Bassan, Paul Veronese, and
+then passed to Velasquez the Spaniard, in Italy. From him "Rubens and
+Vandyck attempted to transplant it to Flanders, France, and England,
+with unequal success." The style of Correggio scarcely survived him, for
+he had more imitators of parts than followers of the whole. His grace
+became elegance under the hand of Parmegiano. "That disengaged play of
+delicate forms, the 'saltezza' of the Italians, is the prerogative of
+Parmegiano, though nearly always obtained at the expense of proportion."
+We cannot agree with the lecturer, that the Moses of Parmegiano--if he
+speaks of _the_ Moses referred to in the Discourses of Sir Joshua, of
+which Mr Burnet, in his second edition, has given a plate--loses "the
+dignity of the lawgiver in the savage." Such was the state of art to the
+foundation of the Eclectic School by the Caracci--an attempt to unite
+the excellences of all schools. The principles are perpetuated in a
+sonnet by Agostino Caracci. The Caracci were, however, in their practice
+above their precepts. Theirs, too, was the school of the "Naturalists."
+Ludovico is particularly praised for his solemnity of hue, most suited
+to his religious subjects--"that sober twilight, the air of cloistered
+meditation, which you have so often heard recommended as the proper tone
+of historic colour." If the recommendation has at our Academy been often
+heard, it has entirely lost its influence; our English school is--with
+an ignorance of the real object of colour, or with a very bad taste as
+to its harmony--running into an opposite extravagance, destructive of
+real power, glaring and distracting where it ought to concentrate
+through vision the ideas of the mind. Annibal Caracci had more power of
+execution, but not the taste of Agostino. In their immediate scholars,
+the lecturer seems little disposed to see fairly their several
+excellences. They are out of the view of his bias. They are not Michael
+Angelesque. His judgment of Domenichino--a painter who greatly restored
+the simplicity and severity of the elder schools, and greatly surpassed
+his masters--is an instance of blindness to a power in art which we
+would almost call new, that is very strange to see. "Domenichino, more
+obedient than the rest to his masters, aimed at the beauty of the
+antique, the expression of Raphael, the vigour of Annibal, the colour of
+Ludovico; and mixing something of each, fell short of all." Nor do we
+think him just with regard to Guercino, or even at all describing his
+characteristic style, when he speaks of his "fierceness of chiaroscuro,
+and intrepidity of hand." We readily give up to him "the great but
+abused talents of Pietro da Cortona," a painter without sentiment, and
+the "fascinating but debauched and empty facility of Luca Giordano."
+
+The German schools here come under consideration, which, simultaneously
+with those of Italy, and without visible communication, spread the
+principles of art. "Towards the decline of the fifteenth century, the
+uncouth essays of Martin Schön, Michael Wolgemuth, and Albrecht
+Altorfer, were succeeded by the finer polish and the more dexterous
+method of Albert Durer." His well-known figure of "Melancholy" would
+alone entitle him to rank. The breadth and power of his wood engravings
+are worthy of admiration. Mr Fuseli thinks "his colour went beyond his
+age, and as far excelled, in truth and breadth of handling, the
+oil-colour of Raphael, as Raphael excels him in every other quality.
+His influence was not unfelt in Italy. It is visible in the style of
+even the imitators of Michael Angelo--Andrea del Sarto, particularly in
+the angular manner of his draperies. Though Albert Durer had no
+scholars, he was imitated by the Dutch Lucas of Leyden. Now it was that
+the style of Michael Angelo, spread by the graver of Giorgio Mantuano,
+brought to Italy "those caravans of German, Dutch, and Flemish students,
+who, on their return from Italy, at the courts of Prague and Munich, in
+Flanders and the Netherlands, introduced the preposterous manner, the
+bloated excrescence of diseased brains, which, in the form of man, left
+nothing human; distorted action and gesture with insanity of
+affectation, and dressed the gewgaws of children in colossal shapes."
+But though such as Golzius, Spranger, Heyntz, and Abach, "fed on the
+husks of Tuscan design, they imbibed the colour of Venice, and spread
+the elements of that excellence which distinguished the succeeding
+schools of Flanders and of Holland." So it was till the appearance of
+Rubens and Rembrandt--"both of whom, disdaining to acknowledge the usual
+laws of admission to the temple of Fame, boldly forged their own keys,
+entered, and took possession, each of a most conspicuous place, by his
+own power." Rubens, with many advantages, acquired in his education at
+Antwerp, and already influenced by the gorgeous pomp of Austrian and
+Spanish superstition, arrived in Italy rather as the rival than pupil of
+the masters whom he travelled to study. Whatever he borrowed from the
+Venetian school--the object of his admiration--he converted into a new
+manner of florid magnificence. It is just the excellence of Rubens--the
+completeness, the congruity of his style--that has raised him to the
+eminence in the temple of fame which he will ever occupy. A little short
+of Rubens is intolerable: the clumsy forms and improprieties of his
+imitators are not to be endured. Mr Fuseli excepts Vandyck and Abraham
+Drepenbeck from the censure passed upon the followers of Rubens. As
+Drepenbeck is not so well known, we quote the passage respecting
+him:--"The fancy of Drepenbeck, though not so exuberant, if I be not
+mistaken, excelled in sublimity the imagination of Rubens. His
+Bellerophon, Dioscuri, Hippolytus, Ixion, Sisyphus, fear no competitor
+among the productions of his master." Rembrandt he considers a genius of
+the first class in all but form. Chiaroscuro and colour were the
+elements, in fact, in which Rembrandt reveled. In these he was the
+poet--the maker. He made colour and chiaroscuro throw out ideas of
+sublimity: that he might throw himself the more into these great
+elements of his art, and depend solely on their power, he seems
+purposely not to have neglected form, but to have selected such as,
+without beauty to attract, should be merely the objects of life, the
+sensitive beings in his world of mystery. That such was his intention we
+cannot doubt; because we cannot imagine the beautiful but too attractive
+figures of the Apollo or the Venus adopted into one of his pictures.
+Excepting in a few instances, we would not wish Rembrandt's forms other
+than they are. They appear necessary to his style. Mr Fuseli speaks very
+favourably of art in Switzerland; but says there are only two painters
+of name--Holbein, and Francis Mola. The designs of the Passion and Dance
+of Death of the former, are instanced as works of excellence. Mola, we
+are surprised to find ranked as Swiss; for he is altogether, in art,
+Italian. The influence of the school and precepts of the Caracci,
+produced in France an abundant harvest of mediocrity. In France was the
+merit of Michael Angelo first questioned. There are, however, names that
+rescue France from the entire disgrace of the abandonment of the true
+principles of art: Nicolo Poussin, Le Sueur, Le Brun, Sebastian Bourdon,
+and Pierre Mignard. The Seven Works of Charity, by Seb. Bourdon, teem
+with surprising, pathetic, and always novel images; and in the Plague of
+David, by Pierre Mignard, our sympathy is roused by energies of terror
+and combinations of woe, which escaped Poussin and Raphael himself." Of
+Spanish art he says but little, but that "the degree of perfection
+attained by Diego Velasquez, Joseph Ribera, and Murillo, in pursuing the
+same object by means as different as successful, impresses us with deep
+respect for the variety of their powers." Art, as every thing else, has
+its fashion. The Spanish school have, of later years, been more eagerly
+sought for; and a strange whim of the day has attached a very
+extraordinary value to the works of Murillo--a painter in colour
+generally monotonous, and in form and expression almost always vulgar.
+
+Art in England is the next subject of the lecture. He takes a view of it
+from the age of Henry VIII. to our own. No great encouragement was here
+given to art till the time of Charles I.: Holbein, indeed, and Zucchero,
+under Elizabeth, were patronized, but "were condemned to Gothic work and
+portrait painting." The troubles and death of Charles I. were a sad
+obstacle to art. "His son, in possession of the Cartoons of Raphael, and
+with the magnificence of Whitehall before his eyes, suffered Verio to
+contaminate the walls of his palaces, or degraded Lely to paint the
+Cymons and Iphigenias of his court; whilst the manner of Kneller swept
+completely what might yet be left of taste under his successors. Such
+was the equally contemptible and deplorable state of English art, till
+the genius of Reynolds first rescued from the mannered depravation of
+foreigners his own branch; and, soon extending his view to the higher
+departments of art, joined that select body of artists who addressed the
+ever open ear, ever attentive mind, of our royal founder with the first
+idea of this establishment." After this little parade of our artists as
+a body, but four are mentioned by name--"Reynolds, Hogarth,
+Gainsborough, and Wilson."
+
+We are surprised that, in this summary history of art, no notice has
+been taken of Van Eyck, and the influence of his discovery on art. Nor
+are we less surprised that so important a branch as landscape painting
+should have been omitted; Claude and Gaspar Poussin not mentioned; yet,
+in the English school, Wilson is spoken of, whose sole merit rested upon
+his landscape. He should more distinctly have stated his purpose to
+treat only of high and historical art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THIRD LECTURE.--In the commencement, there is an unnecessary, and rather
+affectedly written disquisition of the old question, or rather
+comparison between poetry and painting, from which nothing is to be
+learned; nor does it suggest any thing. Nor do we now-a-days want to
+read pages to tell us what invention is, and how it differs from
+creation--nor is it at all important in matters of art, that we should
+draw any such distinction at all. It is far better to go at once "in
+medias res," and take it for granted that the reader both knows and
+feels, without metaphysical discussion, what that invention is which is
+required to make a great painter. Nor are we disposed to look upon
+otherwise than impertinent, while we are waiting for didactic rules, the
+being told that "he who discovers a gold mine, is surely superior to him
+who afterwards adapts the metal for use;" especially when it is paraded
+with comparisons between "Colombo" and "Amerigo Vespucci," and a
+misplaced panegyric on Newton. And much of this is encumbered with
+language that fatigues and makes a plain matter obscure. There is a
+little affectation sometimes in Mr Fuseli's writing of Ciceronic
+_ambages_, that is really injurious to the good sense and just thoughts,
+which would without this display, come free, open, and with power. Some
+pages, too, are taken up with a preliminary argument--"_whether it be
+within the artist's province or not, to find or to combine a subject
+from himself, without having recourse to tradition, or the stores of
+history and poetry_." We have a display of learning to little purpose,
+quotations from Latin and Greek, really "nihil ad rem;" the "[Greek:
+phantasias]" of the Greek, and "visiones" of the Romans. Who that ever
+saw even one work of Hogarth, the "Marriage à la Mode," would for a
+moment think the question worth a thought. "The misnamed gladiator of
+Agasias," seems forced into this treatise, for the sole purpose of
+showing Mr Fuseli's reading, and after all, he leaves the figure as
+uncertain as he finds it. He _once_ thought it might have been an
+Alcibiades rushing from the flames, when his house was fired; but is
+more satisfied that "it might form an admirable Ulysses bestriding the
+deck of his ship to defend his companions from the descending fangs of
+Scylla, or rather, with indignation and anguish, seeing them already
+snatched up, and writhing in the mysterious gripe." In such fanciful
+humours, it might be made to mean any thing or any body. And we are,
+after all, quite at a loss to know whether the _conjecture_ is offered
+as a specimen of "_invention_." He considers the cartoon of Pisa "the
+most striking instance, of the eminent place due to this _intuitive
+faculty among the principal organs of invention_"--we mark these words
+in italics, not quite certain of their meaning. The work is engraved for
+Foster, by Schiavonetti; and a wonderful work it is--the work of Michael
+Angelo begun in competition with Leonardo da Vinci. The original is said
+to have been destroyed by Baccio Bandinelli; still there are the ancient
+prints and drawings which show the design, and there is a small copy at
+Holkham. Benvenuto Cellini--and could there be a better
+authority?--denies that the powers afterwards exerted in the Capella
+Sistina, arrive at half its excellence. Mr Fuseli's description is so
+good, that we give it entire. "It represents an imaginary moment
+relative to the war carried on by the Florentines against Pisa; and
+exhibits a numerous group of warriors, roused from their bathing in the
+Arno, by the sudden signal of a trumpet, and rushing to arms. This
+composition may, without exaggeration, be said to personify with
+unexampled variety, that motion which Agasias and Theon embodied in
+single figures. In imagining this transient moment from state of
+relaxation to a state of energy, the ideas of motion, to use the bold
+figure of Dante, seem to have showered into the artist's mind. From the
+chief, nearly placed in the centre, who precedes, and whose voice
+accompanies the trumpet, every age of human agility, every attitude,
+every feature of alarm, haste, hurry, exertion, eagerness, burst into so
+many rays, like sparks flying from the hammer. Many have reached, some
+boldly step, some have leaped on the rocky shore; here two arms emerging
+from the water, grapple with the rock, there two hands cry for help, and
+their companions bend over or rush on to assist them: often imitated,
+but inimitable, is the ardent feature of the grim veteran, whose every
+sinew labours to force over the dripping limbs his clothes, whilst
+gnashing, he pushes the foot through the rending garment. He is
+contrasted by the slender elegance of a half-averted youth, who, though
+eagerly buckling the armour to his thigh, methodizes haste; another
+swings the high-raised hauberk on his shoulder; whilst one, who seems a
+leader, mindless of his dress, ready for combat, and with brandished
+spear, overturns a third, who crouched to grasp a weapon; one, naked
+himself, buckles on the mail of his companion, and he, turned toward
+the enemy, seems to stamp impatiently the ground. Experience and rage;
+old vigour, young velocity; expanded or contracted, vie in exertions of
+energy. Yet in this scene of tumult, one motive animates the
+whole--eagerness to engage, with subordination to command. This
+preserves the dignity of the action, and from a strangling rabble,
+changes the figures to men, whose legitimate contest interests our
+wishes." Another example is given--Raffaelle's "Incendio del Borgo"--a
+good description follows: "the enraged elements of _wind_ and fire," we
+do not see in the original, not even in the drapery of the woman with
+her back to us in the foreground. Speaking of this power of "invention,"
+he says--after having, as we conceive, mistaken the aim of Raffaelle in
+his Madonnas, and Holy families, which was somewhat beyond even the
+"charities of father, son, and mother"--"Nor shall I follow it in its
+more contaminated descent, to those representations of local manners and
+national modifications of society, whose characteristic discrimination
+and humorous exuberance, for instance, we admire in Hogarth, but which,
+like the fleeting passions of the day, every hour contributes something
+to obliterate, which soon become unintelligible by time, or degenerate
+into caricature, the chronicle of scandal, the history-book of the
+vulgar." It seems, strangely enough, to have been the fashion among the,
+in comparison with Hogarth, puny academicians of that day, to underrate
+that great painter, that moral painter. We really should pity the
+infatuated prejudice of the man, who could see in the deep tragedy, the
+moral tragedy, "Marriage à la Mode," any _humorous_ exuberance; or not
+understand that the passions set forth, and for a moral end, are not
+"the fleeting passions of the day," but as permanent as human
+nature--who could see, in such series of pictures, any "caricature," or
+that their object is to "chronicle scandal." That it is the "history of
+the vulgar," we dispute not. For it is drama of the vulgar as of the
+unvulgar--a deep tragedy of human nature; alas! time has not made
+"_unintelligible_" these _not_ "fleeting passions of the day." As long
+as man is man, will Hogarth be true to nature; and nothing in art is
+more strange, than that such opinions should emanate from an Academy,
+and be either ventured upon or received _ex cathedra_.
+
+Invention, according to Mr Fuseli, receives its subjects from poetry or
+tradition--"they are _epic_ or sublime, _dramatic_ or impassioned,
+_historic_ or circumscribed by truth. The first _astonishes_, the second
+_moves_, the third _informs_." We confess ourselves weary of this sort
+of classification. They only tend to hamper the writer, painter, and
+critic. It is possible for a work to admit all three, and yet preserve
+its unity. And such we believe to be the case with Homer. He is epic and
+dramatic in one, and certainly historic. It is more ingenious than
+unquestionable, that Homer's purpose was to "impress one forcible idea
+of war--its origin, its progress, and its end." Nor will the "Iliad" be
+read with greater delight, by the reader's reception of such an idea.
+The drawing forth the purpose of Michael Angelo's design--his invention,
+in the series of frescoes in the Sistine Chapel--is more happy. That
+theocracy is the subject--the dispensations of Providence to man--the
+Creation--life and adoration in Adam and Eve, their sin, their
+punishment, their separation from God--justice and grace in the Deluge
+and covenant with Noah--prophets, sibyls, herald the Redeemer--and the
+patriarchs--the Son of Man--the brazen serpent--and the Fall of
+Haman--the giant subdued by the stripling in Goliah and David--and the
+conqueror destroyed by female weakness in Judith, are types of his
+mysterious progress, till Jonah pronounces him immortal. The Last
+Judgment, and the Saviour the Judge of man, complete the whole--and the
+Founder and the race are reunited. Such is the spirit of the general
+invention. "The specific invention of the pictures separate, as each
+constitutes an independent whole, deserves our consideration next: each
+has its centre, from which it disseminates, to which it leads back all
+secondary points, arranged, hid, or displayed, as they are more or less
+organs of the inspiring plan; each rigorously is circumscribed by its
+generic character." The more particular criticism on this great work of
+Michael Angelo, is very good, and we earnestly refer the reader to it.
+He thinks the genius of Michael Angelo more generic in its aim--that of
+Raffaelle more specific. That as M. Angelo's aim was the "destiny of
+man, simply considered as the subject of religion, faithful or
+rebellious," admitting only a "general feature of the passions;" so, in
+the hands of Raffaelle, the subject would have teemed with a choice of
+imagery to excite our sympathies; "he would have combined all possible
+emotions with the utmost variety of probable or real character; all
+domestic, politic, religious relations--whatever is not local in virtue
+and in vice; and the sublimity of the greatest events would have been
+merely the minister of sympathies and passions." The latter mode of
+representing the subject, that of Raffaelle, he considers dramatic. The
+distinction is, however, doubtful: we do not see why the mode of M.
+Angelo may not be held to be equally dramatic. The criticism on the
+comparison between Raffaelle's and Michael Angelo's Adam and Eve, if not
+quite just, is striking. "The elevation of Michael Angelo's soul,
+inspired by the operation of creation itself, furnished him at once with
+the feature that stamped on human nature its most glorious prerogative;
+whilst the characteristic subtility, rather than sensibility, of
+Raffaelle's mind, in this instance, offered nothing but a frigid
+succedaneum--a symptom incident to all, when, after the subsided
+astonishment on a great and sudden event, the mind, recollecting itself,
+ponders on it with inquisitive surmise. In Michael Angelo, all
+self-consideration is absorbed in the sublimity of the sentiment which
+issues from the august presence that attracts Eve; 'her earthly,' in
+Milton's expression, 'by his heavenly overpowered,' pours itself in
+adoration; whilst, in the inimitable cast of Adam's figure, we trace the
+hint of that half-conscious moment, when sleep began to give way to the
+vivacity of the dream inspired. In Raffaelle, creation is complete--Eve
+is presented to Adam, now awake; but neither the new-born charms, the
+submissive grace, and virgin purity, of the beauteous image; nor the
+awful presence of her Introductor, draw him from his mental trance, into
+effusions of love or gratitude; at ease reclined, with fingers pointing
+at himself and his new mate, he seems to methodize the surprising event
+that took place during his sleep, and to whisper the words--'flesh of my
+flesh.'" Not subscribing to any criticism which concludes insensibility
+of mind to Raffaelle, and which is rather inconsistent with the judgment
+made by Mr Fuseli, that he was the painter of expression, from the
+utmost conflict of passions, to the enchanting round of gentler emotion,
+and the nearly silent hints of mind and character--we look to the object
+of the painter in this his series of works called his Bible. The first
+five pictures represent only the act of creation--the Deity, the
+Creator--all nature, is as yet passive--even adoration, the point chosen
+by Michael Angelo, might be said scarcely to have begun--the plan is
+developed, not put in action. As yet, the Deity is all in all--Eve, his
+gift to Adam, is the last of this division of the series. As in Genesis,
+there is the bare, short statement, grand from its simplicity, and our
+knowledge of its after consequences; but in the words unimpassioned--so
+Raffaelle, that he might make his pictorial language agree with the
+written book, with utmost forbearance, lest he should tell more, and
+beyond his authority, in this portion of the series manifestly avoids
+expression, or the introduction of any feeling that would make the
+creatures more than the most passive recipients of the goodness of their
+Maker. Nor is there authority to show, that as _yet_ they were fully,
+perfectly conscious of the nature of the gifts of life and
+companionship; and we certainly do not agree with Mr Fuseli, that it was
+a moment for Adam to show his sensibility to the personal charms of
+Eve--the pure Adam--nor was he--the as yet untransgressing Adam--to feel
+fear, in "the awful presence of the Introductor." Raffaelle's aim seems
+to have been, to follow the text in its utmost simplicity, that the
+unlettered might read--and this justifies in him the personality of the
+Creator, and the apparently manual act of his creation, corresponding
+with the words--"God _made_." The "allegoric drama" of the Church
+empire, that fills the stanzas of the Vatican, is praised by Mr Fuseli,
+with a full understanding of the purpose of the painter, and feeling for
+its separate parts. He does not cavil, as some have done, at the
+anachronisms. "When," says an able, reflecting, and very amusing
+author,[2] "Aristotle, Plato, Leo X., and Cardinal Bembo, are brought
+together in the school of Athens, every person must admit, that such
+offences as these, against truths so obvious, if they do not arise from
+a defect of understanding, are instances of inexcusable carelessness."
+Here we think this writer has missed the key of explanation. The very
+picture is the history of the progress of mind, through science and
+philosophy, to the acknowledgment of an immortal being. The very subject
+amalgamates, in one moral idea, times, epochs, localities. It treats of
+that which passes over time, and embodies only its results. Mr Fuseli
+notices not these anachronisms, but says aptly of the picture--"What was
+the surmise of the eye and wish of hearts, is gradually made the result
+of reason, in the characters of the school of Athens, by the researches
+of philosophy, which, from bodies to mind, from corporeal harmony to
+moral fitness, and from the duties of society, ascends to the doctrine
+of God and hopes of immortality." The very entertaining author whom we
+have quoted above, we must here, somewhat out of place, observe, has,
+with Mr Fuseli, mistaken the character of Hogarth's works. He
+says--"Hogarth has painted comedy!" and what is very strange, he seems
+to rank him as a comedian with "Pope, Young and Crabbe"--the last, the
+most tragic in his pathos of any writer. The invention in the Cartoons
+comes next under Mr Fuseli's observation. "In whatever light we consider
+their invention, as parts of _one whole_, relative to each other, or
+independent _each of the rest_, and as single subjects, there can be
+scarcely named a beauty or a mystery, of which the Cartoons furnish not
+an instance or a clue; _they are poised between perspicuity and
+pregnancy of moment_." We believe we understand the latter sentence; it
+is, however, somewhat affected, and does not rightly balance the
+_perspicuity_. We must go back, however, to a passage preceding the
+remarks on the Cartoons; because we wish, above all things, to vindicate
+the purest of painters from charges of licentiousness. He sees in Cupid
+and Psyche a voluptuous history: this may or may not be so--we think it
+is far from being such; but when he adds, "the voluptuous history of his
+(Raffaelle's) own _favourite passion_," he is following a prejudice, an
+unfounded story--one which we think, too, has in no slight degree
+influenced his general criticism and estimation of Raffaelle. We would
+refer the reader to "Passavant's Life of Raffaelle," where he will see
+this subject investigated, and the tale refuted. It is surprising, but
+good men affect to speak of amorous passion as if it were a crime; by
+itself it may disgust, but surely coldness is not the better nature.
+Insensibilities of all kinds must be avoided, even where "Amor," as Mr
+Fuseli calls him, and Psyche are the subjects. It is the happiest genius
+that shall signify without offence the necessary existence of passion,
+and leave purity in its singleness and innocence. How exquisitely is
+this done by Shakspeare in his "Romeo and Juliet!" He keeps the lovers
+free from every grosser particle of love, while he throws it all upon
+the subordinate characters, particularly the nurse, whose part in the
+drama, in no small degree, tends to naturalise to our sympathy the
+youth, the personal beauty, and whole loveliness, of the unhappy Romeo
+and Juliet.
+
+The differences of manner in which the same subject, "the Murder of the
+Innocents," has been represented by several painters, according to the
+genius of each, are well noticed. "History, strictly so called, follows
+the drama; fiction now ceases, and invention consists only in selecting
+and fixing with dignity, precision, and sentiment, the moments of
+_reality_." He instances, by a given subject, that were the artist to
+choose the "Death of Germanicus," he is never to forget that he is to
+represent "a Roman dying amidst Romans," and not to suffer individual
+grief to un-Romanize his subject. "Germanicus, Agrippina, Caius,
+Vitellius, the Legates, the Centurions at Antioch, the hero, the
+husband, the father, the friend, the leader--the struggles of nature and
+sparks of hope, must be subjected to the physiognomic character and
+features of Germanicus, the son of Drusus, the Caesar of Tiberius.
+Maternal, female, connubial passion, must be tinged by Agrippina, the
+woman absorbed in the Roman, less lover than companion of her husband's
+grandeur. Even the bursts of friendship, attachment, allegiance, and
+revenge, must be stamped by the military ceremonial, and distinctive
+costume of Rome." For an instance of this propriety of invention in
+history, reference is made, we presume as much, to Mr West's "Death of
+Wolfe." Undoubtedly, this is Mr West's best picture. The praise from Mr
+Fuseli was, in all probability, purely academic; he frequently showed
+that he did not too highly estimate the genius of the painter. Having
+given these outlines of general and specific invention in the epic,
+dramatic, and historic branches of art, he admits that there is not
+always a nice discrimination of their limits: "and as the mind and fancy
+of man, upon the whole, consist of mixed qualities, we seldom meet with
+a human performance exclusively made up of epic, dramatic, or pure
+historic materials." This confession, as it appears to us, renders the
+classification useless to a student, and shows a yet incomplete view of
+arrangement, and specification of the power, subjects, and means of art.
+
+Indeed Mr Fuseli proceeds to instances wherein his epic assumes the
+dramatic, the dramatic the epic, and the historic both. There does seem
+something wanting in an arrangement which puts the _Iliad_ and
+_Odyssey_, two works essentially different, in the same category. We do,
+therefore, venture the opinion, that such distinctions are, more
+particularly in painting, not available. With Sir Joshua, he considers
+borrowing justifiable, and that it does not impair the originality of
+invention. The instances given of happy adoption are the "Torso of
+Apollonius," by Michael Angelo; of the figure of "Adam dismissed from
+Paradise," by Raffaelle, borrowed from Massaccio, as likewise the figure
+of "Paul at Athens;" and for figures of Michael Angelo's, Raffaelle,
+Parmegiano, Poussin, are all indebted to the cartoon of Pisa. The
+lecture concludes with some just remarks upon the "Transfiguration," and
+a censure upon the coldness of Richardson, and the burlesque of the
+French critic Falconet, who could not discover the point of contact
+which united the two parts of this celebrated picture. "Raphael's design
+was to represent Jesus as the Son of God, and, at the same time, the
+reliever of human misery, by an unequivocal fact. The transfiguration on
+Tabor, and the miraculous cure which followed the descent of Jesus,
+united, furnished the fact. The difficulty was, how to combine two
+successive actions in one moment. He overcame it, by sacrificing the
+moment of cure to that of the apparition, by implying the lesser miracle
+in the greater. In subordinating the cure to the vision, he obtained
+sublimity; in placing the crowd and patient on the foreground, he gained
+room for the full exertion of his dramatic powers. It was not necessary
+that the demoniac should be represented in the moment of recovery, if
+its certainty could be expressed by other means. It is implied, it is
+placed beyond all doubt, by the glorious apparition above; it is made
+nearly intuitive by the uplifted hand and finger of the apostle in the
+centre, who, without hesitation, undismayed by the obstinacy of the
+demon, unmoved by the clamour of the crowd, and the pusillanimous
+scepticism of some of his companions, refers the father of the maniac,
+in an authoritative manner, for certain and speedy help to his Master on
+the mountain above, whom, though unseen, his attitude at once connects
+with all that passes below. Here is the point of contact; here is that
+union of the two parts of the fact in one moment, which Richardson and
+Falconet could not discover."
+
+It is with diffidence that we would suggest any thing upon a work that
+has so nearly exhausted criticism; but we will venture an observation,
+and if we are correct, the glory of the subject is heightened by its
+adoption. It has ever appeared to us to have purposed showing at one
+view, humanity in its highest, its divinely perfected state, the manhood
+taken into Godhead; and humanity in its lowest, its most forlorn, most
+degraded state, in the person of a demoniac: and this contrast seems
+acknowledged--abhorrently felt, by the reluctant spirit within the
+sufferer, whose attitude, starting from the effulgence and the power
+which is yet to heal him, being the strong action of the lower part of
+the picture, and one of suffering, throws the eye and mind of the
+spectator at once and permanently from earth to the heavenly vision, to
+ascending prophets, and that bright and central majesty, "whose
+countenance," Mr. Fuseli observes, "is the only one we know expressive
+of his superhuman nature." This idea of transformation to a higher
+nature is likewise kept up in the figures of the ascending prophets, and
+the apostles below.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Fourth Lecture is in continuation of the subject--Invention; but we
+have left little space for further remarks. In another number of Maga we
+shall resume our review of the lectures.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Perhaps the author of the lectures received this ill
+opinion of Pausanias from Julius Caesar Scaliger, who treats him as an
+impostor; but he is amply vindicated by Vossius. He lived in the second
+century, and died very old at Rome. In his account of the numerous
+representations of the [Greek: Charites], he seems to throw some light
+upon a passage in Xenophon's Memorabilia, which, as far as we know, has
+escaped the notice of the commentators. It is in the dialogue between
+Socrates and the courtesan Theodote. She wishes that he would come to
+her, to teach her the art of charming men. He replies, that he has no
+leisure, being hindered by many matters of private and public
+importance; and he adds, "I have certain mistresses which will not allow
+me to be absent from them day nor night, on account of the spells and
+charms, which learning, they receive from me"--[Greek: eisi de kai
+philai moi, ai oute hemeras oute nuktos aph autôn easousi me apienai,
+philtra te manthanousai par emon kai epôdas.] Who were these [Greek:
+philai]? Had he meant the virtues or moral qualities, he would have
+spoken plainer, as was his wont; but here, where the subject is the
+personal beauty, the charms of Theodote, it is more in the Socratic vein
+that he refers to other _personal_ charms, which engage his thoughts
+night and day, and keep him at home. Now, it appears too, that Socrates
+was taken to see her, on account of the fame of her beauty, and goes to
+her when she is sitting, or rather standing, to a painter; and it is
+evident from the dialogue, that she did not refuse the exhibition of her
+personal charms. It seems, then, not improbable, that Socrates was
+induced to go to her as the painter went, for the advantage of his art
+as a sculptor, and that the art was that one at home, the [Greek: tis
+philôtera sou endon]. Be that as it may, it is extremely probable that
+the [Greek: philai] were some personifications of feminine beauty, upon
+which he was then at work. Are there, then, any such recorded as from
+his hand? Pausanias says there were. "Thus Socrates, the son of
+Sophroniscus, made for the Athenians statues of the Graces, before the
+vestibule of the citadel," And adds the curious fact, that after that
+time the Graces were represented naked, and that these were clothed.
+[Greek: Sôkratês te o Sôphrotonischon pro tês es tên akropolin esodon
+Charitôn eirgasato agalmata Athênaiois. Kai tauta men estin homoiôs
+apanta en esthêti. Oi de usteron, ouk oida eph hotô, metabeblêkasi to
+schêma autais. Charitas goun, oi kat eme eplasson te kai egraphon
+gumnas]. Did not Socrates allude to these his statues of the
+Graces?--_Pausanias_, cap. xxxv. lib. 9.
+
+[2] _The Literary Conglomerate, or Combination of Various
+Thoughts and Facts._ Oxford: 1839. Printed by Thomas Combe.
+
+
+
+
+SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC.
+
+
+Gentle Christians, pity us! We are just returned from a musical
+entertainment, and, with aching head and stunned ears, sit down and try
+to recover our equanimity, sorely disturbed by the infliction which, we
+regret to say, we have survived. Had we known how to faint, we had done
+so on the spot, that ours might have been the bliss of being carried out
+over the heads and shoulders of the audience ere the performance had
+well begun--a movement that would have insured us the unfeigned thanks
+of all whom we had rescued from their distressing situation under
+pretence of bearing us off, splashing us with cold water, causing doors
+to bang impressively during our exit, and the various other _petit
+soins_ requisite to the conducting a "faint" with dignity.
+
+But it could not be accomplished. We made several awkward attempts, so
+little like, that their only result was our being threatened with a
+policeman it we made any more disturbance; so, after a hasty glance
+round had assured us of the impracticability of making our escape in any
+more everyday style, we sat down with a stern resolution of
+endurance--lips firmly compressed, eyes fixed in a stony gaze on the
+orchestra, whence issued by turns groans, shrieks, and screams, from
+sundry foully-abused instruments of music; accompanied by equally
+appalling sounds from flat, shrill signorinas, quavering to distraction,
+backed by gigantic "basses," (double ones surely,) who, with voices like
+the "seven devils" of the old Grecian, bellowed out divers
+sentimentalisms about dying for love, when assuredly their most
+proximate danger was of apoplexy.
+
+Well, the affair came to an end, as, it is to be hoped, will every other
+evil in this wicked world; in a spasm of thankfulness we extricated
+ourselves from the crush, and reached our home, where, under the genial
+influence of quiet and a cup of coffee, we can afford to laugh at the
+past, (our own vehement indignation included,) and ruminate calmly on
+the "how" and the "why" of the nuisance, which appears to us as well
+worthy of being put down by act of parliament, as the ringing of muffin
+bells and crying "sweep!"
+
+It is a perfect puzzle to us by what process the standard of music has
+become so lowered, as to make what is ordinarily served up under that
+name be received as the legitimate descendant of the harmony divine
+which erst broke on the ear of the listening world, when "the morning
+stars sang together;" and, in the first freshness of its
+creation--teeming with melody--angels deigned to visit this terrestrial
+paradise, nor turned an exile's gaze to that heaven whose strains were
+chanted in glad accordance with the murmuring stream, and music of the
+waving forest--which, in its greenness and beauty, seemed but "a little
+lower" than its celestial archetype, for
+
+     "Earth hath _this_ variety from heaven."
+
+(Blessings on the poet for that line! We have a most firm belief in
+Milton, and receive his representations of heaven as we would those of a
+Daguerreotype.)
+
+But it is even so. There is but one step from the sublime to the
+ridiculous, and this entrancing art, it seems, has taken it; sorely
+dislocating its graceful limbs, and injuring its goodly proportions in
+the unseemly escapade. There--we have played over a simple air, one that
+thrills through our heart of hearts; and as the notes die on our ears,
+soothing though the strain be, we feel our indignation increase, and
+glow still more fiercely against this--music, as it is by courtesy
+called, for Heaven knows it has no legitimate claim to the name!--till
+it reaches the crusading point, and we rush headlong to a war of
+extermination against bars, rests, crotchets, quavers--undaunted even by
+"staves," and formidable inflated semibreves.
+
+We hate your crashing, clumsy chords, and utterly spit at and defy
+chromatic passages from one end of the instrument to the other, and back
+again; flats, sharps, and most appropriate "naturals," splattered all
+over the page. The essential spirit of discord seems let loose on our
+modern music, tainted, as it were, with the moral infection that has
+seized the land; it is music for a democracy, not the stately, solemn
+measure of imperial majesty. Music to soothe! the idea is obsolete,
+buried with the ruffs and farthingales of our great-grandmothers; or, to
+speak more soberly, with the powdered wigs and hoops of their daughters.
+There is music to excite, much to irritate one, and much more to drive a
+really musical soul stark mad; but none to soothe, save that which is
+drawn from the hiding-places of the past.
+
+We should like to catch one of the old masters--Handel, for
+instance--and place him within the range of one of our modern
+executioners, to whose taste(!) _carte-blanche_ had been given. We think
+we see him under the infliction. Neither the hurling of wig, nor yet of
+kettle-drum, at the head of the performer, would relieve his outraged
+spirit: he would strangle the offender on the spot, and hang himself
+afterwards; and the jury would, in the first case, return a verdict of
+justifiable homicide, and, in the second, of justifiable suicide, with a
+deodand of no ordinary magnitude on the musical instrument that had led
+to the catastrophe.
+
+There is no repose, no refreshment to the mind, in our popular
+compositions; they are like Turner's skies--they harass and fatigue,
+leaving you certainly wondering at their difficulty, but, as certainly,
+wishing they had been "impossible." There is to us more of touching
+pathos, heart-thrilling expression, in some of the old psalm-tunes,
+feelingly played, than in a whole batch of modernisms. The strains go
+_home_, and the "fountains of the great deep are broken up"--the great
+deep of unfathomable feeling, that lies far, far below the surface of
+the world-hardened heart; and as the unwonted, yet unchecked, tear
+starts to the eye, the softened spirit yields to their influence, and
+shakes off the moil of earthly care; rising, purified and spiritualized,
+into a clearer atmosphere. Strange, inexplicable associations brood over
+the mind,
+
+     "Like the far-off dreams of paradise,"
+
+mingling their chaste melancholy with musings of a still subdued, though
+more cheerful character. How many glad hearts in the olden time have
+rejoiced in these songs of praise--how many sorrowful ones sighed out
+their complaints in those plaintive notes, that steal sadly, yet
+sweetly, on the ear--hearts that, now cold in death, are laid to rest
+around that sacred fane, within whose walls they had so often swelled
+with emotion! Tell us not of neatly trimmed "cemeteries," redolent of
+staring sunflowers, priggish shrubs, and all the modern coxcombry of the
+tomb; with nicely swept gravel walks, lest the mourner should get "wet
+on's feet," and vaults numbered like warehouses, where "parties may
+bring their own minister," and be buried with any form, or no form, if
+they like it better. No, give us the village churchyard with its sombre
+yew-trees, among which
+
+     "The dial, hid by weeds and flowers,
+     Hath told, by none beheld, the solitary hours;"
+
+its grassy hillocks, and mouldering grave-stones, where haply all record
+is obliterated, and nought but a solitary "resurgam" meets the enquiring
+eye; its white-robed priest reverently committing "earth to earth," in
+sure and certain hope "of a joyful resurrection" to the slumbering clay,
+that was wont to worship within the grey and time-stained walls, whence
+the mournful train have now borne him to his last rest; while on the
+ivy-clad tower fall the slanting golden beams of an autumnal sun, that,
+in its declining glory, seems to whisper of hope and consolation to the
+sorrowful ones, reminding them that the night of the tomb shall not
+endure for ever, but that, so surely as the great orb of day shall
+return on the wings of the morning to chase away the tears of the
+lamenting earth, so surely shall the dust, strewed around that temple,
+scattered though it may be to the winds of heaven, "rise again" in the
+morning of the Resurrection, when death "shall be swallowed up in
+victory."
+
+     "'Tis fit his trophies should be rife
+     Around the place where he's subdued;
+     The gate of death leads forth to life."
+
+But we are wandering sadly from our subject; it is perhaps quite as well
+that we have done so, for we should have become dangerous had we dwelt
+much longer on it. We were on the point of wishing (Nero-like) that our
+popular professors of the tuneful art had but one neck, that we might
+exterminate them at a blow, or hang them with one gigantic
+fiddle-string; but now, thanks to our episode, our exacerbated feelings
+are so far mollified, that we will be content with wishing them
+sentenced to grind knives on oil-less stones with creaking axles, till
+the sufferings of their own shall have taught them consideration for the
+ears of other people.
+
+But music, real music--not in the harsh, exaggerated style now in the
+ascendant, but simple, pure, melodious, such as might have entranced the
+soul of a Handel, when, in some vision of night, sounds swept from
+angelic harps have floated around him, the gifted one, in whose liquid
+strains and stately harmonies fall on our ravished ears the echoes of
+that immortal joy--such we confess to be one of our idols, before whose
+shrine we pay a willing, gladsome homage; though now, alas! it must be
+in dens and caves of the earth, since _modern_ heresy has banished it
+from the temple of Apollo.
+
+See how Toryism peeps out even in the fine arts! _Even_ did we say? They
+are its legitimate province; "The old is better," is inscribed in
+glowing character on the portals of the past. Old Painting! See the
+throbbing form start from the pregnant canvass--the "Mother of God"
+folding her Divine Son to her all but celestial arms--the Son of God
+fainting beneath a load of woe, not his own. Old Poetry! Glorious old
+Homer, with his magic song; and sturdy, oak-like in his strength, as in
+his verdure, old Chaucer. Old Music! Hail, ye inspired sons of the lyre!
+A noble host are ye, enshrined in the hearts of all loyal worshippers of
+the tuneful god. And yet (we grieve to confess it) we, even we, spite of
+all our enthusiasm, have been seen laughing at "old music," the aspiring
+psalmody of a country church singing-pew.
+
+Oh, to see the row of performers, the consequential choir, transcending
+in importance (in their own eyes) the clerk, the curate, the rector, and
+even the squire from the great hall, majestic and stern though he be,
+with his awful wig and gold-headed cane! There are the fubsy
+boys--copied apparently from cherubim--who, with glowing, distended
+cheeks, are simpering on the ceiling, _doing_ the tenor, with wide open
+mouths that would shame e'er a barn-door in the village; their red,
+stumpy fingers sprawling over the music which they are (not) reading.
+The pale, lantern-jawed youths, in yellow waistcoats and tall
+shirt-collars, who look as if they were about to whistle a match, are
+holloing out what is professionally, and in this instance with most
+distressing truth, termed counter. "Counter" it is with a vengeance; and
+not only so, but it is a neck-and-neck race between them and the urchins
+aforesaid, which shall have done first. The shock-headed man, with chin
+dropped into his neckerchief, and mouth twisted into every
+_un_imaginable contortion, as though grinning through a horse-collar,
+has the bass confided to his faithful keeping; and emits a variety of
+growls and groans truly appalling, though evidently to his own great
+comfort and satisfaction. The bassoon, the clarinet, the flute--but
+how shall we describe them! Suffice it to say, that they appeared
+to be suffering inexpressible torments at the hands of their
+apoplectic-looking performers; who were all at the last gasp, and all
+determined to die bravely at their posts. And then the entranced
+audience, with half-shut eyes and quivering palms! Oh, it was too much;
+we lost our character typo irretrievably that day; half suppressed
+titters from the squire's pew were not to be borne. In that unhappy
+moment we sinned away some quarter of a century's unrivalled reputation
+for good manners and musical taste. Old Fiddlestrings never forgave us,
+never did he vouchsafe us another anthem, spite of our entreaties and
+protestations, and the thousand and one apologies for our ill-timed
+merriment, which our fruitful brain invented on the spot. To his dying
+day he preserved the utmost contempt for our judgment, not only in this
+department of the fine arts, but also on every other subject. Not to
+admire his music, was condemnation in every thing--an unpardonable
+offence. We, who had been his great friend, patron, (or rather he was
+ours,) to whom he had so often condescended on the Saturday evening to
+hum, whistle, and too-too over the tune--of his own composing--that was
+to be the admiration of the whole parish on the succeeding day--we were
+henceforth to be as the uninitiated, and left to find out, and follow,
+as we best might, the very eccentric windings of his Sunday's asthmatic
+performance; which always went at the rate of three crotchets and a
+cough, to the end of the psalm, which he took care should be an especial
+long one.
+
+Poor old man! we see him now, with his unruly troop of Sunday scholars
+(in training for some important festival, to the due celebration of
+which their labours were essential) singing, bawling we should say, out
+of time and tune, to the utter discomfiture of his irritable temper,
+(there is nothing like a false note for throwing your musical man into a
+perfect tantrum,) and the bringing down on their unlucky heads a smart
+tap with the bow of his violin, which led the harmony. There they stood
+with their brown cheeks and white heads, fine specimens of the
+agricultural interest; each one of them looking as if he could bolt a
+poor, half-starved factory child at a mouthful--but certainly no
+singers. It was beyond the power even of the accomplished old clerk
+himself to make then such--an oyster, with its mouth full of sand, would
+have sung quite as well; but still he laboured on with might and
+main--with closed eyes, and open mouth--delightedly beating time with
+his head, as long as matters went on not intolerably; for David's
+musical soul supplied the deficiency in the sounds that entered his
+unwearied ears. And then he sang so loud himself, that he certainly
+could hear no one else, his voice being as monopolizing as the drone of
+a bagpipe--or as a violent advocate for free trade! Happy urchins when
+this was the case! for they were sure to be dismissed with the most
+flattering encomiums on their vocal powers, when, if truth must be told,
+the good old man had not heard a note.
+
+But he is gathered to his fathers, and now sleeps beneath the sod in the
+quiet churchyard of----. We well remember his funeral. 'Twas a lovely
+day in spring when the long, lifeless trees and fields were bursting
+into all the glory of May--for May was spring then, and not, as now,
+cousin-german to winter; while the gay sunbeams played lovingly, like
+youth caressing age, on the low church-tower, gilding the ivy that waved
+in wild luxuriance around it. Slowly moved on the lowly train that bore
+to the "house appointed for all living" the mortal remains of one whom
+they well loved, and whose removal from among them--essential as he had
+always seemed to the very identity of the village--was an event they had
+never contemplated and which they now, in its unexpectedness, sorely
+lamented. The village choir preceded it, singing those strains which
+poor David's voice had so often led; and surely, for once, the spirit of
+the old man rested on his refractory pupils; for rarely have I heard
+sweeter notes than those that swelled on the balmy air, as the dusky
+procession wound its way across the heath, waving with harebells, and
+along the narrow lane, whose hedges were beginning to show the first
+faint rose, till it reached the church porch, where the good rector
+himself was waiting to pay the last token of respect to his humble
+friend; while groups of villagers were loitering around to witness the
+simple rites. Entering within the church, again was the voice of melody
+heard, and again was as sweetly chanted that mournful psalm, which is
+appointed, with such affecting appropriateness, for the burial of the
+dead. "I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not in my
+tongue; I will keep my mouth, as it were, with a bridle, while the
+ungodly is in my sight." Then came the dull, hollow sound of "earth to
+earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes;" and so, amid many tears, (and we
+confess our eyes were not dry,) closed the grave over one who, despite
+some innocent, though mirth-provoking failings, was honoured by all who
+knew him for the stern, unbending integrity of his character, and the
+strictness with which he fulfilled all the duties of life. David was an
+_honest_ man, one whose "word was as good as his bond," who "promised to
+his hurt, and changed not." Would that as much might be said of many who
+move in a higher sphere, and make far larger professions of sanctity
+than he did! But he shall be remembered, when their names are blotted
+out for ever.
+
+        "Only the actions of the just
+     Smell sweet in death, and blossom in the dust."
+
+The music which we hear in our social intercourse, is too generally--we
+say it in grief, but in truth--detestable. "Like figures on a
+dial-plate," sit the four-and-twenty Englishmen and Englishwomen, who
+have been drawn together to receive their friend's hospitality; till the
+awful silence convinces the host that some desperate effort must be made
+to break the spell, and that the best thing is some music to set them
+a-talking. Some _mimini-pimini_ Miss is in consequence selected as the
+victim, (or rather, the victimizer,) and requested to "pain" the
+company. She fidgets, bridles, and duly declines, at the same time
+vigorously pulling off one of her gloves in evident preparation for the
+attack. After much pressing, she reluctantly yields to what she had from
+the first made up her mind to do; takes her seat at a grand pianoforte,
+behind a couple of candles and an enormous music-book, and--crash go the
+keys in a thundering prelude, (the pedal, and every other means of
+increasing the noise being unscrupulously resorted to,) which, after
+superhuman exertions, lands her in what, to our affrighted and stunned
+ears, is evidently the key of Z flat! Who would have thought those
+delicate hands could thus descend with the vigour of a pavior's hammer
+on the unhappy ivories, that groan and shriek beneath the infliction, as
+though fully sensible of the surpassing cruelty with which they are
+treated.
+
+But hark! she sings--"Romè, Romè, thou art _n'more_," (_sic_)--a furious
+scramble on the keys, with a concluding bang--"On thy seven hills thou
+satt'st of yore,"--another still more desperate and discordant flourish,
+which continues alternating with her "most sweet voice," till she has
+piped through the whole of her song: when the group around, apprehensive
+of a repetition of the torture to which they have been subjected,
+overwhelm her with thanks and expressions of admiration, under cover of
+which they hurry her to her seat. Such is the stuff palmed off on us,
+varied as it is by glees, screamed out by four voices all in different
+keys; solos, squeaked out by stout gentlemen, and roared by pale lanky
+lads of eighteen; duets by young ladies, who accidentally set out on
+discordant notes, and don't find out the mistake till they come to the
+finale; with occasionally a psalm crooned by worthy sexagenarians,
+guiltless alike of ear and voice, but who, seeming to think it a duty to
+add their mite to the inexpressible dissonance, perform the same to the
+unmixed dismay of all their hearers.
+
+We would far rather hear an unpretending street organ than such
+abominations; and, indeed, some of the itinerant music is, to our
+unsophisticated ears, sweet beyond expression, especially when
+accompanied, as it is sometimes, by a rich Italian or reedy German
+voice; for whose sake we can forgive the tuneless squalls that too often
+greet our ears from ambulatory minstrels, be they of the Madonna, or
+fishy, Dutch-swamp style of beauty. A sweet-toned street organ, heard in
+the distance, when all around is still, is not a thing to be despised,
+by those who have music enough in their souls to respond to the
+slightest touches of Apollo's lyre. If the heart be but attuned to
+harmony, it will vibrate to the simplest notes, faint though they be, as
+by the wafting of the evening breeze among the chords of a neglected
+harp, sadly hung upon the willows; it will cherish the feeblest idea,
+and nurture it into perfect melody. As love begets love, so does harmony
+beget its kind in the heart of him who can strike the keynote of nature,
+and listen to the wild and solemn sounds that swell from her mysterious
+treasure-house, and echo among her "eternal hills," while the celestial
+arch concludes and re-affirms the wondrous cadence. But these are
+secrets revealed to none but her loving worshipper; he who, with a
+reverential homage, seeks the hidden recesses of her temple, to bend in
+awe before her purest shrine. From him who lingers heedlessly in her
+antechamber with faint loyalty, they are deeply veiled, and the glowing
+revelations of her favoured ones seem but as the recital of a dream to
+his cold heart: for "to _love_ is to know."
+
+But surely of all instruments, the violin, first-rately played, is the
+most--yes, we will say it--heavenly. Hark! to the clear, vocal melody,
+now rapturously rising in one soul-exalting strain, anon melting away in
+the saddest, tenderest lament, as though the soft summer breeze sighed
+forth a requiem over the dying graces of its favourite flower; then
+bursting forth in haughty, triumphant notes, swept in gusts from the
+impassioned strings, as though instinct with life, and glowing with
+disdain. Any one may see that painters are no musicians, else had they
+furnished their angels not with harps--beautiful and sparkling as the
+sea-foam, as are their most graceful chords--but with this, of all
+instruments the most musical, whose tones admit of more variety than
+any, (the Proteus organ alone excepted,) and whose delicious long-drawn
+notes must entrance every one not absolutely soulless. Oh, they are
+excruciatingly delightful! And yet you shall hear this identical violin,
+in the hands of an everyday performer, emit such squeals and screams as
+shall set your teeth on edge for a twelvemonth, curdle your whole frame,
+and make you vehemently anathematize all benevolent institutions for the
+relief of deafness.
+
+Verily your violin is an exclusive instrument, and approachable by none
+but the eldest born of Apollo, who, in all the majesty of hereditary
+prerogative, calmly sway the dominions of their sire; while usurpers (as
+is the meed of all who grasp unrighteous rule) are plunged in utter
+confusion and ruin.
+
+Warming with our theme, and impatient to manifest our royal descent, in
+a paroxysm of enthusiasm we clutch our Cremona, clasp him lovingly to
+our shoulder, and high waving in air our magical bow, which is to us a
+sceptre, bring it down with a crash, exulting in the immortal harmony
+about to gush, like a mountain torrent, from the teeming strings; when
+lo! to our unmitigated disgust, it glides noiselessly along its hitherto
+resounding path, for--ye gods and little fishes!--some murderous wretch,
+at the instigation of we know not what evil sprite, has _greased_ the
+horsehair, for which we solemnly devote him to the "bowstring," the
+first time he is caught napping.
+
+Well, it is over now, and we find ourselves once more on earth, after
+knocking our head gainst the stars; and, ---- ---- bless us! we have sat
+the fire out, having precisely one inch of candle left to go to bed by.
+
+Good night, dearest reader. Can you find your way in the dark?
+
+M. J.
+
+
+
+
+THE PURPLE CLOAK; OR, THE RETURN OF SYLOSON TO SAMOS.
+
+HEROD. III. 139.
+
+
+  I.
+
+  The king sat on his lofty throne in Susa's palace fair,
+  And many a stately Persian lord, and satrap proud, was there:
+  Among his councillors he sat, and justice did to all--
+  No supplicant e'er went unredrest from Susa's palace-hall.
+
+  II.
+
+  There came a slave and louted low before Darius' throne,
+  "A wayworn suppliant waits without--he is poor and all alone,
+  And he craves a boon of thee, oh king! for he saith that he has done
+  Good service, in the olden time, to Hystaspes' royal son."
+
+  III.
+
+  "Now lead him hither," quoth the king; "no suppliant e'er shall wait,
+  While I am lord in Susa's halls, unheeded at the gate;
+  And speak thy name, thou wanderer poor, pray thee let me know
+  To whom the king of Persia's land this ancient debt doth owe."
+
+  IV.
+
+  The stranger bow'd before the king--and thus began to speak--
+  Full well, I ween, his garb was worn, and with sorrow pale his cheek,
+  But his air was free and noble, and proudly flash'd his eye,
+  As he stood unknown in that high hall, and thus he made reply--
+
+  V.
+
+  "From Samos came I, mighty king, and Syloson my name;
+  My brother was Polycrates, a chief well known to fame;
+  That brother drove me from my home--a wanderer forth I went--
+  And since that hour my weary soul has never known content!
+
+  VI.
+
+  "Methinks I need not tell to thee my brother's mournful fate;
+  He lies within his bloody grave--a churl usurps his state--
+  Moeandrius lords it o'er the land, my brother's base born slave;
+  Restore me to that throne, oh king! this, this, the boon I crave.
+
+  VII.
+
+  "Nay, start not; let me tell my tale! I pray thee look on me,
+  And, prince, thou soon shalt know the cause that I ask this gift of thee;
+  Round Persia's king a bristling ring of spearmen standeth now,
+  But when Cambyses wore the crown--a wanderer poor wast _thou_!
+
+  VIII.
+
+  "Remember'st not, oh king! the day when, in old Memphis town,
+  Upon the night ye won the fight, thou wast pacing up and down?
+  The costly cloak that then I wore, its colours charm'd thy eye--
+  In sooth it was a gorgeous robe, of purple Tyrian dye--
+
+  IX.
+
+  "Let base-born peasants buy and sell, I gave that cloak to thee!
+  And for that gift on thee bestow'd, grant thou this boon to me--
+  I ask not silver, ask not gold--I ask of thee to stand
+  A prince once more on Samos' shore--my own ancestral land!"
+
+  X.
+
+  "Oh! best and noblest," quoth the king, "thou ne'er shalt rue the day,
+  When to Cambyses' spearman poor thou gav'st thy cloak away;
+  The faithless eye each well-known form and feature may forget,
+  But the deeds of generous kindness done--the heart remembers yet.
+
+  XI.
+
+  "To-day thou art a wanderer sad, but thou shalt sit, erelong,
+  Within thy fair ancestral hall, and hear the minstrel's song;
+  To-day thou art a homeless man--to-morrow thou shalt stand--
+  A conqueror and a sceptred king--upon thy native land.
+
+  XII.
+
+  "A cloud is on thy brow to-day--thy lot is poor and low,
+  To all who gaze on thee thou seem'st a man of want and wo;
+  But thou shalt drain the bowl erelong within thy own bright isle,
+  A wreath of roses round thy head, and on thy brow a smile."
+
+  XIII.
+
+  And he called the proud Otanes, one of the seven was he
+  Who laid the Magian traitor low, and set their country free;
+  And he bade him man a gallant fleet, and sail without delay,
+  To the pleasant isle of Samos, in the fair Icarian bay.
+
+  XIV.
+
+  "To place yon chief on Samos' throne, Otanes, be thy care,
+  But bloodless let thy victory be, his Samian people spare!"
+  For thus the generous chieftain said, when he made his high demand,
+  "I had rather still an exile roam, than waste my native land."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PART II.
+
+  I.
+
+  Oh, "monarchs' arms are wondrous long!"[3] their power is wondrous great,
+  But not to them 'tis given to stem the rushing tide of fate.
+  A king may man a gallant fleet, an island fair may give,
+  But can he blunt the sword's sharp edge, or bid the dead to live?
+
+
+  II.
+
+  They leave the strand, that gallant band, their ships are in the bay,
+  It was a glorious sight, I ween, to view that proud array;
+  And there, amid the Persian chiefs, himself he holds the helm,
+  Sits lovely Samos' future lord--he comes to claim his realm!
+
+  III.
+
+  Moeandrius saw the Persian fleet come sailing proudly down,
+  And his troops he knew were all too few to guard a leaguer'd town;
+  So he laid his crown and sceptre down, his recreant life to save--
+  Who thus resigns a kingdom fair deserves to be a slave.
+
+  IV.
+
+  He calls his band--he seeks the strand--they grant him passage free--
+  "And shall they then," his brother cried, "have a bloodless victory?
+  No--grant me but those spears of thine, and I soon to them shall show,
+  There yet are men in Samos left to face the Persian foe."
+
+  V.
+
+  The traitor heard his brother's word, and he gave the youth his way;
+  "An empty land, proud Syloson, shall lie beneath thy sway."
+  That youth has arm'd those spearmen stout--three hundred men in all--
+  And on the Persian chiefs they fell, before the city's wall.
+
+  VI.
+
+  The Persian lords before the wall were sitting all in state,
+  They deem'd the island was at peace--they reck'd not of their fate;
+  When on them came the fiery youth[4]--with desperate charge he came--
+  And soon lay weltering in his gore full many a chief of fame.
+
+  VII.
+
+  The outrage rude Otanes view'd, and fury fired his breast--
+  And to the winds the chieftain cast his monarch's high behest.
+  He gave the word, that angry lord--"War, war unto the death!"
+  Then many a scimitar flash'd forth impatient from its sheath.
+
+  VIII.
+
+  Through Samos wide, from side to side, the carnage is begun,
+  And ne'er a mother there is seen, but mourns a slaughter'd son;
+  From side to side, through Samos wide, Otanes hurls his prey,
+  Few, few, are left in that fair isle, their monarch to obey!
+
+  IX.
+
+  The new-made monarch sits in state in his loved ancestral bow'rs,
+  And he bids his minstrel strike the lyre, and he crowns his head
+    with flow'rs;
+  But still a cloud is on his brow--where is the promised smile?
+  And yet he sits a sceptred king--in his own dear native isle.
+
+  X.
+
+  Oh! Samos dear, my native land! I tread thy courts again--
+  But where are they, thy gallant sons? I gaze upon the slain--
+  "A dreary kingdom mine, I ween," the mournful monarch said,
+  "Where are my subjects good and true? I reign but o'er the dead!
+
+  XI.
+
+  "Ah! woe is me--I would that I had ne'er to Susa gone,
+  To ask that fatal boon of thee, Hystaspes' generous son.
+  Oh, deadly fight! oh, woeful sight! to greet a monarch's eyes!
+  All desolate--my native land, reft of her children, lies!"
+
+  XII.
+
+  Thus mourn'd the chief--and no relief his regal state could bring.
+  O'er such a drear unpeopled waste, oh! who would be a king?
+  And still, when desolate a land, and her sons all swept away,
+  "The waste domain of Syloson," 'tis call'd unto this day!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Greek proverb.
+
+[4] "The fiery youth, with desperate charge,
+ Made for a space an opening large."--MARMION.
+
+
+
+
+LOVE AND DEATH.
+
+
+  O strong as the Eagle,
+    O mild as the Dove!
+  How like, and how unlike,
+    O Death and O Love!
+
+  Knitting Earth to the Heaven,
+    The Near to the Far--
+  With the step on the dust,
+    And the eyes on the star!
+
+  Interweaving, commingling,
+    _Both_ rays from God's light!
+  Now in sun, now in shadow,
+    Ye shift to the sight!
+
+  Ever changing the sceptres
+    Ye bear--as in play;
+  Now Love as Death rules us,
+    Now Death has Love's sway!
+
+  Why wails so the New-born?
+    Love gave it the breath.
+  The soul sees Love's brother--
+    Life enters on Death!
+
+  Why that smile the wan lips
+    Of the dead man above?
+  The soul sees Death changing
+    Its shape into Love.
+
+  So confused and so blending
+    Each twin with its brother,
+  The frown of one melts
+    In the smile of the other.
+
+  Love warms where Death withers,
+    Death blights where Love blooms;
+  Death sits by our cradles,
+    Love stands by our tombs!
+
+Edward Lytton Bulwer.
+
+Nov. 9, 1843.
+
+
+
+
+THE BRIDGE OVER THE THUR.
+
+FROM THE GERMAN.--GUSTAV SCHWAB.
+
+
+ Spurning the loud THUR'S headlong march,
+ Who hath stretcht the stony arch?
+ That the wayfarer blesses his path!
+ That the storming river wastes his wrath!
+
+ Was it a puissant prince, in quelling
+ This watery vassal, oft rebelling?--
+ Or earthly Mars, the bar o'erleaping,
+ That wrong'd his war of its onward sweeping?
+
+ Did yon high-nesting Castellan
+ Lead the brave Street, for horse and man?
+ And, the whiles his House creeps under the grass,
+ The Road, that he built, lies fair to pass?
+
+ Nay! not for the Bridge, which ye look upon,
+ Manly hest knit stone with stone.
+ The loved word of a woman's mouth
+ Bound the thundering chasm with a rocky growth.
+
+ She, in turret, who sitteth lone,
+ Listing the broad stream's heavier groan,
+ Kenning the flow, from his loosen'd fountains,
+ From the clouds, that have wash'd a score of mountains.
+
+ A skiff she notes, by the shelvy marge,
+ Wont deftly across to speed its charge;
+ Now jumping and twisting, like leaf on a lynn,
+ Wo! if a foot list cradle therein!
+
+ Sooner, than hath she THOUGHT her FEELING,
+ With travellers twain is the light plank reeling.
+ Who are they?... Marble watcher! Who?
+ Thy beautiful, youthful, only two!
+
+ Coming, glad, from the greenwood slaughter,
+ They reach the suddenly-swollen water;
+ But the nimble, strong, and young,
+ Boldly into the bark have sprung.
+
+ The game in the forest fall, stricken and bleeding;
+ Those river-waves are of other breeding!
+ And the shriek of the mother helpeth not,
+ At seeing turn upwards the keel of the boat.
+
+ Whilst her living pulses languish,
+ As she taketh in her anguish,
+ By the roar, her soul which stuns,
+ On the corses of her sons.
+
+ Needs must she upon the mothers think,
+ Who yet may stand beholding sink,
+ Under the hastily-roused billow,
+ Sons, upthriven to be their pillow.
+
+ Till, in her deeply-emptied bosom,
+ There buds a melancholy blossom,
+ Tear-nourisht:--the will the wo to spare
+ To others, which hath left her bare.
+
+ Ere doth her sorrow a throe abate,
+ Is chiseling and quarrying, early, late.
+ The hoarse flood chafes, with straiten'd tides:
+ Aloft, the proud Arch climbs and strides.
+
+ How her eyes, she fastens on frolicsome boys,
+ O'er the stone way racing, with careless noise.
+ Hark!--hark!--the wild Thur, how he batters his rocks!
+ But YE gaze, laugh, and greet the gruff chider, with mocks.
+
+ Or, she vieweth with soft footfall,
+ Mothers, following their children all.
+ A gleam of pleasure, a spring of yearning,
+ Sweetens her tears, dawns into her mourning.
+
+ And her pious work endureth!
+ And her pain a slumber cureth!
+ Heareth not yonder torrent's jars!
+ Hath her young sons above the stars!
+
+Fontainbleau, 1843.
+
+
+
+
+THE BANKING-HOUSE.
+
+A HISTORY IN THREE PARTS. PART II.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A NEGOTIATION.
+
+
+It is vastly amusing to contemplate the activity and perseverance which
+are exhibited in the regard shown by every man for his individual
+interests. Be our faults what they may--and our neighbours are not slow
+to discover them--it is very seldom indeed that we are charged with
+remissness in this respect. So far from this being the case, a moralist
+of the present day, in a work of no mean ability, has undertaken to
+prove that selfishness is the great and crying evil of the age. Without
+venturing to affirm so wholesale a proposition, which necessarily
+includes in its censure professors and professions _par excellence_
+unsecular and liberal, we may be permitted in charity to express our
+regret, that the rewards apportioned to good men in heaven are not
+bestowed upon those in whom the selfish principle is most rampant,
+instead of being strictly reserved for others in whom it is least
+influential; since it is more pleasing to consider celestial joys in
+connexion with humanity at large, than with an infinitesimal minority of
+mortals.
+
+Whilst Michael Allcraft coolly and designedly looked around him, in the
+hope of fixing on the prey he had resolved to find--whilst, cautious as
+the midnight housebreaker, who dreads lest every step may wake his
+sleeping victim, he almost feared to do what most he had at heart, and
+strove by ceaseless effort to bring into his face the show of
+indifference and repose;--whilst he was thus engaged, there were many,
+on the other hand, eager and impatient to crave from him, as for a boon,
+all that he himself was but too willing to bestow. Little did Michael
+guess, on his eventful wedding-day, as his noble equipage rattled along
+the public roads, what thoughts were passing in the minds of some who
+marked him as he went, and followed him with longing eyes. His absorbing
+passion, his exhilaration and delight, did not suffer him to see one
+thin and anxious-looking gentleman, who, spyglass in hand, sat at his
+cottage window, and brought as near as art allowed--not near enough to
+satisfy him--the entranced and happy pair. That old man, with nine times
+ten thousand pounds safe and snug in the stocks, was miserable to look
+at, and as miserable in effect. He was a widower, and had a son at
+Oxford, a wild, scapegrace youth, who had never been a joy to him, but a
+trial and a sorrow even from his cradle. Such punishments there are
+reserved for men--such visitations for the sins our fathers wrought, too
+thoughtless of their progeny. How the old man envied the prosperous
+bridegroom, and how vainly he wished that his boy might have done as
+well; and how through his small grey eye, the labouring tear-drops
+oozed, as he called fresh to mind again all that he had promised himself
+at the birth of his unhappy prodigal! What would he not give to recover
+and reform the wayward boy? The thought occurred to him, and he dallied
+with it for his pleasure. "If I could but settle him with this young
+Allcraft! Why should it not be done? I will give him all I have at once,
+if necessary, and live in a garret, if it will save my poor Augustus. I
+will speak to him on his return. What a companion and example for my
+boy! Open and straightforward--steady as a rock--as rich as Croesus.
+Most certainly I'll see him. I knew his father. I'll not grudge a few
+thousands to establish him. Stick him to business, and he shall do yet."
+The equipage rolled on as unconscious of the old man's dreams as were
+its animated inmates; and in due time it passed a massive lodge, which
+led through green and winding paths to the finest park and mansion in
+the parish. Close to the lodge's porch there stood a tall and
+gloomy-looking man, neatly dressed--alone. His arms were folded, and he
+eyed the carriage thoughtfully and seriously, as though he had an
+interest there, known to himself, and to no one else. He was a very
+proud man that--the owner of this vast estate, master of unnumbered
+acres, and feared rather than loved by the surrounding people. Wealth is
+the most royal of despots--the autocrat of all the world. Men whose
+sense of liberty forbids them to place their worst passions under wise
+control, will crawl in fetters to lick the basest hand well smeared with
+gold. There was not an individual who could say a good word for the
+squire behind his back. You would hardly believe it, if you saw
+individual and squire face to face. And there he stood, with as
+ill-omened a visage as ever brought blight upon a party of pleasure. He
+watched the panting horses out of sight--opened his gate, and walked the
+other way. He, like the old man, had his plans, and an itching for a
+share in Michael Allcraft's fortune. How he, so wealthy and respected,
+could need a part of it, remains a mystery at present. The squire knew
+his business. He went straightway to the banking-house, and made enquiry
+respecting Allcraft's destination. He gained intelligence, and followed
+him at once. They met abroad--they returned home in company. They became
+great friends, and within three months--PARTNERS. And the old man had
+been, as he threatened to be, very busy likewise. He had fought his
+son's battle very hardly and very successfully, as he believed, and with
+twenty thousand pounds had purchased for him a junior partner's interest
+in the estate. The hopeful boy was admitted into the concern during his
+residence in Oxford. He had never been seen, but his father was a man of
+substance, well known and esteemed. The character which he gave with his
+son was undeniable. Its truth could not be questioned, backed as it was
+by so liberal an advance.
+
+Let it not be supposed that Michael, in his anxiety to involve other men
+in his own fearful responsibility, was injudicious enough to act without
+all forethought and consideration. Not he. He had inherited from his
+sire the valuable faculty of detecting the wishes and views of men in
+their external evidences. On the countenances of men he read their
+hearts. It did not take long to discover that the venerable Mr Brammel
+and the haughty Mr Bellamy were bent upon the partnership, and would
+secure it at any cost. Satisfied of this, like a lazy and plethoric fish
+he kept within sight of his bait, close upon it, without deigning for a
+time as much as a nibble. It was his when he chose to bite. But there
+were deep enquiries to make, and many things to do, before he could
+implicate himself so far. In every available quarter he sought
+information respecting the one partner, and the father of the other, and
+of both; the intelligence that he received well repaid his trouble.
+Nothing could be more promising and satisfactory. Nor did he content
+himself with such arms against the selfishness of gentlemen, who, he was
+shrewd enough to know, were seeking only their own advantage in their
+earnest desire of a union with him. He had an eye to the balance of
+power. Two men, united and active, in the firm, pulling together on all
+occasions, might, not by one blow perhaps, but in the course of time,
+and by accumulating force and skill, oust him from his present elevated
+and natural position. Once admit them to authority, and the limits of
+their dominion must be prescribed by their own sense of honour, or by
+the opportunities afforded them of supremacy and independent action.
+Michael the impulsive saw and felt this most acutely, and took occasion,
+from their eagerness, to insure a proper equilibrium of the forces
+before permitting them to coalesce. There lived in the same city with
+Michael, and within a quarter of a mile of the banking-house, an
+individual to whom he turned his thoughts in his emergency. Mr Planner
+was his name, and his character is worth more than a mere passing
+observation. He was a study for an artist--a lesson for mankind. He was
+a man of surprising abilities, ill directed, and badly educated; at any
+period of his life capable of any thing--to the last moment of his
+existence accomplishing nothing. From a child he had displayed a love of
+admiration and applause, a craving after superiority and distinction, a
+burning ambition for fame. He had the body of a giant, and a giant's
+mental apparatus. But with all his gifts, physical and spiritual, all
+his energies and aims, he arrived at middle life a melancholy spectacle
+of failure and incompetency. There was no one object which he could
+pursue with steadiness and patience--no single mark to which he could
+perseveringly apply the combined powers of his gifted intellect. He
+frittered his faculties upon a hundred trifles, never concentrated them
+upon a worthy purpose once. Pride, emulation, and the internal
+consciousness of strength, led him, year after year, and day after day,
+into difficulties and trials, and carried him through them only to drag
+him into deeper. There was no one man whom he would allow to perform any
+one thing so skilfully as himself. There was no branch of knowledge into
+which he did not grope his way, and from which he would not manage to
+extract sufficient learning to render his conceit intolerable, and his
+opposition dangerous to a more erudite antagonist. He could build a
+church--dam a river--form a company--warm a house--cool a room--one and
+all he would undertake at a minute's notice, and engage to execute
+better than any person living. He asserted it with confidence, and you
+believed him when he spoke with all the earnestness of self-conviction
+and of truth. He despised all works--all theories but his own; and these
+were unapproachable, inimitable. He wrote with his own invented pen,
+used his own ink, sat on his own chair, made with his own incomparable
+tools. Men were ignorant, behind their age--burdened with superstitions,
+clogged by false principles. This was a text from which he never ceased
+to preach. As a youth he was engaged in profitable business. Before he
+reached his thirtieth year he had realized a handsome competency. He
+retired from his occupation, and went abroad to found a city across the
+ocean, with views that were unknown to man, and which, well carried out,
+must prove infallible. He chose a spot removed from civilized
+society--lived for three years amongst a tribe of savages, and came home
+at last without a farthing in his scrip--beggared but not depressed. He
+had dwelt for many months in a district of swamps, and he had discovered
+a method of draining lands cheaper and more effectual than any hitherto
+attempted. He contracted to empty some thousand acres--began his work,
+succeeded for a time, and failed at last, from having falsely calculated
+his expenses, and for lack of means to carry out his plans. There were
+few public matters in which Mr Planner did not meddle. He wrote
+pamphlets, and "hints," and "original views" by dozens. His articles on
+the currency and corn-laws were full of racy hits and striking
+points--his criticisms on the existing state of art worthy of the
+artist's best attention. The temper of Mr Planner was such as might be
+expected from such a mass of arrogance and conceit. A man who, in the
+easiness of his heart, would listen humbly, patiently, approvingly to Mr
+Planner, must pronounce the ardent character an angel. The remarkable
+docility which Mr Planner evinced under such treatment, was only to be
+equalled by the volubility and pleasure with which he communicated his
+numerous and ingenious ideas. Sceptics--nay, men who had ventured only
+to contend for the soundness of their preconceived ideas, and who had
+been met with a torrent of vituperation and reproach in consequence--did
+not hesitate to call Mr Planner--the devil incarnate. Such as he was, he
+had become an agent and a tool in the hands of Allcraft's father.
+Michael had been his friend for years, and Planner liked the boy who had
+ever regarded him with awe and veneration. The youth had been taught by
+his parent to note the faults and inconsistencies of his character; but
+these had not rendered him insensible to the talents which had commanded
+even that discerning parent's respect and admiration. It was this
+personage, for some years the hanger-on at the bank, and the traveller
+and negotiator of many things for Allcraft senior, whose name suggested
+to Michael the means of providing against the encroachments of his
+future brethren. Planner could be relied upon. The smallest possible
+interest in the business would excite in him a corresponding interest in
+its prosperity, and secure his steadiness and good behaviour. Why not
+offer it then, and make his entrance into the firm a _sine qua non_ in
+the bargain with Bellamy and Brammel? He revolved the matter, and saw no
+real objection to it. Planner was reputed a first-rate accountant; his
+services would be important, no remuneration could be too great,
+provided he would settle down, and fix his energies upon the one great
+object of advancing the welfare of the establishment. His friendship was
+secured, and a word or two would suffice to gain his faithful support
+and co-operation. So far from his becoming burdensome and useless in the
+bank, his talents would be in every way desirable. A coadjutor, such as
+he might be, firm and trusty, was invaluable. And why should he not be?
+A day had been fixed for accepting or rejecting the propositions of the
+gentlemen. The time was drawing on, when Michael visited his friend to
+sound him on his purpose.
+
+Planner lived in a very humble part of a very humble house, in a very
+humble street. The two-pair back was his domain, and his territory was
+less adorned than crowded with the evidences of his taste and handiwork.
+In the remote corner of his unclean apartment was a lathe for turning
+ivory--near it the material, a monstrous elephant's tusk. Shelves,
+carried round the room, supported bottles of various sizes, externally
+very dirty, and internally what you please; for eyes could not penetrate
+so far, and determine the contents. A large label, crowning all,
+announced them to be "samples." Books were strewed every
+where--manuscripts met you at every turn. The walls were filled with
+charts and drawings, one of the former representing the field of
+Waterloo, dissected and intersected, with a view to prove Lord
+Wellington guilty of winning a battle, which, in conformity with every
+law of strategy, he should have lost. One drawing was a rough sketch of
+his unhappy swamp; another, the elaborate delineation of a hydraulic
+pump. In the niche corresponding to that in which the lathe was fixed,
+there was a small iron bedstead; and in this, although it was nearly
+noon when Michael paid his friendly visit, Mr Allcraft caught sight of
+Mr Planner when he opened the door, in obedience to the very sharp and
+loud voice which invited him to "walk in." The ingenious gentleman had
+breakfasted. The tea things were on a stool at his side. He wore his
+nightcap, and he was busy in examining a crimson liquid, which he held
+in a glass close to his eyes. "That man was murdered, Allcraft!"
+exclaimed Mr Planner after the briefest possible salutation. "Murdered,
+as I am a living Christian!"
+
+"What man?" asked Allcraft.
+
+"Him they hanged last week for poisoning his father. What was the
+evidence? Why, when they opened the body, they found a grain or two of
+arsenic. Hang a man upon that! A pretty state of things--look here,
+sir--look here!"--and he pointed triumphantly to his crimson liquid.
+
+"What is that, Mr Planner?" inquired the visitor.
+
+"What? My blood, sir. I opened a vein the very day they hanged him. I
+suspected it all along, and there it is. There is more arsenic there,
+sir, than they found in the entire carcass of that man. Arsenic! Why,
+it's a prime ingredient in the blood. This it is to live in the clouds.
+Talk of dark ages--when shall we get light?"
+
+"I was not aware, Mr Planner,"----
+
+"Of course you were not. How should you be? It is the interest of the
+ruling powers to darken the intellect of society. Why am I kept down?
+Why don't I prosper? Why don't my works sell? Ah, Allcraft--put that
+small pamphlet in your pocket--there it is--under the model--take care
+what you are about--don't break it--there, that's right! What is it
+called?"
+
+"Popular delusions."
+
+"Ah, true enough!--put it into your pocket and read it. If Pitt could be
+alive to read it!---- Well, never mind! I say, Allcraft, how does that
+back room flue get on--any smoke now?"
+
+"None."
+
+"No. I should think not. Michael, I must say it, though the old
+gentleman is dead, he was one of the hardest fellows to move I ever met.
+He would have been smoke-dried--suffocated, years ago, if it hadn't been
+for me. I was the first man that ever sent smoke up that chimney. Nobody
+could do it, sir. A fellow came from London, tried, and failed."
+
+"It is a pity, Mr Planner, that, with abilities like yours, you have not
+been more successful in life. Pardon me if I say that success would have
+made you a quieter and a happier man."
+
+"Ah, Michael, so your father used to say! Well, I don't know--people are
+such fools. They will not think for themselves, and they are ready to
+crush any one who offers to think for them. It has ever been so. Men in
+advance of their generation have always fared badly. Ages ago they were
+put to death cruelly and violently. Now they are left to starve, and
+die. The creatures are ignorant, but they are worse than that; they are
+selfish and jealous, and will rather sit in gloom, than owe light, and
+confess they owe it, to a fellow mortal and a superior spirit."
+
+"I am afraid, Mr Planner, after such an observation, that you will
+hardly give me credit for the feeling which has induced me to visit you
+this morning."
+
+"You are a good fellow, Michael. You were always a generous-hearted
+lad--an exception to the general rule. When you were five years old, you
+used to share your biscuits with me. It was a fine trait in your
+character. Proceed."
+
+"You are aware, Mr Planner, that through my father's death increased
+responsibilities have come upon me."
+
+"You may say that. He never would take my advice about the bank-notes.
+Stop--remind me before you go, of the few hints to bankers, which I drew
+up. You will do well to look at them. You'll see the advantages of my
+system of paper issues. Your father, sir, was stone-blind to his own
+interests---- but I am interrupting you."
+
+"I have for some time past determined to associate with me in the bank,
+two gentlemen of noble fortunes and the first respectability. I would
+not willingly carry on the concern alone, and the accession of two such
+gentlemen as I describe, cannot but be in every way desirable."
+
+"Humph--go on."
+
+"Now Mr Planner, you are a very, very old friend of my father's, and I
+know he valued your advice as it deserved to be."
+
+"The old gentleman was good in the main, Michael."
+
+"Had he been aware of my position, he would have recommended the step
+which I am about to adopt. Mr Planner, I am young, and therefore
+inexperienced. These gentlemen are very worthy persons no doubt; indeed,
+I am assured they are; still, they are comparatively strangers to me,
+and I am certain you would advise me to be most cautious."
+
+"Proceed."
+
+"What I feel to want is the constant presence of a friend--one who, from
+personal attachment, may have my welfare and interest at heart, and form
+as it were a second self at all times--let me be present or absent--and
+absent I must be very often--you perceive?"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"A sort of counterpoise to the opposite weight, in fact, if I may be
+allowed to call it so. Now, I can sincerely affirm that I know no
+person, Mr Planner, in whom I could rely so entirely and unreservedly as
+yourself; and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to serve a man
+so highly gifted, so long connected with our family by the closest
+friendship. If you think the occupation of a banker suitable to your
+present tastes, I believe that I can offer you an appointment worthy
+your serious consideration."
+
+Mr Planner rose in his bed, and grasped firmly the hand of Mr Michael
+Allcraft. The latter sat at the bedside until past three o'clock, and
+then retired, leaving his friend in a state of great mental excitement.
+When Michael, upon taking his departure, reached the street door, he
+stopped short, and retraced his steps. Entering the apartment for a
+second time, he discovered Mr Planner in his night clothes, standing
+before a looking glass, and repeating one of his own compositions in a
+voice of thunder, and with the most vehement gesticulation.
+
+"I beg your pardon. You told me to remind you, Planner, of your hints to
+bankers. Have you the book handy?"
+
+"It is here, Michael. Read it attentively, my boy--trust to me. I'll
+make the house's name ring throughout the country. Don't forget what I
+have said. We must have a new façade to the old building after a while.
+I have such a plan for it!"
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A LULL.
+
+_Allcraft, Bellamy, Brammel, and Planner_. It was a goodly ship that
+bore the name, and fair she looked at the launching; her sails well set,
+her streamers flying, and the music of men's voices cheering her on her
+career. Happy and prosperous be her course! We think not of winter's
+cold in the fervent summer time, and wreck and ruin seem impossible on
+the smooth surface of the laughing sea; yet cold and winter come, and
+the smiling, sweet-tempered ripple can awaken from slumber, and battle
+and storm with the heavens. Never had bark left haven with finer
+promises of success. We will follow her from the port, and keep
+watchfully in the good ship's wake.
+
+Michael formed a just conclusion when he reckoned upon increase of
+business. His own marriage, and the immense wealth of his lady, had
+inspired the world with unbounded confidence. The names of two of his
+partners were household words in the county, and stood high amongst the
+best. A convulsion of nature may destroy the world in half an hour, as
+love, it is said, _may_ transform a man into an oyster; but either of
+these contingencies was as remote as the possibility of Allcraft's
+failure. Silently and successfully the house went on. For a quarter of a
+year the sun shone brightly, and profit, and advantage, and honour,
+looked Michael in the face. Thriving abroad, happy at home, what did he
+need more? His spirit became buoyant--his heart carefree and light. He
+congratulated himself upon the prudence and success of his measures, and
+looked for his reward in the brilliant future which he had created for
+himself and earned. His soul was calmed; and so are the elements,
+fearfully and oppressively, sometimes an hour before the tempest and the
+storm.
+
+At the end of three months, Michael deemed it necessary to go abroad.
+The heaviest of his father's debts had been contracted with a house in
+Lyons, and notices as to payment had been conveyed to him--notices as
+full of politeness as they were of meaning. The difficulties in which he
+had found himself at the death of his parent--the seriousness of his
+engagements--and the wariness which he had been compelled to
+exercise--had gone far to sober down the impetuous youth, and to endue
+him with the airs and habits of a man of business. He had attended to
+his duties at the banking-house faithfully and punctually. He had
+entered into its affairs with the energy and resolution of a practical
+and working mind. He had given his heart to the work, and had put his
+shoulder to the wheel, honestly and earnestly. Whatsoever may have been
+his faults previously to his connexion with his partners, it is due to
+him to say that he was no sluggard afterwards, and that he grudged
+neither time nor labour that could be in any way productive to the
+house--could add a shilling to its profits, or a breath of reputation to
+its name. To pay his father's debts from the earnings of the bank--to
+keep those debts a secret--and to leave the fortune of his wife
+untouched, were the objects for which he lived, and soon began to slave.
+Believing that a favourable arrangement could be effected with his
+father's creditors, he determined to visit them in person. He had not
+been absent from the bank even for a day; and now, before he could quit
+it with comfort, he deemed it necessary to have a few parting words with
+his right hand and factotum, Planner.
+
+Planner was the only member of the firm who lived in the establishment.
+His specimens, his bottles, his maps, and drawings, had been removed to
+a spacious apartment over the place of business, and he rejoiced in the
+possession of an entire first floor. His bed-room had now a distinct
+existence. He had not enjoyed it for a week, before the water with which
+he performed his daily ablutions was insinuated by a cunning contrivance
+through the ceiling, and dismissed afterwards, as cleverly, through the
+floor. Hot water came through the wall at any hour of the day, and a
+constant artificial ventilation was maintained around his bed by night
+and day. There was no end to the artifices which the chamber exhibited.
+Michael, although he lived at a considerable distance from the bank, was
+always the first at his post, after Planner himself. He arrived
+unusually early on the day fixed for his visit to the Continent. Planner
+and he sat for an hour together, and in the course of their
+conversation, words to the following effect escaped them:--
+
+"You will be careful and attentive, Planner. Let me hear from you by
+every post. Do not spare ink and paper."
+
+"Trust me. I shall not forget it. But don't you miss the opportunity,
+Allcraft, of doing something with those mines. Your father wouldn't
+touch them--but he repented it. I tell you, Michael, if we bought them,
+and worked them ourselves, we might coin money! I'd go abroad and see
+the shafts sunk. I could save a fortune in merely setting them to
+rights."
+
+"It is rather strange, Planner, that Brammel is so long absent. He
+should come home, and settle down to work. It isn't well to be away. It
+hasn't a fair appearance to the world. You saw his father yesterday.
+What said he?"
+
+"Oh, that young Brammel had a good many things to arrange in Oxford and
+in the neighbourhood, and would soon be back now. But never mind him,
+Allcraft. Between ourselves, he is better where he is; he is a horrible
+ass."
+
+"Hush. So he is, Planner, but he must not run wild. We must keep him at
+home. He has been a rackety one, and I fear he is not much better now. I
+question whether I should have received him here, if I had known as much
+of him at first as I have heard lately. But his father deceived me."
+
+"Queer old man that, Michael! How he takes the boy's part always, and
+how frightened he seems lest you should think too badly of him. Young
+Brammel will have every farthing of the old man's money at his death. A
+pretty sum, too. A hundred thousand pounds, isn't it?"
+
+"Well, Planner, let me know when he returns. That was a curious report
+about his marriage. Can it be true?"
+
+"His father denies it, but you mustn't trust the old sinner when he
+talks about his son. He'll lie through thick and thin for him. They do
+say he lived with the girl at the time he was at college, and married
+her at last because her brother threatened to kick him."
+
+"Nonsense, Planner."
+
+"Why nonsense? More than half the marriages you hear of are scarcely a
+whit better. What are the rules for a correct match? Who obeys them?
+Where do you ever hear, now-a-days, of a proper marriage? People are
+inconsistent in this respect as in other things. A beauty marries a
+beast. A philosopher weds a fool. They can't tell you why, but they do
+it. It's the perversity of human nature."
+
+"I shall look sharp after Brammel."
+
+"Take my advice, Michael, and look after the mines. Brammel can take
+care of himself, or his wife and brother-in-law can do it. The timber on
+the property will realize the purchase money."
+
+"Well, we shall see; but here is Mr Bellamy. Mind you write to me, and
+be explicit and particular."
+
+"I shall do it, Michael."
+
+"And mark, Planner; prudence--prudence."
+
+And so saying, Michael advanced to Bellamy with a smiling countenance.
+An hour afterwards, both he and his lovely bride were comfortably seated
+in a post-chaise and four, admiring the garden-land of Kent, and
+speeding to Dover fast as their horses could carry them.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A SWEET COUPLE.
+
+The very emphatic and somewhat vulgar expression of Mr Planner, was by
+no means ill-chosen to express the character of Augustus Theodore
+Brammel. He had been lovingly spoiled from his cradle--humoured and
+ruined with the most praiseworthy care and perseverance. His
+affectionate parents had studiously neglected the few goodly shoots
+which the youth had brought into the world with him, and had embarked
+all their energies in the cultivation of the weeds that grew noxious and
+numerous around the unhappy boy's heart. His mother lived to see her
+darling expelled from Eton--the father to see much worse, and yet not
+the worst that the hopeful one was doomed to undergo. Gross vices, if
+not redeemed, are rendered less hideous by intellectual power and
+brilliancy. Associated with impotency and ignorance, they are disgusting
+beyond expression. Augustus Brammel was the most sensual and
+self-engrossed of men--the most idle and dissipated; and, as if these were
+not enough to render him an object of the deepest aversion, he was as
+self-willed, thick-headed, overbearing a dunce as ever moved a man to
+that contempt "which wisdom holds unlawful ever;" and Brammel was not
+only a fool, but a conceited, upstart, irritating fool. He considered
+himself the shrewdest of mortals, and presumed to dictate, to be
+impertinent, to carry matters with a high hand and a flourish. As for
+modesty, the word was not in his dictionary. He had never known its
+meaning; and therefore, perhaps, in justice is not to be blamed for the
+want of it. Augustus, being a great blusterer, was of course a low
+coward. He bullied, oppressed, and crushed the helpless and the weak,
+who were avenged as often as he cowered and sneaked beneath the look of
+the strong and the brave. The companions and friends of such creatures
+as Brammel, are generally selected from the lower grades of life. The
+tone of feeling found amongst the worst members of these classes,
+harmonizes with their own. They think the like thoughts, talk the same
+language. They are led to them by the true Satanic impulse, for it is
+their triumph to reign in hell--their misery to serve in heaven.
+Flattered by the dregs and refuse of society, they endeavour to forget
+that they are avoided, spurned, trodden on, by any thing higher. Just
+when it was too late to profit by the discovery, old Brammel found out
+his mistake; and then he sagaciously vowed, that if his time were to
+come over again, he would educate his boy in a very different manner.
+His first attempt had certainly been a failure. Augustus had been
+rusticated at the university; he had run away from his home; he had
+committed all kinds of enormity. He had passed weeks in the sinks of
+London, and had been discovered at last by his heartbroken parent
+amongst the stews of Shadwell, in a fearful state of disease and
+destitution. Years were passed in proceedings of this nature, and every
+attempt at recovery proved abortive and useless. His debts had been
+discharged a dozen times, and on every occasion under a solemn
+engagement that it should be the last. When Brammel senior signed the
+deed of partnership on behalf of his son, the latter, as I have already
+said, was in Oxford, having returned to the university only a month
+before, at the termination of his period of banishment. Whilst the
+father was engaged in publishing the imaginary virtues of his son to
+most admiring listeners, the promising youth himself was passing his
+days in the very agreeable society of Miss Mary Anne Waters, the eldest
+daughter of the cook of his college--a young lady with some pretension
+to beauty, but none whatever to morality, being neither more nor less
+than Mr Augustus Brammel's very particular and _chère amie_. The letter
+which arrived with the unwelcome intelligence of the arrangement, found
+the charming pair together. A specimen of their discourse at the time,
+will show the temper with which the communication was received.
+
+"I sha'n't go," ejaculated the youth. "I can't be nailed down to a desk.
+What business had the old man to do any thing without me? Why can't he
+mind his own affairs? He's old and ugly enough. It's cursed impudence in
+him, and that's a fact."
+
+"Oh ducky!" interposed Miss Mary Anne, with a rueful face, "I know how
+it will be. You'll have to go home for good, and you won't think of me
+no more."
+
+"Don't you bother yourself. I sha'n't do any thing of the kind. If I go
+home, Molly, you go with me."
+
+"Do you mean it, dear bless-ed?"
+
+"Don't I? that's all. I say it is blasted impertinent in the old man,
+and I shall tell him so. I shall have blunt enough when his toes are up.
+What is the good of working for more?"
+
+"Oh dear me, bless-ed!"
+
+"What is the matter, old girl?"
+
+"If you should ever forget me!"
+
+"Don't you fear."
+
+"I should hang myself up to the bedpost with my garters. I know I
+should. Don't leave me, there's a dear ducky."
+
+"Well, haven't I said I won't?"
+
+"Ah, you think you won't, dear bless-ed!"
+
+"I tell you I won't."
+
+"Yes, but when they get you up, they'll just be trying to marry you to
+some fine rich woman; and I am sure she won't know how to take care of
+you as I do. They ain't brought up to air and mend linen, to darn
+stockings, and to tack on shirt-buttons. They'll never suit you, ducky."
+
+"Catch me marrying a fine woman, Moll!"
+
+"Ha, won't you though, bless-ed? Oh, dear me!" Mary Anne burst into
+tears.
+
+"What's the matter, Moll, now?"
+
+"Oh, dear ducky! I wish I was an honest woman. I might go every where
+with you, and not be ashamed of it either; and I do love you so. I shall
+die if you leave me--I know I shall!"
+
+"But I won't leave you."
+
+"Oh, there's a ducks! But you know what you promised me, Tiddy dear?"
+
+"Yes, I know, Molly, and I'll keep my word with you. If father makes a
+partner of me, he shall make partners of both of us."
+
+"No, do you mean it though?"
+
+"Haven't I said it, you stupid?"
+
+"Yes, you dear ducks of diamonds! You do look so handsome this morning!
+And when shall it be? If you are to go to this business, the sooner the
+better, you know, darling. Oh, I shall be so happy!"
+
+Happy or not, the lady was at least successful. In the course of a week
+Mary Anne Waters became extinct, and from her ashes rose the
+surprizingly fine, and surpassingly vulgar, Mrs Augustus Brammel.
+Augustus, notwithstanding his vapoury insubjection, visited his father
+and the partners in the bank, leaving his bride in snug lodgings at a
+respectable distance from all. He remained a few days at the
+banking-house, and then absented himself on the plea of finally
+arranging his incompleted affairs in Oxford and elsewhere. He had
+engaged to return to business at the end of a month. Nearly three had
+passed away, and no tidings whatever had been heard of him. Allcraft, as
+it has been seen, grew anxious--less perhaps for his partner's safety,
+than for the good name and credit of the firm. He had heard of his
+precious doings, and reports of his inauspicious marriage were already
+abroad. No wonder that the cautious and apprehensive Michael trembled
+somewhat in his state of uncertainty. As for Mr Augustus Brammel
+himself, the object of his fears, he, in conformity with general custom,
+and especially in compliance with the wishes of his wife, had quitted
+England on a wedding tour. With five hundred pounds in his purse--a sum
+advanced by his father to liquidate his present outstanding
+liabilities--he steamed from Dover on the very day that he was supposed
+to have reached Oxford for his final arrangements. From Boulogne, he,
+his wife, and suite, proceeded to Paris; and there they were, up to
+their eyes in the dissipation of that fascinating city, when Allcraft
+started on their track, followed them, unwittingly enough, from town to
+town, and came upon them at length in the great city itself, and in the
+very hotel in which they lodged. It was at night that Michael first
+caught sight of the runaway. And where? In a gaming-house, the most
+fashionable of the many legalized haunts of devils in which, not many
+years since, Paris abounded. Allcraft had entered upon the scene of
+iniquity as into a theatre, to behold a sight--the sight of human nature
+in its lowest, most pitiable, and melancholy garb; in its hour of
+degradation, craziness, and desperation. He had his recreation in such a
+spectacle, as men can find their pleasure in the death-struggle of a
+malefacter on the gibbet. He came, not to join the miserable throng that
+crowded round the tables, exhibiting every variety of low, unhealthy
+feeling; nor did he come, in truth, prepared to meet with one in whose
+affairs and conduct he had so deep an interest. It was with
+inexpressible astonishment and horror that he beheld his colleague, busy
+and active amongst the busiest of the crew, venturing rouleau after
+rouleau, losing stake upon stake, and growing more reckless and madder
+with every new defeat. For a time Michael would not, could not, believe
+his own eyes. It was one of the curious resemblances which we meet every
+now and then in life: it was any thing but what he dreaded it to be--the
+actual presence of Augustus Brammel. Michael retreated to a distant part
+of the room, and watched his man. The latter spoke. He used a disgusting
+English oath, and flung his last rouleau across the table like a drunken
+fiend. The heart of Allcraft grew sick, but still he kept his eye upon
+the gamester. Losing his stake, Brammel quitted the apartment, and
+retired to a spacious saloon, splendidly furnished. He called for
+champagne--drank greedily--finished the bottle--returned to the
+gaming-room flushed and feverish--looked at the players savagely, but
+sottishly, for a few moments, and then left the house altogether.
+Michael was on his heels. The worthy Brammel stopped at many small
+public-houses on his road, in each drank off a glass of brandy, and so
+went on. Michael had patience, and kept to his partner like a leech. It
+was midnight when he found himself once more before his hotel.
+
+Brammel had rung at the porter's bell, and gained admittance. A quarter
+of an hour afterwards Allcraft followed his example. Before he retired
+to rest he learnt that Brammel and himself were inmates of the same
+house. About eleven o'clock on the following morning, Augustus quitted
+his dressing-room. Michael had been waiting some hours for this
+operation. A few minutes afterwards Mr Brammel's servant announced a
+visitor. Great was the consternation of Augustus Brammel when Mr Michael
+Allcraft looked him in the face. First the delinquent turned very white,
+like a guilty man--then his colour returned to him, and he tried to
+laugh like an innocent and careless one; but he was not so happy in the
+second instance. As a third experiment, he smoothed his hair with his
+fingers--pointed to a chair--and held out his hand. Mrs Brammel was at
+the breakfast table, reading an English newspaper.
+
+"Ah! Mr Allcraft--glad to see you--glad to see you. Out on the same
+business, eh? Nothing like it--first weeks of marriage are
+delightful--there's nothing like a honey-moon on the Continent to my
+thinking. Mrs Brammel, my wife--Mr Allcraft, my partner, my dear."
+
+Mrs Brammel looked up from her newspaper and giggled.
+
+"I cannot tell you, Mr Brammel," said Allcraft in a serious tone, "how
+surprised I am to find you here. Are you aware, sir, that neither your
+father, nor any one of your partners, have the least knowledge of your
+movements. You were supposed to be in England. You gave your word to
+return to business within a month of your departure. You have not
+written or given the slightest account of yourself."
+
+"Come, that's very good, Mister. Given an account of myself, indeed!
+Pray, whom am I accountable to?"
+
+"To those, sir," replied Allcraft, quickly and angrily, "with whom you
+are associated in business, and who have an interest in your good
+conduct--who suffer by your acts, and will be blamed for your folly and
+indiscretion."
+
+"Come, I say, that's all very fine in you, Mr Allcraft; but what brings
+you here, I should like to know? Haven't I as much right to bring my
+wife to Paris as you have? Give and take, if you please"----
+
+"No, bless-ed," sagely and sarcastically interposed Mrs Brammel, "I
+ain't so rich as Mrs Allcraft; I can't dress so fine; we ain't sich
+gentle-folks"----
+
+"Mr Brammel, pray let us have no more recrimination. I have met you here
+by the merest chance. It is my duty to speak to you at once, and very
+seriously, on your position. You are mistaken if you suppose that my own
+pleasure has brought me here; business--important, weighty business--is
+the sole cause, I can assure you."
+
+"_Ally--ally_," answered Brammel with a knowing leer, attempting a
+little _facetiae_ in French.
+
+"I tell you the truth, sir," continued Michael, reddening with anger,
+"and I warn you in good time to look to yourself, and to your course of
+conduct. You may bring infamy upon yourself, as you have brought sorrow
+and anguish upon the head of your aged father; but you shall not with
+impunity involve and disgrace others who are strangers to you, although
+unfortunately connected with you by their occupation. Depend upon it,
+you shall not."
+
+"My aged father, as you call him, didn't stump up all that money, I'm
+thinking, Mr Allcraft, to bind me apprentice. Perhaps you'd like to kick
+me next. I am as much a partner in that concern as you are; and if I
+think proper to take my lady abroad, I am at liberty to do it as well as
+you. You ain't the first man because you married a rich widow, and
+because your name begins with A. Certainly not, monsweer."
+
+"In course not, bless-ed. Besides, ducky, your name begins with B--and
+that's A's next door neighbour."
+
+"You shall take your own course, sir," proceeded Michael; "but it shall
+be at your own peril, and with your eyes opened. It is my part to give
+you good counsel. I shall do so. You may act as you then think fit."
+
+"I haven't done any thing to disgrace you, as you call it. It is cursed
+impudent in you to say so."
+
+"You have. You disgraced yourself and me, and every one associated with
+you, only last night, when you were pleased to exhibit to the world as a
+public gamester. (Augustus Theodore changed colour.) You see that your
+actions are observed; they will become more so. The house shall not lose
+its good name through your misconduct, sir. Assure yourself of that.
+There are means to rid ourselves of a nuisance, and to punish severely,
+if we choose to use them."
+
+"What do you mean by punish?" asked Augustus, unfeignedly alarmed by his
+partner's threat, and yet not liking to be bullied. "Don't you insult
+me, sir, in my own room; better not, I can tell you."
+
+"Pshaw, you are an idiot;" exclaimed Michael most contemptuously.
+
+"I'll just thank you to go, sir, and not call my husband names," said
+Mrs Brammel, rising from her chair. "You are a nasty ill-bred fellow,
+I'm sure. Talk of high people! I never see sich airs in all my life. If
+your wife ain't no better behaved, there's a nice pair of you, I don't
+think. Never mind him, ducky dear--don't you fret. We are as good as
+them any day. Let's go up stairs, there's a bless-ed. Call the
+_garsoon_."
+
+Poor Michael knew not what step to take, what language to employ, in
+order to effect his purpose. He could not think of quitting Paris,
+leaving his partner behind him, open to the seductions of the city, and
+eager to avail himself of every license and indulgence. He had hoped to
+frighten him into better behaviour, and perhaps he would have succeeded
+but for the presence of the lady, whose appearance and demeanour, more
+than any thing else, confounded and annoyed him. He remained silent for
+a few seconds, and then, in a quieter tone, he asked Brammel when he
+really thought of getting back to business.
+
+"Why, very soon," replied the youth, himself reduced to civility by
+Michael's more peaceful aspect; "and I should have been back before now,
+if I hadn't been bothered about a lot of things. If you hadn't come in
+blustering, I should have told you so. I shall be all right enough,
+don't you fear, when I get home. I promised father I should settle, and
+so I mean--but a wedding trip is a wedding trip, and ladies mustn't be
+baulked."
+
+"Certainly not," answered Allcraft, grateful for as much as this--"then,
+when do you think of reaching home?"
+
+"Oh, before you, I'll wager! We haven't got much more to see. We went to
+the Jordan de Plants yesterday. We are going to the Pantheon to-morrow.
+We shall soon get done. Make your mind easy."
+
+"As soon as you have visited these places, I am to understand, then,
+that you return to business?"
+
+"Exactly so."
+
+"And may I venture to intreat you to abstain from visiting the
+gambling-house again?"
+
+"Oh, don't you worry yourself! If you had only spoken at first like a
+gentleman, I should have promised you without being asked."
+
+"Both you and Mrs Brammel must see, I am sure, the very great propriety
+of avoiding all such scenes."
+
+"Yes," answered Mary Anne; and then repeating her husband's words, "but
+if you had only spoken at first like a gentleman!"
+
+"Perhaps I was too hasty, madam. It is a fault that I have. We shall
+understand one another much better for the future. You will be at home
+in about--ten days we'll say, from the present time, at latest."
+
+"Oh, don't fix days, I never could bear it! We shall be all right. Will
+you stay breakfast?"
+
+Michael excused himself, and, having done all that was permitted him,
+departed. With a sad spirit he encountered his lady, and with gloomy
+forebodings his mind was filled that day. Augustus Brammel was destined
+to be his thorn, his trial, and his punishment. He could see it already.
+His house, otherwise so stable, so promising, and so prosperous, would
+receive a mortal blow from this one threatening point. It must be warded
+off. The hurtful limb must by degrees be got away. He must, from this
+time forward, engage himself in its removal. It was, after all, a
+consolation to have met the pair, and to have succeeded so far in
+frightening them home again, as he fully believed he had. For a time at
+least, he conceived that Brammel was still safe. This conviction gave
+him courage, and carried him on his road to Lyons, with a heart not
+altogether ill at ease, and without good hope. In the meanwhile Mrs
+Brammel had inveighed, in the most unmeasured terms, against the
+insolent behaviour of Mr Allcraft, the pride and arrogance of his wife,
+whom she had never seen--the marked, unpardonable insult she had offered
+her in not accompanying Allcraft on his visit; and had succeeded, in
+short, in effectually driving from her husband's mind the little good
+effect which had been produced by the partner's just remonstrance.
+Ignorant and vulgar as she was, the woman had unbounded influence and
+power. How much, may be guessed from the fact, that before Michael
+Allcraft was ten miles on his journey to Lyons, she had prevailed upon
+her husband to draw his first cheque upon his house to the tune of
+L.500, and to prolong their holiday by visiting in succession the south
+of France, Switzerland, and Italy. The fool, after an inane resistance,
+consented; his cheque was converted to money--the horses were
+ordered--and on they dashed.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A SPECULATION.
+
+"When the cat is away, the mice begin to play." It is an old and a true
+saying, and Michael, had he been an experienced mouser, would have
+remembered it to his advantage, when he thought of leaving the
+banking-house to the tender mercies of his colleagues. His confidence in
+Planner was very great, and I will not say undeserved; still some
+account should have been taken of his previous habits, and the positive
+abiding infirmity of human nature. It was surely dangerous to surround a
+man so fickle, and so easily led by the delusions of his sanguine
+spirit, with every temptation to walk astray, and to remove every check
+that had hitherto kept down the capricious movements of his most
+unsteady will. The daily, almost hourly presence of Allcraft, his
+vigorous and immediate superintendence of affairs, had subdued the
+speculative soul of Planner, and rendered him a useful man of business.
+He was, in truth, a good accountant, ardent in his pursuits, a faithful
+friend, an honest man. With the needful restraints upon him, he proved,
+as Allcraft had believed he would, a warm and active partisan. Had those
+restraints been continued for any time--had he been trained, and so
+reconciled and accustomed to his yoke, all might have prospered and been
+well with him. His own happiness might have been secured, and the hopes
+of his friend and patron would not have been blasted. It was the
+misfortune of Allcraft, with all his long-sightedness, not to see far
+enough. He was to blame, deeply to blame, for the desertion of a man
+whom he knew to be at the mercy of his own wayward spirit, and utterly
+incapable of self-defence. Yet, called abroad, what could he do? It is
+the fate of cunning, as it is of suspicion and other mortal weaknesses,
+to fall into toils of its own weaving. Michael too soon was called to
+pay the penalty. Allcraft had been in France a fortnight, when Planner
+received a fatal visit at the bank from a very old friend and stanch
+ally--a creature as excitable and sanguine as himself, as full of
+projects, and as unsuccessful. They had known each other in the early
+and distant days of their prosperity--they had grown poor together--they
+were united by the uniformity of their fortunes as by the similarity of
+their natures. They had both for years regarded themselves as the
+persecuted and injured of society--and both were satisfied of their
+ability to achieve miracles, time and the occasion serving. It is not
+for speculative spirits to be disheartened by failure, but rather to be
+encouraged by ill success to fresh extravagance, else had the poor
+result of all their schemes long since extinguished the fire at work
+within them. Not one of their innumerable plans had shown a gleam, a
+spark, of reality and life. One morning, about five years before the
+present visit, Mr William Wedge rose from bed with the pleasing notion
+that he would ruin all the public gaming-houses in the world. He had
+suddenly discovered the secret of their success--the cause of their
+enormous gains--and had arranged, with minutest care and skill, a
+systematic course of play to bring against them. It was with difficulty
+that he contained himself until he mentioned his good fortune to his
+friend. They met time after time in secret, grew fearfully
+mysterious--closed their windows in the open day--played cards from
+morning till night, and sometimes through the night--with no other eye
+upon them than the very feeble, faint-glimmering one of their farthing
+rushlight;--they carried directions in their pocket--learnt them
+off--repeated them until they grew familiar as their oaths, and more
+familiar than their prayers. To realize between them a standing capital
+of five pounds, a sum essential to their operations, they pawned all the
+available clothing they possessed; and on the very night that they
+obtained the cash, they sallied forth to carry devastation and affright
+throughout the camps of innocent and unsuspecting blacklegs. As might be
+expected, it took about as many minutes as they had pounds to effect the
+ruin of the adventurers. Did they despond? Not they; a flaw existed in
+their calculations. They looked for it with care, and were torn from
+their employment only by the exigencies of the time, and the pressing
+demands of nature for immediate bread. Mr Wedge had from this period
+struggled on, living as he knew how, and nobody could tell, until
+Planner's unexpected good fortune and ascent provided him with an
+allowance and a quiet mind to follow out his views. Since Planner's
+introduction into the bank, he had behaved faithfully and well to his
+ancient crony; in addition to a pension, paid weekly and in advance, he
+gave him a right of entrée to his rooms after the hours of business, a
+certain supper three times a-week, and an uncertain quantity of brandy
+and water on the same occasions. One stipulation only he deemed
+necessary for his protection. He had given his word to Allcraft to avoid
+all trading unconnected with the bank--to abstain from speculation. Weak
+at the best of times, he knew himself to be literally helpless with the
+_ignis fatuus_ of a hopeful project before his eyes; and he made a
+condition of Wedge's visits--his silence upon matters of business,
+private or public. It was a wise resolution, nobly formed, and for a
+season well carried out. Wedge promised to be cautious, and did not
+break his word. Peace of mind, a regular diet, and a full stomach, were
+such extraordinary circumstances in the daily doings of the latter, that
+the restraint upon his tongue was, in the first month or two of the new
+excitement, scarcely felt as an inconvenience. Planner himself, with the
+eye of Allcraft upon him, kept his natural inclination safely in the
+rear of _his_ promise, and so the days and nights passed pleasantly. On
+the evening above alluded to--that is to say, just a fortnight after
+Michael's departure--Wedge came as usual for his supper, grog, and
+conversation. The clock had just struck eleven--the friends were sitting
+together, their feet upon the fender, their hands upon their tumblers.
+As was usual with them, they discussed the doings of the nation, and
+called in question the proceedings of the existing government. One
+subject after another was dismissed--politics, law, love, and
+religion--they abused every thing, and agreed marvellously. It was
+getting very near midnight, the hour at which, it is said, devils are
+let loose upon earth for mischief--when a rascally little imp crawled up
+to Planner's ear, and put it into his head to talk about the amusements
+of the poor, and their effects upon the rising generation.
+
+"They will be sorry for it, Wedge--mark my words. All this stabbing and
+killing comes from too much work and no play. Jack's at his tools for
+ever--gets a dull boy--and then stabs and cuts about him for the sake of
+getting lively. Government should have playgrounds in every parish. They
+would save the expense in the rapid diminution of the standing army. I
+wrote a letter once to the prime minister"----
+
+Wedge sighed.
+
+"What do you mean by that, Wedge? Ah, quite right--I see! You are a good
+fellow, Wedge. You have kept the compact. I won't be the first to break
+it. Let us change the subject. I burnt all my letters and papers the day
+I got here. What was the good of keeping them? This is an ungrateful
+country, Wedge!"
+
+Wedge sipped his grog, and sighed again.
+
+"What is the matter, boy?" enquired his patron. "Speak your
+mind--relieve your heart."
+
+"No, I won't, Planner--I won't be the first. You sha'n't say it is me. I
+don't mean to be blamed, that's a fact--but if I dared, oh, that's all!"
+
+"Is it any thing very good?"
+
+"Good! Good, did you say? Well, an agreement's an agreement, Planner. It
+isn't for me to introduce the subject; but I could tell you something,
+if we were differently situated, that would be a fortune to you. Ah,
+Planner, I sha'n't be a burden upon you long! I have hit upon a thing at
+last--I am a made man!"
+
+"Now I tell you what, Wedge," said Planner, pulling out his watch, and
+looking very serious, "we'll have just five minutes' private
+conversation on this matter, and then have done with it. Only five
+minutes, mind you, by the watch. If we mutually agree to lay aside our
+compact for a minute or so, there's no great harm done, provided it
+isn't made a precedent. I should like to see you set a-going, Wedge. You
+may open your mind to me, and be sure of good advice. It's now seven
+minutes to twelve. Till twelve, Wedge, you are at liberty to talk on
+business."
+
+"What were you saying just now about amusements, Planner? Do you
+recollect."
+
+"I do."
+
+"I have thought about it for the last six months. We have formed a
+company."
+
+"A company!"
+
+Wedge was as full of mystery as an Oxford tractman. He rose on tiptoe
+from his chair, proceeded to the passage, listened on the stairs,
+returned as carefully, closed the door, resumed his seat.
+
+"A company!" repeated Planner.
+
+"Such an undertaking!" proceeded the ungagged and self-deluded Wedge.
+"It's the finest thing that has been thought of for these hundred years.
+I _am_ surprised it never once occurred to you. Your mind, Planner,
+should have grasped it."
+
+"What can it be?"
+
+"We mean to call it the _Pantamorphica_, because it takes all shapes. We
+are in treaty now for a hundred acres of land within three miles of
+London. We are to have a race-course--public gardens with fountains and
+promenades--a gymnasium for callisthenic and other exercises--boating--a
+menagerie--a library--lecture-rooms--conservatories"----
+
+"By Jove, I see!" ejaculated Planner. "Capital!--a universal playground;
+trust me, I have thought of it before. Go on."
+
+"These are for the daylight. At night we have a concert-room--a
+theatre--saloons for dancing--halls for refreshment--museums for
+_converzatione_. In the centre of the public walks we have a synagogue,
+a church, and chapel for Sabbath visitors. Then we shall have
+aviaries--apiaries--caves--alpine scenery"----
+
+"Upon my soul, Wedge, it's a grand conception!" There was a large clock
+at the bottom of the stairs which struck twelve, loud enough to awake
+the sleeping household; but, strange to say, neither Planner nor his
+friend heard a single chime. "Who are your men?" continued Planner.
+
+"Oh, first-rate men! Three of the first London bankers, two of the chief
+architects, the richest capitalist in England"----
+
+"What, have you got them all?"
+
+"No, but we mean to ask them to take shares, and to take part in the
+direction. They'll jump, sir, at the offer."
+
+"Ah, that they will! What's your capital?"
+
+"Half a million--five thousand shares of a hundred each. It's nothing at
+all!"
+
+"No, nothing really. What is your appointment?"
+
+"I am secretary; and I am to have a bonus of five thousand pounds when
+the thing is fairly started."
+
+"You well deserve it, Wedge. Ah, sir, I have dreamt of this before!"
+
+"No--have you?"
+
+"It must do, Wedge. It can't help itself. People will be amused--people
+will pay for it. Amuse them from morning till night--change the scene
+every hour of the day--vary the pleasures. Wedge, you are a national
+benefactor."
+
+"It is past twelve," said Wedge hesitatingly, looking at the watch.
+
+"No--is it?" asked Planner, looking at it likewise. "There must be some
+mistake. Have you heard the clock strike?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor I; my watch is out of order--too fast a great deal. Let us go by
+the big clock. Now, when that strikes twelve, Wedge, you shall go home,
+and I'll to bed--an understanding is an understanding, Wedge."
+
+"And so you like it, Planner--eh?"
+
+"Like it, sir"----
+
+It was exactly a quarter to four o'clock when Planner put out his
+bedroom candle, and Wedge tucked himself up as well as he could on the
+hard horsehair sofa in Planner's sitting-room. Having enlarged upon the
+_Pantamorphica_ speculation until the above unreasonable hour, it was
+not deemed respectable for Mr Wedge to quit the banking-house on the
+dark side of sunrise. The latter gentleman had worked himself up to such
+a pitch of excitement in blowing out his bubble, that it was very nearly
+six o'clock before he could be pronounced in a condition to say his
+prayers like a rational being, and go to sleep. As for Planner, he had
+heard too much to be quiet. He tossed his head on his pillow--turned
+from side to side--sat up and lay down again at intervals, until the
+break of day. He had resolved to take an active interest in this
+glorious undertaking. Nothing should hinder him. Its returns must
+necessarily be immense. He had promised Allcraft to enter into no
+business foreign to the banking-house. But what of that? He should be
+without an excuse for his blindness if he closed his eyes to the
+advantages which stared him in the face. He would not be selfish.
+Allcraft should share in the reward. He, who had acted so friendly a
+part to him, should be repaid for his noble conduct. "Share and share
+alike," should be his motto. And he would not hesitate or postpone his
+intentions. He would look thoroughly into the affair at once, and go
+boldly forward. It should be his pleasure and his pride to greet and
+surprise his partner with the unexpected news the instant he returned.
+Sweet are the visions of life, sleeping or waking. It is the substance
+and the truth that pass like iron to the soul, and kill it. Poor
+Planner!
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A LANDED PROPRIETOR.
+
+After Michael had spent a month in France, he discovered that he must
+still travel on, and still sacrifice time and exertion, if he hoped to
+bring his unfortunate parent's affairs to a satisfactory issue. Many
+things had happened since his arrival to give him great pain and
+annoyance. In the first place, he had learned, with a sickening heart,
+that the private debts of his father considerably exceeded in amount
+those which had appeared in the testamentary memorandum. He had seen
+with his own eyes his father's acknowledgment of liabilities, the
+existence of which was thus revealed to him for the first time. In his
+immediate and violent disgust, he burned to expose his parent's cupidity
+and dishonesty, and to rid himself of the burden which he had
+voluntarily taken as his own; but pride, shame, and other low
+incentives, came between him and the fulfilment of a rash resolution,
+and he had nothing to do but to look his difficulty fully and bravely in
+the face. In addition to this trial, he found it necessary to proceed
+without delay as far eastward as Vienna; for thither his chief creditor
+had taken himself on urgent business, which threatened to detain him on
+the spot until the following year. Nor was this all; a Lyonese merchant,
+who held old Allcraft's note of hand for a considerable sum, advanced
+under assurances of early payment, had grown obstinate and restive with
+disappointment and anxiety. He insisted upon the instant discharge of
+his claim, and refused to give another hour's grace. To rid himself of
+this plague, Michael had not hesitated to draw upon his house for a sum
+somewhat greater than five thousand pounds. The act had not been
+committed without some distress of mind--some murmurings of conscience;
+but the necessity was great--the compulsion not to be avoided. To put an
+end to all further and importunate demands, he posted into Austria fast
+as he could be conveyed. The chief creditor was destined to be Michael's
+chief misery. He was an obdurate, unyielding man, and, after days of
+negotiation, would finally listen to nothing but the chink of the gold
+that was due to him. And how much that was, Michael dared not trust
+himself to think. Now, what was to be done? To draw again upon the
+bank--to become himself, to his partners, an example of recklessness and
+extravagance, was out of the question. He had but one course before him,
+and it was one which he had solemnly vowed never to adopt. To beg a loan
+from his wife so early in the morning of their union, seemed a thing
+impossible--at least it seemed so in the outset, when the thought first
+blushed upon him, and there remained a chance, a hope, of escaping from
+the miserable alternative. But as the creditor got clamorous, and every
+prospect of satisfying his demand--every means save one--grew dim, and
+shadowy, and blank, the wrongfulness, the impropriety of making an
+appeal to her, whose heart was willing as her hand was able to release
+him from despair, became less evident, and by degrees not evident at
+all. It would have been well for Allcraft, and for Margaret too, had the
+latter resisted his demand, or opposed it with one kind word of
+remonstrance. Michael was prepared for this, and the gentlest opposition
+would have saved them both. But what did Margaret possess, which she
+wished not to share with him who was her idol--dearer to her than her
+life--the joy and light of life! He hinted his request; she hardly
+suffered him to hint it. She placed her substance at his command, and
+bade him use it. Like a guilty man--one guilty of his first but heavy
+fault--blushing and faltering, Allcraft thanked his Margaret for the
+loan, promised speedy payment, and vowed that he would beg no more. Fond
+Margaret! she kissed the vow away, and bade him clear his brow, smile,
+and be happy. It was a woman's part, who loves not wisely, but too well.
+The day that gave him the means of satisfying the claims of one great
+creditor, bound Allcraft more seriously to another; but he rejoiced at
+his success, which brought him temporary ease, and he congratulated
+himself upon his deliverance from failure and exposure. There was little
+to do. The lady's broker was written to; the legal adviser of the
+gentleman, at Michael's own request, prepared an instrument to secure
+repayment of the loan; the money came--the debts of Allcraft senior to
+the last farthing were discharged, and scarcely discharged before
+Michael, eager and anxious to be at home, quitted Vienna, ready to
+travel by night and day, and longing to feel his footing safely in the
+banking-house again.
+
+It is now proper to state, that on the very day that Michael's draft of
+five thousand pounds applied for honourable reception at the counter of
+his most respectable establishment, by a curious coincidence another
+demand for double that amount appeared there likewise; not in the shape
+of cheque or written order, but in that of a request, personal and oral,
+proceeding from the proud and high-born lips of Walter Bellamy, Esquire,
+lord of the manor--gentleman and banker. Mr Bellamy was not the first
+man, by a great number, who has attempted to clothe and conceal real
+poverty in the stately apparel of arrogance and offensive
+self-sufficiency. He, man of the world, knew well enough, that, thus
+disguised, _necessity_ need never fear discovery--might look and laugh
+in secret at mankind--might feed and thrive upon its faults and
+weaknesses. How comparatively easy it is to avoid the shoals and rocks
+of life--to sail smoothly and pleasantly on its waters, when we take for
+our rudder and our guide the world's great axiom, "RICHES ARE
+VIRTUE--POVERTY IS VICE." "Assume the _virtue_, if you have it not;"
+assume its shows and appearances, its tricks, its offences, and its
+crimes, rather than confess your nakedness. Be liberal and prodigal, if
+it must be, with the crown you need to pay your necessary lodging; adorn
+with velvet and with silk the body that grows sick for lack of wholesome
+food; bribe, beyond their expectation, the pampered things in livery
+that stand between you and the glory you aspire to--bribe them, though
+to part with money is to lose your meal. Upon this broad principle it
+was, that Walter Bellamy existed--in virtue of it he held lands, and by
+its means he had become a partner in the bank, an active one, as very
+soon he proved himself to be. His property was estimated by shrewd
+calculators at a hundred thousand pounds--that, at the very least. And
+Bellamy chuckled at his fireside--no one being by--at the universal
+gullibility of man. A hundred thousand pounds! Why, he could not--at any
+one period during the last twenty years, command as many farthings. What
+right had strangers to calculate for him? What right had Allcraft to
+depend upon such calculations? We may well ask the question, since Mr
+Bellamy did so, when he endeavoured, as the worst of us will do, to
+justify bad conduct to an unfaithful conscience. Why, what was he? a
+simple _locum tenens_ of a dozen mortgagees, who had advanced upon the
+estate a great deal more money than it would ever realize, if forced to
+sale--a haughty, overbearing man, (though very benevolent to postboys
+and other serving men,) a magistrate, and a great disciplinarian. This
+was the amount of his pretensions, and yet men worshipped him. It was
+surely not the fault of Mr Bellamy, but rather his good fortune; and if
+he chose to make the most of it, he was a wise and prudent personage.
+When it is borne in mind that the possessions of Mr Bellamy were
+involved beyond their actual worth--that for some time he had lived in a
+perpetual dread of exposure and utter ruin--that for years he had looked
+abroad for some kind friend, who, if not altogether willing, might still
+be prevailed upon to release him from his difficulties--it will be easy
+to understand his very great desire to confer on Michael Allcraft all
+the advantages of his own position and high character.
+
+The part which Bellamy had taken in the business of the house, was very
+inconsiderable until Michael's departure. Up to that time, he came to
+the bank in his carriage with much ceremony--spoke to the dependents
+there with becoming _hauteur_, and took his leave, on all occasions, as
+a rich man should, with abundant fuss, scarcely troubling himself with
+the proceedings of the day. "He had," he was always repeating the words,
+"he had the greatest confidence in Allcraft. It was unbounded. He felt
+that he could trust to him entirely and unreservedly." Gratefully did
+such expressions fall upon the flattered ear of Michael, applauding
+himself ever upon his victory--upon the acquisition of such a man. Of
+what service he would be to him in his well-laid plans! Of what use was
+his name already--and how much more serviceable than all would be the
+noble sum of money which he had _promised_ to bring into the bank at the
+close of the year! Michael, in his moments of chivalry, standing in the
+presence of Bellamy, looked upon him almost with an eye of pity and
+self-reproach. Whilst he himself could only plead guilty to a most
+refined and cunning policy, his innocent partner was but too full of
+trust; too simple and too unsuspecting. Somebody remarks, that God
+reserves unto himself that horrid sight--a naked, human heart. Had
+Allcraft and Bellamy, during one of their early interviews, suddenly
+stripped, and favoured each other with reciprocal glances--one or both
+would have been slightly startled by the unexpected exhibition. Planner
+had always looked upon Mr Bellamy as a very great man indeed--had
+contemplated him with that exact admixture of awe and admiration, that
+was pleasing and acceptable to the subject of it. Mr Bellamy, in his
+turn, conducted himself towards the schemer with much cordiality and
+kindness. Proud men never unbend until their supremacy is acknowledged
+through your servility. Your submission turns their gall to
+honey--converts their vinegar to milk--to the very cream of human
+complaisance. Mr Bellamy acted his part in this respect, as in every
+other--well; a tiger to such as would not cringe, he could become a
+playful lamb to all who were content to fawn. Planner and he were on the
+best possible terms. Looking into what is called the nature of things,
+we shall think it very natural on the part of Mr Bellamy, when he found
+himself so agreeably situated in regard to the circulating medium, if he
+took an early opportunity to help himself of the abundance by which he
+was surrounded. The truth is, that some time before the visit of
+Allcraft to the Continent, he had entertained a very serious intention
+of drawing out of the concern the anticipatory profits of a few years,
+in order to relieve himself and fine estate from certain engagements
+which pressed inconveniently on both--but his object had not, for many
+reasons, been carried into effect. In the first place, a moderate degree
+of actual shame withheld him--and again, he had begged for time from his
+creditor, and obtained it. Allcraft absent, the sense of shame
+diminished; before he could return to England, the grateful respite was
+at an end. It was a fine bright morning when Mr Bellamy's grand carriage
+drew up in state before the banking-house, and the highly respectable
+proprietor descended from it with his accustomed style and dignity. Mr
+Planner was, at the moment, at his desk, very busy with the prospectus
+of the _Pantamorphica_ Association, in which he had just completed some
+very striking additions--but perceiving his respected colleague, he
+jumped from his seat, and hastened to give him greeting.
+
+"Don't let me disturb you, my dear friend," said the gracious Mr
+Bellamy. "I beg you'll prosecute your labours."
+
+"Don't mention it, I pray--so like you, Mr Bellamy--always considerate
+and kind."
+
+"Busy, Mr Planner--eh?--a deal to do now in the absence of our good
+friend?"
+
+"Enough, enough sir, I assure you--but business, sir, is pleasure to the
+active mind."
+
+"Very true--we feel your worth, sir--the house acknowledges your
+ability, Mr Planner."
+
+"Dear Mr Bellamy--you are very flattering."
+
+"No--not at all. Have you any engagement, Mr Planner, for this evening?
+Can you find time to dine with us at the Hall? I am positively angry
+with you for your repeated excuses."
+
+"I shall be too proud, sir--business hitherto"----
+
+"Ay--ay--but, my good sir, we must not sacrifice ourselves to business.
+A little recreation is absolutely necessary."
+
+"So it is, sir--so it is--and you, sir, with your splendid fortune and
+superior taste"----
+
+"Ah, ah--_apropos_! have you heard from Mr Allcraft lately?"
+
+"This morning, sir."
+
+"When does he return, pray?"
+
+"In about a week from this. He writes he leaves Vienna this very day."
+
+"Dear me, how very inconvenient, how very vexing!"
+
+"What is it, may I ask, sir?"
+
+"Oh, a trifle, Mr Planner. Dear me--dear me--it is annoying too!"
+
+"Is it nothing that we can do, sir? Any thing the bank can offer?"
+
+"Why--my dear sir--it is rather awkward, certainly. I have engaged to
+complete a purchase, and it must be done to-morrow. What cash have we in
+the house? There can be no impropriety in withdrawing a few thousand
+pounds for a short time. What do you think--Mr Allcraft being away?"
+
+Now, Planner himself, during the last few days, had been very busy with
+the cash-box, in order to meet the expenses of certain preliminaries
+essential to the success of the infant _Pantamorphica_--into which
+speculation, by the way, he had entered heart and soul--and it was quite
+a relief and a joy to him to find his partner turning his attention to
+the same quarter; so true it is, that no pleasure is so sweet to a
+sinner, as the wickedness and companionship of a brother criminal.
+
+"Impropriety, sir!" exclaimed the schemer. "Certainly not. Draw your
+cheque, sir. If we have not the money here, we have a heavy purse in
+London--and I beg you will command it."
+
+"You think, then, that until our friend's return"----
+
+"I am perfectly satisfied, Mr Bellamy," said Planner, with an emphasis
+on every word, as men will sometimes use, feeling and believing all that
+they assert. "I am thoroughly convinced that nothing would give Mr
+Allcraft greater pain than to know you had needed a temporary loan, and
+had not availed yourself of every opportunity that the bank affords you.
+I entreat you not to hesitate one instant. How much may you require?"
+
+"Well, my dear sir--you will dine with us this evening. We will talk the
+matter over. Don't be late. Upon consideration, it may be quite as well,
+perhaps, to draw upon the bank."
+
+"Much better, sir, I am sure, in every way. Will you walk into the
+private room? You'll find pen, ink, and paper there. We can accommodate
+you, sir--no doubt."
+
+"Thank you, Mr Planner, thank you."
+
+How very few of the numerous clients of Messrs Allcraft, Bellamy,
+Brammel, and Planner, in their worst dreams that night, dreamt of the
+havoc which was making with their beloved and hard-earned cash!
+
+
+
+
+COLLEGE THEATRICALS.
+
+
+It wanted but two or three weeks to the Christmas vacation, and we--the
+worshipful society of under-graduates of ---- College, Oxford--were
+beginning to get tired of the eternal round of supper parties which
+usually marked the close of our winter's campaign, and ready to hail
+with delight any proposition that had the charm of novelty. A three
+weeks' frost had effectually stopped the hunting; all the best tandem
+leaders were completely screwed; the freshmen had been "larked" till
+they were grown as cunning as magpies; and the Dean had set up a
+divinity lecture at two o'clock, and published a stringent proclamation
+against rows in the Quad. It was, in short, in a particularly
+uninteresting state of things, with the snow falling lazily upon the
+grey roofs and silent quadrangle, that some half dozen of us had
+congregated in Bob Thornhill's rooms, to get over the time between lunch
+and dinner with as little trouble to our mental and corporal faculties
+as possible. Those among us who had been for the last three months
+promising to themselves to begin to read "next week," had now put off
+that too easy creditor, conscience, till "next term." One alone had
+settled his engagements of that nature, or, in the language of his
+"_Testamur_"--the prettiest bit of Latin, he declared, that he ever
+saw--"_satisfecit examinatoribus_." Unquestionably, in his case, the
+examiners must have had the rare virtue of being very easily satisfied.
+In fact, Mr Savile's discharge of his educational engagements was rather
+a sort of "whitewashing" than a payment in full. His passing was what is
+technically called a "shave," a metaphor alluding to that intellectual
+density which finds it difficult to squeeze through the narrow portal
+which admits to the privileges of a Bachelor of Arts. As Mr S. himself,
+being a sporting man, described it, it was "a very close run indeed;"
+not that he considered that circumstance to derogate, in any way, from
+his victory; he was rather inclined to consider, that, having shown the
+field of examiners capital sport, and fairly got away from them in the
+end without the loss of his brush, his examination had been one of the
+very best runs of the season. In virtue whereof he was now mounted on
+the arm of an easy-chair, with a long _chibouque_, which became the
+gravity of an incipient bachelor better than a cigar, and took upon
+himself to give Thornhill (who was really a clever fellow, and
+professing to be reading for a first) some advice as to his conducting
+himself when his examination should arrive.
+
+"I'll tell you what, Thornhill, old boy, I'll give you a wrinkle; it
+doesn't always answer to let out all you know at an examination. That
+sly old varmint, West of Magdalen, asked me who Hannibal was.
+'Aha!'--said I to myself--'that's your line of country, is it? You want
+to walk me straight into those botheration Punic Wars, it's no go,
+though; I sha'n't break cover in that direction.' So I was mute. 'Can't
+you tell me something about Hannibal?' says old West again. 'I can,'
+thinks I, 'but I won't.' He was regularly flabbergasted; I spoilt his
+beat entirely, don't you see? so he looked as black as thunder, and
+tried it on in a fresh place. If I had been fool enough to let him dodge
+me in those Punic Wars, I could have been run into in no time. Depend
+upon it, there's nothing like a judicious ignorance occasionally."
+
+"Why," said Thornhill, "'when ignorance is bliss,' (_i. e._ when it gets
+through the schools,) 'tis folly to be wise.'"
+
+"Ah! that's Shakspeare says that, isn't it? I wish one could take up
+Shakspeare for a class! I'm devilish fond of Shakspeare. We used to act
+Shakspeare at a private school I was at."
+
+"By Jove!" said somebody from behind a cloud of smoke--whose the
+brilliant idea was, was afterwards matter of dispute--"why couldn't we
+get up a play?"
+
+"Ah! why not? why not? Capital!"
+
+"It's such a horrid bore learning one's part," lisped the elegant Horace
+Leicester, half awake on the sofa.
+
+"Oh, stuff!" said Savile, "it's the very thing to keep us alive! We
+could make a capital theatre out of the hall; don't you think the little
+vice principal would give us leave?"
+
+"You had better ask for the chapel at once. Why, don't you know, my dear
+fellow, the college hall, in the opinion of the dean and the vice, is
+held rather more sacred of the two? Newcome, poor devil, attempted to
+cut a joke at the high table one of the times he dined there after he
+was elected, and he told me that they all stared at him as if he had
+insulted them; and the vice (in confidence) explained to him that such
+'levity' was treason against the '_reverentia loci_!'"
+
+"Ay, I remember when that old villain Solomon, the porter, fined me ten
+shillings for walking in there with spurs one day when I was late for
+dinner; he said the dean always took off his cap when he went in there
+by himself, and threatened to turn off old Higgs, when he had been scout
+forty years, because he heard him whistling one day while he was
+sweeping it out! Well," continued Savile, "you shall have my rooms; I
+sha'n't trouble them much now. I am going to pack all my books down to
+old Wise's next week, to turn them into ready _tin_; so you may turn the
+study into a carpenter's shop, if you like. Oh, it can be managed
+famously!"
+
+So, after a few _pros_ and _cons_, it was finally settled that Mr
+Savile's rooms should become the Theatre Royal, ---- College; and I was
+honoured with the responsible office of stage-manager. What the play was
+to be was a more difficult point to settle. Savile proposed _Romeo and
+Juliet_, and volunteered for the hero; but it passed the united strength
+of the company to get up a decent _Juliet_. _Richard the Third_ was
+suggested; we had "six _Richards_ in the field" at once. We soon gave up
+the heroics, and decided on comedy; for, since our audience would be
+sure to laugh, we should at least have a chance of getting the laugh in
+the right place. So, after long discussion, we fixed on _She Stoops to
+Conquer_. There were a good many reasons for this selection. First, it
+was a piece possessing that grand desideratum in all amateur
+performances, that there were several parts in it of equal calibre, and
+none which implied decided superiority of talent in its representative.
+Secondly, there was not much _love_ in it; a material point where, as an
+Irishman might say, all the ladies were gentlemen. Thirdly, the scenery,
+dresses, properties, and decorations, were of the very simplest
+description: it was easily "put upon the stage." We found little
+difficulty in casting the male characters; old Mrs Hardcastle, not
+requiring any great share of personal attractions, and being considered
+a part that would tell, soon found a representative; but when we came to
+the "donnas"--_prima_ and _secunda_--then it was that the manager's
+troubles began. It was really necessary, to ensure the most moderate
+degree of success to the comedy, that Miss Hardcastle should have at
+least a lady-like deportment. The public voice, first in whispers, then
+audibly, at last vociferously, called upon Leicester. Slightly formed,
+handsome, clever and accomplished, with naturally graceful manners, and
+a fair share of vanity and affectation, there was no doubt of his making
+a respectable heroine if he would consent to be made love to. In vain
+did he protest against the petticoats, and urge with affecting
+earnestness the claims of the whiskers which for the last six months he
+had so diligently been cultivating; the chorus of entreaty and
+expostulation had its effect, aided by a well-timed compliment to the
+aristocratically small hand and foot, of which Horace was pardonably
+vain. Shaving was pronounced indispensable to the due growth of the
+whiskers; and the importance of the character, and the point of the
+situations, so strongly dwelt upon, that he became gradually reconciled
+to his fate, and began seriously to discuss the question whether Miss
+Hardcastle should wear her hair in curls or bands. A freshman of
+seventeen, who had no pretensions in the way of whiskers, and who was
+too happy to be admitted on any terms to a share in such a "fast idea"
+as the getting up a play, was to be the Miss Neville; and before the
+hall bell rang for dinner, an order had been despatched for a dozen
+acting copies of "She Stoops to Conquer."
+
+Times have materially changed since Queen Elizabeth's visit to
+Christ-Church; the University, one of the earliest nurses of the infant
+drama, has long since turned it out of doors for a naughty child; and
+forbid it, under pain of worse than whipping, to come any nearer than
+Abingdon or Bicester. Taking into consideration the style of some of the
+performances, in which under-graduates of some three hundred years ago
+were the actors, the "Oxford Theatre" of those days, if it had more wit
+in it than the present, had somewhat less decency: the ancient
+"moralities" were not over moral, and the "mysteries" rather Babylonish.
+So far we have had no great loss. Whether the judicious getting
+up of a tragedy of Sophocles or Aeschylus, or even a comedy of
+Terence--classically managed--as it could be done in Oxford--and well
+acted, would be more unbecoming the gravity of our collected wisdom, or
+more derogatory to the dignity of our noble "theatre," than the
+squalling of Italian singers, masculine, feminine, and neuter--is a
+question which, when I take my M.A., I shall certainly propose in
+convocation. Thus much I am sure of, if a classical play-bill were duly
+announced for the next grand commemoration, it would "draw" almost as
+well as the Duke; the dresses might be quite as showy, the action hardly
+less graceful, than those of the odd-looking gentlemen who are dubbed
+doctors of civil law on such occasions; and the speeches of Prometheus,
+Oedipus, or Antigone, would be more intelligible to the learned, and
+more amusing to the ladies, than those Latin essays or the Creweian
+oration.
+
+However, until I am vice-chancellor, the legitimate drama, Greek, Roman,
+or English, seems little likely to revive in Oxford. _Our_ branch of
+that great family, I confess, bore the bar-sinister. The offspring of
+our theatrical affections was unrecognized by college authority. The
+fellows of ---- would have done any thing but "smile upon its birth."
+The dean especially would have burked it at once had he suspected its
+existence. Nor was it fostered, like the former Oxford theatricals to
+which we have alluded, by royal patronage; we could not, consistently
+with decorum, request her Majesty to encourage an illegitimate.
+Nevertheless--spite of its being thus born under the rose--it grew and
+prospered. Our plan of rehearsal was original. We used to adjourn from
+dinner to the rooms of one or other of the company; and there, over our
+wine and dessert, instead of quizzing freshmen and abusing tutors, open
+each our copy, and, with all due emphasis and intonation, go regularly
+through the scenes of "She Stoops to Conquer." This was all the study we
+ever gave to our parts: and even thus it was difficult to get a muster
+of all the performers, and we had generally to play dummy for some one
+or more of the characters, or "double" them, as the professionals call
+it. The excuses for absenteeism were various. Mrs Hardcastle and Tony
+were gone to Woodstock with a team, and were not to be waited for;
+Diggory had a command to dine with the principal; and once an
+interesting dialogue was cut short by the untoward event of Miss
+Neville's being "confined"--in consequence of some indiscretion or
+other--"to chapel." It was necessary in our management, as much as in Mr
+Bunn's or Mr Macready's, to humour the caprices of the stars of the
+company: but the lesser lights, if they became eccentric at all in their
+orbits, were extinguished without mercy. Their place was easily
+supplied; for the moment it became known that a play was in
+contemplation, there were plenty of candidates for dramatic fame,
+especially among the freshmen: and though we mortally offended one or
+two aspiring geniuses by proffering them the vacant situations of Ralph,
+Roger, and Co., in Mr Hardcastle's household, on condition of having
+their respective blue dress coats turned up with yellow to represent the
+family livery, there were others to whom the being admitted behind the
+scenes, even in these humble characters, was a subject of laudable
+ambition. Nay, unimportant as were some parts in themselves, they were
+quite enough for the histrionic talent of some of our friends. Till I
+became a manager myself, I always used to lose patience at the wretched
+manner in which some of the underlings on the stage went through the
+little they had to say and do: there seemed no reason why the "sticks"
+should be so provokingly sticky; and it surprised me that a man who
+could accost one fluently enough at the stage door, should make such a
+bungle as some of them did in a message of some half dozen words "in
+character." But when I first became initiated into the mysteries of
+amateur performances, and saw how entirely destitute some men were of
+any notion of natural acting, and how they made a point of repeating two
+lines of familiar dialogue with the tone and manner, but without the
+correctness of a schoolboy going through a task--then it ceased to be
+any matter of wonder that those to whom acting was no joke, but an
+unhappily earnest mode of getting bread, should so often make their
+performance appear the uneasy effort which it is. There was one man in
+particular, a good-humoured, gentlemanly fellow, a favourite with us
+all; not remarkable for talent, but a pleasant companion enough, with
+plenty of common sense. Well, "he would be an actor"--it was his own
+fancy to have a part, and, as he was "one of us," we could not well
+refuse him. We gave him an easy one, for he was not vain of his own
+powers, or ambitious of theatrical distinction; so he was to be "second
+fellow"--one of Tony's pot-companions. He had but two lines to speak;
+but, from the very first time I heard him read them, I set him down as a
+hopeless case. He read them as if he had just learned to spell the
+words; when he repeated them without the book, it was like a clergyman
+giving out a text. And so it was with a good many of the rank and file
+of the company; we had more labour to drill them into something like a
+natural intonation than to learn our own longest speeches twice over. So
+we made their attendance at rehearsals a _sine qua non_. We dismissed a
+promising "Mat Muggins" because he went to the "Union" two nights
+successively, when he ought to have been at "The Three Pigeons." We
+superseded a very respectable "landlord" (though he had actually been
+measured for a corporation and a pair of calves) for inattention to
+business. The only one of the supernumeraries whom it was at all
+necessary to conciliate, was the gentleman who was to sing the comic
+song instead of Tony, (Savile, the representative of the said Tony, not
+having music in his soul beyond a view-holloa.) He was allowed to go and
+come at our readings _ad libitum_, upon condition of being very careful
+not to take cold.
+
+When we had become tolerably perfect in the words of our parts, it was
+deemed expedient to have a "dress rehearsal"--especially for the ladies.
+It is not very easy to move safely--let alone gracefully--in petticoats,
+for those who are accustomed to move their legs somewhat more
+independently. And it would not have been civil in Messrs Marlow and
+Hastings to laugh outright at their lady-loves before company, as they
+were sure to do upon their first appearance. A dress rehearsal,
+therefore, was a very necessary precaution. But if it was difficult to
+get the company together at six o'clock under the friendly disguise of a
+wine-party, doubly difficult was it to expect them to muster at eleven
+in the morning. The first day that we fixed for it, there came a not
+very lady-like note, evidently written in bed, from Miss Hardcastle,
+stating, that having been at a supper-party the night before, and there
+partaken of brandy-punch to an extent to which she was wholly
+unaccustomed, it was quite impossible, in the present state of her
+nervous system, for her to make her appearance in character at any
+price. There was no alternative but to put off the rehearsal; and that
+very week occurred a circumstance which was very near being the cause of
+its adjournment _sine die_.
+
+"Mr Hawthorne," said the dean to me one morning, when I was leaving his
+rooms, rejoicing in the termination of lecture, "I wish to speak with
+you, if you please." The dean's communications were seldom of a very
+pleasing kind, and on this particular morning his countenance gave token
+that he had hit upon something more than usually _piquant_. The rest of
+the men filed out of the door as slowly as they conveniently could, in
+the hope, I suppose, of hearing the dean's fire open upon me, but he
+waited patiently till my particular friend, Bob Thornhill, had picked up
+carefully, one by one, his miscellaneous collection of note-book,
+pencil, penknife, and other small wares, and had been obliged at length
+to make an unwilling exit; when, seeing the door finally closed, he
+commenced with his usual--"Have the goodness to sit down, sir."
+
+Experience had taught me, that it was as well to make one's-self as
+comfortable as might be upon these occasions; so I took the easy-chair,
+and tried to look as if I thought the dean merely wanted to have a
+pleasant half-hour's chat. He marched into a little back-room that he
+called his study, and I began to speculate upon the probable subject of
+our conference. Strange! that week had been a more than usually quiet
+one. No late knocking in; no cutting lectures at chapel; positively I
+began to think that, for once, the dean had gone on a wrong scent, and
+that I should repel his accusations with all the dignity of injured
+innocence; or had he sent for me to offer his congratulations on my
+having commenced in the "steady" line, and to ask me to breakfast? I was
+not long to indulge such delusive hopes. Re-enter the dean, O. P., as
+our stage directions would have had it, with--a pair of stays!
+
+By what confounded ill-luck they had got into his possession I could not
+imagine; but there they were. The dean touched them as if he felt their
+very touch an abomination, threw them on the table, and briefly
+said--"These, sir, were found in your rooms this morning. Can you
+explain how they came there?"
+
+True enough, Leicester had been trying on the abominable articles in my
+bedroom, and I had stuffed them into a drawer till wanted. What to say
+was indeed a puzzle. To tell the whole truth would, no doubt, have ended
+the matter at once, and a hearty laugh should I have had at the dean's
+expense; but it would have put the stopper on "She Stoops to Conquer."
+It was too ridiculous to look grave about; and blacker grew the
+countenance before me, as, with a vain attempt to conceal a smile, I
+echoed his words, and stammered out--"In my rooms, sir?"
+
+"Yes, sir, in your bed-room." He rang the bell. "Your servant, Simmons,
+most properly brought them to me."
+
+The little rascal! I had been afraid to let him know any thing about the
+theatricals; for I knew perfectly well the dean would hear of it in half
+an hour, for he served him in the double capacity of scout and spy.
+Before the bell had stopped, Dick Simmons made his appearance, having
+evidently been kept at hand. He did look rather ashamed of himself, when
+I asked him, what business he had to search my wardrobe?
+
+"Oh dear, sir! I never did no sich a thing; I was a-making of your bed,
+sir, when I sees the tag of a stay-lace hanging out of your topmost
+drawer, sir--("I am a married man, sir," to the dean apologetically,
+"and I know the tag of a stay-lace, sir")--and so I took it out, sir;
+and knowing my duty to the college, sir, though I should be very sorry
+to bring you into trouble, Mr Hawthorne, sir"----
+
+"Yes, yes, Simmons, you did quite right," said the dean. "You are bound
+to give notice to the college authorities of all irregularities, and
+your situation requires that you should be conscientious."
+
+"I hope I am, sir," said the little rascal; "but indeed I am very sorry,
+Mr Hawthorne, sir"----
+
+"Oh! never mind," said I; "you did right, no doubt. I can only say those
+things are not mine, sir; they belong to a friend of mine."
+
+"I don't ask who they belong to, sir," said the dean indignantly; "I
+ask, sir, how came they in your rooms?"
+
+"I believe, sir, my friend (he was in my rooms yesterday) left them
+there. Some men wear stays, sir," continued I, boldly; "it's very much
+the fashion, I'm told."
+
+"Eh! hum!" said the dean, eyeing the brown jean doubtingly. "I have
+heard of such things. Horrid puppies men are now. Never dreamt of such
+things in my younger days; but then, sir, _we_ were not allowed to wear
+white trousers, and waistcoats of I don't know what colours; we were
+made to attend to the statutes, sir. '_Nigri aut suspici_,' sir, Ah!
+times are changed--times are changed, indeed! And do you mean to say,
+sir, you have a friend, a member of this university, who wears such
+things as these?"
+
+I might have got clear off, if it had not been for that rascal Simmons.
+I saw him give the dean a look, and an almost imperceptible shake of the
+head.
+
+"But I don't think, sir," resumed he, "these can be a man's stays--eh,
+Simmons?" Simmons looked diligently at his toes. "No," said the dean,
+investigating the unhappy garment more closely--"no, I fear, Simmons,
+these are female stays!"
+
+The conscientious Simmons made no sign.
+
+"I don't know, sir," said I, as he looked from Simmons to me. "I don't
+wear stays, and I know nothing about them. If Simmons were to fetch a
+pair of Mrs Simmons's, sir," resumed I, "you could compare them."
+
+Mrs Simmons's figure resembled a sack of flour, with a string round it;
+and, if she did wear the articles in question, they must have been of a
+pattern almost unique--made to order.
+
+"Sir," said the dean, "your flippancy is unbecoming. I shall not pursue
+this investigation any further; but I am bound to tell you, sir, this
+circumstance is suspicious--very suspicious." I could not resist a smile
+for the life of me. "And doubly suspicious, sir, in your case. The eyes
+of the college are upon you, sir." He was evidently losing his temper,
+so I bowed profoundly, and he grew more irate. "Ever since, sir, that
+atrocious business of the frogs, though the college authorities failed
+in discovering the guilty parties, there are some individuals, sir,
+whose conduct is watched attentively. Good-morning, sir."
+
+The "business of the frogs," to which the dean so rancorously alluded,
+had, indeed, caused some consternation to the fellows of----. There had
+been a marvellous story going the round of the papers, of a shower of
+the inelegant reptiles in question having fallen in some part of the
+kingdom. Old women were muttering prophecies, and wise men acknowledged
+themselves puzzled. The Ashmolean Society had sat in conclave upon it,
+and accounted so satisfactorily for the occurrence, that the only wonder
+seemed to be that we had not a shower of frogs, or some equally
+agreeable visitors, every rainy morning. Now, every one who has strolled
+round Christ-Church meadows on a warm evening, especially after rain,
+must have been greeted at intervals by a whole gamut of croaks; and, if
+he had the curiosity to peer into the green ditches as he passed along,
+he might catch a glimpse of the heads of the performers. Well, the joint
+reflections of myself and an ingenious friend, who were studying this
+branch of zoology while waiting for the coming up of the boats one
+night, tended to the conclusion, that a very successful imitation of the
+late "Extraordinary Phenomenon" might be got up for the edification of
+the scientific in our own college. Animals of all kinds find dealers and
+purchasers in Oxford. Curs of lowest degree have their prices. Rats,
+being necessary in the education of terriers, come rather expensive. A
+pole-cat--even with three legs only--will command a fancy price.
+Sparrows, larks, and other small birds, are retailed by the dozen on
+Cowley Marsh to gentlemen under-graduates who are aspiring to the
+pigeon-trap. But as yet there had been no demand for frogs, and there
+was quite a glut of them in the market. They were cheap accordingly; for
+a shilling a hundred we found that we might inflict the second plague of
+Egypt upon the whole university. The next evening, two hampers,
+containing, as our purveyor assured us, "very prime 'uns," arrived at my
+rooms "from Mr S----, the wine merchant;" and, by daylight on the
+following morning, were judiciously distributed throughout all the
+come-at-able premises within the college walls. When I awoke the next
+morning, I heard voices in earnest conversation under my window, and
+looked out with no little curiosity. The frogs had evidently produced a
+sensation. The bursar, disturbed apparently from his early breakfast,
+stood robed in an ancient dressing-gown, with the _Times_ in his hand,
+on which he was balancing a frog as yellow as himself. The dean, in cap
+and surplice, on his way from chapel, was eagerly listening to the
+account which one of the scouts was giving him of the first discovery of
+the intruders.
+
+"Me and my missis, sir," quoth John, "was a-coming into college when it
+was hardly to say daylight, when she, as I reckon, sets foot upon one of
+'em, and was like to have been back'ards with a set of breakfast chiney
+as she was a-bringing in for one of the fresh gentlemen. She scritches
+out in course, and I looks down, and then I sees two or three a' 'oppin
+about; but I didn't take much notice till I gets to the thoroughfare,
+when there was a whole row on 'em a-trying to climb up the bottom step;
+and then I calls Solomon the porter, and"----
+
+Here I left my window, and, making a hasty toilet, joined a group of
+under-graduates, who were now collecting round the dean and bursar. I
+cast my eyes round the quadrangle, and was delighted with the success of
+our labours. There had been a heavy shower in the night, and the frogs
+were as lively as they could be on so ungenial a location as a gravelled
+court. In every corner was a goodly cluster, who were making ladders of
+each other's backs, as if determined to scale the college walls. Some,
+of more retiring disposition, were endeavouring to force themselves into
+crevices, and hiding their heads behind projections to escape the gaze
+of academic eyes; while a few active spirits seemed to be hopping a
+sweepstakes right for the common-room door. Just as I made my
+appearance, the principal came out of the door of his lodgings, with
+another of the fellows, having evidently been summoned to assist at the
+consultation. Good old soul! his study of zoology had been chiefly
+confined to the class edibles, and a shower of frogs, authenticated upon
+the oaths of the whole Convocation, would not have been half so
+interesting to him as an importation of turtle. However, to do him
+justice, he put on his spectacles, and looked as scientific as any body.
+After due examination of the specimen of the genus _Zana_ which the
+bursar still held in captivity, and pronouncing an unanimous opinion,
+that, come from where he would, he was a _bona fide_ frog, with nothing
+supernatural about him, the conclave proceeded round the quadrangle,
+calculating the numbers, and conjecturing the probable origin of these
+strange visitors. Equally curious, if not equally scientific, were the
+under-graduates who followed them; for, having strictly kept our own
+secret, my friend and myself were the only parties who could solve the
+mystery; and though many suspected that the frogs were unwilling
+emigrants, none knew to whom they were indebted for their introduction
+to college. The collected wisdom of the dons soon decided that a shower
+of full-grown frogs was a novelty even in the extraordinary occurrences
+of newspapers; and as not even a single individual croaker was to be
+discovered outside the walls of ----, it became evident that the whole
+affair was, as the dean described it, "another of those outrages upon
+academic discipline, which were as senseless as they were disgraceful."
+
+I daresay the dean's anathema was "as sensible as it was sincere;" but
+it did not prevent our thoroughly enjoying the success of the
+"_outrage_" at the time; nor does it, unfortunately, suffice at this
+present moment to check something like an inward chuckle, when I think
+of the trouble which it cost the various retainers of the college to
+clear it effectually of its strange visitors. Hopkins, the old butler,
+who was of rather an imaginative temperament, and had a marvellous tale
+to tell any one who would listen, of a departed bursar, who, having
+caught his death of cold by superintending the laying down of three
+pipes of port, might ever afterwards be heard, upon such interesting
+occasions, walking about the damp cellars after nightfall in pattens.
+Hopkins, the oracle of the college "tap," maintained that the frogs were
+something "off the common;" and strengthened his opinion by reference to
+a specimen which he had selected--a lank, black, skinny individual,
+which really looked ugly enough to have come from any where. Scouts,
+wives, and children, (they always make a point of having large families,
+in order to eat up the spare commons,) all were busy, through that
+eventful day, in a novel occupation, and by dinnertime not a frog was to
+be seen; but long, long afterwards, on a moist evening, fugitives from
+the general prescription might be seen making their silent way across
+the quadrangle, and croakings were heard at night-time, which might (as
+Homer relates of _his_ frogs) have disturbed Minerva, only that the
+goddess of wisdom, in chambers collegiate, sleeps usually pretty sound.
+
+The "business of the stays," however, bid fair to supersede the business
+of the frogs, in the dean's record of my supposed crimes; and as I fully
+intended to clear myself, even to his satisfaction, of any suspicion
+which might attach to me from the possession of such questionable
+articles so soon as our theatre closed for the season, I resolved that
+my successful defence from this last imputation would be an admirable
+ground on which to assume the dignity of a martyr, to appeal against all
+uncharitable conclusions from insufficient premises, and come out as the
+personification of injured innocence throughout my whole college career.
+
+When my interview with the dean was over, I ordered some luncheon up to
+Leicester's rooms, where, as I expected, I found most of my own "set"
+collected, in order to hear the result. A private conference with the
+official aforesaid seldom boded good to the party so favoured; the dean
+seldom made his communications so agreeable as he might have done. In
+college, as in most other societies, La Rochefoucauld's maxim holds
+good--that "there is always something pleasant in the misfortunes of
+one's friends;" and, whenever an unlucky wight did get into a row, he
+might pretty confidently reckon upon being laughed at. In fact,
+under-graduates considered themselves as engaged in a war of stratagem
+against an unholy alliance of deans, tutors, and proctors; and in every
+encounter the defeated party was looked upon as the deluded victim of
+superior ingenuity--as having been "done," in short. So, if a lark
+succeeded, the authorities aforesaid were decidedly done, and laughed at
+accordingly; if it failed, why the other party were done, and there was
+still somebody to laugh at. No doubt, the jest was richer in the first
+case supposed; but, in the second, there was the additional gusto, so
+dear to human philanthropy, of having the victim present, and enjoying
+his discomfiture, which, in the case of the dons being the sufferers,
+was denied us. It may seem to argue something of a want of sympathy to
+find amusement in misfortunes which might any day be our own; but any
+one who ever witnessed the air of ludicrous alarm with which an
+under-graduate prepares to obey the summons, (capable of but one
+interpretation,)--"The dean wishes to see you, sir, at ten
+o'clock"--which so often, in my time at least, was sent as a whet to
+some of the assembled guests at a breakfast party; whoever has been
+applied to on such occasions for the loan of a tolerable cap, (that of
+the delinquent having its corners in such dilapidated condition as to
+proclaim its owner a "rowing man" at once,) or has responded to the
+pathetic appeal--"Do I look _very_ seedy?"--any one to whom such absurd
+recollections of early days occur--and if you, good reader, are a
+university man, as, being a gentleman, I am bound in charity to conclude
+you are, and yet have no such reminiscences--allow me to suggest that
+you must have been a very slow coach indeed;--any one, I say once more,
+who knows the ridiculous figure which a man cuts when "hauled up" before
+the college Minos, or Radamanthus, will easily forgive his friends for
+being inclined to laugh at him.
+
+However, in the present case, any anticipations of fun at my expense,
+which the party in Leicester's rooms might charitably entertain, were
+somewhat qualified by the fear, that the consequences of any little
+private difference between the dean and myself might affect the
+prosperity of our unlicensed theatre. And when they heard how very
+nearly the discovery of the stays had been fatal to our project,
+execrations against Simmons's espionage were mingled with admiration of
+my escape from so critical a position.
+
+The following is, I apprehend, an unique specimen of an Oxford bill--and
+the only one, out of a tolerably large bundle which I keep for the sake
+of the receipts attached, (a precaution by no means uncalled for,) which
+I find any amusement in referring to.
+
+     ---- Hawthorne, Esq.,
+
+                       To M. Moore.
+
+     2 pr. brown jean corsets,        8  0
+     Padding for do., made to order,  2  6
+                                     -----
+                                     10  6
+             Rec'd. same day, M. M.
+
+(Savile, when I showed it to him, said the receipt was the only one of
+the kind he had seen in the course of a long experience.) Very much
+surprised was the old lady, of whom I made the purchase in my capacity
+of stage-manager, at so uncommon a customer in her line of business; and
+when, after enjoying her mystification for some time, I let her into the
+secret, so delighted was she at the notion, that she gave me sundry
+hints as to the management of the female toilet, and offered to get made
+up for me any dresses that might be required. So I introduced Leicester
+and his fellow-heroines to my friend Mrs Moore, and by the joint
+exertions of their own tastes and her experience, they became possessed
+of some very tolerable costumes. There was a good deal of fun going on,
+I fancy, in fitting and measuring, in her back parlour; for there was a
+daughter, or a niece, or something of the sort, who cut out the dresses
+with the prettiest hands in the world, as Leicester declared; but I was
+too busy with carpenters, painters, and other assistants, to pay more
+than a flying visit to the ladies' department.
+
+At last the rehearsal did come on. As Hastings, I had not much in the
+way of dress to alter; and, having some engagement in the early part of
+the morning, I did not arrive at the theatre until the rest of the
+characters were already dressed and ready to begin. Though I had been
+consulted upon all manner of points, from the arranging of a curl for
+Miss Neville to the colour of Diggory's stockings, and knew the costume
+of every individual as well as my own, yet so ludicrous was the effect
+of the whole when I entered the room, that I threw myself into the
+nearest chair, and laughed myself nearly into convulsions. The figure
+which first met my eyes was a little ruddy freshman, who had the part of
+the landlord, and who, in his zeal to do honour to our preference, had
+dressed the character most elaborately. A pillow, which he could
+scarcely see over, puffed out his red waistcoat; and his hair was cut
+short, and powdered with such good-will, that for weeks afterwards, in
+spite of diligent brushing, he looked as grey as the principal. There he
+stood--his legs clothed in grey worsted, retreating far beyond his
+little white apron, as if ashamed of their unusual appearance,
+
+     "The mother that him bare,
+     She had not known her son."
+
+Every one, however, had not been so classical in their costume. There
+was Sir Charles Marlow in what had been a judge's wig, and Mr Hardcastle
+in a barrister's; both sufficiently unlike themselves, at any rate, if
+not very correct copies of their originals. Then the women! As for Mrs
+Hardcastle, she was perfection. There never was, I believe, a better
+representation of the character. It was well dressed, and turned out a
+first-rate bit of acting--very far superior to any amateur performance I
+ever saw, and, with practice, would have equalled that of any actress on
+the stage. Her very curtsy was comedy itself. When I recovered my breath
+a little, I was able to attend to the dialogue which was going on, which
+was hardly less ridiculous than the strange disguises round me. "Now,
+Miss Hardcastle," (Marlow _loquitur_,) "I have no objection to your
+smoking cigars during rehearsal, of course--because you won't do that on
+Monday night, I suppose; but I must beg you to get out of the practice
+of standing or sitting crosslegged, because it's not lady-like, or even
+barmaid-like--and don't laugh when I make love to you; for if you do, I
+shall break down to a certainty." "Thornhill, do you think my waist will
+do?" said the anxious representative of the fair Constance. "I have worn
+these cursed stays for an hour every evening for the last week, and
+drawn them an inch tighter every time; but I don't think I'm a very good
+figure after all--just try if they'll come any closer, will you?" "Oh!
+Hawthorne, I'm glad you are come," said Savile, whom I hardly knew, in a
+red wig; "now, isn't there to be a bowl of real punch in the scene at
+the Three Pigeons--one can't _pretend_ to drink, you know, with any
+degree of spirit?" "Oh! of course," said I; "that's one of the
+landlord's properties: Miller, you must provide that, you know--send
+down for some cold tankards now; they will do very well for rehearsal."
+At last we got to work, and proceeded, with the prompter's assistance,
+pretty smoothly, and mutually applauding each other's performance, going
+twice over some of the more difficult scenes, and cutting out a good
+deal of love and sentiment. The play was fixed for the next Monday
+night, playbills ordered to be printed, and cards of invitation issued
+to all the performers' intimate friends. Every scout in the college, I
+believe, except my rascal Simmons, was in the secret, and probably some
+of the fellows had a shrewd guess at what was going on; but no one
+interfered with us. We carried on all our operations as quietly as
+possible; and the only circumstances likely to arouse suspicion in the
+minds of the authorities, was the unusual absence of all disturbances of
+a minor nature within the walls, in consequence of the one engrossing
+freak in which most of the more turbulent spirits were engaged.
+
+At length the grand night arrived. By nine o'clock the theatre in
+Savile's rooms was as full as it could be crammed with any degree of
+comfort to actors and audience; and in the study and bedroom, which,
+being on opposite sides, served admirably for dressing-rooms behind the
+scenes, the usual bustle of preparation was going on. As is common in
+such cases, some essential properties had been forgotten until the last
+moment. No bonnet had been provided for Mrs Hardcastle to take her walks
+abroad in; and when the little hairdresser, who had been retained to
+give a finishing touch to some of the coiffeurs, returned with one
+belonging to his "missis," which he had volunteered to lend, the roar of
+uncontrollable merriment which this new embellishment of our disguised
+friend called forth, made the audience clamorous for the rising of the
+curtain--thinking, very excusably, that it was quite unjustifiable to
+keep all the fun to ourselves.
+
+After some little trial of our "public's" patience, the play began in
+good earnest, and was most favourably received. Indeed, as the only
+price of admission exacted was a promise of civil behaviour, and there
+were two servants busily employed in handing about punch and "bishop,"
+it would have been rather hard if we did not succeed in propitiating
+their good-humour. With the exception of two gentlemen who had been
+dining out, and were rather noisy in consequence, and evinced a strong
+inclination occasionally to take a part in the dialogue, all behaved
+wonderfully well, greeting each performer, as he made his first
+entrance, with a due amount of cheering; rapturously applauding all the
+best scenes; laughing, (whether at the raciness of the acting or the
+grotesque metamorphoses of the actors, made no great difference,) and
+filling up any gap which occurred in the proceedings on the stage, in
+spite of the prompter, with vociferous encouragement to the "sticket"
+actor. With an audience so disposed, each successive scene went off
+better and better. One deserves to be particularized. It was the second
+in the first act of the comedy; the stage directions for it are as
+follow:--"Scene--An ale-house room.--Several shabby fellows with punch
+and tobacco; Tony at the head of the table, &c., discovered." Never
+perhaps, in any previous representation, was the _mise en scène_ so
+perfect. It drew three rounds of applause. A very equivocal compliment
+to ourselves it may be; but such jolly-looking "shabby fellows" as sat
+round the table at which our Tony presided, were never furnished by the
+supernumeraries of Drury or Covent-garden. They were as classical, in
+their way, as Macready's Roman mob. Then there was no make-believe
+puffing of empty pipes, and fictitious drinking of small-beer for punch;
+every nose among the audience could appreciate the genuineness of both
+liquor and tobacco; and the hearty encore which the song, with its
+stentorian chorus, was honoured with, gave all the parties engaged time
+to enjoy their punch and their pipes to their satisfaction. It was quite
+a pity, as was unanimously agreed, when the entrance of Marlow and
+Hastings, as in duty bound, interrupted so jovial a society. But "all
+that's bright must fade"--and so the Three Pigeons' scene, and the play,
+too, came to an end in due course. The curtain fell amidst universal
+applause, modified only by the urgent request, which, as manager, I had
+more than once to repeat, that gentlemen would be kind enough to
+restrain their feelings for fear of disturbing the dons. The house
+resolved itself into its component elements--all went their ways--the
+reading men probably to a Greek play, by way of afterpiece--sleepy ones
+to bed, and idle ones to their various inventions--and the actors, after
+the fatigues of the night, to a supper, which was to be the "finish." It
+was to take place in one of the men's rooms which happened to be on the
+same staircase, and had been committed to the charge of certain parties,
+who understood our notions of an unexceptionable spread. And a right
+merry party we were--all sitting down in character, Mrs Hardcastle at
+the top of the table, her worthy partner at bottom, with the "young
+ladies" on each side. It was the best _tableau_ of the evening; pity
+there was neither artist to sketch, nor spectators to admire it! But,
+like many other merry meetings, there are faithful portraits of
+it--proof impressions--in the memories of many who were present; not yet
+obliterated, hardly even dimmed, by time; laid by, like other valuables,
+which, in the turmoil of life, we find no time to look at, but not
+thrown aside or forgotten, and brought out sometimes, in holidays and
+quiet hours, for us to look at once more, and enjoy their beauty, and
+feel, after all, how much what we have changed is "_calum non animum_."
+I am now--no matter what. Of my companions at that well-remembered
+supper, one is a staid and orthodox divine; one a rising barrister; a
+third a respectable country gentleman, justice of the peace, "and
+quorum;" a fourth, they tell me, a semi Papist, but set us all down
+together in that same room, draw the champagne corks, and let some Lethe
+(the said champagne, if you please) wash out all that has passed over us
+in the last five years, and my word on it, three out of four of us are
+but boys still; and though much shaving, pearl powder, and carmine,
+might fail to make of any of the party a heroine of any more delicate
+class than Meg Merrilies, I have no doubt we could all of us once more
+smoke a pipe in character at "The Three Pigeons."
+
+Merrily the evening passed off, and merrily the little hours came on,
+and song and laugh rather grew gayer than slackened. The strings of the
+stays had long ago been cut, and the tresses, which were in the way of
+the cigars, were thrown back in dishevelled elegance. The landlord found
+his stuffing somewhat warm, and had laid aside half his fleshy
+incumbrance. Every one was at his ease, and a most uproarious chorus had
+just been sung by the whole strength of the company, when we heard the
+ominous sound of a quiet double rap at the outer door.
+
+"Who's there?" said one of the most self-possessed of the company.
+
+"I wish to speak to Mr Challoner," was the quiet reply.
+
+The owner of the rooms was luckily in no more _outré_ costume than that
+of Sir Charles Marlow; and having thrown off his wig, and buttoned his
+coat over a deep-flapped waistcoat, looked tolerably like himself as he
+proceeded to answer the summons. I confess I rather hoped than
+otherwise, that the gentleman, whoever he was, would walk in, when, if
+he intended to astonish us, he was very likely to find the tables
+turned. However, even college dons recognize the principle, that every
+man's house is his castle, and never violate the sanctity of even an
+under-graduate's rooms. The object of this present visit, however, was
+rather friendly than otherwise; one of the fellows, deservedly popular,
+had been with the dean, and had left him in a state of some excitement
+from the increasing merriment which came somewhat too audibly across the
+quadrangle from our party. He had called, therefore, to advise
+Challoner, either to keep his friends quiet, or to get rid of them, if
+he wished to keep out of the dean's jurisdiction. As it was towards
+three in the morning, we thought it prudent to take this advice as it
+was meant, and in a few minutes began to wend our respective ways
+homewards. Leicester and myself, whose rooms lay in the same direction,
+were steering along, very soberly, under a bright moonlight, when
+something put it into the heads of some other stragglers of the party to
+break out, at the top of their voices, into a stanza of that immortal
+ditty--"We won't go home till morning." Instantly we could hear a
+window, which we well knew to be the dean's, open above us, and as the
+unmelodious chorus went on, his wrath found vent in the usual
+strain--"Who is making that disturbance?"
+
+No one volunteering an explanation, he went on.
+
+"Who are those in the quadrangle?" Leicester and I walked somewhat
+faster. I am not sure that our dignity did not condescend to run, as we
+heard steps coming down from No. 5, at a pace that evidently portended a
+chase, and remembered for the first time the remarkable costume, which,
+to common observers, would indicate that there was a visitor of an
+unusual character enjoying the moonlight in the quadrangle. When we
+reached the "thoroughfare," the passage from the inner to the outer
+quadrangle, we fairly bolted; and as the steps came pretty fast after
+us, and Leicester's rooms were the nearest, we both made good our
+retreat thither, and sported oak.
+
+The porter's lodge was in the next number; and hearing a knocking in
+that quarter, Leicester gently opened the window, and we could catch the
+following dialogue:--
+
+"Solomon! open this door directly--it is I--the dean."
+
+"Good, dear sir!" said Solomon, apparently asleep, and fumbling for the
+keys of the college gates--"let you out? Oh yes! sir, directly."
+
+"Listen to me, Solomon: I am not going out. Did you let any one out just
+now--just before I called you?"
+
+"No, sir, nobody whatsomdever."
+
+"Solomon! I ask you, did you not, just now, let a _woman_ out?"
+
+"Lawk! no, sir, Lord forbid!" said Solomon, now thoroughly wakened.
+
+"Now, Solomon, bring your light, and come with me, this must be enquired
+into. I saw a woman run this way, and, if she is not gone through the
+gate, she is gone into this next number. Whose rooms are in No. 13?"
+
+"There's Mr Dyson's, sir, on the ground floor."
+
+Mr Dyson was the very fellow who had called at Challoner's rooms.
+
+"Hah! well, I'll call Mr Dyson up. Whose besides?"
+
+"There's Mr Leicester, sir, above his'n."
+
+"Very well, Solomon; call up Mr Dyson, and say I wish to speak with him
+particularly."
+
+And so saying, the dean proceeded up stairs.
+
+The moment Leicester heard his name mentioned, he began to anticipate a
+domiciliary visit. The thing was so ridiculous that we hardly knew what
+to do.
+
+"Shall I get into bed, Hawthorne? I don't want to be caught in this
+figure?"
+
+"Why, I don't know that you will be safe there, in the present state of
+the dean's suspicions. No; tuck up those confounded petticoats, clap on
+your pea-jacket, twist those love-locks up under your cap, light this
+cigar, and sit in your easy-chair. The dean must be 'cuter than usual,
+if he finds you out as the lady he is in search of."
+
+Leicester had hardly time to take this advice, the best I could hit upon
+at the moment, when the dean knocked at the door.
+
+"Who are you? Come in," said we both in a breath.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr Leicester," said the dean in his most official
+tone; "nothing but actually imperative duty occasions my intrusion at
+this unseasonable hour, but a most extraordinary circumstance must be my
+excuse. I say, gentlemen--I saw with my own eyes," he continued, looking
+blacker as he caught sight of me, and remembering, no doubt, the little
+episode of the stays--"I saw a female figure pass in this direction but
+a few minutes ago. No such person has passed the gate, for I have made
+enquiry; certainly I have no reason to suppose any such person is
+concealed here, but I am bound to ask you, sir, on your honour as a
+gentleman--for I have no wish to make a search--is there any such person
+concealed in your apartments?"
+
+"On my honour, sir, no one is, or has been lately here, but myself and
+Mr Hawthorne."
+
+Here Dyson came into the room, looking considerably mystified.
+
+"What's the matter, Mr Dean?" said he, nodding good-humouredly to us.
+
+"A most unpleasant occurrence, my dear sir; I have seen a woman in this
+direction not five minutes back. Unfortunately, I cannot be mistaken.
+She either passed into the porter's lodge or into this staircase."
+
+"She is not in my rooms, I assure you," said he, laughing; "I should
+think you made a mistake: it must have been some man in a white
+mackintosh."
+
+I smiled, and Leicester laughed outright.
+
+"I am not mistaken, sir," said the dean warmly. "I shall take your word,
+Mr Leicester; but allow me to tell you, that your conduct in lolling in
+that chair as if in perfect contempt, and neither rising, nor removing
+your cap, when Mr Dyson and myself are in your rooms, is neither
+consistent with the respect due from an under-graduate, or the behaviour
+I should expect from a gentleman."
+
+Poor Leicester coloured, and unwittingly removed his cap. The chestnut
+curls, some natural and some artificial, which had been so studiously
+arranged for Miss Hardcastle's head-dress, fell in dishevelled
+luxuriance round his face, and as he half rose from his previous
+position in the chair, a pink silk dress began to descend from under the
+pea-jacket. Concealment was at an end; the dean looked bewildered at
+first, and then savage; but a hearty laugh from Dyson settled the
+business.
+
+"What, Leicester! you're the lady the dean has been hunting about
+college! Upon my word, this is the most absurd piece of
+masquerading!--what on earth is it all about?"
+
+I pitied Leicester, he looked such an extraordinary figure in his
+ambiguous dress, and seemed so thoroughly ashamed of himself; so
+displaying the tops and cords in which I had enacted Hastings, I
+acknowledged my share in the business, and gave a brief history of the
+drama during my management. The dean endeavoured to look grave: Dyson
+gave way to undisguised amusement, and repeatedly exclaimed, "Oh! why
+did you not send me a ticket? When do you perform again?"
+
+Alas! never. Brief, as bright, was our theatrical career. But the memory
+of it lives in the college still: of the comedy, and the supper, and the
+curious mistake which followed it: and the dean has not to this hour
+lost the credit which he then gained, of having a remarkably keen eye
+for a petticoat.
+
+
+
+
+LINES WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF BUTE.
+
+BY DELTA.
+
+
+ I.
+
+ Ere yet dim twilight brighten'd into day,
+ Or waned the silver morning-star away,
+ Shedding its last, lone, melancholy smile,
+ Above the mountain-tops of far Argyle;
+ Ere yet the solan's wing had brush'd the sea,
+ Or issued from its cell the mountain bee;
+ As dawn beyond the orient Cumbraes shone,
+ Thy northern slope, Byrone,
+ From Ascog's rocks, o'erflung with woodland bowers,
+ With scarlet fuschias, and faint myrtle flowers,
+ My steps essay'd; brushing the diamond dew
+ From the soft moss, lithe grass, and harebell blue.
+ Up from the heath aslant the linnet flew
+ Startled, and rose the lark on twinkling wing,
+ And soar'd away, to sing
+ A farewell to the severing shades of night,
+ A welcome to the morning's aureate light.
+ Thy summit gain'd, how tranquilly serene,
+ Beneath, outspread that panoramic scene
+ Of continent and isle, and lake and sea,
+ And tower and town, hill, vale, and spreading tree,
+ And rock and ruin tinged with amethyst,
+ Half-seen, half-hidden by the lazy mist,
+ Volume on volume, which had vaguely wound
+ The far off hills around,
+ And now roll'd downwards; till on high were seen,
+ Begirt with sombre larch, their foreheads green.
+
+
+ II.
+
+ There, save when all, except the lark, was mute,
+ Oh, beauty-breathing Bute
+ On thee entranced I gazed; each moment brought
+ A new creation to the eye of thought:
+ The orient clouds all Iris' hues assumed,
+ From the pale lily to the rose that bloom'd,
+ And hung above the pathway of the sun,
+ As if to harbinger his course begun;
+ When, lo! his disk burst forth--his beams of gold
+ Seem'd earth as with a garment to enfold,
+ And from his piercing eye the loose mists flew,
+ And heaven with arch of deep autumnal blue
+ Glow'd overhead; while ocean, like a lake,
+ Seeming delight to take
+ In its own halcyon-calm, resplendent lay,
+ From Western Kames to far Kilchattan bay.
+ Old Largs look'd out amid the orient light,
+ With its grey dwellings, and, in greenery bright,
+ Lay Coila's classic shores reveal'd to sight;
+ And like a Vallombrosa, veil'd in blue,
+ Arose Mount Stuart's woodlands on the view;
+ Kerry and Cowall their bold hill-tops show'd,
+ And Arran, and Kintire; like rubies glow'd
+ The jagged clefts of Goatfell; and below,
+ As on a chart, delightful Rothesay lay,
+ Whence sprang of human life the awakening sound,
+ With all its happy dwellings, stretching round
+ The semicircle of its sunbright bay.
+
+
+ III.
+
+ Byrone, a type of peace thou seemest now,
+ Yielding thy ridges to the rustic plough,
+ With corn-fields at thy feet, and many a grove
+ Whose songs are but of love;
+ But different was the aspect of that hour,
+ Which brought, of eld, the Norsemen o'er the deep,
+ To wrest yon castle's walls from Scotland's power,
+ And leave her brave to bleed, her fair to weep;
+ When Husbac fierce, and Olave, Mona's king,[5]
+ Confederate chiefs, with shout and triumphing,
+ Bade o'er its towers the Scaldic raven fly,
+ And mock each storm-tost sea-king toiling by!--
+ Far different were the days,
+ When flew the fiery cross, with summoning blaze,
+ O'er Blane's hill, and o'er Catan, and o'er Kames,
+ And round thy peak the phalanx'd Butesmen stood,[6]
+ As Bruce's followers shed the Baliol's blood,
+ Yea! gave each Saxon homestead to the flames!
+
+
+IV.
+
+ Proud palace-home of kings! what art thou now?
+ Worn are the traceries of thy lofty brow!
+ Yet once in beauteous strength like thee were none,
+ When Rothesay's Duke was heir to Scotland's throne;[7]
+ Ere Falkland rose, or Holyrood, in thee
+ The barons to their sovereign bow'd the knee:
+ Now, as to mock thy pride
+ The very waters of thy moat are dried;
+ Through fractured arch and doorway freely pass
+ The sunbeams, into halls o'ergrown with grass;
+ Thy floors, unroof'd, are open to the sky,
+ And the snows lodge there when the storm sweeps by;
+ O'er thy grim battlements, where bent the bow
+ Thine archers keen, now hops the chattering crow;
+ And where the beauteous and the brave were guests,
+ Now breed the bats--the swallows build their nests!
+ Lost even the legend of the bloody stair,
+ Whose steps wend downward to the house of prayer;
+ Gone is the priest, and they who worshipp'd seem
+ Phantoms to us--a dream within a dream;
+ Earth hath o'ermantled each memorial stone,
+ And from their tombs the very dust is gone;
+ All perish'd, all forgotten, like the ray
+ Which gilt yon orient hill-tops yesterday;
+ All nameless, save mayhap one stalwart knight,
+ Who fell with Graeme in Falkirk's bloody fight--
+ Bonkill's stout Stewart,[8] whose heroic tale
+ Oft circles yet the peasant's evening fire,
+ And how he scorn'd to fly, and how he bled--
+ He, whose effigies in St Mary's choir,
+ With planted heel upon the lion's head,
+ Now rests in marble mail.
+ Yet still remains the small dark narrow room,
+ Where the third Robert, yielding to the gloom
+ Of his despair, heart-broken, laid him down,
+ Refusing food, to die; and to the wall
+ Turn'd his determined face, unheeding all,
+ And to his captive boy-prince left his crown.[9]
+ Alas! thy solitary hawthorn-tree,
+ Four-centuried, and o'erthrown, is but of thee
+ A type, majestic ruin: there it lies,
+ And annually puts on its May-flower bloom,
+ To fill thy lonely courts with bland perfume,
+ Yet lifts no more its green head to the skies;[10]
+ The last lone living thing around that knew
+ Thy glory, when the dizziness and din
+ Of thronging life o'erflow'd thy halls within,
+ And o'er thy top St Andrew's banner flew.
+
+
+ V.
+
+ Farewell! Elysian island of the west,
+ Still be thy gardens brighten'd by the rose
+ Of a perennial spring, and winter's snows
+ Ne'er chill the warmth of thy maternal breast!
+ May calms for ever sleep around thy coast,
+ And desolating storms roll far away,
+ While art with nature vies to form thy bay,
+ Fairer than that which Naples makes her boast!
+ Green link between the High-lands and the Low--
+ Thou gem, half claim'd by earth, and half by sea--
+ May blessings, like a flood, thy homes o'erflow,
+ And health--though elsewhere lost--be found in thee!
+ May thy bland zephyrs to the pallid cheek
+ Of sickness ever roseate hues restore,
+ And they who shun the rabble and the roar
+ Of the wild world, on thy delightful shore
+ Obtain that soft seclusion which they seek!
+ Be this a stranger's farewell, green Byrone,
+ Who ne'er hath trod thy heathery heights before,
+ And ne'er may see thee more
+ After yon autumn sun hath westering gone;
+ Though oft, in pensive mood, when far away,
+ 'Mid city multitudes, his thoughts will stray
+ To Ascog's lake, blue-sleeping in the morn,
+ And to the happy homesteads that adorn
+ Thy Rothesay's lovely bay.
+
+ASCOG LODGE, EAST BAY, ROTHESAY,
+September 1843.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] Rothesay Castle is first mentioned in history in connexion
+with its siege by Husbac the Norwegian, and Olave king of Man, in 1228.
+Among other means of defence, it is said that the Scots poured down
+boiling pitch and lead on the heads of their enemies; but it was,
+however, at length taken, after the Norwegians had lost three hundred
+men. In 1263, it was retaken by the Scots after the decisive battle of
+Largs.
+
+[6] This bid was the scene of a conflict between the men of
+Bute and the troops of Lisle, the English governor, in which that
+general was slain, and his severed head, presented to the Lord High
+Steward, was suspended from the battlements of the castle.
+
+[7] In 1398, Robert the Third constituted his eldest son Duke
+of Rothesay, a title still held by every male heir-apparent to the
+British crown. It was the first introduction of the ducal
+dignity--originally a Norman one--into Scotland.
+
+[8] The walls forming the choir of the very ancient church
+dedicated to the Holy Virgin are still nearly entire, and stand close to
+the present parish church of Rothesay. Within a traceried niche, on one
+side, is the recumbent figure of a knight in complete armour, apparently
+of the kind in use about the time of Robert the Second or Third. His
+feet are upon a lion couchant, and his head upon a faithful watch-dog,
+with a collar, in beautiful preservation, encircling its neck. The
+coat-of-arms denotes the person represented to have been of royal
+lineage. Popular tradition individualizes him as the "Stout Stewart of
+Bonkill" of Blind Harry the minstrel, who fell with Sir John the Grahame
+at the battle of Falkirk--although that hero was buried near the field
+of action, as his tombstone there in the old churchyard still records.
+
+Sir John Stewart of Bonkill was uncle and tutor to the then Lord High
+Steward, at that time a minor.
+
+A female figure and child recumbent, also elaborately sculptured in
+black marble, adorn the opposite niche, and under them, in alto-relievo,
+are several figures in religious habits. Another effigies of a knight,
+but much defaced, lies on the ground-floor of the choir--the whole of
+which was cleaned out and put in order by the present Marquis of Bute in
+1827.
+
+[9] On the 4th of April 1406, this unfortunate prince,
+overwhelmed with grief for the death of his eldest son, David, Duke of
+Rothesay and Earl of Carrick, who miserably perished of hunger in
+Falkland Castle; and the capture, during a time of truce, of his younger
+son, Prince James, by the English--died in the Castle of Rothesay of a
+broken heart. The closet, fourteen feet by eight, in which he breathed
+his last, is still pointed out, in the south-east corner of the castle.
+
+[10] In the court of the castle is a remarkable thorn-tree,
+which for centuries had waved above the chapel now in ruins; and which,
+at the distance of a yard from the ground, measures six feet three
+inches in circumference. In 1839, it fell from its own weight, and now
+lies prostrate, with half its roots uncovered, but still vigorous in
+growth.
+
+
+
+
+TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+While tracing the progress of our friend the Khan through the various
+scenes of amusement and festivity at which he assisted rather as a
+spectator than an actor, we had omitted to notice in its proper place an
+incident of some interest--his presence at the opening of the
+Parliamentary session of 1841, on the 26th of January, by the Queen in
+person. By the kindness of one of his friends, who was a member of the
+royal household, he had succeeded in obtaining a ticket of admission to
+the House of Lords, and was placed in a position which afforded him an
+excellent view of the brilliant multitude assembled to receive their
+sovereign. "When I had sufficiently recovered from the first impression
+of all the magnificence around me, I could compare it only to the Garden
+of Trem[11]--nay, it appeared even more wonderful than that marvellous
+place. At twelve o'clock, twenty-one peals of artillery announced the
+approach of the Queen, who shortly after entered with Prince Albert,
+followed by her train-bearers, &c. All rose as she advanced; and when
+the Lords were again seated, the _cadhi-ab-codhat_ (Lord Chancellor) put
+a piece of paper in her hands, and placed himself on the right of the
+throne, while the grand-vizir stood on the left. Shortly after, the
+gentlemen of the House of Commons entered, when the Queen read with a
+loud voice from the paper to the following effect." We need not,
+however, follow the Khan through the details of the royal speech, or the
+debate on the address which succeeded, though, in the latter, he appears
+to have been thunderstruck by the freedom of language indulged in by a
+certain eccentric ex-chancellor, remarking, "that under the emperors of
+Delhi such latitude of speech, in reference to the sovereign, would
+inevitably have cost the offender his head, or at least have ensured his
+spending the remainder of his life in disgrace and exile at Mekka." On
+the dignified bearing and self-possession of our youthful sovereign, the
+Khan enlarges in the strain of eulogy which might be expected from one
+to whom the sight of the ensigns of sovereignty borne by a female hand
+was in itself an almost inconceivable novelty, declaring, that "the
+justice and virtues of her Majesty have obliterated the name of
+Nushirvan from the face of the earth!" But the remarks of the
+simple-minded Parsees on the same subject will be found, from their
+honest sincerity, we suspect, more germane to the matter--"We saw in an
+instant that she was fitted by nature for, and intended to be, a queen;
+we saw a native nobility about her, which induced us to believe that she
+could, though meek and amiable, be firm and decisive; ... that no man or
+set of men would be permitted by her to dictate a line of conduct; and
+that, knowing and feeling that she lived in the hearts and affections of
+her people, she would endeavour to temper justice with mercy; and we
+thought that if no unforeseen event (which God forbid) arose to dim the
+lustre of her reign, that the period of her sway in Britain would be
+quoted as the golden age."
+
+After this introduction, the Khan appears to have become an occasional
+attendant in the gallery of the House of Commons, and was present at a
+debate on the admission of foreign corn, in which Lord Stanley, Sir
+Robert Peel, and Lord John Russell took part--"These three being the
+most eloquent of the speakers, and the chiefs of their respective
+parties, though several other members spoke at great length either for
+or against the motion, according as each was attached to one or other
+of the great factions which divide the House of Commons, and hold the
+destinies of the people in their hands." Of the speeches of these three
+leaders, and the arguments adduced by them, he accordingly attempts to
+give an abstract; though as his information must have been derived, we
+imagine, principally through the medium of an interpreter, this first
+essay at Parliamentary reporting is not particularly successful; and if
+we are to conclude, from his constant use of the phrase _zemindars_ to
+denote the landed interest, that he considered the estates of the
+English proprietors to be held by _zemindarry_ tenures similar to those
+in Bengal, his notions on the subject of the debate must have been
+considerably perplexed. "At length, however, as the debate had already
+been protracted to a late hour, and there was no probability of a speedy
+termination to this war of words, I left the House with no unfavourable
+impression of what I had heard. This eternal wrangling between the two
+factions is inherent, it appears, in the nature of the constitution.
+With us, two wise men never dispute; yet every individual member of the
+legislature is supposed to possess a certain share of wisdom--so that
+here are a thousand wise men constantly disputing. One would think no
+good could result from such endless differences of opinion; but the fact
+is the reverse--for from these debates result those measures which mark
+the character of the English for energy and love of liberty."
+
+But though thus constantly alluding to the two great political parties
+which divide the state, the Khan nowhere attempts to give his readers a
+definition of the essential differences which separate them; and, for a
+statement of the respective tenets of Whigs and Tories, as represented
+to an oriental, we must once more have recourse to the journal of Najaf
+Kooli, who has apparently taken great pains to make himself acquainted
+with this abstruse subject. "The Tories," says the Persian prince,
+"argue as follows:--'Three hundred years ago we were wild people, and
+our kingdom ranked lower than any other. But, through our wisdom and
+learning, we have brought it to its present height of honour, and, as
+the empire was enlarged under our management, why should we now _reform_
+and give up our policy which has done all this good?' To which the Whigs
+reply--'It is more prudent to go according to the changes of time and
+circumstances. Moreover, by the old policy, only a few were benefited;
+and, as government is for the general good, we must observe that which
+is best for the whole nation, so that all should be profited.'" The
+Shahzadeh's description of the ceremony of opening Parliament, and his
+summary of the usual topics touched upon in the royal speech, are marked
+by the same amusing _naïveté_--"When all are met, the king, arrayed in
+all his majestic splendour and state, with the crown on his head, stands
+up with his face to the assembly, and makes a speech with perfect
+eloquence as follows:--'Thank God that my kingdom is in perfect
+happiness, and all the affairs, both at home and abroad, are in good
+order. All the foreign badishahs (kings and emperors) have sent to me
+ambassadors, assuring me of their friendship. The commerce of this
+empire is enjoying the highest prosperity; and all these benefits are
+through your wise ordination of affairs last session. This year also I
+have to request you again to meet in your houses, and to take all
+affairs into the consideration of your high skill and learning, and
+settle them as you find best. Should there be any misunderstanding in
+any part which may require either war or peace to be declared, you will
+thereupon also take the proper measures for settling it according to the
+welfare and interests of the kingdom.' Then they receive their
+instructions, the king leaves them, and they meet every day, Sunday
+excepted, from one o'clock in the afternoon till four hours after
+sunset. They take all things into consideration, and decide all
+questions; and when there is a difference of opinion there will arise
+loud voices and vehement disputes."
+
+But we must now return to the movements of the Khan, after the Lord
+Mayor's dinner, described in our last Number, in the world of amusement
+which surrounded him in London. His next visit, when he recovered from
+the fit of meditation into which he was thrown by the sight of the
+marvellous banquet aforesaid, was to the Colosseum; but his account of
+the wonders of this celebrated place of resort, perhaps from his
+faculties still being in some measure abstracted, is less full than
+might have been expected. The ascending-room (which the Persian prince
+describes as "rising like an eagle with large wings into the atmosphere,
+till, after an hour's time, it stopped in the sky, and opened its beak,
+so that we came out") he merely alludes to as "the talismanic process by
+which I was carried to the upper regions;" and though the panoramic view
+of London is pronounced to be, "of all the wonders of the metropolis the
+most wonderful," it is dismissed with the remark that "it is useless to
+attempt to describe it in detail. After this," continues the Khan, "I
+passed under ground among some artificial caves, which I at first took
+for the dens of wild beasts; and that people should pay for seeing such
+places as these, does seem a strange taste. By going a short distance
+out of Delhi, a man may enter as many such places as he pleases, bearing
+in mind, at the same time, that he runs the greatest chance in the world
+of encountering a grinning hyaena, or some such beast; and it was with
+some such feeling that I entered these grottoes, not being exactly
+acquainted with their nature."
+
+The Khan had now nearly exhausted the circle of places of public
+entertainment; but one yet remained to be visited, and that, perhaps,
+the most congenial of all to oriental tastes in the style of its
+decorations, brilliant lights, and multifarious displays--Vauxhall. "A
+large garden! a paradise!"--such is the rapturous description of the
+Persian princes--"filled with roses of various hues, with cool waters
+running in every direction on the beautiful green, and pictures painted
+on every wall. There were burning about two millions of lamps, each of a
+different colour; and we saw here such fire-works, as made us forget all
+others we had already seen. Here and there were young moon-faces selling
+refreshments; and in every walk there were thousands of Frank _moons_
+(ladies) led by the hand, while the roses grew pale with admiring their
+beautiful cheeks." The Khan, though less ardent and enthusiastic than
+the grandsons of Futteh Ali Shah, does ample justice to the splendour of
+the illumination; "thousands of lights distributed over the gardens,
+suspended on the trees, and arranged in numberless fanciful devices, so
+as to form flowers, names, &c.; and when it became dark, one blaze of
+bright light was presented, extending over a vast space." He was
+fortunate, moreover, in making his visit to the gardens on the evening
+of a balloon ascent, "and thus I witnessed the most wonderful sight I
+ever saw--a sight which a hundred millions of people in India consider
+to be a _Feringhi_ fiction, an incredible fable; for though a Frenchman
+made an ascent at Lucknow some years ago, nobody believes it who did not
+see it, and many even who were present, believed that their senses had
+been beguiled by magic.... A car in the shape of a _howdah_ was swung by
+ropes beneath the balloon, in which six individuals seated themselves,
+besides the aeronaut; and when it was filled with the gas and ready to
+start, the latter tried to prevail on me to take a seat, telling me he
+had performed nearly three hundred aerial voyages, and that, if any
+accident should happen, he himself would be the first to suffer. I
+certainly had a wish to satisfy my curiosity, by ascending to the skies,
+but was dissuaded by the friends who accompanied me, who said it was
+safer to remain on _terra firma_, and look on at the voyagers; and
+accordingly I did so."
+
+Though it would appear that the Khan had already paid more than one
+visit to the treasures of art and nature collected within the walls of
+the British Museum, his description of that institution, "one like which
+I had never before heard of," is reserved almost to the last in the
+catalogue of the wonders of London; and his remarks on the numberless
+novel objects which presented themselves at every turn to his gaze, form
+one of the most curious and interesting passages in his journal. The
+brilliant plumage of the birds in the gallery of natural history, and
+particularly of the humming birds "from the far isles of the Western
+Sea," the splendour of which outshone even the gorgeous feathered tribes
+of his native East, excited his admiration to the highest
+degree--"animals likewise from every country of the earth were placed
+around, and might have been mistaken for living beings, from the gloss
+of their skins and the brightness of their eyes." The library,
+"containing, as I was told, 300,000 volumes, among which were 20,000
+Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscripts," is briefly noticed; and the
+sight of the mummies in the Egyptian collection sets the Khan
+moralizing, not in the most novel strain, on these relics of bygone
+mortality. The sculptures were less to his taste--the Egyptian colossi
+are alluded to as "the work in former days, I suppose, of some of the
+mummies up stairs;" and the Grecian statues "would appear, to an
+unbiassed stranger, a quantity of useless, mutilated _idols_,
+representing both men and monsters; but in the eyes of the English, it
+is a most valuable collection, said to have cost seven _lakhs_ of
+rupees, (L.70,000,) and venerated as containing some of the finest
+sculptures in the world. I cannot understand how such importance can be
+attached in Europe to this art, since the use of all images is as
+distinctly forbidden by the _Tevrat_, (Bible,) as it is by our own
+law ... But the strangest sight was in one of the upper rooms, which
+contains specimens of extinct monsters, recently discovered in the
+bowels of the earth in a fossil state, and supposed to be thousands of
+years old. Many men of science pass their whole lives in inventing names
+for these creatures, and studying the shape of a broken tooth supposed
+to have belonged to them; the science to which this appertains, being a
+branch of that relating to minerals, of which there is in the next room
+a vast collection ranged in well-polished cases, with the names written
+on them.... Among these, the most extraordinary were some stones said to
+have fallen from the sky, one of which was near 300 lbs. in weight, and
+with regard to the origin of which their philosophers differ. The most
+generally received opinion is, that they were thrown from volcanoes in
+the moon, thus assuming, first, the existence of volcanoes there;
+secondly, their possessing sufficient force to throw such masses to a
+distance, according to their own theory, of between 200,000 and 300,000
+miles; and this through regions, the nature of which is wholly unknown.
+This hypothesis cannot be maintained according to the Ptolemaic system;
+indeed, it is in direct contravention to it."
+
+The perverse abandonment by the Feringhis of the time-honoured system of
+Ptolemy, in favour of the new-fangled theories of Copernicus, by which
+the earth is degraded from its recognised and respectable station in the
+centre of the universe, to a subordinate grade in the solar system,
+seems to have been a source of great scandal and perplexity to the Khan;
+"since," as he remarks, "the former doctrine is supported by their own
+Bible, not less than by our Koran." These sentiments are repeated
+whenever the subject is referred to; and particularly on the occasion of
+a visit to the Observatory at Greenwich, where he was shown all the
+telescopes and astronomical apparatus, "though, owing to the state of
+the weather, I had not the opportunity of viewing the heavens to satisfy
+myself of the correctness of the statements made to me. I was told,
+however, that on looking through these instruments at the moon,
+mountains, seas, and other signs of a world, are distinctly visible."
+After satisfying his curiosity on these points, the Khan proceeded to
+inspect the hospital, where he saw the pensioners at dinner in the great
+hall; "most of these had lost their limbs, and those who were not maimed
+were very old, and nearly all of them had been severely wounded; indeed,
+it was a very interesting spectacle, and reflected great credit on the
+English nation, which thus provides for the old age of those who have
+shed their blood in her defence." To the charitable institutions of the
+country, indeed, we find the Khan at all times fully disposed to do
+justice; "there is no better feature than this in the national
+character, for there is scarcely a disease or deformity in nature for
+which there is not some edifice, in which the afflicted are lodged, fed,
+and kindly treated. Would that we had such institutions in Hindustan!"
+In pursuance of this feeling, we now find him visiting the Blind Asylum
+and the Deaf and Dumb School; and the circumstantial details into which
+he enters of the comforts provided for the inmates of these
+establishments, and the proficiency which many of them had attained in
+trades and accomplishments apparently inconsistent with their
+privations, sufficiently evidences the interest with which he regarded
+these benevolent institutions. Another spectacle of the same character,
+which he had an opportunity of witnessing about this period, was the
+annual procession of the charity children to St Paul's:--"I obtained a
+seat near the officiating _imam_ or high priest, and saw near ten
+thousand children of both sexes, belonging to the different eleemosynary
+establishments, which are deservedly the pride of this country, all
+clothed in an uniform dress, while every corner was filled with
+spectators. After the _khotbah_ (prayer) was read, they began to sing,
+not in the ordinary manner, but, as I was given to understand, so as to
+involve a form of prayer and thanksgiving. I was told that they belonged
+to many schools,[12] and are brought here once a year, that those who
+contribute to their support may witness the progress they have made, as
+well as their health and appearance."
+
+The military college at Addiscombe, for the education of the cadets of
+the East India Company's army, would naturally be to the Khan an object
+of peculiar interest; and thither he accordingly repaired, in company
+with several of his friends, apparently members of the Indian direction,
+on the occasion of the examination of the students by Colonel
+Pasley.[13] "After partaking of a sumptuous luncheon, we went to the
+students' room, where they were examined in various branches of the
+military science, as mathematics, fortification, drawing, &c., besides
+various languages, one of which was the Oordoo."[14] After the close of
+the examination, and the distribution of prizes to the successful
+candidates,[15] the company repaired to the grounds, where the Khan was
+astonished by the quickness and precision with which the cadets took to
+pieces and reconstructed the pontoons, and went through other operations
+of military engineering; and still more by a subaqueous explosion of
+powder by the means of the voltaic battery--"a method by which Colonel
+Pasley was engaged near Portsmouth in raising a vessel which had sunk
+there." It would be hardly fair to surmise the probable tendency of the
+Khan's secret thoughts on thus witnessing the care bestowed on the
+training of those destined hereafter to maintain the Feringhi yoke on
+his native country; but he expressed himself highly gratified by all
+that he saw; and we find him, shortly after, in attendance at a
+spectacle more calculated than any thing he had yet witnessed, to
+impress him with an adequate idea of British power--the launch of a
+first-rate man-of-war at Woolwich.[16] "The sight was extremely
+exhilarating, from the fineness of the day, and the immense crowds of
+people, of all ages and both sexes, generally well dressed, who were
+congregated on the land and the water, expecting the arrival of the
+Queen. Her majesty appeared at one o'clock, and proceeded to the front
+of the great ship, where a place, covered with red cloth, was prepared
+for her; I had a seat quite close, and saw it all very well.... The
+ceremony of _christening_ a ship is taken from that of christening a
+child, which, as practised in the Nazarene churches, consists in
+throwing water in its face, and saying a prayer; but here a bottle of
+wine hung before her majesty, and opposite to it a piece of iron,
+against which she pushed the bottle and broke it, and the wine was
+sprinkled over the ship, which then received its name.... In a short
+time the slips were drawn, and she glided nobly into the stream of the
+Thames amidst the shouts of the spectators, and anchored at a short
+distance. I went on board this immense floating castle, but observed
+that she was not ready for sea, and I was told that she would require
+some time to be rigged, provisioned, &c. Our party then returned to
+Greenwich; and after my friends had dined, with whom I partook of a
+delicate little fish now in season, (whitebait,) drove back to town."
+
+The Khan had no leisure, on this occasion, to inspect the wonders of the
+_top-khana_, or arsenal; but he paid a second visit for the purpose a
+few days later, duly armed with an order from the Master-General of the
+Ordnance, which is indispensable for the admission of a foreigner. His
+sensations, on entering this vast repository of arms, were not unlike
+those attributed to a personage whose fictitious adventures, though the
+production of a _Feringhi_ pen, present one of the most faithful
+pictures extant of the genuine feelings of an oriental on Frank
+matters:--"When we came to the guns," says the eximious Hajji Baba, "by
+my beard, existence fled from our heads! We saw cannons of all sizes and
+denominations, enough to have paved the way, if placed side by side,
+from Tehran to Tabriz--if placed lengthways, Allah only knows where they
+would have reached--into the very grave of the father of all the
+Russians, perhaps!" "The cannon distributed over the whole place," says
+the graver narrative of the Khan, "are said to amount to 40,000! all
+ready for use in the army, navy, or fortresses; and, as if these were
+not sufficient for the destruction of the human race, other pieces are
+constantly casting by a process the reverse of that in India, where the
+guns are cast in moulds--whereas here a solid cylinder is cast, and
+afterwards bored, shaped, and finished by steam power.... There are,
+moreover, a considerable number taken from enemies in battle, two of
+which, taken from Tippoo Sultan at Seringapatam, have their muzzles in
+the form of a lion's mouth, and are very well cast and elaborately
+ornamented; having their date, with the weight of powder and ball they
+carry, expressed in Persian characters about the mouth. There are also
+three from Bhurtpore, and three others from Aden, the inscriptions on
+which denote that they were cast by order of the Turkish emperor,
+_Mahmood_[17] Ibn Soliman." After leaving the arsenal, the Khan
+proceeded to the dockyard, of which he merely enumerates the various
+departments; but the proving of the anchors and chain-cables by means of
+the hydraulic press, impressed him, as it must do every one who has
+witnessed that astonishing process, with the idea of almost illimitable
+power. "On the ground lay a huge anchor which had been broken a few days
+before in the presence of Prince Albert, and when I was there four men
+were trying the strength of a chain by turning a wheel, the force
+produced by which was more than sufficient to break it; for just as I
+arrived it began to give way, when they desisted. The force here
+produced by means of this single wheel must have been equal to that of
+some 200,000 elephants, which might perhaps have pulled till doomsday
+without effecting it. Such is the wonderful effect of this agent
+(steam,) the results of which I meet with in so many different places,
+and under so many different circumstances!" After visiting the
+convict-hulk, and seeing the anchor-founderies in operation, the Khan
+crossed to Blackwall, and returned to town by the railway, his first
+conveyance when he landed in England. His increased experience in
+steam-travelling had now, however, enabled him to detect the difference
+between the mode of propulsion by engines on the other railroads, and
+the "immense cables made of iron wires" by which the vehicles are drawn
+on this line; the construction of which, as well as the
+electro-telegraph, ("a process for which we have no phrase in
+Oordoo,") by which communication is effected between the two ends of
+the line, he soon after paid another visit to inspect. "This railway is
+carried partly over houses and partly under ground; and as the price of
+the ground was unusually high, I was told that it cost, though only
+three miles and a half in length, the enormous sum of a crore of rupees,
+(L.1,000,000!")
+
+With this notice of the Blackwall railway, the personal narrative of the
+Khan's residence in England is brought to an abrupt conclusion; leaving
+us in the dark as to the time and circumstances of his return to his
+native land, which we believe took place soon after this period. The
+remainder of his work is in the nature of an appendix, consisting
+chiefly of dissertations on the manners, institutions, &c., of Great
+Britain, as compared with those of Hindustan. He likewise gives an
+elaborate retrospect of English history, from the Britons downwards;
+excepting, however, the four centuries from the death of William the
+Conqueror to the accession of Henry VIII.--an interval which he perhaps
+considers to have been sufficiently filled up by his disquisitions on
+the struggles for power between the crown and the barons, and the
+consequent origin and final constitution of parliament, related in a
+previous part of his work. His object in undertaking this compilation
+was, as he informs us, "for the benefit of those in Hindustan, who are
+to this day entirely ignorant of English history, and indifferent as to
+acquiring any knowledge whatever of a people whose sway has been
+extended over so many millions of human beings, and whose influence is
+felt in the remotest corners of the globe." The manner in which the Khan
+has performed his self-imposed task, is highly creditable to his
+industry and discrimination, and strongly contrasts, in the accuracy of
+the facts and plain sense of the narration, with the wild extravagances
+in which Asiatic historiographers are apt to indulge; the Anglo-Saxon
+part of the history, on which especial pains appears to have been
+bestowed, is particularly complete and well written--unless (as, indeed,
+we are almost inclined to suspect) it be a translation _in toto_ from
+some popular historical treatise. The Khan's acquired knowledge of
+English history, indeed, is sometimes more accurate than his
+acquaintance with the annals of his own country; as when, in comparing
+Queen Elizabeth with the famous Queen of Delhi, Raziah Begum, he speaks
+of the latter princess as "daughter of Behlol Khan, the Pathan Emperor
+of Delhi;" whereas a reference to Ferishta, or any other native
+historian, will inform us that Raziah died A.D. 1239, more than 200
+years before the accession of Behlol Lodi. No such errors as this,
+either in fact or chronology, disfigure the Khan's sketch of English
+history; but as it would scarcely present so much novelty to English
+readers as it may possibly do to the Hindustani friends of the author
+for whom it is intended, we shall give but a few brief notices of it.
+His favourite hero, in the account of the Saxon period, is of course
+Alfred, and he devotes to the events of his reign more than half the
+space occupied by the history of the dynasty;[18] thus summing up his
+character:--"To describe all the excellent qualities, intellectual and
+moral, attributed to this prince by English historians, would be to
+condense in a single individual the highest perfections of which the
+human species is capable. Qualities contradictory in their natures, and
+which are possessed only by men of different characters, and scarcely
+ever by one man, seem to have been united in this monarch; he was
+humane, prudent, and peaceful, yet brave, just, and impartial; affable,
+and capable of giving and receiving counsel. In short, he was a man
+especially endowed by the Deity with virtue and intelligence to benefit
+the human race!"
+
+The story of Edwy and Elgiva, and the barbarities which the beautiful
+queen suffered at the hands of Dunstan, are related with fitting
+abhorrence by the Khan, who seems to entertain, on all occasions, a
+special aversion to the ascendancy of the Romish priesthood. The loves
+of Edgar and Elfrida, and the punishment of the faithless courtier who
+deceived his sovereign by a false report of the attractions of the lady,
+are also duly commemorated; as well as the fall of the Saxon kingdom
+before the conquering swords of the Danes, during the reign of Ethelred
+the Unready, the son of the false and cruel Elfrida. But the intrusive
+monarch Canute "was looked upon, in those times of ignorance, as a very
+extraordinary man, and supposed to be the greatest king of the world,
+the sovereign of the seas and the land." The well-known story of his
+pretending to command the waves, as related by the Khan, differs
+considerably from the usually received version, and perhaps may be
+better adapted to the notions prevalent in the East, where success by
+stratagem is always considered preferable to a manly avowal of
+incompetency. "One day he was seated on the sea-shore, when the waves
+reached his chair. Canute commanded them to retire; and as the tide
+happened to be actually ebbing at the time, the waters retreated to the
+ocean. Then turning to his courtiers, he exclaimed, that the king whose
+mandates were obeyed by the billows of the sea, as well as by the
+children of men, was truly the monarch of the earth. Ever after this he
+was regarded by the ignorant multitude with a sort of religious awe, and
+was called Canute _the Great_, as we should say _Sahib-i-kiran_,"
+(the Lord of the Conjunction, implying a man born under a peculiar
+conjunction of planetary influences which predestines him to
+distinguished fortunes.)
+
+But of all the English monarchs whose reigns are noticed by the Khan,
+the one who appears to stand highest, as a pious and patriotic king, in
+his estimation--a distinction which he not improbably owes to his zeal
+as an iconoclast, the use of images in worship being abhorred by the
+Moslems--is no other than Henry VIII. No hint of the "gospel light that
+beamed from Boleyn's eyes," or of the doom which overtook more than one
+of his consorts, is allowed to interfere with the lustre of his
+achievements; such allusions, indeed, would probably be regarded by the
+Khan as unwarrantable violations of the privacy of the zenana. But in
+order to set in a stronger light the difficulties which he had to
+encounter, we have a circumstantial account of the rise of the Papal
+power, and the exorbitant prerogatives assumed for some centuries
+previously, by the Pope. "This personage was the monarch of Christendom,
+something analogous to our holy khalifs, who were the heads of Islam and
+the Mohammedan world; and from him the princes of Christendom received
+investiture, as did our Mohammedan sovereigns from the khalifs of
+Bagdad. The ecclesiastics every where gave out that the pontiff was the
+vicegerent of God, and that every one who died without his blessing and
+forgiveness would suffer endless torments hereafter. Moreover, if the
+king of any country did aught contravening the Pope's pleasure, his
+people were excommunicated, and anathemas published against them to the
+whole of Europe. Thus were the nations led by the nose like a string of
+camels." He then proceeds to state how Henry, by holding forth to his
+nobles the prospect of participation in the rich possessions of the
+church, induced them to join him in the enterprize of destroying the
+papal ascendency. "He then commanded the name of the Pope to be expunged
+from the _khotbah_, and his own to be substituted as head of the church;
+while the _idols_ and pictures were removed from the churches, and not
+allowed to be again used in worship; and the confiscated property was
+divided into three parts, one of which he reserved for himself, the
+second he gave to the nobles who had assisted him, and distributed the
+third among the clergy of the new or reformed religion.
+
+"The Pope's wrath was kindled at these proceedings, and he
+excommunicated the king, who trampled the edict under his feet. The Pope
+then wrote to the princes of Christendom, exhorting them all to
+undertake a _holy war_ against Henry, who was not only a heretic, but an
+infidel; adding, that if they did not, fire would be rained on them from
+heaven as a punishment for their neglect. Some of the Christian
+monarchs, as the King of Spain, declared war accordingly against Henry,
+and sent ships to the coast of England; but all their attempts failed;
+and the King of Denmark and other potentates, perceiving that the
+Pope's threats were not accomplished, and that no fire fell from heaven,
+followed Henry's example in expelling the Pope's clergy from their
+dominions, and adopted measures of reform similar to his. From this time
+the Pope's power began to decline in all the countries of Europe, so
+that at the present day his name is read in the _khotbah_ only in the
+city of Rome and the small territory which is yet left him in its
+neighbourhood; and the old practice of excommunication seems to have
+entirely ceased; while the reformed religion introduced by Henry, and
+which is so different from the ancient faith, has existed in England
+ever since, a period of above three hundred years."
+
+We need not pursue further our extracts from the Khan's speculations on
+English history, of which the passages already given afford a sufficient
+specimen; but we may notice that he mentions James I. as the first
+English monarch who sent an ambassador (Sir Thomas Roe) to the court of
+Delhi, and refers to the history of Ferishta for an account of his
+reception by the Emperor Jehanghir. He next proceeds to describe the
+climate, productions, and statistics of the country, its division into
+_zillahs_ or counties, the law of primogeniture as regards succession to
+landed property, &c.; and enters into minute details on the laws
+regulating the succession to the throne, the responsibility of
+ministers, the election of the members of the House of Commons, and the
+mutual dependence of the three branches of the legislature; but his
+remarks on these subjects, though creditable from their general
+accuracy, possess little originality; and may be left without comment
+for the edification of his friends in Hindustan, for whose benefit it is
+to be presumed they were intended. The doctrine of the responsibility of
+ministers, (which the Khan in a former part of his narrative, as we had
+occasion to remark, seemed either to have been unacquainted with, or to
+have lost sight of,) is here stated with a full appreciation of its
+practical bearings; and is pronounced to be "the best law which the
+English ever made for the government of the people, by imposing a check
+on the absolute will of the sovereign; resembling the similar restraint
+on the power of our monarchs which prevails in Islam, though with us the
+check is still more powerful and effectual, as the judge is empowered by
+the Koran to demand satisfaction from the sovereign himself!" The
+details of the British finances are briefly touched upon, with a special
+denunciation of "that most extraordinary tax laid on the light of the
+sun when it comes through a window:"--but the Khan contents himself with
+stating the amount of the national debt, and the interest annually paid
+to the public creditors, without offering any scheme for its extinction,
+like that of his countryman Mirza Abu-Taleb, who with perfect gravity
+and good faith proposes that the fundholders should be summoned before
+Parliament, and informed by the minister, that since the pressure of the
+taxes necessary to meet the interest must inevitably, erelong, produce a
+revolution, in which the whole debt would be cancelled, it would be far
+better for them at once to relinquish with a good grace great part of
+their claim, and accept payment of the balance by instalments. Of the
+feasibility, as well as equity of this plan, the Mirza does not appear
+to entertain the smallest doubt:--"and thus," he triumphantly concludes,
+"in twenty or thirty years, the whole of the debt would be liquidated;
+some of the most oppressive taxes might be immediately abolished, and
+others gradually relinquished; provisions would become cheaper, and the
+people be rendered happy, and grateful to the government."
+
+"When in Hindustan," says the Khan, "I had heard, like millions of
+others, of something in connexion with the Feringhi rulers, called
+_Company_; but no one knew whether this was a man, or a medicine, or a
+weapon, or a horse, or a ship, or any thing else. The most prevalent
+notion was, that it was an old woman; but as the oldest among us, and
+their fathers before them, had always heard it spoken of in exactly the
+same terms, they were further puzzled to account for her preternatural
+longevity." A well-directed course of enquiry in England, speedily
+enabled the Khan to unravel the mystery; and he has enlightened his
+countrymen with full details on the composition of the venerable Begum,
+with the Court of Directors, the Board of Control, &c.; but in the
+prosecution of these researches, he was surprised by finding that
+_Company_ was so far from being one and indivisible, that _Companies_
+"exist by thousands for multifarious objects--many even for speculation
+in human life. The most recent is the Victoria, composed of twelve
+directors, and other officers. A man puts a value on his life, and on
+this sum they put a per centage, varying according to his age and state
+of health, which he pays, and when he dies his heirs receive the money.
+People of the middle classes generally resort to this method of
+providing, by small annual contributions, for the support of their
+families after their decease--and consequently the man's own relations
+often rejoice when he dies, while strangers (the Insurance Company)
+grieve."
+
+On the important subject of the domestic usages and manners of the
+English, the Khan enters less at length than might have been expected.
+Of country life, indeed, from which alone correct ideas on such subjects
+can be derived, he saw absolutely nothing, his knowledge of the country
+being apparently limited to the prospect from the windows of a railway
+carriage; and his acquaintance with London manners was drawn more from
+ballrooms and crowded soirées, than from the private circles of family
+réunions. With these limited opportunities of observation, his remarks
+on the mass of the people are necessarily confined, in a great measure,
+to their outdoor habits; in which nothing appears to have surprised him
+more than the small number of horsemen (as he considers) to be seen in
+the streets of London; "the generality of these, too, are extremely bad
+riders, though this, perhaps, may be owing to the uncouth and awkward
+saddles they use:" a libel on our national character for horsemanship,
+into which we must charitably hope that the Cockney cavaliers who crowd
+the Regent's Park on Sundays, are responsible for having misled him. The
+important point of the comparative deference paid to women, and the
+amount of liberty and privileges enjoyed by them, in the social systems
+of Mohammedan and Christian countries respectively, is taken up by the
+Khan in behalf of the former, with as much warmth as in past years by
+his compatriot Mirza Abu-Taleb,[19] and in much the same line of
+argument--to the effect that the dowery which the eastern husband is
+bound by law to pay over in money to his wife in the event of a
+separation, is a far more effectual protection to the wife from the
+fickleness and caprice of her partner, ("whose _interest_ it thus
+becomes, setting affection wholly out of the question, to remain on good
+terms with her,") than any remedy afforded by the laws of England; where
+a wife, though bound by ties less easily dissolved than under the
+Mohammedan system of divorces, may still be driven, without misconduct
+on her part, from her husband's house, and left to seek redress by the
+slow process of litigation. The Khan assures us that several ladies with
+whom he conversed on these interesting topics, and who had passed many
+years of their lives in India, were utterly unacquainted with these
+protective rights of Hindustani wives; and were obliged to confess, that
+if they were correctly stated, "the ladies in India are far better off
+than ourselves. For (said they) the dowery we receive from our fathers
+on our marriage goes to our husbands, who may squander it in one day if
+they like; and even the dresses we wear are not our own property, but
+are given us by our husbands." But if we allow the Khan all due credit
+for the adroitness and success with which he maintained on this occasion
+the cause of his fair countrywomen, we can scarcely acquit him of
+something like disingenuousness in a discussion with "another lady,"
+apparently one who had _not_ been in India, and who lamented the hard
+fate (as she believed) of the Indian widows, who could not marry again
+after the death of their first husband, and were at the mercy of the
+priests, who filled their heads with terrors of a future state to
+prevent their doing so. "With regard to this last idea, it is so
+utterly groundless, that there is no word in our language corresponding
+with 'priest;' and of all religions in the world, Islam is the least
+influenced by spiritual meddlers of any sort. It is, besides, expressly
+enjoined in the Koran, that widows should marry; they may do so as often
+as they like, if they survive their husbands; and if they do not, it is
+their own choice." Now, though this vehement denial of the Khan's is
+perfectly true as regards _Moslem_ law and _Moslem_ widows, he must have
+been well aware that the lady's error arose from her considering as
+common to all the natives of India, Hindustanis as well as Hindus, those
+customs and restrictions which are peculiar to the Hindus alone. Among
+the latter, as is well known, both the priestcraft of the Brahmins, and
+the impediments to the marriage of a widow,[20] exist in full force at
+this day; and it would have been more candid on the part of the Khan,
+even at the expense of a little of his Moslem pride, to have set his
+fair opponent right on these points, than to have triumphed over her
+ignorance, without showing her wherein lay her error.
+
+But however deeply the Khan may have commiserated the unprotected
+condition of English wives, as compared with the security of rights
+enjoyed by the more fortunate dames of Hindustan, we find him at all
+times disposed to do ample justice to the social qualifications and
+accomplishments of our countrywomen, and the beneficial influence
+exercised by them in smoothing the asperities of society. The masculine
+portion of the community, indeed, find little favour in the eyes of the
+Khan, who accuses them of being prone to indulge in inveterate enmity
+and ill-feeling on slight grounds, while instances of real friendship,
+on the contrary, are extremely rare: and he is wearied and disgusted by
+the endless disputes which occur at all times and all places, from the
+collision of individuals of adverse political sentiments. "They dispute
+in parliament, they dispute in their social circles, they dispute in
+steam-boats, on railroads, in eating and drinking; and I verily believe
+that, but for some slight feeling of religion, they would dispute even
+in their churches. But in the same proportion as the men were hostile to
+each other, did the women seem united: the more there were of these fair
+creatures, the pleasanter did they make the party by their smiles and
+good-humour: with the men, the more there were collected together, the
+more wrangling always ensued. In qualities of the mind and heart, as
+well as in the social virtues, the women far surpass the men--they are
+more susceptible of friendship, more hospitable to strangers, less
+reserved, and, I must say, generally better informed. Wherever I have
+been conversing with gentlemen in society, if a difficulty occurred on
+any topic, the men would invariably turn to their wives or sisters, and
+ask for an explanation, thus tacitly admitting the superior attainments
+of the ladies: and I have always found that I obtained from the latter a
+more satisfactory answer to any of my enquiries on national customs and
+institutions. Nor must it be supposed that this superiority was only
+apparent, and arose from the desire the men might have to display the
+accomplishments of their ladies by referring so constantly to them: it
+is the real state of the case, as far as I can judge from the manners of
+the people."
+
+We cannot better close our extracts from the Khan's remarks on English
+manners and society, than with this spontaneous tribute to the merits
+and attractions of our countrywomen, the value of which is enhanced by
+its coming, as it does, from an acute observer of a social system in
+which every thing was wholly at variance with his preconceived habits
+and ideas, and from one, moreover, totally unacquainted with that
+routine of compliment, which serves gentlemen in the regions of
+Franguestan, to use the words of Die Vernon, "like the toys and beads
+which navigators carry with them to propitiate the inhabitants of
+newly-discovered lands." But the impression produced on the Khan by the
+contemplation of the institutions and resources of England has yet to be
+viewed in another light--in its relations to the government of India
+under Feringhi rule, and the comparative benefits conferred on the
+people at large, by the sway respectively of the English, and of their
+old Mohammedan rulers. The Khan's opinions on these subjects will
+doubtless be read with surprise by that numerous and respectable class
+of the community, who hold as an article of faith, (to use the words of
+our author,) that in Mohammedan countries "every prince is a tyrant;
+every court of justice full of corruption; and all the people sunk in
+depravity, ignorance, and misery:" and who cling to the comfortable
+delusion that we have succeeded, by the equity of our civil government,
+in attaching to our rule the population of India. As a view of this
+important subject _from the other side of the question_, taken by one,
+however, by no means indisposed to do justice to what he considers as
+the meritorious features of the English administration, the Khan's
+comparative summary, though not wholly devoid of prejudice, possesses
+considerable interest: and it must be admitted, that with respect to the
+internal improvement of the country, his strictures have hitherto had
+but too much foundation, though the schemes of the present
+governor-general, if carried into effect, will go far to remove the
+stigma from the Anglo-Indian rulers. After contrasting, in a
+conversation with an English friend, the expedition of legal proceedings
+under the Moslem rule, with the slow process of the English courts in
+India, to be finally remedied only by the endless and generally
+ineffectual course of appeal to the privy-council at home, (in which,
+according to the Khan's statement, not a single individual of the number
+who have undertaken the long voyage from India has ever succeeded,) he
+proceeds--
+
+"Historical facts seem to be wholly lost sight of by those who talk of
+the conduct of Mohammedan rulers in India, who, as I could prove by many
+instances, were constantly solicitous of the happiness of their
+subjects. Shah-Jehan constructed a road from Delhi to Lahore, a distance
+of 500 miles, with guard-houses at intervals of every three miles, and
+at every ten or twelve miles a caravanserai, where all travellers were
+fed and lodged at the Emperor's expense. Besides this, canals were dug,
+and public edifices built, at the expense of millions, without taxing
+the people to pay for them as here; and these edifices still stand, and
+will endure for many years, as monuments of the munificence of the
+monarchs who erected them. During the seventy years of the English
+dominion in India, what has been done which would remind the people
+fifty years hence, if they should retire from the country, that such a
+nation had ever held sway there? The only memorials they would leave,
+would be the numerous empty bottles scattered over the whole empire, to
+indicate what has been done _in_, if not _for_ India! In some cases
+also, they have squandered millions without benefit either to the people
+or themselves. The money spent in three years on the insane war in
+Cabul, if expended on the construction of railroads or canals, or the
+extension of steam navigation on our great rivers, would have employed
+thousands of men for twenty years, returned an immense profit to
+government, and have gained them a good name among the people. But it is
+the misfortune of India, that notwithstanding the high qualities of
+energy and enterprise, united with superior education and intelligence,
+unquestionably possessed by its masters, they display so lamentable and
+apathetic an indifference to the amelioration of the country. Since I
+have had such opportunities of observing the proofs of English art and
+skill which I see every where and in every department, I cannot but the
+more deeply regret that these wonderful discoveries, and strange and
+unheard-of inventions, in every branch of science and art, are likely to
+remain unknown to the people of India. If I were to relate on my return
+all the wonders I have seen, no one would believe me: and to what could
+I appeal in evidence of the truth of what I say? Are there any
+establishments where these things can be shown to the people on any
+thing like an adequate scale? If such institutions had been established,
+the people would have some tangible proof of the real intellectual
+superiority of their English rulers: but in the lapse of seventy years,
+nothing has been done. Again, if seminaries had been founded on the
+principle of those built and endowed by the emperors, they might have
+produced men eminent in various faculties: but though it is true that
+schools were built by the Company some fifteen years since, in various
+parts of the empire, in which some thousands of children, both Hindoo
+and Moslem, have received education, they have never turned out a single
+man of superior attainments in any department of literature there
+taught:--and it is remarkable that not an instance exists, as far as I
+am aware, of a man thus educated in the Company's own schools having
+been selected for the high judicial offices of _Sadr-ameen_, and
+principal _Sadr-ameen_ (judges in the local courts;) but that these
+functionaries have invariably been chosen from those educated in the
+native method. Is not this strange, that Government should have
+established schools professing to give superior instruction to the
+people; and that not one so trained should have been found eligible to
+fill any of the judicial or fiscal offices of their own government? and
+how can it be accounted for, except by these institutions having been
+conducted on an erroneous principle? When I return to India, I must be
+like the free-masons, silent and reserved, unless when I meet one who
+has been, like myself, in England, and with whom I can converse on the
+wonders we have both witnessed in that marvellous country, and which, if
+I venture to narrate them in public, or even among my own immediate
+friends and relatives, would draw on me such disbelief, that I would
+certainly die from grief of heart."--Here leave we Kerim Khan; not
+without a hope, that in spite of the apprehensions expressed in the
+passage just quoted, of incurring the reproach to which "travellers'
+tales" are supposed to be sometimes obnoxious, he has not eventually
+persisted in withholding from his countrymen a narrative which, both
+from the opportunities of observation enjoyed by the writer, and the
+ability and good judgement with which he has availed himself of these
+advantages, is better calculated to dispel the incredulity which he
+anticipates, than the Travels of Mirza Abu-Taleb, (the text of which has
+been printed at Calcutta,) or indeed than any work with which we are
+acquainted. Trusting, then, that the Khan's patriotic aspirations for
+the welfare of his country may be realized by the speedy introduction of
+all those Feringhi appendages to high civilization, the want of which he
+so feelingly deplores, and that he may live a thousand years in the full
+fruition of all the advantages therefrom resulting, we now take leave
+of him.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] The palace constructed, in the early ages of the world, by
+the giant-king Sheddad, as a rival to the heavenly paradise, and
+supposed still to exist, though invisible to mortal eyes, in the
+recesses of the Desert--See LANE'S _Thousand and One Nights_, vol, ii.
+p. 342.
+
+[12] The Persian princes imagine these children to be collected
+from all parts of the United Kingdom, for the purpose of this
+procession!
+
+[13] The Khan never gives dates; but on investigation we find
+that this must have been on the 11th of June 1841; as among the list of
+visitors on that day occur the names of _Kurreen_ Khan, Mohabet Khan,
+and, singularly enough, the Parsee poet, Manackjee Cursetjee, who will
+be well remembered as a lion of the London drawing-rooms during that
+season.
+
+[14] The _polite_ dialect of Hindustani, which differs
+considerably from that in use among the lower orders. The phrase is
+derived from _Oorda_, the court, or camp, of the sovereign--whence our
+word _horde_.
+
+[15] "One hundred and fifty-three of the students," he adds,
+"were fixed upon for commissions, who were to be sent out to India;" but
+the Khan must have been strangely misinformed here, as the number
+actually selected was only thirty-one.
+
+[16] This must have been the Trafalgar of 120 guns, which was
+launched June 21, 1841; but the Khan is mistaken in supposing that the
+Queen personally performed the ceremony of _christening_ the ship, since
+that duty devolved on Lady Bridport, the niece of Nelson, who used on
+the occasion a bottle of wine which had been on board the Victory when
+Nelson fell.
+
+[17] This must be a slip of the pen for _Selim_, or perhaps for
+Soliman Ibn Selim, (Soliman the Magnificent.)
+
+[18] "At this epoch," adds the Khan in a note, "reigned the
+great Harun-al-Rashid, the khalif and supreme head of Islam; and
+Charles the Great was Emperor of the Franks."
+
+[19] The Mirza even went so far as to write during his stay in
+England a treatise, entitled "Vindication of the Liberties of the
+Asiatic Women," which was translated by Captain Richardson, and
+published first in the _Asiatic Annual Register_ for 1801, and again as
+an Appendix to the Mirza's Travels. It is a very curious pamphlet, and
+well worth perusal.
+
+[20] Great efforts have of late been made, among the more
+enlightened Hindus, to get rid of this prejudice. Baboo Motee Loll Seal,
+a wealthy native of Calcutta, offered 20,000 rupees, a year or two
+since, to the first Hindu who would marry a widow, and we believe the
+prize has been since claimed:--and in the _Asiatic Journal_ (vol.
+xxxviii. p. 370,) we find the announcement of the establishment, in
+1842, of a "Hindu widow re-marrying club" at Calcutta!
+
+
+
+
+NOTES ON A TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES.
+
+BY JOSEPH DOWNES.
+
+Author of "The Mountain Decameron."
+
+
+Llangaddock, Carmarthenshire,
+September 9.
+
+"And this is the '_disturbed district!_'--this is the seat of war!--the
+'_Agrarian civil war!_'--the headquarters of the '_Rebecca rebels!_" I
+soliloquized, about the hour of one A.M. on the night of September 9,
+1843--a night of more than summer beauty, sultry and light as day--while
+thrusting my head from the window of "mine inn" the Castle, in this
+pretty picturesque little village-town, to coin a term. The shadows of
+the rustic houses, and interspersed corn-stacks, trees, and orchards,
+stretched across the irregular street, without a causeway, in unbroken
+quiet; not a sound was heard but the voice of an owl from a "fold" in
+the very heart of "the town," and the low murmur of the river chafing
+against the buttresses of an antique bridge at the end of the said
+"street;" while an humble bow window of a shop, where at nightfall I had
+observed some dozens of watches (_silver_, too!) displayed, without a
+token of "Rebecca" terrorism appearing, was seen jutting into the road,
+only hidden, not defended, by such a weak apology for a shutter, as
+would not have resisted a burglar of ten years' old.
+
+It was now Sunday morning, and the clean-swept neatness of the sleeping
+village, whose inhabitants we had seen busily engaged in this pleasing
+preparation for the day of rest, as we strolled there at twilight,
+confirmed the assurance of profound and fearless peace; for only in that
+happy condition of society could the mind be supposed disengaged enough
+to regard those minute decencies of rural English life. With a smile of
+well-pleased wonder at the exaggerations of the press, which were
+persuading the Londoners that the "dogs of war" were really "let slip"
+among these our green mountains and pastoral valleys, after enjoying
+this prospect of a village by moonlight at the foot of the majestic
+_Mynydd Du_, (black mountain,) whose range is seen by day, towering at a
+few miles' distance, and hugging myself in the security of life and
+purse, which warriors (if they would cross-question their own great
+hearts) do really prize as much as I do, I returned to bed, (the heat of
+which had first driven me forth to this air-bath of half an hour.) "And
+_this_ is the seat of insurrection!" I reiterated sarcastically against
+all English and all Welsh purveyors of "news" for terror-loving readers.
+
+I have a huge deal of patriotism in my composition--also, a great love
+of rural quiet, joined to some _trifling_ degree of cowardice, as my
+family pretend; but that I impute to my over-familiarity with them. "No
+man is great to his valet," has been remarked. The domestics of
+Alexander wondered what the world found to wonder at, in the little man
+their master. However this may be, I confess it was very pleasant to me
+to find peace unbroken in these my old haunts. Here I had many a summer
+night enacted, as recorded in my "Mountain Decameron," the
+amateur-gipsy, "a long while ago," _bivouacking_ in their wildest
+solitudes, between some wood and water, on moonlight greensward, or
+reading at our tents' mouth by a lamp, while two boys, my sons, slept
+soundly within; and in the blindness of human nature, thus sneering
+against the "gentlemen of the press," sneered myself to sleep, "shut up
+in measureless content."
+
+"Most lame and impotent conclusion!" The peace of nature in that sweet
+night was weak assurance of any kindred feeling in the bosom of man. It
+so happened (as I afterwards learned) that felony--_bloody_ felony--was
+at that very time busy, at no great distance; that murder, that arson in
+its direst character, were stamping their first damnable characters on a
+province noted, through ages, for innocence and simple piety; that the
+first victim to rebellion was, at that moment, bleeding to death under
+the hands of those wearing the shapes of men; that victim innocent,
+helpless, and--a woman!!
+
+But of this in the course of my narrative. Sunday, September 10.
+
+As I proceeded from Llangaddock this afternoon, in company with my son,
+we found no slackness in the attendance on the chapels, which keep
+rising in all directions in the principality. The groups issuing from
+them, survey us with surly eyes, as _Sabbath-breakers_, for travelling
+on the "Lord's day." It is curious to reflect that these very persons
+who have just been listening to the preachers of a gospel of peace, with
+white upturning eyes and inward groans, who present countenances deeply
+marked, as it seems to us, with the spirit of severe sanctity, betrayed
+by their sour looks at us, and not rarely vested in two or three
+expressions _at_ us among themselves--I say, how curious a fact in the
+_pathology_ of minds does it present, that these very men will (some of
+them) reappear in a few hours, or days, in the characters of _felons_,
+midnight rebels to law and order, redressing minor wrongs committed by a
+few against themselves, by a tenfold fouler wrong against all men,
+against society itself. For a _system_ which consists in defying the
+laws, is a systematic waging of war against the very element that binds
+men in society--it is a casting off of civilization, a return to
+miserable dependence on animal strength alone, on brutish cunning, or
+midnight hiding in the dark, for all we enjoy. It seems well known that
+the farmers themselves are the Rebeccaites, aided by their servants, and
+that _the_ Rebecca is no other than some forward booby, or worse
+character, who ambitiously claims to _act_ the leader, under the unmanly
+disguise of a female, yielding his post in turn to other such petticoat
+heros. The "Rebecca" seems no more than a living figure to give _effect_
+to the drama, as boys dress up an effigy and parade it as _the_ Guy
+Fawkes.
+
+It is curious to witness the chop-fallen aspect of the poor
+toll-collectors. The "looking for" of a dark hour is depicted on the
+_female_ faces, at least, and a certain constrained civility mixed with
+sullenness, marks the manners of the male portion near large towns; for
+elsewhere, humble civility has _always_ met the traveller in this class
+of Welsh cottagers. The frequent appearance of dragoons, the clatter of
+their dangling accoutrements of war, and grotesque ferocity of hairy
+headgear, and mock-heroic air of superiority to the more quietly
+grotesque groups of grey-coated men, and muffled up Welsh women gives a
+new feature to our tour in this hitherto tranquil region, where a
+soldier used to be a monster that men, women, children, all alike, would
+run to the cottage door to look at. A very different sort of look than
+that of childish curiosity now greets these gallant warriors, at least
+from the farmers. "'Becca" is the beloved of their secret hearts--'Becca
+has already given them roads without paying for them! 'Becca is longed
+for by every _honest_ farmer of them all, whenever he pays a toll-gate.
+And these fellows are come sword in hand, to hunt down poor innocent
+'Becca! Well may the Welshman's eyes lower on them, whatever may be the
+looks of the Welsh women.
+
+We have now rode through several toll-gates, the ruins of the
+toll-houses only remaining, and rode scatheless! No toll asked--no
+darting forth of a grim figure from his little castle, at the shake of
+the road by tramp of horses--like the spider showing himself at his
+hole, on the trembling of his web to the struggle of a luckless fly.
+Nothing appeared but a shell of a house, with blackened remains of
+rafters, or a great heap of stones, not even a wall left--and huge
+stumps of gate-posts, and not a hand extended, or voice raised to demand
+payment for our use of a road!--that payment which the laws of the land
+had formally pronounced due! Had new laws been passed? Had a new mode
+arisen of discharging the debt we had incurred by the purchase of the
+use of so much road for two horses? Nothing of the kind! A mob at
+midnight had thrown down the barrier law had built; and law dared not,
+or neglected to--erect it again! "Rebecca," like Jack Cade, had
+pronounced _her_ law--"sic volo, sic jubeo"--and we rode through, by
+virtue of her most graceless Majesty's absolute edict--cost free. It was
+really a very singular feeling we experienced on the first of these
+occasions. I assure thee, my reader; believe me, my pensive public! I
+never was transported--never held up hand at the Old Bailey, or
+elsewhere; am not conscious of any sinister sort of projections about
+my skull that phrenologists might draw ugly conclusions on; yet I
+confess, that after an eloquent burst of Conservative wrath against this
+strange triumph of anarchy--after looking down on these works of mob
+law, unreversed, tamely endured--after fancying I saw the prostrate
+genius of social order there lying helpless--the dethroned majesty of
+British law there grovelling among the black ruins, insulted,
+unrestored--left to be trampled over with insolent laughter, by
+refractory boors, ignorant as savages of that law's inestimable
+blessing--I say, after all these hurried thoughts and feelings--let me
+whisper thee, my reader, that a certain scandalous pleasure _did_ creep
+up from these finger-ends, instinctively groping the pocket for the
+pre-doomed "thrippence," yea, quite up to this lofty, reasoning, and
+right loyal sensorium, on leaving the said sum in good and lawful money,
+snug and safe in my own pocket, instead of handing it over to a toll
+collector. Let us not expect too much from poor human nature! I defy any
+man--Aristides Redivivus himself, to ride _toll free_ through, or rather
+over, a turnpike defunct in this manner, and not feel a pernicious
+pleasure at his heart, a sort of slyly triumphing satisfaction, spite of
+himself, as of a dog that gets his adversary undermost; in
+short--without becoming for the moment, under the Circean chink of the
+saved "coppers," a rank Rebeccaite! The Lord and the law forgive me, for
+I surely loved 'Becca at _heart_ at that moment!
+
+My son being a young man about returning to college, it was highly
+important to conceal this backsliding within; so I launched out the more
+upon the monster character of this victory of brawny ignorance and
+stupid rebellion over the spirit of laws--but it wouldn't do. "But you
+don't _look_ altogether so angry about it as you speak, father," said
+he, though what he could see to betray any inward chuckling, I am not
+aware. If the casual saving of a toll could thus operate upon ME, who
+should, perhaps, never pass there again, can it be wondered at that
+farmers, to whom this triumph must prove a great annual gain, are
+Rebeccaites _to the backbone_, and to a man? I fear they must be more
+than man, not to cry secretly to this levelling lady "God speed!" And
+this leads me to more serious reflection on the incomprehensible and
+fatal conduct of the local authorities _in the first instance_, in not
+_instantly_ re-erecting the toll-gates, or fixing chains _pro tempore_,
+protecting at whatever expense some persons to demand compliance with
+the laws, that not for a week, a day, an hour, the disgraceful and
+dangerous spectacle should be exhibited, of authority completely
+down-trodden, law successfully defied. Surely the first step in
+vindication of the dignity of legal supremacy could not be difficult. By
+day, at least, surely a constabulary force might have compelled
+obedience. A few military at _first_, stationed near the gates, would
+have awed rustic rebels. It is the _impunity_ which this unheard-of
+palsy of the governing strong hand so long ensured to them, which has
+fostered riot into rebellion, and rebellion into incendiarism and
+murder. Is it possible for a thinking man to see these poor and (truth
+to tell) most money-loving people, saving two or three shillings every
+time they drive their team to market or lime, by the prostration of a
+gate, and be at a loss to discover the secret of this midnight work
+spreading like wildfire? Why, every transit which a farmer makes cost
+free, is a spur to his avarice, a tribute of submission to his lawless
+will, a temptation to his ignorant impatience of _all_ payments to try
+his hand against all. The quiet acquiescence in refusal to pay--the
+vanishing of toll-house and toll-takers without one magisterial
+edict--the mere submission to the mob, seems to cry "_peccavi_" too
+manifestly, and affords fresh colour to indiscriminate condemnation of
+all. A _bonus_ in the shape of a toll for horse or team remitted, is
+thus actually presented, many times a-day, to the rioter, the rebel, the
+midnight incendiary of toll-houses, for this good work, by the supine,
+besotted, or fear-palsied local authorities. Shall a man look on while a
+burglar enters his house, ransacks his till, let him depart, and then,
+in despair, leave the door he broke open, open still all night for his
+entrance, and then wonder that burglary is vastly on the increase? The
+wonder, I think, is that one gate remains; and that wonder will not
+exist long, if government do not do something more than send down _a_
+gentleman to ask the Welsh what they please to want? The temptation
+forced upon the eyes and minds of a poverty-stricken and greedy people,
+by this shocking spectacle of the mastery of anarchy over order, in the
+annihilation of an impost by armed mountain peasants, is in itself a
+great cruelty; for in all Agrarian risings the state has triumphed at
+last, inasmuch as wealth and its resources are an over-match for
+poverty, however furious or savage; hence blood will flow under the
+sword of justice ultimately, which early vigilance on her part might
+have wholly spared. "Knock down that toll-house--fire its
+contents--murder its tenant," seems the voice of such sleepy justice to
+pronounce, "and neither I, nor my myrmidons will even _ask_ you again
+for toll! Do this, and you shall not pay!!"
+
+Such was the tacit invitation kindly presented by the _first_ torn down
+toll-gate that remained in ruins, to every Welsh farmer. The farmer has
+accepted it, and "justice"--justice keeps her promise religiously, for
+no toll is demanded. If the law had been violated by trustees, we have a
+body called parliament strong enough to reform, ay, and punish them, as
+they, some of them perhaps, richly deserve; but was that a reason for
+the laws to be annulled, and lawlessness made the order of the day, in
+so important a matter as public roads, by the very men who are to profit
+by it, self-erected into judges in their own cause?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Llandilo Vaur. Evening, Sept. 10.
+Sunday.
+
+A scene to turn even a "commercial traveller" (_vulgo_ a bagman) into a
+"sentimental" one, if any thing could! Clouds that had overcast our ride
+of the last few miles, kindly "flew diverse" as we reached the bridge
+over the Towey, that flows at the foot of the declivity on which this
+romantic town stands. The sun broke forth, and all at once showed, and
+burnished while it showed, one of the noblest landscapes in South
+Wales--not the less attractive for being that which kindled the muse of
+Dyer--on which the saintly eye of a far greater poet had often
+reposed--the immortal _prose-poet_ bishop, Jeremy Taylor, a refugee here
+during the storm of the Civil Wars. Golden Grove, his beautiful retreat,
+with its venerable trees, was in our sight, the green mountain meadows
+between literally verifying its name by the brilliance of their sunshiny
+rich grass, where "God had showered the landscape;" to a fantastic
+fancy, giving the idea of the quivering of the richest leaf gold on a
+ground of emerald. The humbler Welsh Parnassus of the painter poet,
+Grongar Hill, towered also in distance. We traced the pastoral yet noble
+river, winding away in long meanders, up-flashing silver, through a
+broad mountain valley, dotted with white farms, rich in various foliage,
+marked as a map by lines, with well-marked hedge-rows; harvest fields
+full of sheaves, yellowing all the lofty slopes that presented these
+beautiful farms and folds full to the descending sun; those slopes,
+surmounted by grand masses of darkness, solemnly contrasted with the gay
+luxuriance all below; that darkness only the shade of woods, nodding
+like the black plume over the golden armour of some giant hero of fable,
+"magna componere parvis."
+
+Nearer, rose directly from the river a noble park, with all the charm of
+the wild picturesque, from its antique look, its romantic undulations
+and steepness, its woody mount and ivied ruin of a castle, "bosomed high
+in tufted trees," half-hidden, yet visible and reflected in the
+now-placid mirror of a reach of the river.
+
+Being Sunday, a moral charm was added to those of this exquisite natural
+panorama, from which the curtain of storm-cloud seemed just then drawn
+up, as if to strike us the more with its flashing glory of sunshine,
+water, and a whole sky become cerulean in a few minutes. No Sabbath
+bells chimed, indeed; but the hushed town, and vacant groups come abroad
+to enjoy the return of that Italian weather we had long luxuriated in,
+impressed, equally with any music, the idea of Sabbath on the mind. It
+was hard to believe, revolting to be forced to believe, that this fine
+scene of perfect beauty and deep repose, as presented to the eye,
+directed to nature only--to the mind's eye rolling up to nature's
+God--was also the (newly transfigured) theatre of man's worst and
+darkest passions; that the _army_--that odious, hideous, necessary curse
+of civilization, the severe and hateful guardian of liberty and peace,
+(though uncongenial to both)--was at that moment evoked by all the
+lovers of both for their salvation; was even then violating the ideal
+harmony of the hour, by its foul yet saving presence; was parading those
+green suburbs, and the sweet fields under those mountain walls, with
+those clangours so discordant to the holy influences of the hour and
+scene--emerging in their gay, shocking costume, (the colour of blood,
+and devised for its concealment,) from angles of rocks, and mouths of
+bowered avenues, where the mild fugitive from civil war, and faithful
+devotee of his throneless king, had often wandered, meditating on "Holy
+Dying"--of "Holy Living" himself a beautiful example--where even still,
+nothing gave outward and visible sign of incendiarism and murder lurking
+among those hermitages of rustic life; yet were both in active, secret
+operation!
+
+In that very park of _Dynevor_, whose beauty we were admiring from the
+bridge, a little walk would have led us to--a _grave!_--no consecrated
+one, but one dug ready to receive a corpse; _dug, in savage threatening
+of slaughter, for the reception of one yet living_--the son of the noble
+owner of that ancient domain--dug in sight of his father's house, in his
+own park, by wretches who have warned him to prepare to fill that grave
+in October! The gentleman so threatened, being void of all offence save
+that of being a magistrate--a sworn preserver of the public peace!
+
+Equally abhorrent to rational piety, if less shocking, is that air of
+sourest sanctity which the groups now passing us bring with them out
+from the meeting-houses.
+
+Ask a question, and a nasal noise between groan and snort seems to
+signify that they ask to be asked again, a sort of _ha--a--h?_ "long
+drawn out." The human face and the face of nature, at that hour, were as
+an east of thunder fronting a west of golden blue summer serenity. The
+Mawworms of Calvinistic Methodism have made a sort of monkery of all
+Wales, as regards externals at least. To think a twilight or noonday
+walk for pleasure a sin, involves the absurdest principle of ascetic
+folly, as truly as self-flagellation, or wearing horsehair shirts. Not
+that these ministers set their flocks any example of self-mortification.
+The greater number of preachers show excellent "condition," the poorest
+farmers' wives vying with each other in purveying "creature comforts"
+for these spiritual comforters. Preparing hot dinners, it seems, is not
+working on the Lord's Day when it is for the preacher; though to save a
+field of corn, which is in danger of being spoiled if left out, as in
+some seasons, would be a shocking desecration of that day. Yet, to
+observe the abstracted unearthly carriage of these men, who seem
+"conversing with the skies" while walking the streets, one wonders at
+the contrast of such burly bodies and refined spirits.
+
+To return to the flock from these burly shepherds of souls--this
+outbreak of a devilish spirit--this crusade against law and order, tolls
+and tithes, life and property, is a damning evidence against these
+spiritual pastors and masters, for such they are to the great body of
+the Welsh common people, in the fullest sense. The _Times_ newspaper has
+ruffled the whole "Volscian" camp of Dissent, it appears, by thundering
+forth against them a charge of inciting their congregations to midnight
+crime. "John Joneses, and David Reeses, and Ap Shenkinses, have sprung
+up like the men from the dragon's teeth, to repel this charge. It is
+probable that it was not well founded, for the simple reason, that such
+daring subornation of crime would have brought _themselves_ into
+trouble. But what sort of defence is this, even if substantiated? You
+did not _excite_ your followers to rebellion and arson! _You_, with your
+unlimited command of their minds, and almost bodies, why did you not
+allay, resist, put down the excitement, by whomever raised? That is the
+gravamen of the charge against you! You who make then weep, make then
+tremble, puff them with spiritual conceit, or depress them with terrors
+of damnation just as you please, how comes it that you are powerless all
+at once in deterring them from wild and bad actions--you, who are
+all-powerful in inciting them to any thing, since to refrain from
+violence is easier than to commit it?
+
+The increase of these outrages proves, that not the power, but will, is
+wanting on your part, to put down this spirit of revenge and revolt. You
+perceive the current of their ignorant minds setting strongly in toward
+rapine and rebellion, (the _feeler_ put forth being the toll grievance,)
+and you basely, wickedly, pander to their passions, by a discreet
+silence in your rostra, an unchristian apathy; while deeds are being
+done under your very eyes--in your daily path--which no good man can
+view without horror; no bold good man in the position which you hold, of
+public instructors in human duties, could see, without denouncing! And
+as your boldness, at least, is pretty apparent, whatever your goodness
+may be, other motives than fear must be sought for this unaccountable
+suspension of your influence--and I find it in _self-interest_--love of
+"filthy lucre." You are "supported by voluntary contribution," and to
+thwart the passions of your followers, and stem the tide of lawless
+violence, though your most sacred spiritual duty, is not the way to
+conciliate--is not compatible with that "voluntary principle" on which
+your bread depends, and which too often places your duty and your
+interest in direct opposition."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Llanon, Carmarthenshire.
+
+The good woman of our inn in this village has just been apologizing for
+the almost empty state of her house, the furniture being chiefly sent
+away to Pembree, whither she and her family hoped to follow in a few
+days. The cause of her removal was _fear of the house being set fire
+to_, it being the property of Mr Chambers, a magistrate of Llanelly, and
+the "Rebecca's company" had warned all his tenants to be prepared for
+their fiery vengeance. His heinous offence was heading the police in
+discharge of his duty, in a conflict that has just occurred at
+Pontardulais gate, near this place, in which some of the 'Beccaites were
+wounded. [Since this, farm-houses and other property of this gentleman
+have been consumed, his life has been threatened, and his family have
+prevailed on him to abandon his home and native place.] The wounded men,
+now prisoners, were of this village, the _focus_ of this rebellion that
+dares not face the day. It is here that the murderous midnight attack
+was made on the house of a Mr Edwards, when the wretches fired volleys
+at the windows, where his wife and daughter appeared _at their command_.
+They escaped, miraculously it might be said, notwithstanding. The poor
+old hostess complained, as well she might, of the hardship of being thus
+put in peril, purely in hostility to her landlord. We slept, however,
+soundly, and found ourselves alive in the morning; whether through
+evangelical Rebecca's scruples about burning us out (or _in_) on a
+"Lord's Day" night, or her being engaged elsewhere, we knew not.
+
+And here also we rode through a crowd, murmuring hymns, pouring from the
+chapel, where, no doubt, they had heard some edifying discourse about
+the "sweet Jesus," and "sweet experiences," and "new birth," the
+omnipotence of faith to salvation, and all and every topic but a _man's_
+just indignation, and a religious man's most solemn denunciation against
+the bloody and felonious outrages just committed by those very
+villagers--against the night-masked assassins, who had just before
+wantonly pointed deadly weapons against unoffending women--against the
+chamber of a sick man, a husband, and a father!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Llanelly, Sept. 11, Monday.
+
+The headquarters of vindictive rebellion, arson, and spiritual oratory!
+An ugly populous town near the sea, now in a ferment of mixed fear and
+fury, from recent savage acts of the Rebeccaites against a most
+respectable magistrate, resident in the town, Mr W. Chambers, jun., the
+denounced landlord of our old Welsh hostess at Llanon. Two of his
+farm-houses have been burned to the ground, and his life has been
+threatened. His grievous offence I stated before. Soldiers are seen
+every where; and verily, the mixture of brute-ignorance and
+brute-ferocity, depicted in the faces of the great mass of "operatives"
+that we meet, seem to hint that their presence is not prematurely
+invoked. Their begrimed features and figures, caused by their various
+employments, give greater effect to the wild character of the coatless
+groups, who, in their blue check shirt-sleeves, congregate at every
+corner to _cabal_, rather than to _dispute_, it seems; for, fond as they
+are of dissent, (though not one in fifty could tell you _from_ what
+they dissent, or _to_ what they cleave in doctrine,) there seems no
+leaning to dissent from the glorious new Rebecca law of might (or
+midnight surprisals) against right.
+
+In this neighbourhood, our Welsh annals will have to record--_the first
+dwelling-house_, not being a toll-house, _was laid in ashes; the first
+blood was shed_ by "Rebecca's company," as they call the rioters here.
+And _here_ resides, rants, prays, and preaches, and scribbles sedition,
+an illiterate fanatic, who is recognised as an organ of one sect of
+Methodists, Whitfieldites publishing a monthly inflammatory Magazine,
+called Y Diwygiwr, (the "_Reformer!_")--God bless the mark!
+
+This little pope, within his little circle of the "great unwashed," is
+very oracular, and his infallibility a dogma with his followers and
+readers. How much he himself and his vulgar trash of prose run mad,
+stand in need of that wholesome reform which some of his English
+brother-firebrands have been taught in Coldbathfields and Newgate, let
+my reader judge from the following extract. The _Times_ newspaper did
+good service in _gibbeting_ this precious morceau, supplied by its
+indefatigable reporter, in its broad sheet. How great was the neglect of
+_Welsh_ society, and every thing Welsh, when this sort of war-cry of
+treason could be raised, this trump of rebellion sounded, and, as it
+were, from the pulpit "Evangelical," with perfect impunity to the
+demagogue, thus prostituting religion itself to the cause of anarchical
+crime!--
+
+"We cannot regard these tumults, with their like in other parts, but as
+the effects of Tory oppression. Our wish is to see _Rebecca and her
+children arrayed by thousands, for the suppression of Toryism_. These
+are the only means to remove the burden from the back of the country....
+Resolve to see the sword of reason plunged in oppression's heart." He
+goes on to say, "_there must be a hard-blowing storm_ before the high
+places in State and Church can be levelled," &c. &c. There is the usual
+twaddle about "_moral_ force," forsooth, under which saving periphrasis,
+now-a-days, every rebel ranter in field, or tub, or conventicle,
+insinuates lawless violence without naming it. Jack Cade would have made
+it the rallying cry of his raggamuffins, so would Wat Tyler, had it been
+hit upon in his day. The _array_ of _thousands_ is intelligible "to the
+meanest capacity." The dullest Welsh "copper-man," or collier, or wild
+farm cultivator, could not miss the meaning. But as to this magical
+weapon, "moral force," which they are to handle when so arrayed--the
+brightest capacity must be at a loss to know what it means. How absurd
+(if he pretends such a thing) to expect that enlightened statesmen will
+stand reformed, restrained, stricken through, with a new light in
+politics by the exhibition of these smutty patriots' _minds_ alone!--by
+the force of conviction, wrought by ascertaining _their_ convictions,
+(the _illuminati_ of Llanelly coal-works, of Swansea copper-works, of
+Carmarthen farm-yards,) will instantly _tack_--put the vessel of State
+right about, and bring her triumphant into the placid haven of
+Radicalism! And why _physical_ "array" to wield such shadowy arms as
+"_moral_" force? This favourite stalking-horse of incendiary politics is
+but the secret hiding-place of retreat from the "force of government."
+The peace, the forbearance it breathes, is like the brief silence
+maintained--the holding of the breath--by those snugly ensconced within
+that other horse of famous memory, the _Trojan_, which served admirably
+to lay vigilance asleep, and evade the defensive _force_ of the
+garrison, till the hour came to leap from its protection, and fire the
+citadel. This "moral force" covert of revolt, is every whit as hollow,
+as treacherous, as fatal, if trusted to. Inflame, enrage, and then
+gather together "thousands" of the most ignorant of mankind, pointing to
+a body, or a class, or a government, as the sole cause of whatever they
+suffer or dislike, and then--_tell_ them to be moral! peaceable! not to
+use those tens of thousands of brawny arms, inured to the sledge-hammer;
+oh, no! tell them that _force_ means to stand still--or disperse--or
+gabble--any thing but to--_fight!_ And such vile "juggling with us in a
+double sense" as this, is evangelical morality!
+
+In justice to the Liberal party, I shall add that it does not sanction
+the ravings of this hypocrite, but laughs at his illiterate pretensions
+to the character of a public writer. As evidence of this, the editor of
+the _Welshman_, a Liberal journal, published at Carmarthen, has ably
+castigated this sedition-monger, who has exposed his own ignorance in
+venting his wrath at the infliction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pontardulais. Monday Evening.
+
+It was pleasant to emerge from that dingy seat of fanaticism and fury,
+pseudo religion and moral violation of religion's broad principles. Its
+aspect almost recalled the description of one of Rome's imperial
+monsters, equally in physionomy and nature--"a mixture of dirt and
+blood." The day was superb, and the adjacent country, though rather tame
+_for Wales_, improved in rural beauty as we approached a crossway very
+near to this village, Pontardulais. Two cottages appeared in a green,
+quiet, dingle we were descending to, watered by a small river, and
+surrounded by sloping meadows, now yellowed by the evening sun, and well
+inhabited by their proper population, sheep and cows, now beginning
+their homeward course at the call of the milkmaid; the only other motion
+in this simply beautiful landscape, being a scattered gleaner or two,
+with her load, and the rather thick volume of blue smoke curling up from
+one of those cots, which, standing so close, without any other near,
+prompted the idea of some rustic old couple in conjugal quietude,
+smiling out life's evening, by themselves, apart from all the world.
+Such was the perfect calm of scene, and the day in which summer heat was
+joined to the golden serenity of autumn.
+
+We were beginning to dismiss ugly Rebeccaism from our thoughts,
+meditating where we should find one of those Isaac Waltonian hostelries,
+with a sign swinging from an old tree, which we delight to make our
+evening quarters; for Pontardulais, we knew, was too lately a little
+battle-field to afford hope of this tranquil bliss, for here had
+occurred the first conflict, in which men had been wounded and prisoners
+made. The advance of evening, with its halcyon attributes of all kinds,
+had the effect of a lullaby on the mind, disturbed at every stage by
+some hurrying dragoon, some eager gossiping group, or fresh "news" of
+some farm "burned last night," or rumours of "martial law" being
+actually impending over us poor rebels of South Wales.
+
+Reaching the little houses in their lonely crossway, we were startled by
+the appearance of a gutted house; the walls alone having remained to
+present to us, on the higher ground, the semblance of a white cottage.
+The old thatch, fallen in, and timber, were still smouldering visibly,
+though the house was fired about one A.M. yesterday morning.
+
+Before the near adjoining cottage a quiet crowd of some twenty persons
+appeared, and a few rustic articles of furniture on the roadside. Where
+was their owner? Dismounting, we entered this cottage, that had looked
+all peaceful security so lately to our eyes. It had not been injured,
+but was all dismantled and in confusion; and stretched on some low sort
+of bench or seat, lay the murdered owner of that smoking ruin--the Hendy
+toll-house. Her coffin had been already made, (the coffin-plate giving
+her age, 75,) and stood leaning against the wall, but the body was
+preserved just as it fell, for the inspection of the jury. (The jury! a
+British jury! Is there a British _man_, incapable of perjury, of
+parricide, of bloody and blackest felony, _himself_, who will ever
+forget, who will ever cease to spurn, spit upon in thought,
+execrate in words, that degraded, wretched, most wicked knot of
+murder-screeners--_the Hendy Gate jury?_)
+
+There was nothing in this dismal spectacle for a poet to find there food
+for fancy. All was naked, ugly horror. An old rug just veiled the
+corpse, which, being turned down, revealed the orifice, just by the
+nipple, of a shot or slug wound, and her linen was stiff and saturated
+with the blood which had flowed. Another wound on the temple had caused
+a torrent of blood, which remained glued over the whole cheek. The
+retracted lips of this poor suffering creature, gave a dreadful grin to
+the aged countenance, expressing the strong agony she must have endured,
+no doubt from the filling up of the breast with those three pints of
+blood found there by the surgeons. The details of this savage murder
+have been too fully given in all the papers to need repetition here.
+Suffice it to say, that to any one _viewing_ the body as we thus
+happened to do, the atrocity of this heartless treason against society
+and the injured dead becomes yet more striking; it seeming wonderful
+that the piteousness of the sight--the mute pleading of that mouth full
+of cloated blood--the arousing ocular evidence of the unprovoked
+assassin's cruelty--the helplessness of the aged woman--her
+innocence--all should not have kindled humanity in their hearts, (if all
+principle was dead in their dark minds,) just enough to dare to call a
+foul murder "murder"--to turn those twelve Rebecca-ridden, crouching
+slaves into _men_! Some of them, probably, had old helpless mothers at
+home; did no flying vision of her white hairs all blooded, and the
+breast, where they had lain and fed, full of blood also, cross the
+conscience of one of them, when, by their conspiracy, protection for
+life was to be denied to her, to all, by their unheard-of abuse of the
+only known British protective power--trial by jury? It is almost an
+apology for them to imagine, that one or more of them were actually part
+of the gang. Self-preservation, under _instant_ danger, (involved in a
+just verdict,) is less revolting than the less urgent degree of the same
+natural impulse, implied in the hypothesis of pure selfish and most
+dastardly dread of some remoter evil to self from the ill-will of those
+impugned by a righteous verdict.
+
+The verdict, it will be remembered, was, that Sarah Williams died from
+effusion of blood, _but from what cause is to this jury unknown!!!_ The
+designed _trick_--the sly juggle concocted by these men, sworn before
+Almighty God to tell truth respecting the cry of blood then rising to
+his throne, evidently was to leave a loop-hole for a doubt whereby
+justice might be defeated--a possibility, so they flattered themselves,
+that, just in the nick of time, a bloodvessel burst, or fright destroyed
+her, or any thing but the bloody hand of "Rebecca." Though, as the slugs
+were actually found _in_ the lungs, the hope they "dressed themselves
+in" was as "drunk," as swinishly stupid, as their design was unmanly,
+inhuman, and devilish--to wink at this horror! to huddle up this murder,
+and hurry into the earth a murdered woman, as if she had lived out her
+term!
+
+Whatever was the prompting feeling of this monster-jury, let us hope
+that the arm of the law will reach them yet, for this double crime
+against bleeding innocence and against their country. It would be a
+fitting punishment to them, to pronounce every individual an outlaw--to
+deny him all benefit of those laws he has done his best to defeat, and
+leave the craven traitor to his kind--to adopt his beloved "'Becca's"
+disguise for ever, skulk about the land that disowns him in petticoats,
+and blush out his life (if shame be left him;) and let his name be fixed
+up, as a scarecrow to deter such evil doers, on the wall of every court
+of justice:--"To the infamous memory of A. B., one of the perjured
+protectors of murder--The Hendy Gate Jury!"
+
+Most revolting was the _betrayed_ bias of almost all we spoke with,
+toward palliation of this dark act. "_Didn't she die in a fit; or of
+fright; or something?_" was a frequent question, even from those near
+the scene of this tragedy. "_What did ail the old creture to go near
+'em? Name of goodness! didn't they order her not?_" Even from her own
+sex, a disgusting lack of warm-hearted pity and indignation was most
+palpable. Truly, morality and the meeting-house have a deep gulf between
+them, if these are the morals of the people. The regular church is
+really so little prized here, that we can only turn to the _dissenting_
+ministers of religious instruction, for the lower orders. And seeing
+these doings and sentiments in the flocks, one turns with astonishment
+to those professing _teachers_ of the Welsh, and is ready to
+exclaim--"What is it that you _do_ teach?" Only the _mechanical_ part of
+religion, only the necessary outer _mummery_, I shall venture to say,
+which, perhaps, all revealed religions require, to maintain a hold on
+the reverence of the common people. It seems impossible that the voice
+of _true_ religion can have reached hearts that a slight pecuniary
+interest, the abatement of a turnpike toll, or the like, can sear
+against the death-shriek of murdered woman; the cry of blood out of the
+earth; the fear of God's judgement against perjury, and connivance at
+murder!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, Sept. 12.
+
+Riding from Llanelly to this place, by a road skirting the coast, we,
+for the first time, heard the horn of Rebecca sounded, and replied to
+from among the darkling hills, the night being one of dusky moonlight.
+We at first believed it the signal of some persons in the collieries,
+but learned that "'Becca's company" had been out round Kidwelly that
+night, and an incendiary fire was the "good work" accomplished. It being
+near ten o'clock at night, and our road wild and solitary, we felt
+rather pleased to gain the covert of this usually most quiet little
+town, with its air of antiquity and dead repose, as agreeable to a
+sentimental traveller, as unwelcome to its few traders and dwellers.
+
+The innkeepers and shopkeepers, _being much injured in their trades by_
+the terrifying effect of Rebeccaism on strangers, who have kept aloof
+all the summer, lift up the voice (but cautiously) against this terrible
+lady. Hardly an expression of regret for the poor victim at Hendy Gate
+reaches our ears; but rather, they seem to visit on her the anticipated
+severity of future dealing with the rioters, which they foresee.
+
+We see already posted placards, offering L.500 for the discovery of the
+actual perpetrator of the murder of the poor toll-collector. It is
+headed "Murder," in the teeth of the audacious, solemn declaration by
+the jury, of their ignorance of the cause of death. _Query_, Was a
+coroner warranted in receiving such a verdict? Was he not
+empowered--required--to send the jury back to learn common sense?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Inn between Carmarthen and Llandilo.
+
+Just as we were sauntering in the rural road, admiring the placidity of
+the night, about ten o'clock, and the twilight landscape of the banks of
+the Towey, a sudden light opened up to us the whole night prospect,
+where the farther side of this broad vale rises finely covered with
+woods, round Middleton Hall, and soon learned the nature of this sudden
+illumination and pyramidal fire, being the conflagration of extensive
+property belonging to its owner, Mr Adams, close to the mansion.
+
+The terror of the female inhabitants may be imagined, there being, I
+believe, not any male inmates but servants at home, and the incendiaries
+doing their work at that early hour in the most daring manner, firing
+guns, blowing horns, &c. Mr Adams drove in just as the fire was at its
+height, (having, indeed, believed the house to be in flames while he
+approached,) and found the goods and moveables all brought out in fear
+of its catching fire; but it escaped--so did the Rebeccaites, of course.
+
+Not to extend too far these hasty Notes, I shall throw together the
+heads of a few made on the spot. Our "sentimental journey" occupied
+about three weeks, and brought us to almost every part infested by the
+disturbers. Having put up at an inn in the outskirts of a town in
+Cardiganshire for the night, leaving the horses, we walked to the town.
+As we returned, the night being rather dark, I was not conscious of any
+one being on the same road behind, and was talking to my son, rather
+earnestly, of the iniquitous verdict of the Hendy Gate assassin jury,
+when a voice behind asked in English, saucily, if _I_ was going to
+attend the future trial of the "Hugheses, and them of the Llanon
+village, then in Swansea jail?" The tone clearly indicated how alien to
+the Welshman's feelings were those I was expressing, though but those of
+common humanity. Giving the voice in the dark such short answer,
+refusing to satisfy him, as the question deserved, and with responsive
+bluffness, we left the man behind, who, it proved, was bound to our inn.
+We found our parlour filled with farmers, who instantly became _mum_ as
+we entered, but their eyes suspiciously surveyed us. It was near eleven
+o'clock, so we retired to our double-bedded chamber, which happened to
+be situated over the parlour. The inn (whose owners were _ultra_
+"Welshly," speaking English very badly,) was well situated for holding a
+midnight council of (Rebecca) war, being lonely, at the confluence of
+two roads, and this proved to be the nature of this late assemblage. We
+were just in bed, (having _secured the door as well as we could_,) when
+we heard through the imperfect flooring a very animated _mêlée_ of Welsh
+tongues all astir at once, and I fancied I recognized the voice of the
+pious Christian in the dark, who had been moved by the spirit (of
+religion of course) to hint or betray his dissent from the Saxon
+"stranger's" rebuke of perjury and murder-screening. A few minutes
+after, several hurried out, and three or four discharges of guns
+followed in front of the house, but nothing more. I was pleased to
+think that the said house and windows were "mine host's," and not mine,
+otherwise a little hail of shot might have followed the "short thunder;"
+but as it was, nothing more than this warning bravado (as I imagine it
+to have been) occurred.
+
+A great deal of _solo_ spouting, by orators in orderly succession, went
+on till near two in the morning--_Sunday_. At least, falling asleep, I
+left this little patriot parliament sitting, and found it in full tongue
+on awaking at that hour. I suppose this sitting in judgment on
+toll-houses (and possibly _other_ houses) of these anti-landlord
+committees, are _not_ breaches of the observance of the Sabbath.
+
+On the whole, we may remark, that neither Poor-Law, nor Tory, nor Whig,
+nor right rule, nor misrule, nor politics, nor party, had the slightest
+influence in this astounding moral revolution among an agricultural
+people. Utterly false is almost all that the London Press broached and
+broaches, implicating ministers in the provocation of this outbreak.
+Twenty years of residence, and leisure for observation among them,
+allows me to positively deny that any feeling of discontent, any sense
+of oppression, any knowledge of "Grievances," now so pompously heading
+columns of twaddle--ever existed before the _one_ daily, weekly spur in
+their side, goaded this simple people to a foolish mode of resistance to
+it.
+
+Why, not one in ten of the farmers has yet heard of Sir Robert Peel's
+accession to office! and I doubt if one in twenty knows whether they
+live under a Whig or Tory administration. Nor does one in a hundred
+_care_ which, or form one guess about their comparative merits.
+
+The only idea they have of Chartists, is a vague identification of them
+with "_rebels_," as they _used_ to call _all_ sorts of rioters, not
+dreaming of their forming any party with definite views, unless that of
+seizing the good things of the earth, and postponing, _sine die_, the
+day of payment.
+
+Judge what chance the brawling apostles of Chartism would have here
+among them, especially under the difficulty of haranguing them through
+interpreters!
+
+The Poor-Law they certainly hate, but from no pity for paupers. The
+dislike arises from a wide spread belief, that the host of "officers"
+attached to it swallows up great part of what they pay for the poor.
+They grudged the poor-rate before, even when their own overseer paid it
+away to poor old lame Davy or blind Gwinny; but now that it reaches them
+by a more circuitous route, and in the altered form of loaves or
+workhouse support, they seem to lose sight of it, and fancy that it
+stops _by the way_, in the pockets of these "strange" new middlemen, as
+we may call them, thrust in between the farmers and their poor and
+worn-out labourers.
+
+The prevalence of the Welsh language perpetuates the ignorance which is
+at the root of the mischief. Of their _native_ writers, I have given a
+specimen from the monthly magazine published at Llanelly, and the evil
+of these is uncorrected by English information.
+
+The work of mounting heavenward was, we are told, defeated by a
+confusion of tongues--the advance of civilization (which we may
+designate a progress toward a divine goal, that of soul-exalting and
+soul-saving wisdom) is as utterly prevented by this non-intercourse
+system between the civilized and the _half_ civilized; which, with all
+deference to the ancient Britons, I must venture to consider them.
+Camden, the antiquary, has preserved a tradition, that "certain
+Brittaines" (Britons) going over into Armorica, and taking wives from
+among the people of Normandy, "_did cut out their tongues_," through
+fear that, when they should become mothers, they might corrupt the Welsh
+tongue of the children, by teaching them that foreign language! The love
+of their own tongue thus appears to be of very old standing, if we are
+to believe this agreeable proof of it. I believe the extirpation of
+Welsh, as a spoken language, would pioneer the way to knowledge,
+civilization, and _religion_ here, of which last blessing there is a
+grievous lack, judging from the morals of the people.
+
+
+
+
+ADVENTURES IN TEXAS.
+
+NO. II.
+
+A TRIAL BY JURY.
+
+
+When I recovered from my state of insensibility, and once more opened my
+eyes, I was lying on the bank of a small but deep river. My horse was
+grazing quietly a few yards off, and beside me stood a man with folded
+arms, holding a wicker-covered flask in his hand. This was all I was
+able to observe; for my state of weakness prevented me from getting up
+and looking around me.
+
+"Where am I?" I gasped.
+
+"Where are you, stranger? By the Jacinto; and that you are _by_ it, and
+not _in_ it, is no fault of your'n, I reckon."
+
+There was something harsh and repulsive in the tone and manner in which
+these words were spoken, and in the grating scornful laugh that
+accompanied them, that jarred upon my nerves, and inspired me with a
+feeling of aversion towards the speaker. I knew that he was my
+deliverer; that he had saved my life, when my mustang, raging with
+thirst, had sprung head-foremost into the water; that, without him, I
+must inevitably have been drowned, even had the river been less deep
+than it was; and that it was by his care, and the whisky he had made me
+swallow, and of which I still felt the flavour on my tongue, that I had
+been recovered from the death-like swoon into which I had fallen. But
+had he done ten times as much for me, I could not have repressed the
+feeling of repugnance, the inexplicable dislike, with which the mere
+tones of his voice filled me. I turned my head away in order not to see
+him. There was a silence of some moments' duration.
+
+"Don't seem as if my company was over and above agreeable," said the man
+at last.
+
+"Your company not agreeable? This is the fourth day since I saw the face
+of a human being. During that time not a bit nor a drop has passed my
+tongue."
+
+"Hallo! That's a lie," shouted the man with another strange wild laugh.
+"You've taken a mouthful out of my flask; not _taken_ it, certainly, but
+it went over your tongue all the same. Where do you come from? The beast
+ain't your'n."
+
+"Mr Neal's," answered I.
+
+"See it is by the brand. But what brings you here from Mr Neal's? It's a
+good seventy mile to his plantation, right across the prairie. Ain't
+stole the horse, have you?"
+
+"Lost my way--four days--eaten nothing."
+
+These words were all I could articulate. I was too weak to talk.
+
+"Four days without eatin'," cried the man, with a laugh like the
+sharpening of a saw, "and that in a Texas prairie, and with islands on
+all sides of you! Ha! I see how it is. You're a gentleman--that's plain
+enough. I was a sort of one myself once. You thought our Texas prairies
+was like the prairies in the States. Ha, ha! And so you didn't know how
+to help yourself. Did you see no bees in the air, no strawberries on the
+earth?"
+
+"Bees? Strawberries?" repeated I.
+
+"Yes, bees, which live in the hollow trees. Out of twenty trees there's
+sure to be one full of honey. So you saw no bees, eh? Perhaps you don't
+know the creturs when you see 'em. Ain't altogether so big as wild-geese
+or turkeys. But you must know what strawberries are, and that _they_
+don't grow upon the trees."
+
+All this was spoken in the same sneering savage manner as before, with
+the speaker's head half turned over his shoulder, while his features
+were distorted into a contemptuous grin.
+
+"And if I had seen the bees, how was I to get at the honey without an
+axe?"
+
+"How did you lose yourself?"
+
+"My mustang--ran away"--
+
+"I see. And you after him. You'd have done better to let him run. But
+what d'ye mean to do now?"
+
+"I am weak--sick to death. I wish to get to the nearest house--an
+inn--anywhere where men are."
+
+"Where men are," repeated the stranger, with his scornful smile. "Where
+men are," he muttered again, taking a few steps on one side.
+
+I was hardly able to turn my head, but there was something strange in
+the man's movement that alarmed me; and, making a violent effort, I
+changed my position sufficiently to get him in sight again. He had drawn
+a long knife from his girdle, which he clutched in one hand, while he
+ran the fore finger of the other along its edge. I now for the first
+time got a full view of his face, and the impression it made upon me was
+any thing but favourable. His countenance was the wildest I had ever
+seen; his bloodshot eyes rolled like balls of fire in their sockets;
+while his movements and manner were indicative of a violent inward
+struggle. He did not stand still for three seconds together, but paced
+backwards and forwards with hurried irregular steps, casting wild
+glances over his shoulder, his fingers playing all the while with the
+knife, with the rapid and objectless movements of a maniac.
+
+I felt convinced that I was the cause of the struggle visibly going on
+within him, that my life or death was what he was deciding upon. But in
+the state I then was, death had no terror for me. The image of my
+mother, sisters, and father, passed before my eyes. I gave one thought
+to my peaceful happy home, and then looked upwards and prayed.
+
+The man had walked off to some distance. I turned myself a little more
+round, and, as I did so, I caught sight of the sane magnificent
+phenomenon which I had met with on the second day of my wanderings. The
+colossal live oak rose in all its silvery splendour, at the distance of
+a couple of miles. Whilst I was gazing at it, and reflecting on the
+strange ill luck that had made me pass within so short a distance of the
+river without finding it, I saw my new acquaintance approach a
+neighbouring cluster of trees, amongst which he disappeared.
+
+After a short time I again perceived him coming towards me with a slow
+and staggering step. As he drew near, I had an opportunity of examining
+his whole appearance. He was very tall and lean, but large-boned, and
+apparently of great strength. His face, which had not been shaved for
+several weeks, was so tanned by sun and weather, that he might have been
+taken for an Indian, had not the beard proved his claim to white blood.
+But his eyes were what most struck me. There was something so
+frightfully wild in their expression, a look of terror and desperation,
+like that of a man whom all the furies of hell were hunting and
+persecuting. His hair hung in long ragged locks over his forehead,
+cheeks, and neck, and round his head was bound a handkerchief, on which
+were several stains of a brownish black colour. Spots of the same kind
+were visible upon his leathern jacket, breeches, and mocassins; they
+were evidently blood stains. His hunting knife, which was nearly two
+feet long, with a rude wooden handle, was now replaced in his girdle,
+but in its stead he held a Kentucky rifle in his hand.
+
+Although I did my utmost to assume an indifferent countenance, my
+features doubtless expressed something of the repugnance and horror with
+which the man inspired me. He looked loweringly at me for a moment from
+under his shaggy eyebrows.
+
+"You don't seem to like the company you've got into," said he. "Do I
+look so very desperate, then? Is it written so plainly on my face?"
+
+"What should there be written upon your face?"
+
+"What? What? Fools and children ask them questions."
+
+"I will ask you none; but as a Christian, as my countryman, I beseech
+you"----
+
+"Christian!" interrupted he, with a hollow laugh. "Countryman!" He
+struck the but of his rifle hard upon the ground. "That is my
+countryman--my only friend!" he continued, as he examined the flint and
+lock of his weapon. "That releases from all troubles; that's a true
+friend. Pooh! perhaps it'll release you too--put you to rest."
+
+These last words were uttered aside, and musingly.
+
+"Put him to rest, as well as---- Pooh! One more or less--Perhaps it
+would drive away that cursed spectre."
+
+All this seemed to be spoken to his rifle.
+
+"Will you swear not to betray me?" cried he to me. "Else, one touch"----
+
+As he spoke, he brought the gun to his shoulder, the muzzle pointed
+full at my breast.
+
+I felt no fear. I am sure my pulse did not give a
+throb the more for this menace. So deadly weak and helpless as I lay, it
+was unnecessary to shoot me. The slightest blow from the but of the
+rifle would have driven the last faint spark of life out of my exhausted
+body. I looked calmly, indifferently even, into the muzzle of the piece.
+
+"If you can answer it to your God, to your and my judge and creator, do
+your will."
+
+My words, which from faintness I could scarcely render audible, had,
+nevertheless, a sudden and startling effect upon the man. He trembled
+from head to foot, let the but of his gun fall heavily to the ground,
+and gazed at me with open mouth and staring eyes.
+
+"This one, too, comes with his God!" muttered he. "God! and your and my
+creator--and--judge."
+
+He seemed hardly able to articulate these words, which were uttered by
+gasps and efforts, as though something had been choking him.
+
+"His and my--judge"--groaned he again. "Can there be a God, a creator
+and judge?"
+
+As he stood thus muttering to himself, his eyes suddenly became fixed,
+and his features horribly distorted.
+
+"Do it not!" cried he, in a shrill tone of horror, that rang through my
+head. "It will bring no blessin' with it. I am a dead man! God be
+merciful to me! My poor wife, my poor children!"
+
+The rifle fell from his hands, and he smote his breast and forehead in a
+paroxysm of the wildest fury. It was frightful to behold the
+conscience-stricken wretch, stamping madly about, and casting glances of
+terror behind him, as though demons had been hunting him down. The foam
+flew from his mouth, and I expected each moment to see him fall to the
+ground in a fit of epilepsy. Gradually, however, he became more
+tranquil.
+
+"D'ye see nothin' in my face?" said he in a hoarse whisper, suddenly
+pausing close to where I lay.
+
+"What should I see?"
+
+He came yet nearer.
+
+"Look well at me--_through_ me, if you can. D'ye see nothin' now?"
+
+"I see nothing," replied I.
+
+"Ah! I understand, you can see nothin'. Ain't in a spyin' humour, I
+calkilate. No, no, that you ain't. After four days and nights fastin',
+one loses the fancy for many things. I've tried it for two days myself.
+So, you are weak and faint, eh? But I needn't ask that, I reckon. You
+look bad enough. Take another drop of whisky; it'll strengthen you. But
+wait till I mix it."
+
+As he spoke, he stepped down to the edge of the river, and scooping up
+the water in the hollow of his hand, filled his flask with it. Then
+returning to me, he poured a little into my mouth.
+
+Even the bloodthirsty Indian appears less of a savage when engaged in a
+compassionate act, and the wild desperado I had fallen in with, seemed
+softened and humanized by the service he was rendering me. His voice
+sounded less harsh; his manner was calmer and milder.
+
+"You wish to go to an inn?"
+
+"For Heaven's sake, yes. These four days I have tasted nothing but a bit
+of tobacco."
+
+"Can you spare a bit of that?"
+
+"All I have."
+
+I handed him my cigar case, and the roll of _dulcissimus_. He snatched
+the latter from me, and bit into it with the furious eagerness of a
+wolf.
+
+"Ah, the right sort this!" muttered he to himself. "Ah, young man, or
+old man--you're an old man, ain't you? How old are you?"
+
+"Two-and-twenty."
+
+He shook his head doubtingly.
+
+"Can hardly believe that. But four days in the prairie, and nothin' to
+eat. Well, it may be so. But, stranger, if I had had this bit of tobacco
+only ten days ago--A bit of tobacco is worth a deal sometimes. It might
+have saved a man's life!"
+
+Again he groaned, and his accents became wild and unnatural.
+
+"I say, stranger!" cried he in a threatening tone. "I say! D'ye see
+yonder live oak? D'ye see it? It's the Patriarch, and a finer and
+mightier one you won't find in the prairies, I reckon. D'ye see it?"
+
+"I do see it."
+
+"Ah! you see it," cried he fiercely. "And what is it to you? What have
+you to do with the Patriarch, or with what lies under it? I reckon you
+had best not be too curious that way. If you dare take a step under that
+tree."--He swore an oath too horrible to be repeated.
+
+"There's a spectre there," cried he; "a spectre that would fright you to
+death. Better keep away."
+
+"I will keep away," replied I. "I never thought of going near it. All I
+want is to get to the nearest plantation or inn."
+
+"Ah! true, man--the next inn. I'll show you the way to it. I will."
+
+"You will save my life by so doing," said I, "and I shall be ever
+grateful to you as my deliverer."
+
+"Deliverer!" repeated he, with a wild laugh. "Pooh! If you knew what
+sort of a deliverer--Pooh! What's the use of savin' a life, when--yet I
+will--I will save yours, perhaps the cursed spectre will leave me then.
+Will you not? Will you not?" cried he, suddenly changing his scornful
+mocking tones to those of entreaty and supplication, and turning his
+face in the direction of the live oak. Again his wildness of manner
+returned, and his eyes became fixed, as he gazed for some moments at the
+gigantic tree. Then darting away, he disappeared among the trees, whence
+he had fetched his rifle, and presently emerged again, leading a ready
+saddled horse with him. He called to me to mount mine, but seeing that I
+was unable even to rise from the ground, he stepped up to me, and with
+the greatest ease lifted me into the saddle with one hand, so light had
+I become during my long fast. Then taking the end of my lasso, he got
+upon his own horse and set off, leading my mustang after him.
+
+We rode on for some time without exchanging a word. My guide kept up a
+sort of muttered soliloquy; but as I was full ten paces in his rear, I
+could distinguish nothing of what he said. At times he would raise his
+rifle to his shoulder then lower it again, and speak to it, sometimes
+caressingly, sometimes in anger. More than once he turned his head, and
+cast keen searching glances at me, as though to see whether I were
+watching him or not.
+
+We had ridden more than an hour, and the strength which the whisky had
+given me was fast failing, so that I expected each moment to fall from
+my horse, when suddenly I caught sight of a kind of rude hedge, and
+almost immediately afterwards the wall of a small blockhouse became
+visible. A faint cry of joy escaped me, and I endeavoured, but in vain,
+to give my horse the spur. My guide turned round, fixed his wild eyes
+upon me, and spoke in a threatening tone.
+
+"You are impatient, man! impatient, I see. You think now, perhaps"----
+
+"I am dying," was all I could utter. In fact, my senses were leaving me
+from exhaustion, and I really thought my last hour was come.
+
+"Pooh! dyin'! One don't die so easy. And yet--d----n!--it might be
+true."
+
+He sprang off his horse, and was just in time to catch me in his arms as
+I fell from the saddle. A few drops of whisky, however, restored me to
+consciousness. My guide replaced me upon my mustang, and after passing
+through a potato ground, a field of Indian corn, and a small grove of
+peach-trees, we found ourselves at the door of the blockhouse.
+
+I was so utterly helpless, that my strange companion was obliged to lift
+me off my horse, and carry me into the dwelling. He sat me down upon a
+bench, passive and powerless as an infant. Strange to say, however, I
+was never better able to observe all that passed around me, than during
+the few hours of bodily debility that succeeded my immersion in the
+Jacinto. A blow with a reed would have knocked me off my seat, but my
+mental faculties, instead of participating in this weakness, seemed
+sharpened to an unusual degree of acuteness.
+
+The blockhouse in which we now were, was of the poorest possible
+description; a mere log hut, consisting of one room, that served as
+kitchen, sitting-room, and bedchamber. The door of rough planks swung
+heavily upon two hooks that fitted into iron rings, and formed a clumsy
+substitute for hinges; a wooden latch and heavy bar served to secure it;
+windows, properly speaking, there were none, but in their stead a few
+holes covered with dirty oiled paper; the floor was of clay, stamped
+hard and dry in the middle of the hut, but out of which, at the sides of
+the room, a crop of rank grass was growing, a foot or more high. In one
+corner stood a clumsy bedstead, in another a sort of table or counter,
+on which were half a dozen drinking glasses of various sizes and
+patterns. The table consisted of four thick posts, firmly planted in the
+ground, and on which were nailed three boards that had apparently
+belonged to some chest or case, for they were partly painted, and there
+was a date, and the three first letters of a word upon one of them. A
+shelf fixed against the side of the hut supported an earthen pot or two,
+and three or four bottles, uncorked, and apparently empty; and from some
+wooden pegs wedged in between the logs, hung suspended a few articles of
+wearing apparel of no very cleanly aspect.
+
+Pacing up and down the hut with a kind of stealthy cat-like pace, was an
+individual, whose unprepossessing exterior was in good keeping with the
+wretched appearance of this Texian shebeen house. He was an undersized,
+stooping figure, red-haired, large mouthed, and possessed of small,
+reddish, pig's eyes, which he seemed totally unable to raise from the
+ground, and the lowering, hang-dog expression of which, corresponded
+fully with the treacherous, panther-like stealthiness of his step and
+movements. Without greeting us either by word or look, this personage
+dived into a dark corner of his tenement, brought out a full bottle, and
+placing it on the table beside the glasses, resumed the monotonous sort
+of exercise in which he had been indulging on our entrance.
+
+My guide and deliverer said nothing while the tavern-keeper was getting
+out the bottle, although he seemed to watch all his movements with a
+keen and suspicious eye. He now filled a large glass of spirits, and
+tossed it off at a single draught. When he had done this, he spoke for
+the first time.
+
+"Johnny!"
+
+Johnny made no answer.
+
+"This gentleman has eaten nothing for four days."
+
+"Indeed," replied Johnny, without looking up, or intermitting his
+sneaking, restless walk from one corner of the room to the other.
+
+"I said four days, d'ye hear? Four days. Bring him tea immediately,
+strong tea, and then make some good beef soup. The tea must be ready
+directly, the soup in an hour at farthest, d'ye understand? And then I
+want some whisky for myself, and a beefsteak and potatoes. Now, tell all
+that to your Sambo."
+
+Johnny did not seem to hear, but continued his walk, creeping along with
+noiseless step, and each time that he turned, giving a sort of spring
+like a cat or a panther.
+
+"I've money, Johnny," said my guide. "Money, man, d'ye hear?" And so
+saying, he produced a tolerably full purse.
+
+For the first time Johnny raised his head, gave an indefinable sort of
+glance at the purse, and then springing forward, fixed his small,
+cunning eyes upon those of my guide, while a smile of strange meaning
+spread over his repulsive features.
+
+The two men stood for the space of a minute, staring at each other,
+without uttering a word. An infernal grin distended Johnny's coarse
+mouth from ear to ear. My guide seemed to gasp for breath.
+
+"I've money," cried he at last, striking the but of his rifle violently
+on the ground. "D'ye understand, Johnny? Money; and a rifle too, if
+needs be."
+
+He stepped to the table and filled another glass of raw spirits, which
+disappeared like the preceding one. While he drank, Johnny stole out of
+the room so softly that my companion was only made aware of his
+departure by the noise of the wooden latch. He then came up to me, took
+me in his arms without saying a word, and, carrying me to the bed, laid
+me gently down upon it.
+
+"You make yourself at home," snarled Johnny, who just then came in
+again.
+
+"Always do that, I reckon, when I'm in a tavern," answered my guide,
+quietly pouring out and swallowing another glassful. "The gentleman
+shall have your bed to-day. You and Sambo may sleep in the pigsty. You
+have none though, I believe?"
+
+"Bob!" screamed Johnny furiously.
+
+"That's my name--Bob Rock."
+
+"For the present," hissed Johnny, with a sneer.
+
+"The same as yours is Johnny Down," replied Bob in the same tone. "Pooh!
+Johnny, guess we know one another?"
+
+"Rayther calkilate we do," replied Johnny through his teeth.
+
+"And have done many a day," laughed Bob. "You're the famous Bob from
+Sodoma in Georgia?"
+
+"Sodoma in Alabama, Johnny. Sodoma lies in Alabama," said Bob, filling
+another glass. "Don't you know that yet, you who were above a year in
+Columbus, doin' all sorts of dirty work?"
+
+"Better hold your tongue, Bob," said Johnny, with a dangerous look at
+me.
+
+"Pooh! Don't mind him, he won't talk, I'll answer for it. He's lost the
+taste for chatterin' in the Jacinto prairie. But Sodoma," continued Bob,
+"is in Alabama, man! Columbus in Georgia! They are parted by the
+Chatahoochie. Ah! that was a jolly life we led on the Chatahoochie. But
+nothin' lasts in this world, as my old schoolmaster used to say. Pooh!
+They've druv the Injuns a step further over the Mississippi now. But it
+was a glorious life--warn't it?"
+
+Again he filled his glass and drank.
+
+The information I gathered from this conversation as to the previous
+life and habits of these two men, had nothing in it very satisfactory or
+reassuring for me. In the whole of the south-western states there was no
+place that could boast of being the resort of so many outlaws and bad
+characters as the town of Sodoma. It is situated, or was situated, at
+least, a few years previously to the time I speak of, in Alabama, on
+Indian ground, and was the harbour of refuge for all the murderers and
+outcasts from the western and south-western parts of the Union. Here,
+under Indian government, they found shelter and security; and frightful
+were the crimes and cruelties perpetrated at this place. Scarcely a day
+passed without an assassination, not secretly committed but in broad
+sunlight. Bands of these wretches, armed with knives and rifles, used to
+cross the Chatahoochie, and make inroads into Columbus; break into
+houses, rob, murder, ill-treat women, and then return in triumph to
+their dens, laden with booty, and laughing at the laws. It was useless
+to think of pursuing them, or of obtaining justice, for they were on
+Indian territory; and many of the chiefs were in league with them. At
+length General Jackson and the government took it up. The Indians were
+driven over the Mississippi, the outlaws and murderers fled, Sodoma
+itself disappeared; and, released from its troublesome neighbours,
+Columbus is now as flourishing a state as any in the west.
+
+The recollections of their former life and exploits seemed highly
+interesting to the two comrades; and their communications became more
+and more confidential. Johnny filled himself a glass, and the
+conversation soon increased in animation. I could understand little of
+what they said, for they spoke a sort of thieves' jargon. After a time,
+their voices sounded as a confused hum in my ears, the objects in the
+room became gradually less distinct, and I fell asleep.
+
+I was roused, not very gently, by a mulatto woman, who poured a spoonful
+of tea into my mouth before I had well opened my eyes. She at first did
+not appear to be attending to me with any great degree of good-will; but
+by the time she had given me half a dozen spoonsful her womanly
+sympathies began to be awakened, and her manner became kinder. The tea
+did me an infinite deal of good, and seemed to infuse new life into my
+veins. I finished the cup, and the mulatto laid me down again on my
+pillow with far more gentleness than she had lifted me up.
+
+"Gor! Gor!" cried she, "what poor young man! Berry weak. Him soon
+better. One hour, massa, good soup."
+
+"Soup! What do you want with soup?" grumbled Johnny.
+
+"Him take soup. I cook it," screamed the woman.
+
+"Worse for you if she don't, Johnny," said Bob.
+
+Johnny muttered something in reply, but I did not distinguish what it
+was, for my eyes closed, and I again fell asleep.
+
+It seemed to me as if I had not been five minutes slumbering when the
+mulatto returned with the soup. The tea had revived me, but this gave me
+strength; and when I had taken it I was able to sit up in my bed.
+
+While the woman was feeding me, Bob was eating his beefsteak. It was a
+piece of meat that might have sufficed for six persons, but the man
+seemed as hungry as if he had eaten nothing for three days. He cut off
+wedges half as big as his fist, swallowed them with ravenous eagerness,
+and, instead of bread, bit into some unpeeled potatoes. All this was
+washed down with glass after glass of raw spirits, which had the effect
+of wakening him up, and infusing a certain degree of cheerfulness into
+his strange humour. He still spoke more to himself than to Johnny, but
+his recollections seemed agreeable; he nodded self-approvingly, and
+sometimes laughed aloud. At last he began to abuse Johnny for being, as
+he said, such a sneaking, cowardly fellow--such a treacherous,
+false-hearted gallows-bird.
+
+"It's true," said he, "I am gallows-bird enough myself, but then I'm
+open, and no man can say I'm a-fear'd; but Johnny, Johnny, who"----
+
+I do not know what he was about to say, for Johnny sprang towards him,
+and placed both hands over his mouth, receiving in return a blow that
+knocked him as far as the door, through which he retreated, cursing and
+grumbling.
+
+I soon fell asleep again, and whilst in that state I had a confused sort
+of consciousness of various noises in the room, loud words, blows, and
+shouting. Wearied as I was, however, I believe no noise would have fully
+roused me, although hunger at last did.
+
+When I opened my eyes I saw the mulatto woman sitting by my bed, and
+keeping off the mosquitoes. She brought me the remainder of the soup,
+and promised, if I would sleep a couple of hours more, to bring me a
+beefsteak. Before the two hours had elapsed I awoke, hungrier than ever.
+After I had eaten all the beefsteak the woman would allow me, which was
+a very moderate quantity, she brought me a beer-glass full of the most
+delicious punch I ever tasted. I asked her where she had got the rum and
+lemons, and she told me that it was she who had bought them, as well as
+a stock of coffee and tea; that Johnny was her partner, but that he had
+done nothing but build the house, and badly built it was. She then began
+to abuse Johnny, and said he was a gambler; and, worse still, that he
+had had plenty of money once, but had lost it all; that she had first
+known him in Lower Natchez, but he had been obliged to run away from
+there in the night to save his neck. Bob was no better, she said; on the
+contrary--and here she made the gesture of cutting a man's throat--he
+was a very bad fellow, she added. He had got drunk after his dinner,
+knocked Johnny down, and broken every thing. He was now lying asleep
+outside the door; and Johnny had hidden himself somewhere.
+
+How long she continued speaking I know not, for I again fell into a deep
+sleep, which this time lasted six or seven hours.
+
+I was awakened by a strong grasp laid upon my arm, which made me cry
+out, more, however, from surprise than pain. Bob stood by my bedside;
+the traces of the preceding night's debauch plainly written on his
+haggard countenance. His bloodshot eyes were inflamed and swollen, and
+rolled with even more than their usual wildness; his mouth was open, and
+the jaws stiff and fixed; he looked as if he had just come from
+committing some frightful deed. I could fancy the first murderer to have
+worn such an aspect when gazing on the body of his slaughtered brother.
+I shrank back, horror-struck at his appearance.
+
+"In God's name, man, what do you want?"
+
+He made no answer.
+
+"You are in a fever. You've the ague!"
+
+"Ay, a fever," groaned he, shivering as he spoke; "a fever, but not the
+one you mean; a fever, young man, such as God keep you from ever
+having."
+
+His whole frame shuddered while he uttered these words. There was a
+short pause.
+
+"Curious that," continued he; "I've served more than one in the same
+way, but never thought of it afterwards--was forgotten in less than no
+time. Got to pay the whole score at once, I suppose. Can't rest a
+minute. In the open prairie it's the worst; there stands the old man, so
+plain, with his silver beard, and the spectre just behind him."
+
+His eyes rolled, he clenched his fists, and, striking his forehead
+furiously, rushed out of the hut.
+
+In a few minutes he returned, apparently more composed, and walked
+straight up to my bed.
+
+"Stranger, you must do me a service," said he abruptly.
+
+"Ten rather than one," replied I; "any thing that is in my power. Do I
+not owe you my life?"
+
+"You're a gentleman, I see, and a Christian. You must come with me to
+the squire--the Alcalde."
+
+"To the Alcalde, man! What must I go there for?"
+
+"You'll see and hear when you get there; I've something to tell
+him--something for his own ear."
+
+He drew a deep breath, and remained silent for a short time, gazing
+anxiously on all sides of him.
+
+"Something," whispered he, "that nobody else must hear."
+
+"But there's Johnny there. Why not take him?"
+
+"Johnny!" cried he, with a scornful laugh; "Johnny! who's ten times
+worse than I am, bad as I be; and bad I am to be sure, but yet open and
+above board, always, till this time; but Johnny! he'd sell his own
+mother. He's a cowardly, sneakin', treacherous hound, is Johnny."
+
+It was unnecessary to tell me this, for Johnny's character was written
+plainly enough upon his countenance.
+
+"But why do you want me to go to the Alcalde?"
+
+"Why does one want people before the judge? He's a judge, man; a Mexican
+one certainly, but chosen by us Americans; and an American himself, as
+you and I are."
+
+"And how soon must I go?"
+
+"Directly. I can't bear it any longer. It leaves me no peace. Not an
+hour's rest have I had for the last eight days. When I go out into the
+prairie, the spectre stands before me and beckons me on, and if I try to
+go another way, he comes behind me and drives me before him under the
+Patriarch. I see him just as plainly as when he was alive, only paler
+and sadder. It seems as if I could touch him with my hand. Even the
+bottle is no use now; neither rum, nor whisky, nor brandy, rid me of
+him; it don't, by the 'tarnel.--Curious that! I got drunk
+yesterday--thought to get rid of him; but he came in the night and drove
+me out. I was obliged to go. Wouldn't let me sleep; was forced to go
+under the Patriarch."
+
+"Under the Patriarch? the live oak?" cried I, in astonishment.--"Were
+you there in the night?"
+
+"Ay, that was I," replied he, in the same horribly confidential tone;
+"and the spirit threatened me, and said I will leave you no peace, Bob,
+till you go to the Alcalde and tell him"----
+
+"Then I will go with you to the Alcalde, and that immediately," said I,
+raising myself up in bed. I could not help pitying the poor fellow from
+my very soul.
+
+"Where are you going?" croaked Johnny, who at this moment glided into
+the room. "Not a step shall you stir till you've paid."
+
+"Johnny," said Bob, seizing his less powerful companion by the
+shoulders, lifting him up like a child, and then setting him down again
+with such force, that his knees cracked and bent under him;--"Johnny,
+this gentlemen is my guest, d'ye understand? And here is the reckonin',
+and mind yourself, Johnny--mind yourself, that's all."
+
+Johnny crept into a corner like a flogged hound; the mulatto woman,
+however, did not seem disposed to be so easily intimidated. Sticking her
+arms in her sides, she waddled boldly forward.
+
+"You not take him 'way, Massa Bob?", screamed she. "Him stop here. Him
+berry weak--not able for ride--not able for stand on him foot."
+
+This was true enough. Strong as I had felt in bed, I could hardly stand
+upright when I got out of it.
+
+For a moment Bob seemed undecided, but only for one moment; then,
+stepping up to the mulatto, he lifted her, fat and heavy as she was, in
+the same manner as he had done her partner, at least a foot from the
+ground, and carried her screaming and struggling to the door, which he
+kicked open. Then setting her down outside, "Silence!" roared he, "and
+some good strong tea instead of your cursed chatter, and a fresh
+beefsteak instead of your stinking carcass. That will strengthen the
+gentleman; so be quick about it, you old brown-skinned beast, you!"
+
+I had slept in my clothes, and my toilet was consequently soon made, by
+the help of a bowl of water and towel, which Bob made Johnny bring, and
+then ordered him to go and get our horses ready.
+
+A hearty breakfast of tea, butter, Indian corn bread, and steaks,
+increased my strength so much, that I was able to mount my mustang. I
+had still pains in all my limbs, but we rode slowly; the morning was
+bright, the air fresh and elastic, and I felt myself getting gradually
+better. Our path led through the prairie; the river fringed with wood,
+on the one hand; the vast ocean of grass, sprinkled with innumerable
+islands of trees, on the other. We saw abundance of game, which sprang
+up under the very feet of our horses; but although Bob had his rifle, he
+made no use of it. He muttered continually to himself, and seemed to be
+arranging what he should say to the judge; for I heard him talking of
+things which I would just as soon not have listened to, if I could have
+helped it. I was heartily glad when we at length reached the plantation
+of the Alcalde.
+
+It seemed a very considerable one, and the size and appearance of the
+framework house bespoke comfort and every luxury. The building was
+surrounded by a group of China trees, which I should have thought about
+ten years of age, but which I afterwards learned had not been planted
+half that time, although they were already large enough to afford a very
+agreeable shade. Right in front of the house rose a live oak, inferior
+in size to the one in the prairie, but still of immense age and great
+beauty. To the left was some two hundred acres of cotton fields,
+extending to the bank of the Jacinto, which at this spot made a sharp
+turn, and winding round the plantation, enclosed it on three sides.
+Before the house lay the prairie, with its archipelago of islands, and
+herds of grazing cattle and mustangs; to the right, more cotton fields;
+and in rear of the dwelling, the negro cottages and out-buildings. There
+was a Sabbath-like stillness pervading the whole scene, which seemed to
+strike even Bob. He paused as though in deep thought, and allowed his
+hand to rest for a moment on the handle of the lattice door. Then with a
+sudden and resolute jerk, bespeaking an equally sudden resolution, he
+pushed open the gate, and we entered a garden planted with orange,
+banana, and citron trees, the path through which was enclosed between
+palisades, and led to a sort of front court, with another lattice-work
+door, beside which hung a bell. Upon ringing this, a negro appeared.
+
+The black seemed to know Bob very well, for he nodded to him as to an
+old acquaintance, and said the squire wanted him, and had asked after
+him several times. He then led the way to a large parlour, very
+handsomely furnished for Texas, and in which we found the squire, or
+more properly speaking, the Alcalde, sitting smoking his cigar. He had
+just breakfasted, and the plates and dishes were still upon the table.
+He did not appear to be much given to compliments or ceremony, or to
+partake at all of the Yankee failing of curiosity, for he answered our
+salutation with a laconic "good-morning," and scarcely even looked at
+us. At the very first glance, it was easy to see that he came from
+Tennessee or Virginia, the only provinces in which one finds men of his
+gigantic mould. Even sitting, his head rose above those of the negro
+servants in waiting. Nor was his height alone remarkable; he had the
+true West-Virginian build; the enormous chest and shoulders, and
+herculean limbs, the massive features and sharp grey eyes; altogether an
+exterior well calculated to impose on the rough backwoodsmen with whom
+he had to deal.
+
+I was tired with my ride, and took a chair. The squire apparently did
+not deem me worthy of notice, or else he reserved me for a later
+scrutiny; but he fixed a long, searching look upon Bob, who remained
+standing, with his head sunk on his breast.
+
+The judge at last broke silence.
+
+"So here you are again, Bob. It's long since we've seen you, and I
+thought you had clean forgotten us. Well, Bob, we shouldn't have broke
+our hearts, I reckon; for I hate gamblers--ay, that I do--worse than
+skunks. It's a vile thing is play, and has ruined many a man in this
+world, and the next. It's ruined you too, Bob."
+
+Bob said nothing.
+
+"You'd have been mighty useful here last week; there was plenty for you
+to do. My step-daughter arrived; but as you weren't to be found, we had
+to send to Joel to shoot us a buck and a couple of dozen snipes. Ah,
+Bob! one might still make a good citizen of you, if you'd only leave off
+that cursed play!"
+
+Bob still remained silent.
+
+"Now go into the kitchen and get some breakfast."
+
+Bob neither answered nor moved.
+
+"D'ye hear? Go into the kitchen and get something to eat. And,
+Ptoly"--added he to the negro--"tell Veny to give him a pint of rum."
+
+"Don't want yer rum--ain't thirsty"--growled Bob.
+
+"Very like, very like," said the judge sharply. "Reckon you've taken too
+much already. Look as if you could swallow a wild cat, claws and all.
+And you," added he, turning to me--"What the devil are you at, Ptoly?
+Don't you see the man wants his breakfast? Where's the coffee? Or would
+you rather have tea?"
+
+"Thank you, Alcalde, I have breakfasted already."
+
+"Don't look as if. Ain't sick, are you? Where do you come from? What's
+happened to you? What are you doing with Bob?"
+
+He looked keenly and searchingly at me, and then again at Bob. My
+appearance was certainly not very prepossessing, unshaven as I was, and
+with my clothes and linen soiled and torn. He was evidently considering
+what could be the motive of our visit, and what had brought me into
+Bob's society. The result of his physiognomical observations did not
+appear very favourable either to me or my companion. I hastened to
+explain.
+
+"You shall hear how it was, judge. I am indebted to Bob for my life."
+
+"Your life! Indebted to Bob for your life!" repeated the judge, shaking
+his head incredulously.
+
+I related how I had lost my way in the prairie; been carried into the
+Jacinto by my horse; and how I should inevitably have been drowned but
+for Bob's aid.
+
+"Indeed!" said the judge, when I had done speaking. "So, Bob saved your
+life! Well, I am glad of it, Bob, very glad of it. Ah! if you could only
+keep away from that Johnny. I tell you, Bob, Johnny will be the ruin of
+you. Better keep out of his way."
+
+"It's too late," answered Bob.
+
+"Don't know why it should be. Never too late to leave a debauched,
+sinful life; never, man!"
+
+"Calkilate it is, though," replied Bob sullenly.
+
+"You calculate it is?" said the judge, fixing his eyes on him. "And why
+do you calculate that? Take a glass--Ptoly, a glass--and tell me, man,
+why should it be too late?"
+
+"I ain't thirsty, squire," said Bob.
+
+"Don't talk to me of your thirst; rum's not for thirst, but to
+strengthen the heart and nerves, to drive away the blue devils. And a
+good thing it is, taken in moderation."
+
+As he spoke he filled himself a glass, and drank half of it off. Bob
+shook his head.
+
+"No rum for me, squire. I take no pleasure in it. I've something on my
+mind too heavy for rum to wash away."
+
+"And what is that, Bob? Come, let's hear what you've got to say. Or
+perhaps, you'd rather speak to me alone. It's Sunday to-day, and no
+business ought to be done; but for once, and for you, we'll make an
+exception."
+
+"I brought the gentleman with me on purpose to witness what I had to
+say," answered Bob, taking a cigar out of a box that stood on the table,
+and lighting it. He smoked a whiff or two, looked thoughtfully at the
+judge, and then threw the cigar through the open window.
+
+"It don't relish, squire; nothin' does now."
+
+"Ah, Bob! if you'd leave off play and drink! They're your ruin; worse
+than ague or fever."
+
+"It's no use," continued Bob, as if he did not hear the judge's remark;
+"it must out. I fo't agin it, and thought to drive it away, but it can't
+be done. I've put a bit of lead into several before now, but this
+one"----
+
+"What's that?" cried the judge, chucking his cigar away, and looking
+sternly at Bob. "What's up now? What are you saying about a bit of lead?
+None of your Sodoma and Lower Natchez tricks, I hope? They won't do
+here. Don't understand such jokes."
+
+"Pooh! they don't understand them a bit more in Natchez. If they did, I
+shouldn't be in Texas."
+
+"The less said of that the better, Bob. You promised to lead a new life
+here; so we won't rake up old stories."
+
+"I did, I did!" groaned Bob; "but it's all no use. I shall never be
+better till I'm hung."
+
+I stared at the man in astonishment. The judge, however, took another
+cigar, lighted it, and, after puffing out a cloud of smoke, said, very
+unconcernedly"--
+
+"Not better till you're hung! What do you want to be hung
+for? To be sure, you should have been long ago, if the Georgia and
+Alabama papers don't lie. But we are not in the States here, but in
+Texas, under Mexican laws. It's nothing to us what you've done yonder.
+Where there is no accuser there can be no judge."
+
+"Send away the nigger, squire," said Bob. "What a free white man has to
+say, shouldn't be heard by black ears."
+
+"Go away, Ptoly," said the judge. "Now, then," added he, turning to Bob,
+"say what you have to say; but mind, nobody forces you to do it, and
+it's only out of good will that I listen to you, for to-day's Sunday."
+
+"I know that," muttered Bob; "I know that, squire; but it leaves me no
+peace, and it must out. I've been to San Felipe de Austin, to Anahuac,
+every where, but it's all no use. Wherever I go, the spectre follows me,
+and drives me back under the cursed Patriarch."
+
+"Under the Patriarch!" exclaimed the judge.
+
+"Ay, under the Patriarch!" groaned Bob. "Don't you know the Patriarch;
+the old live oak near the ford, on the Jacinto?"
+
+"I know, I know!" answered the Judge. "And what drives you under the
+Patriarch?"
+
+"What drives me? What drives a man who--who"----
+
+"A man who"---- repeated the judge, gently.
+
+"A man," continued Bob, in the same low tone, "who has sent a rifle
+bullet into another's heart. He lies there, under the Patriarch, whom
+I"----
+
+"Whom you?" asked the judge.
+
+"_Whom I killed!_" said Bob, in a hollow whisper.
+
+"Killed!" exclaimed the judge. "You killed him? Whom?"
+
+"Ah! whom? Why don't you let me speak? You always interrupt me with your
+palaver," growled Bob.
+
+"You are getting saucy, Bob," said the judge impatiently. "Go on,
+however. I reckon it's only one of your usual tantrums."
+
+Bob shook his head. The judge looked keenly at him for a moment, and
+then resumed in a sort of confidential, encouraging tone.
+
+"Under the Patriarch; and how did he come under the Patriarch?"
+
+"I dragged him there, and buried him there," replied Bob.
+
+"Dragged him there! Why did you drag him there?"
+
+"Because he couldn't go himself, with more than half an ounce of lead in
+his body."
+
+"And _you_ put the half ounce of lead into him, Bob? Well, if it was
+Johnny, you've done the country a service, and saved it a rope."
+
+Bob shook his head negatively.
+
+"It wasn't Johnny, although---- But you shall hear all about it. It's
+just ten days since you paid me twenty dollars fifty."
+
+"I did so, Bob; twenty dollars fifty cents, and I advised you at the
+same time to let the money lie till you had a couple of hundred dollars,
+or enough to buy a quarter or an eighth of Sitio land; but advice is
+thrown away upon you."
+
+"When I got the money, I thought I'd go down to San Felipe, to the
+Mexicans, and try my luck; and, at the same time, see the doctor about
+my fever. As I was goin' there, I passed near Johnny's house, and
+fancied a glass, but determined not to get off my horse. I rode up to
+the window, and looked in. There was a man sittin' at the table, havin'
+a hearty good dinner of steaks and potatoes, and washin' it down with a
+stiff glass of grog. I began to feel hungry myself, and while I was
+considerin' whether I should 'light or not, Johnny came sneakin' out,
+and whispered to me to come in, that there was a man inside with whom
+somethin' might be done if we went the right way to work; a man who had
+a leather belt round his waist cram-full of hard Jackson; and that, if
+we got out the cards and pretended to play a little together, he would
+soon take the bait and join us.
+
+"I wasn't much inclined to do it," continued Bob; "but Johnny bothered
+me so to go in, that I got off my horse. As I did so the dollars chinked
+in my pocket, and the sound gave me a wish to play.
+
+"I went in; and Johnny fetched the whisky bottle. One glass followed
+another. There were beefsteaks and potatoes too, but I only eat a
+couple of mouthfuls. When I had drank two, three, ay, four glasses,
+Johnny brought the cards and dice. 'Hallo, Johnny!' says I; 'cards and
+dice, Johnny! I've twenty dollars fifty in my pocket. Let's have a game!
+But no more drink for me; for I know you, Johnny, I know you'----
+
+"Johnny larfed slyly, and rattled the dice, and we sat down to play. I
+hadn't meant to drink any more, but play makes one thirsty; and with
+every glass I got more eager, and my dollars got fewer. I reckoned,
+however, that the stranger would join us, and that I should be able to
+win back from him; but not a bit of it: he sat quite quiet, and eat and
+drank as if he didn't see we were there. I went on playin' madder than
+ever, and before half an hour was over, I was cleaned out; my twenty
+dollars fifty gone to the devil, or what's the same thing, into Johnny's
+pocket.
+
+"When I found myself without a cent, I _was_ mad, I reckon. It warn't
+the first time, nor the hundredth, that I had lost money. Many bigger
+sums than that--ay, hundreds and thousands of dollars had I played
+away--but they had none of them cost me the hundredth or thousandth part
+of the trouble to get that these twenty dollars fifty had; two full
+months had I been slavin' away in the woods and prairies to airn them,
+and I caught the fever there. The fever I had still, but no money to
+cure it with. Johnny only larfed in my face, and rattled my dollars. I
+made a hit at him, which, if he hadn't jumped on one side, would have
+cured him of larfin' for a week or two.
+
+"Presently, however, he came sneakin' up to me, and winkin' and
+whisperin'; and, 'Bob!' says he, 'is it come to that with you? are you
+grown so chicken-hearted that you don't see the beltful of money round
+his body?' said he, lookin' at it. 'No end of hard coin, I guess; and
+all to be had for little more than half an ounce of lead.'"
+
+"Did he say that?" asked the judge.
+
+"Ay, that did he, but I wouldn't listen to him. I was mad with him for
+winning my twenty dollars; and I told him that, if he wanted the
+stranger's purse, he might take it himself, and be d----d; that I
+wasn't goin' to pull the hot chestnuts out of the fire for him. And I
+got on my horse, and rode away like mad.
+
+"My head spun round like a mill. I couldn't get over my loss. I took the
+twenty dollars fifty more to heart than any money I had ever gambled. I
+didn't know where to go. I didn't dare go back to you, for I knew you'd
+scold me."
+
+"I shouldn't have scolded you, Bob; or, if I had, it would only have
+been for your good. I should have summoned Johnny before me, called
+together a jury of twelve of the neighbours, got you back your twenty
+dollars fifty, and sent Johnny out of the country; or, better still, out
+of the world."
+
+These words were spoken with much phlegm, but yet with a degree of
+feeling and sympathy, which greatly improved my opinion of the worthy
+judge. Bob also seemed touched. He drew a deep sigh, and gazed at the
+Alcalde with a melancholy look.
+
+"It's too late," muttered he; "too late, squire."
+
+"Perhaps not," replied the judge, "but let's hear the rest."
+
+"Well," continued Bob, "I kept riding on at random, and when evenin'
+came I found myself near the palmetta field on the bank of the Jacinto.
+As I was ridin' past it, I heard all at once the tramp of a horse. At
+that moment the queerest feelin' I ever had came over me; a sort of cold
+shiverin' feel. I forgot where I was; sight and hearin' left me; I could
+only see two things, my twenty dollars fifty, and the well-filled belt
+of the stranger I had left at Johnny's. Just then a voice called to me.
+
+"'Whence come, countryman, and whither going?' it said.
+
+"'Whence and whether,' answered I, as surly as could be; 'to the devil
+at a gallop, and you'd better ride on and tell him I'm comin'.'
+
+"'You can do the errand yourself,' answered the stranger larfin'; 'my
+road don't lie that way.'
+
+"As he spoke, I looked round, and saw, what I was pretty sure of before,
+that it was the man with the belt full of money.
+
+"'Ain't you the stranger I see'd in the inn yonder?' asked he.
+
+"'And if I am,' says I; 'what's that to you?'
+
+"'Nothin',' said he; 'nothin', certainly.'
+
+"'Better ride on,' says I; 'and leave me quiet.'
+
+"'Will so, stranger; but you needn't take it so mighty onkind. A word
+ain't a tomahawk, I reckon,' said he. 'But I rayther expect your losin's
+at play ain't put you in a very church-goin' humour; and, if I was you,
+I'd keep my dollars in my pocket, and not set them on cards and dice.'
+
+"This put me in a rile to hear him cast my losin's in my teeth that way.
+
+"'You're a nice feller,' said I, 'to throw a man's losses in his face. A
+pitiful chap _you_ are,' says I.
+
+"I thought to provoke him, and that he'd tackle me. But he seemed to
+have no fancy for a fight, for he said quite humble like--
+
+"'I throw nothin' in your face; God forbid that I should reproach you
+with your losses! I'm sorry for you, on the contrary. Don't look like a
+man who can afford to lose his dollars. Seem to me one who airns his
+money by hard work.'
+
+"We were just then halted at the further end of the cane brake, close to
+the trees that border the Jacinto. I had turned my horse, and was
+frontin' the stranger. And all the time the devil was busy whisperin' to
+me, and pointin' to the belt round the man's waist. I could see where it
+was, plain enough, though he had buttoned his coat over it.
+
+"'Hard work, indeed,' says I; 'and now I've lost every thing; not a cent
+left for a quid of baccy.'
+
+"'If that's all,' says he; 'there's help for that. I don't chew myself,
+and I ain't a rich man; I've wife and children, and want every cent I've
+got, but it's one's duty to help a countryman. You shall have money for
+tobacco and a dram.'
+
+"And so sayin', he took a purse out of his pocket, in which he carried
+his change. It was plenty full; there may have been some twenty dollars
+in it; and as he drew the string, it was as if the devil laughed and
+nodded to me out of the openin' of the purse.
+
+"'Halves!' cried I.
+
+"'No, not that,' says he; 'I've wife and child, and what I have belongs
+to them; but half a dollar'----
+
+"'Halves!' cried I again; 'or else'----
+
+"'Or else?' repeated he: and, as he spoke, he put the purse back into
+his pocket, and laid hold of the rifle which was slung on his shoulder.
+
+"'Don't force one to do you a mischief,' said he. 'Don't' says he; 'we
+might both be sorry for it. What you're thinkin' of brings no blessin'.'
+
+"I was past seein' or hearin'. A thousand devils from hell were
+possessin' me.
+
+"'Halves!' I yelled out; and, as I said the word, he sprang out of the
+saddle, and fell back over his horse's crupper to the ground.
+
+"'I'm a dead man!' cried he; as well as the rattle in his throat would
+let him. 'God be merciful to me! My poor wife, my poor children!'"
+
+Bob paused; he gasped for breath, and the sweat stood in large drops
+upon his forehead. He gazed wildly round the room. The judge himself
+looked very pale. I tried to rise, but sank back in my chair. Without
+the table I believe I should have fallen to the ground.
+
+There was a gloomy pause of some moments' duration. At last the judge
+broke silence.
+
+"A hard, hard case!" said he. "Father, mother, children, all at one
+blow. Bob, you are a bad fellow; a very bad fellow; a great villain!"
+
+"A great villain," groaned Bob. "The ball was gone right through his
+breast."
+
+"Perhaps your gun went off by accident," said the judge anxiously.
+"Perhaps it was his own ball."
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I see him now, judge, as plain as can be, when he said, 'Don't force me
+to do you a mischief. We might both be sorry for it.' But I pulled the
+trigger. His bullet is still in his rifle.
+
+"When I saw him lie dead before me, I can't tell you what I felt. It
+warn't the first I had sent to his account; but yet I would have given
+all the purses and money in the world to have had him alive agin. I must
+have dragged him under the Patriarch, and dug a grave with my huntin'
+knife; for I found him there afterwards."
+
+"You found him there?" repeated the judge.
+
+"Yes. I don't know how he came there. I must have brought him, but I
+recollect nothin' about it."
+
+The judge had risen from his chair, and was walking up and down the
+room, apparently in deep thought. Suddenly he stopped short.
+
+"What have you done with his money?"
+
+"I took his purse, but buried his belt with him, as well as a flask of
+rum, and some bread and beef he had brought away from Johnny's. I set
+out for San Felipe, and rode the whole day. In the evenin', when I
+looked about me, expectin' to see the town, where do you think I was?"
+
+The judge and I stared at him.
+
+"Under the Patriarch. The ghost of the murdered man had driven me there.
+I had no peace till I'd dug him up and buried him again. Next day I set
+off in another direction. I was out of tobacco, and I started across the
+prairie to Anahuac. Lord, what a day I passed! Wherever I went, _he_
+stood before me. If I turned, _he_ turned too. Sometimes he came behind
+me, and looked over my shoulder. I spurred my mustang till the blood
+came, hopin' to get away from him, but it was all no use. I thought when
+I got to Anahuac I should be quit of him, and I galloped on as if for
+life or death. But in the evenin', instead of bein' close to the
+salt-works as I expected, there I was agin, under the Patriarch. I dug
+him up a second time, and sat and stared at him, and then buried him
+agin."
+
+"Queer that," observed the judge.
+
+"Ay, very queer!" said Bob mournfully. "But it's all no use. Nothin'
+does me any good. I sha'n't be better--I shall never have peace till I'm
+hung."
+
+Bob evidently felt relieved now, he had in a manner passed sentence on
+himself. Strange as it may appear, I had a similar feeling, and could
+not help nodding my head approvingly. The judge alone preserved an
+unmoved countenance.
+
+"Indeed!" said he, "indeed! You think you'll be no better till you're
+hung."
+
+"Yes," answered Bob, with eager haste. "Hung on the same tree under
+which _he_ lies buried."
+
+"Well, if you will have it so, we'll see what can be done for you. We'll
+call a jury of the neighbours together to-morrow."
+
+"Thank ye, squire," murmured Bob, visibly comforted by this promise.
+
+"We'll summon a jury," repeated the Alcalde, "and see what can be done
+for you. You'll perhaps have changed your mind by that time."
+
+I stared at him like one fallen from the clouds, but he did not seem to
+notice my surprise.
+
+"There is, perhaps, another way to get rid of your life, if you are
+tired of it," he continued. "We might, perhaps, hit upon one that would
+satisfy your conscience."
+
+Bob shook his head. I involuntarily made the same movement.
+
+"At any rate, we'll hear what the neighbours say," added the judge.
+
+Bob stepped up to the judge, and held out his hand to bid him farewell.
+The other did not take it, and turning to me, said--"_You_ had better
+stop here, I think."
+
+Bob turned round impetuously.
+
+"The gentleman must come with me."
+
+"Why must he?" said the judge.
+
+"Ask himself."
+
+I again explained the obligations I was under to Bob; how we had fallen
+in with one another, and what care and attention he had shown me at
+Johnny's.
+
+The judge nodded approvingly. "Nevertheless," said he, "you will remain
+here, and Bob will go alone. You are in a state of mind, Bob, in which a
+man is better alone, d'ye see; and so leave the young man here. Another
+misfortune might happen; and, at any rate, he's better here than at
+Johnny's. Come back to-morrow, and we'll see what can be done for you."
+
+These words were spoken in a decided manner, which seemed to have its
+effect upon Bob. He nodded assentingly, and left the room. I remained
+staring at the judge, and lost in wonder at these strange proceedings.
+
+When Bob was gone, the Alcalde gave a blast on a shell, which supplied
+the place of a bell. Then seizing the cigar box, he tried one cigar
+after another, broke them peevishly up, and threw the pieces out of the
+window. The negro whom the shell had summoned, stood for some time
+waiting, while his master broke up the cigars, and threw them away. At
+last the judge's patience seemed quite to leave him.
+
+"Hark ye, Ptoly!" growled he to the frightened black, "the next time you
+bring me cigars that neither draw nor smoke, I'll make your back smoke
+for it. Mind that, now;--there's not a single one of them worth a rotten
+maize stalk. Tell that old coffee-coloured hag of Johnny's, that I'll
+have no more of her cigars. Ride over to Mr Ducie's and fetch a box.
+And, d'ye hear? Tell him I want to speak a word with him and the
+neighbours. Ask him to bring the neighbours with him to-morrow morning.
+And mind you're home again by two o'clock. Take the mustang we caught
+last week. I want to see how he goes."
+
+The negro listened to these various commands with open mouth and staring
+eyes, then giving a perplexed look at his master, shot out of the room.
+
+"Where away, Ptoly?" shouted the Alcalde after him.
+
+"To Massa Ducie."
+
+"Without a pass, Ptoly? And what are you going to say to Mr Ducie?"
+
+"Him nebber send bad cigar again, him coffee-cullud hag. Massa speak to
+Johnny and neighbours. Johnny bring neighbours here."
+
+"I thought as much," said the judge with perfect equanimity. "Wait a
+minute, I'll write the pass, and a couple of lines for Mr Ducie."
+
+This was soon done, and the negro dispatched on his errand. The judge
+waited till he heard the sound of his horse's feet galloping away, and
+then, laying hold of the box of despised cigars, lit the first which
+came to hand. It smoked capitally, as did also one that I took. They
+were Principes, and as good as I ever tasted.
+
+I passed the whole of that day _tête à tête_ with the judge, who, I soon
+found, knew various friends of mine in the States. I told him the
+circumstances under which I had come to Texas, and the intention I had
+of settling there, should I find the country to my liking. During our
+long conversation, I was able to form a very different, and much more
+favourable estimate of his character, than I had done from his interview
+with Bob. He was the very man to be useful to a new country; of great
+energy, sound judgment, enlarged and liberal views. He gave me some
+curious information as to the state of things in Texas; and did not
+think it necessary to conceal from me, as an American, and one who
+intended settling in the country, that there was a plan in agitation for
+throwing off the Mexican yoke, and declaring Texas an independent
+republic. The high-spirited, and, for the most part, intelligent
+emigrants from the United States, who formed a very large majority of
+the population of Texas, saw themselves, with no very patient feeling,
+under the rule of a people both morally and physically inferior to
+themselves. They looked with contempt, and justly so, on the bigoted,
+idle, and ignorant Mexicans, while the difference of religion, and
+interference of the priests, served to increase the dislike between the
+Spanish and Anglo-American races.
+
+Although the project was as yet not quite ripe for execution, it was
+discussed freely and openly by the American settlers. "It is the
+interest of every man to keep it secret," said the judge; "and there can
+be nothing to induce even the worst amongst us to betray a cause, by the
+success of which he is sure to profit. We have many bad characters in
+Texas, the offscourings of the United States, men like Bob, or far worse
+than him; but debauched, gambling, drunken villains though they be, they
+are the men we want when it comes to a struggle; and when that time
+arrives, they will all be found ready to put their shoulders to the
+wheel, use knife and rifle, and shed the last drop of their blood in
+defence of their fellow citizens, and of the new and independent
+republic of Texas. At this moment, we must wink at many things which
+would be severely punished in an older and more settled country; each
+man's arm is of immense value to the State; for, on the day of battle,
+we shall have, not two to one, but twenty to one opposed to us."
+
+I was awakened the following morning by the sound of a horse's feet;
+and, looking out of the window, saw Bob dismounting from his mustang.
+The last twenty-four hours had told fearfully upon him. His limbs
+seemed powerless, and he reeled and staggered in such a manner, that I
+at first thought him intoxicated. But such was not the case. His was the
+deadly weariness caused by mental anguish. He looked like one just taken
+off the rack.
+
+Hastily pulling on my clothes, I hurried down stairs, and opened the
+house door. Bob stood with his head resting on his horse's neck, and his
+hands crossed, shivering, and groaning. When I spoke to him, he looked
+up, but did not seem to know me. I tied his horse to a post, and taking
+his hand, led him into the house. He followed like a child, apparently
+without the will or the power to resist; and when I placed him in a
+chair, he fell into it with a weight that made it crack under him, and
+shook the house. I could not get him to speak, and was about to return
+to my room to complete my toilet, when I again heard the tramp of
+mustangs. This was a party of half a dozen horsemen, all dressed in
+hunting shirts over buckskin breeches and jackets, and armed with rifles
+and bowie-knives; stout, daring looking fellows, evidently from the
+south-western states, with the true Kentucky half horse half alligator
+profile, and the usual allowance of thunder, lightning, and earthquake.
+It struck me when I saw them, that two or three thousand such men would
+have small difficulty in dealing with a whole army of Mexicans, if the
+latter were all of the pigmy, spindle-shanked breed I had seen on first
+landing. These giants could easily have walked away with a Mexican in
+each hand.
+
+They jumped off their horses, and threw the bridles to the negroes in
+the usual Kentuckian devil-may-care style, and then walked into the
+house with the air of people who make themselves at home every where,
+and who knew themselves to be more masters in Texas than the Mexicans
+themselves. On entering the parlour, they nodded a "good-morning" to me,
+rather coldly to be sure, for they had seen me talking with Bob, which
+probably did not much recommend me. Presently, four more horsemen rode
+up, and then a third party, so that there were now fourteen of them
+assembled, all decided-looking men, in the prime of life and strength.
+The judge, who slept in an adjoining room, had been awakened by the
+noise. I heard him jump out of bed, and not three minutes elapsed before
+he entered the parlour.
+
+After he had shaken hands with all his visitors, he presented me to
+them, and I found that I was in the presence of no less important
+persons than the Ayuntamiento of San Felipe de Austin; and that two of
+my worthy countrymen were corregidors, one a procurador, and the others
+_buenos hombres_, or freeholders. They did not seem, however, to prize
+their titles much, for they addressed one another by their surnames
+only.
+
+The negro brought a light, opened the cigar box, and arranged the
+chairs; the judge pointed to the sideboard, and to the cigars, and then
+sat down. Some took a dram, others lit a cigar.
+
+Several minutes elapsed, during which the men sat in perfect silence, as
+if they were collecting their thoughts, or, as though it were
+undignified to show any haste or impatience to speak. This grave sort of
+deliberation which is met with among certain classes, and in certain
+provinces of the Union, has often struck me as a curious feature of our
+national character. It partakes of the stoical dignity of the Indian at
+his council fire, and of the stern, religious gravity of the early
+puritan settlers in America.
+
+During this pause Bob was writhing on his chair like a worm, his face
+concealed by his hands, his elbows on his knees. At last, when all had
+drank and smoked, the judge laid down his cigar.
+
+"Men!" said he.
+
+"Squire!" answered they.
+
+"We've a business before us, which I calculate will be best explained by
+him whom it concerns."
+
+The men looked at the squire, then at Bob, then at me.
+
+"Bob Rock! or whatever your name may be, if you have aught to say, say
+it!" continued the judge.
+
+"Said it all yesterday," muttered Bob, his face still covered by his
+hands.
+
+"Yes, but you must say it again to-day. Yesterday was Sunday, and Sunday
+is a day of rest, and not of business. I will neither judge you, nor
+allow you to be judged, by what you said yesterday. Besides, it was all
+between ourselves, for I don't reckon Mr Rivers as any thing; I count
+him still as a stranger."
+
+"What's the use of so much palaver, when the thing's plain enough?" said
+Bob peevishly, raising his head as he spoke.
+
+The men stared at him in grave astonishment. He was really frightful to
+behold, his face of a sort of blue tint; his cheeks hollow, his beard
+wild and ragged; his blood-shot eyes rolling, and deep sunk in their
+sockets. His appearance was scarcely human.
+
+"I tell you, again," said the judge, "I will condemn no man upon his own
+word alone; much less you, who have been in my service, and eaten of my
+bread. You accused yourself yesterday, but you were delirious at the
+time--you had the fever upon you."
+
+"It's no use, squire," said Bob, apparently touched by the kindness of
+the judge, "You mean well, I see; butt though you might deliver me out
+of men's hands, you couldn't rescue me from myself. It's no use--I must
+be hung--hung on the same tree under which the man I killed lies
+buried."
+
+The men, or the jurors, as I may call them, looked at one another, but
+said nothing.
+
+"It's no use," again cried Bob, in a shrill, agonized tone. "If he had
+attacked me, or only threatened me; but no, he didn't do it. I hear
+his words still, when he said, 'Do it not, man! I've wife and child.
+What you intend, brings no blessin' on the doer.' But I heard
+nothin' then except the voice of the devil; I brought the rifle
+down--levelled--fired."
+
+The man's agony was so intense, that even the iron featured jury seemed
+moved by it. They cast sharp, but stolen glances at Bob. There was a
+short silence.
+
+"So you have killed a man?" said a deep bass voice at last.
+
+"Ay, that have I!" gasped Bob.
+
+"And how came that?" continued his questioner.
+
+"How it came? You must ask the devil, or Johnny. No, not Johnny, he can
+tell you nothing; he was not there. No one can tell you but me; and I
+hardly know how it was. The man was at Johnny's, and Johnny showed me
+his belt full of money."
+
+"Johnny!" exclaimed several of the jury.
+
+"Ay, Johnny! He reckoned on winning it from him, but the man was too
+cautious for that; and when Johnny had plucked all my feathers, won my
+twenty dollars fifty"----
+
+"Twenty dollars fifty cents," interposed the judge, "which I paid him for
+catching mustangs and shooting game."
+
+The men nodded.
+
+"And then because he wouldn't play, you shot him?" asked the same
+deep-toned voice as before.
+
+"No--some hours after--by the Jacinto, near the Patriarch--met him down
+there and killed him."
+
+"Thought there was something out o' the common thereaway," said one of
+the jury; "for as we rode by the tree a whole nation of kites and turkey
+buzzards flew out. Didn't they, Mr Heart?"
+
+Mr Heart nodded.
+
+"Met him by the river, and cried, halves of his money," continued Bob
+mechanically. "He said he'd give me something to buy a quid, and more
+than enough for that, but not halves 'I've wife and child,' said he"----
+
+"And you?" asked the juror with the deep voice, which this time,
+however, had a hollow sound in it.
+
+"Shot him down," said Bob, with a wild hoarse laugh.
+
+For some time no word was spoken.
+
+"And who was the man?" said a juror at last.
+
+"Didn't ask him; and it warn't written on his face. He was from the
+States; but whether a hosier, or a buckeye, or a mudhead, is more than I
+can say."
+
+"The thing must be investigated, Alcalde," said another of the jury
+after a second pause.
+
+"It must so," answered the Alcalde.
+
+"What's the good of so much investigation?" grumbled Bob.
+
+"What good?" repeated the Alcalde. "Because we owe it to ourselves, to
+the dead man, and to you, not to sentence you without having held an
+inquest on the body. There's another thing which I must call your
+attention to," continued he, turning to the jury; "the man is half out
+of his mind--not _compos mentis_, as they say. He's got the fever, and
+had it when he did the deed; he was urged on by Johnny, and maddened by
+his losses at play. In spite of his wild excitement, however, he saved
+that gentleman's life yonder, Mr Edward Nathanael Rivers."
+
+"Did he so?" said one of the jury. "That did he," replied I, "not only
+by saving me from drowning when my horse dragged me, half dead and
+helpless, into the river, but also by the care and attention he forced
+Johnny and his mulatto to bestow upon me. Without him I should not be
+alive at this moment."
+
+Bob gave me a look which went to my heart. The tears were standing in
+his eyes. The jury heard me in deep silence.
+
+"It seems that Johnny led you on and excited you to this?" said one of
+the jurors.
+
+"I didn't say that. I only said that he pointed to the man's money bag,
+and said---- But what is it to you what Johnny said? I'm the man who did
+it. I speak for myself, and I'll be hanged for myself."
+
+"All very good, Bob," interposed the Alcalde; "but we can't hang you
+without being sure you deserve it. What do you say to it, Mr Whyte?
+You're the procurador--and you, Mr Heart and Mr Stone? Help yourselves
+to rum or brandy; and, Mr Bright and Irwin, take another cigar. They're
+considerable tolerable the cigars--ain't they? That's brandy, Mr Whyte,
+in the diamond bottle."
+
+Mr Whyte had got up to give his opinion, as I thought, but I was
+mistaken. He stepped to the sideboard, took up a bottle in one hand and
+a glass in the other, every movement being performed with the greatest
+deliberation.
+
+"Well, squire," said he, "or rather _Alcalde_"----
+
+After the word _Alcalde_, he filled the glass half full of rum.
+
+"If it's as we've heard," added he, pouring about a spoonful of water on
+the rum, "and Bob has killed the man"--he continued, throwing in some
+lumps of sugar--"murdered him"--he went on, crushing the sugar with a
+wooden stamp--"I rather calkilate"--here he raised the glass--"Bob ought
+to be hung," he concluded, putting the tumbler to his mouth and emptying
+it.
+
+The jurors nodded in silence. Bob drew a deep breath, as if a load were
+taken off his breast.
+
+"Well," said the judge, who did not look over well pleased; "if you all
+think so, and Bob is agreed, I calculate we must do as he wishes. I tell
+you, though, I don't do it willingly. At any rate we must find the dead
+man first, and examine Johnny. We owe that to ourselves and to Bob."
+
+"Certainly," said the jury with one voice.
+
+"You are a dreadful murderer, Bob a very considerable one," continued
+the judge; "but I tell you to your face, and not to flatter you, there
+is more good in your little finger than in Johnny's whole hide. And I'm
+sorry for you, because, at the bottom, you are not a bad man, though
+you've been led away by bad company and example. I calculate you might
+still be reformed, and made very useful--more so, perhaps, than you
+think. Your rifle's a capital good one."
+
+At these last words the men all looked up, and threw a keen enquiring
+glance at Bob.
+
+"You might be of great service," continued the judge encouragingly, "to
+the country and to your fellow-citizens. You're worth a dozen Mexicans
+any day."
+
+While the judge was speaking, Bob let his head fall on his breast, and
+seemed reflecting. He now looked up.
+
+"I understand, squire; I see what you're drivin' at. But I can't do
+it--I can't wait so long. My life's a burthen and a sufferin' to me.
+Wherever I go, by day or by night, he's always there, standin' before
+me, and drivin' me under the Patriarch."
+
+There was a pause of some duration. The Judge resumed.
+
+"So be it, then," said he with a sort of suppressed sigh. "We'll see the
+body to-day, Bob, and you may come to-morrow at ten o'clock."
+
+"Couldn't it be sooner?" asked Bob impatiently.
+
+"Why sooner? Are you in such a hurry?" asked Mr Heart.
+
+"What's the use of palaverin'?" said Bob sulkily. "I told you already
+I'm sick of my life. If you don't come till ten o'clock, by the time
+you've had your talk out and ridden to the Patriarch, the fever'll be
+upon me."
+
+"But we can't be flying about like a parcel of wild geese, because of
+your fever," said the procurador.
+
+"Certainly not," said Bob humbly.
+
+"It's an ugly customer the fever, though, Mr Whyte," observed Mr Trace;
+"and I calculate we ought to do him that pleasure. What do you think,
+squire?"
+
+"I reckon he's rather indiscreet in his askin's," said the judge, in a
+tone of vexation. "However, as he wishes it, and if it is agreeable to
+you," added he, turning to the Ayuntamiento; "and as it's you, Bob, I
+calculate we must do what you ask."
+
+"Thankee," said Bob.
+
+"Nothing to thank for," growled the judge. "And now go into the kitchen
+and get a good meal of roast beef, d'ye hear?" He knocked upon the
+table. "Some good roast beef for Bob," said he to a negress who entered;
+"and see that he eats it. And get your self dressed more decently,
+Bob--like a white man and a Christian, not like a wild redskin."
+
+The negress and Bob left the room. The conversation now turned upon
+Johnny, who appeared, from all accounts, to be a very bad and dangerous
+fellow; and after a short discussion, they agreed to lynch him, in
+backwoodsman's phrase, just as cooly as if they had been talking of
+catching a mustang. When the men had come to this satisfactory
+conclusion, they got up, drank the judge's health and mine, shook us by
+the hand, and left the house.
+
+The day passed more heavily than the preceding one. I was too much
+engrossed with the strange scene I had witnessed to talk much. The
+judge, too, was in a very bad humour. He was vexed that a man should be
+hung who might render the country much and good service if he remained
+alive. That Johnny, the miserable, cowardly, treacherous Johnny, should
+be sent out of the world as quickly as possible, was perfectly correct,
+but with Bob it was very different. In vain did I remind him of the
+crime of which Bob had been guilty--of the outraged laws of God and
+man--and of the atonement due. It was of no use. If Bob had sinned
+against society, he could repair his fault much better by remaining
+alive than by being hung; and, for anything else, God would avenge it in
+his own good time. We parted for the night, neither of us convinced by
+the other's arguments.
+
+We were sitting at breakfast the next morning, when a man, dressed in
+black, rode up to the door. It was Bob, but so metamorphosed that I
+scarcely knew him. Instead of the torn and bloodstained handkerchief
+round his head, he wore a hat; instead of the leathern jacket, a decent
+cloth coat. He had shaved off his beard too, and looked quite another
+man. His manner had altered with his dress; he seemed tranquil and
+resigned. With a mild and submissive look, he held out his hand to the
+judge, who took it and shook it heartily.
+
+"Ah, Bob!" said he, "if you had only listened to what I so often told
+you! I had those clothes brought on purpose from New Orleans, in order
+that, on Sundays at least, you might look like a decent and respectable
+man. How often have I asked you to put them on, and come with us to
+meeting, to hear Mr Bliss preach? There is same truth in the saying, the
+coat makes the man. With his Sunday coat, a man often puts on other and
+better thoughts. If that had been your case only fifty-two times in the
+year, you'd have learned to avoid Johnny before now."
+
+Bob said nothing.
+
+"Well, well! I've done all I could to make a better men of you. All that
+was in my power."
+
+"That you have," answered Bob, much moved. "God reward you for it!"
+
+I could not help holding out my hand to the worthy judge; and as I did
+so I thought I saw a moistness in his eye, which he suppressed, however,
+and, turning to his breakfast table, bade us sit down. Bob thanked him
+humbly, but declined, saying that he wished to appear fasting before his
+offended Creator. The judge insisted, and reasoned with him, and at last
+he took a chair.
+
+Before we had done breakfast our friends of the preceding day began to
+drop in, and some of them joined at the meal. When they had all taken
+what they chose, the judge ordered the negroes to clear away, and leave
+the room. This done, he seated himself at the upper end of the table,
+with the Ayuntamiento on either side, and Bob facing him.
+
+"Mr Whyte," said the Alcade, "have you, as procurador, any thing to
+state?"
+
+"Yes, Alcalde," replied the procurador. "In virtue of my office, I made
+a search in the place mentioned by Bob Rock, and there found the body of
+a man who had met his death by a gunshot wound. I also found a belt
+full of money, and several letters of recommendation to different
+planters, from which it appears that the man was on his way from
+Illinois to San Felipe, in order to buy land of Colonel Austin, and to
+settle in Texas."
+
+The procurador then produced a pair of saddle-bags, out of which he took
+a leathern belt stuffed with money, which he laid on the table, together
+with the letters. The judge opened the belt, and counted the money. It
+amounted to upwards of five hundred dollars, in gold and silver. The
+procurador then read the letters.
+
+One of the corregidors now announced that Johnny and his mulatto had
+left their house and fled. He, the corregidor, had sent people in
+pursuit of them; but as yet there were no tidings of their capture. This
+piece of intelligence seemed to vex the judge greatly, but he made no
+remark on it at the time.
+
+"Bob Rock!" cried he.
+
+Bob stepped forward.
+
+"Bob Rock, or by whatever other name you may be known, are you guilty or
+not guilty of this man's death?"
+
+"Guilty!" replied Bob, in a low tone.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury, will you be pleased to give your verdict?"
+
+The jury left the room. In ten minutes they returned.
+
+"Guilty!" said the foreman.
+
+"Bob Rock," said the judge solemnly, "your fellow-citizens have found
+you guilty; and I pronounce the sentence--that you be hung by the neck
+until you are dead. The Lord be merciful to your soul!"
+
+"Amen!" said all present.
+
+"Thank ye," murmured Bob.
+
+"We will seal up the property of the deceased," said the judge, "and
+then proceed to our painful duty."
+
+He called for a light, and he and the procurador and corregidors sealed
+up the papers and money.
+
+"Has any one aught to allege why the sentence should not be put in
+execution?" said the Alcalde, with a glance at me.
+
+"He saved my life, judge and fellow-citizens," cried I, deeply moved.
+
+Bob shook his head mournfully.
+
+"Let us go, then, in God's name," said the judge.
+
+Without another word being spoken, we left the house and mounted our
+horses. The judge had brought a Bible with him; and he rode on, a little
+in front, with Bob, doing his best to prepare him for the eternity to
+which he was hastening. Bob listened attentively for some time; but at
+last he seemed to get impatient and pushed his mustang into so fast a
+trot, that for a moment we suspected him of wishing to escape the doom
+he had so eagerly sought. But it was only that he feared the fever might
+return before the expiration of the short time he yet had to live.
+
+After an hour's ride, we came to the enormous live oak distinguished as
+_the Patriarch_. Two or three of the men dismounted, and held aside the
+heavy moss-covered branches which swept the ground, and formed a
+complete curtain round the tree. The party rode through the opening thus
+made, and drew up in a circle beneath the huge leafy dome. In the centre
+of this ring stood Bob, trembling like an aspen-leaf, and with his eyes
+fixed on a small mound of fresh earth, partly concealed by the branches,
+and which had escaped my notice on my former visit to the tree. It was
+the grave of the murdered man.
+
+A magnificent burial-place was that: no poet could have dreamt or
+desired a better. Above, the huge vault, with its natural frettings and
+arches; below, the greenest, freshest grass; around, an eternal half
+light, streaked and varied, and radiant as a rainbow. It was imposingly
+beautiful.
+
+Bob, the judge, and the corregidors, remained sitting on their horses,
+but several of the other men dismounted. One of the latter cut the lasso
+from Bob's saddle, and threw an end of it over one of the lowermost
+branches; then uniting the two ends, formed them into a strong noose,
+which he left dangling from the bough. This simple preparation
+completed, the Alcalde took off his hat and folded his hands. The others
+followed his example.
+
+"Bob!" said the judge to the unfortunate criminal, whose head was bowed
+on his horse's mane; "Bob! we will pray for your poor soul, which is
+about to part from your sinful body."
+
+Bob raised his head. "I had something to say," exclaimed he, in a
+wondering and husky tone. "Something I wanted to say."
+
+"What have you to say?"
+
+Bob stared around him; his lips moved, but no word escaped him. His
+spirit was evidently no longer with things of this earth.
+
+"Bob!" said the judge again, "we will pray for your soul."
+
+"Pray! pray!" groaned he. "I shall need it."
+
+In slow and solemn accents, and with great feeling, the judge uttered
+the Lord's Prayer. Bob repeated every word after him. When it was
+ended--
+
+"God be merciful to your soul!" exclaimed the judge.
+
+"Amen!" said all present.
+
+One of the corregidors now passed the noose of the lasso round Bob's
+neck, another bound his eyes, a third person drew his feet out of the
+stirrups, while a fourth stepped behind his horse with a heavy
+riding-whip. All was done in the deepest silence; not a word was
+breathed; not a footfall heard on the soft yielding turf. There was
+something awful and oppressive in the profound stillness that reigned in
+the vast enclosure.
+
+The whip fell. The horse gave a spring forwards. At the same moment Bob
+made a desperate clutch at the bridle, and a loud "Hold!" burst in
+thrilling tones from the lips of the judge.
+
+It was too late, Bob was already hanging. The judge pushed forward,
+nearly riding down the man who held the whip, and seizing Bob in his
+arms, raised him on his own horse, supporting him with one hand, while
+with the other he strove to unfasten the noose. His whole gigantic frame
+trembled with eagerness and exertion. The procurador, corregidors, all,
+in short, stood in open-mouthed wonder at this strange proceeding.
+
+"Whisky! whisky! has nobody any whisky?" shouted the judge.
+
+One of the men sprang forward with a whisky-flask, another supported the
+body, and a third the feet, of the half-hanged man, while the judge
+poured a few drops of spirits into his mouth. The cravat, which had not
+been taken off, had hindered the breaking of the neck. Bob at last
+opened his eyes, and gazed vacantly around him.
+
+"Bob," said the judge, "you had something to say, hadn't you, about
+Johnny?"
+
+"Johnny," gasped Bob; "Johnny."
+
+"What's become of him?"
+
+"He's gone to San Antonio, Johnny."
+
+"To San Antonio!" repeated the judge, with an expression of great alarm
+overspreading his features.
+
+"To San Antonio--to Padre José," continued Bob; "a Catholic. Beware!"
+
+"A traitor, then!" muttered several.
+
+"Catholic!" exclaimed the judge. The words he had heard seemed to
+deprive him of all strength. His arms fell slowly and gradually by his
+side, and Bob was again hanging from the lasso.
+
+"A Catholic! a traitor!" repeated several of the men; "a citizen and a
+traitor!"
+
+"So it is, men!" exclaimed the judge. "We've no time to lose," continued
+he, in a harsh, hurried voice; "no time to lose; we must catch him."
+
+"That must we," said several voices, "or our plans are betrayed to the
+Mexicans."
+
+"After him immediately to San Antonio!" cried the judge with the same
+desperately hurried manner.
+
+"To San Antonio!" repeated the men, pushing their way through the
+curtain of moss and branches. As soon as they were outside, those who
+were dismounted sprang into the saddle, and, without another word, the
+whole party galloped away in the direction of San Antonio.
+
+The judge alone remained, seemingly lost in thought; his countenance
+pale and anxious, and his eyes following the riders. His reverie,
+however, had lasted but a very few seconds, when he seized my arm.
+
+"Hasten to my house," cried he; "lose no time, don't spare horse-flesh.
+Take Ptoly and a fresh beast; hurry over to San Felipe, and tell Stephen
+Austin what has happened, and what you have seen and heard."
+
+"But, judge"----
+
+"Off with you at once, if you would do Texas a service. Bring my wife
+and daughter back."
+
+And so saying, he literally drove me from under the tree, pushing me out
+with hands and feet. I was so startled at the expression of violent
+impatience and anxiety which his features assumed, that, without
+venturing to make further objection, I struck the spurs into my mustang
+and galloped off. Before I had got fifty yards from the tree, I looked
+round. The judge had disappeared.
+
+I rode full speed to the judge's house, and thence on a fresh horse to
+San Felipe, where I found Colonel Austin, who seemed much alarmed by the
+news I brought him, had horses saddled, and sent round to all the
+neighbours. Before the wife and step-daughter of the judge had made
+their preparations to accompany me home, he started with fifty armed men
+in the direction of San Antonio.
+
+I escorted the ladies to their house, but scarcely had we arrived there,
+when I was seized with a fever, the result of my recent fatigues and
+sufferings. For some days my life was in danger, but at last a good
+constitution, and the kindest and most watchful nursing, triumphed over
+the disease. As soon as I was able to mount a horse, I set out for Mr
+Neal's plantation, in company with his huntsman Anthony, who, after
+spending many days, and riding over hundreds of miles of ground in quest
+of me, had at last found me out.
+
+Our way led up past the Patriarch, and, as we approached it, we saw
+innumerable birds of prey, and carrion crows circling round it, croaking
+and screaming. I turned my eyes in another direction; but, nevertheless,
+I felt a strange sort of longing to revisit the tree. Anthony had ridden
+on, and was already hidden from view behind its branches. Presently I
+heard him give a loud shout of exultation. I jumped off my horse, and
+led it through a small opening in the leafage.
+
+Some forty paces from me the body of a man was hanging by a lasso from
+the very same branch on which Bob had been hung. It was not Bob,
+however, for the corpse was much too short and small for him.
+
+I drew nearer. "Johnny!" I exclaimed "That's Johnny!"
+
+"It _was_," answered Anthony. "Thank Heaven, there's an end of him!"
+
+I shuddered. "But where is Bob?"
+
+"Bob?" cried Anthony. "Bob!"
+
+He glanced towards the grave. The mound of earth seemed to me larger and
+higher than when I had last seen it. Doubtless the murderer lay beside
+his victim.
+
+"Shall we not render the last service to this wretch, Anthony?" asked I.
+
+"The scoundrel!" answered the huntsman. "I won't dirty my hands with
+him. Let him poison the kites and the crows!"
+
+We rode on.
+
+
+
+
+
+DEATH FROM THE STING OF A SERPENT.
+
+ As when a monstrous snake, with flaming crest,
+ Some wretch within its glittering folds has press'd--
+ He vainly struggles to escape its fangs,
+ The reptile triumphs, and the victim hangs
+ His head in agony, and bending low,
+ Feels the cursed venom through his life-blood flow.
+ On through his veins the burning poison speeds,
+ Drinks up his spirit--on his vitals feeds,
+ Till, tortured life extinct, the senseless clay
+ In hideous dissolution melts away.
+
+M. J.
+
+
+
+
+GIFTS OF TÉREK.
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF LERMONTOFF. BY T. B. SHAW.
+
+ Térek[21] bellows, wildly sweeping
+ Past the cliffs, so swift and strong;
+ Like a tempest is his weeping,
+ Flies his spray like tears along.
+ O'er the steppe now slowly veering--
+ Calm but faithless looketh he--
+ With a voice of love endearing
+ Murmurs to the Caspian sea:
+
+ "Give me way, old sea! I greet thee;
+ Give me refuge in thy breast;
+ Far and fast I've rush'd to meet thee--
+ It is tine for me to rest.
+ Cradled in Kazbék, and cherish'd
+ From the bosom of the cloud,
+ Strong am I, and all have perish'd
+ Who would stop my current proud.
+ For thy sons' delight, O Ocean!
+ I've crush'd the crags of Dariál,
+ Onward my resistless motion,
+ Like a flock, hath swept them all."
+
+ Still on his smooth shore reclining,
+ Lay the Caspian as in sleep;
+ While the Térek, softly shining,
+ To the old sea murmur'd deep:--
+
+ "Lo! a gift upon my water--
+ Lo! no common offering--
+ Floating from the field of slaughter,
+ A Kabárdinetz[22] I bring.
+ All in shining mail he's shrouded--
+ Plates of steel his arms enfold;
+ Blood the Koran verse hath clouded,
+ That thereon is writ in gold:
+ His pale brow is sternly bended--
+ Gory stains his wreathed lip dye--
+ Valiant blood, and far-descended--
+ 'Tis the hue of victory!
+ Wild his eyes, yet nought he noteth;
+ With an ancient hate they glare:
+ Backward on the billow floateth,
+ All disorderly, his hair."
+
+ Still the Caspian, calm reclining,
+ Seems to slumber on his shore;
+ And impetuous Térek, shining,
+ Murmurs in his ear once more:--
+
+ "Father, hark! a priceless treasure--
+ Other gifts are poor to this--
+ I have hid, to do thee pleasure--
+ I have hid in my abyss!
+ Lo! a corse my wave doth pillow--
+ A Kazáichka[23] young and fair.
+ Darkly pale upon the billow
+ Gleams her breast and golden hair;
+ Very sad her pale brow gleameth,
+ And her eyes are closed in sleep;
+ From her bosom ever seemeth
+ A thin purple stream to creep.
+ By my water, calm and lonely,
+ For the maid that comes not back,
+ Of the whole Stanilza,[24] only
+ Mourns a Grébenskoi Kazák.
+
+ "Swift on his black steed he hieth;
+ To the mountains he is sped.
+ 'Neath Tchetchén's kinjál[25] now lieth,
+ Low in dust, that youthful head."
+
+ Silent then was that wild river;
+ And afar, as white as snow,
+ A fair head was seen to quiver
+ In the ripple, to and fro.
+
+ In his might the ancient ocean,
+ Like a tempest, 'gan arise;
+ And the light of soft emotion
+ Glimmer'd in his dark-blue eyes;
+
+ And he play'd, with rapture flushing,
+ And in his embraces bright,
+ Clasp'd the stream, to meet him rushing
+ With a murmur of delight.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] A river which, rising on the eastern side of the ridge of
+the Caucasus, falls, after a rapid and impetuous course, into the
+Caspian, near Anápa.
+
+[22] A mountaineer of the tribe of Kabárda.
+
+[23] A Kazák girl.
+
+[24] Village of Kazáks.
+
+[25] Kinjál, a large dagger, the favourite weapon of the
+mountain tribes of the Caucasus, among which the Tchetchénetzes are
+distinguished for bravery.
+
+
+
+
+MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.
+
+PART VI.
+
+ "Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
+ Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
+ Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
+ Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
+ And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
+ Have I not in the pitched battle heard
+ Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
+
+SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+My first questions to Lafontaine, when I had his wound looked to, were
+of course for those whom he had left in England.
+
+"Ah, ha!" said he with a laugh, which showed the inextinguishable
+Frenchman, "are you constant still? Well, then, Madame la Comtesse is
+constant too; but it is to her boudoir, or the gaieties of Devonshire
+House, or perhaps to her abhorrence of Monsieur le Mari."
+
+"Le Mari!" I repeated the words with an involuntary start.
+
+"Bah! 'tis all the same. She is affianced, and among us that tie is
+quite as legitimate as marriage, and, our libellers say, a little
+stronger. But they certainly are _not_ married yet, for Mademoiselle
+Clotilde either is, or affects, the invalid; and considering the
+probability that she abhors the man and the match, I think, on the
+whole, that she acts diplomatically in informing the vainest colonel, in
+or out of France, that she is sick of any thing rather than of him."
+
+"But your Mariamne--how go on your interests there?" The question
+brought a smile and a sigh together, before he could find an answer.
+
+"How she is, what she is doing, or intends to do, or even what she is,
+are matters that I can no more answer than I can why the wind blows. She
+torments me, and takes a delight in tormenting me. I have been on the
+point of throwing up my commission a hundred times since I saw you, and
+flying to America, or the world's end. She controls me in every thing,
+insists on knowing all my movements from hour to hour, finds them out
+when I attempt to conceal them as matter of duty, tortures me for the
+concealment, and then laughs at me for the confession. She is
+intolerable."
+
+"And yet you have obtained a lengthening of your chain, or how come
+here? How long have you been in Paris?"
+
+"Just two days; and busy ones, or I should have found you out before.
+Yes, I had Mariamne's full permission to come; though to this moment I
+cannot account for the change. I had received a sudden order from
+Montrecour, who is deep in the emigrant affairs, to set out with letters
+which could not be sent by the courier. But I dared not leave London
+without asking _her_ permission; and I acknowledge asking her at the
+same time to run away with me, and give herself a lawful title to be my
+tyrant for life. Applying to Mordecai was out of the question. Her
+answer was immediate; contemptuous in the extreme as to my proposal, yet
+almost urgent on me to accept the mission, and lose no time between
+London and Paris. Her postscript was the oddest part of all. It was a
+grave recommendation to discover _you_, in whatever height or depth of
+the capital you might exist; whether you figured in the court or the
+cloister; were the idol of the maids of honour, or the model of the
+monks of La Trappe; to remind you that you had forgotten every body on
+the other side of the Channel who was worth remembering, including
+herself; and commending _me_, as a truant and a trifler, to your
+especial, grave, and experienced protection. Apropos! She sent me a
+letter, to be delivered to you with my own hands. But for yourself it
+had nearly failed in the delivery."
+
+He gave me the letter. It was, like the writer, a pretty _melange_;
+trifles gracefully expressed; strong sense expressed like trifles;
+feeling carried off with a laugh; and palpable and fond anxiety for
+Lafontaine couched in the most merciless badinage. While I gave this
+missive a second, and even a third perusal--for it finished with some
+gentle mention of the being whose name was a charm to my wearied
+spirit--my eyes accidentally fell on Lafontaine. His were fixed on me
+with an expression of inconceivable distress. At length his generous
+nature broke forth.
+
+"Marston, if I were capable of jealousy, I should be jealous of _you_
+and of Mariamne. What _can_ be the caprice which dictated that letter?
+what _can_ be the interest which you evidently take in it? I wish that
+the bullet which laid me at your door this evening had finished its
+work, and put an end to an existence which has been a perpetual fever. I
+shall not ask _what_ Mariamne has said to you--but _I_ am miserable."
+
+"Yes, but you _shall_ ask, and shall have all you ask," said I, giving
+him the letter. "It is the language of the heart, and of a heart
+strongly attached to _you_. I can see affection in every line of it. Of
+course she mingles a little coquetry with her sentiment; but was there
+ever a pretty woman, who was not more or less a coquette? She is a gem:
+never think it the less pure because it sparkles. Rely upon your little
+Mariamne."
+
+"Then _you_ have no sincere regard for her--no wish to interfere with my
+claims?" said my pallid friend, dubiously extending his hand towards me.
+
+"Lafontaine, listen to me, and for the last time on the subject. I have
+a very sincere regard for her." (My sensitive auditor started.) "But, I
+have also a perfect respect for your claims. It is impossible not to
+acknowledge the animated graces of the lady on whom you have fixed your
+affections. But mine are fixed where I have neither hope to sustain
+them, nor power to change.--Those matters have nothing to do with
+choice. They are effects without a cause, judgments without a reason,
+influences without an impulse--the problems of our nature, without a
+solution since the beginning of the world."
+
+"But, Marston, you will only laugh at me for all my troubles."
+
+"Lafontaine, I shall do no such thing. Those pains and penalties have
+been the lot of some of the noblest hearts and most powerful minds that
+the earth has ever seen; and have been most keenly felt by the noblest
+and the most powerful. The poet only tells the truth more gracefully
+when he says--
+
+     "'The spell of all spells that enamours the heart,
+       To few is imparted, to millions denied;
+     'Tis the brain of the victim that poisons the dart,
+       And fools jest at that by which sages have died.'
+
+"But now, my friend, let us talk of other things. We must not sink into
+a pair of sentimentalists; these are terrible times. And now, tell me
+what brought you out of quiet England among our madmen here?"
+
+"I may now tell all the world," was the reply, "for the evil is done
+beyond remedy. I was sent by our friends in London, to carry the last
+warning to the royal family of all that has happened this day. My papers
+contained the most exact details, the names of the leaders, their
+objects, their points of assembling, and even their points of attack.
+Those were furnished, as you may conceive, by one of the principal
+conspirators; a fellow whom I afterwards saw on horseback in front of
+the Tuileries, and whom, I think, I had the satisfaction of dismounting
+by a shot from my carbine."
+
+I mentioned the fruitlessness of my own efforts to awake the ministry.
+
+"Ah," said he, with a melancholy smile, "my friend, if you had been
+admitted into the palace, or into the council-chamber itself, you would
+have had precisely the same tale to tell. All was infatuation. I was
+ushered into the highest presence last midnight. My despatches were
+read. I was complimented on my zeal, and then was told that every thing
+was provided for. I was even closeted for two hours with the two
+individuals who, of all France, or of all mankind, had the largest stake
+in the crisis, and was again told that there was no crisis to be feared.
+I even offered to take a squadron of dragoons, and arrest the
+conspirators at the moment with my own hand. I saw the eyes of the
+noblest of women fill with tears of grief and indignation at the
+hopelessness of my appeal, and the answer, 'that though Frenchmen might
+hate the ministers, they always loved their king.' I saw that all was
+over."
+
+"Still," said I, "I cannot comprehend how the mere mob of Paris could
+have succeeded against the defenders of the palace."
+
+"If you had seen it as I did, the only wonder is, how the Tuileries held
+out so long. After passing a night on guard at the Pavilon de Flore, I
+was summoned at daybreak to attend his majesty. What a staff for a
+reviewing monarch! The queen endeavouring to support the appearance of
+calmness; Madame Elizabeth, that human angel, following her, dissolved
+in tears; the two royal children, weeping and frightened, making their
+way through the crowd of nobles, guardsmen, domestics who had gathered
+promiscuously in the chambers and corridors, armed with whatever weapons
+they could find, and all in confusion. From the windows there was
+another scene; and the only time when I saw the queen shudder, was when
+she cast her eye across the Place du Carrousel, and saw it covered with
+the dense masses of the multitude drawn up in battle-array. A more
+gloomy sight never met the eye. From time to time the distant discharge
+of cannon was heard, giving us the idea that some treachery was
+transacting in the remoter parts of the city, every discharge answered
+by a roar of--'Down with the King'--'Death to Marie Antoinette'--'The
+lamp-iron to all traitors.' While, as I glanced on those around me, I
+saw despair in every countenance; the resolution perhaps to die, but the
+evident belief that their death must be in vain. You now know all."
+
+I still expressed my strong anxiety to know what had been the events
+within the palace.
+
+"Marston, I cannot think of them. I cannot speak of them. I see nothing
+but a vision of blood, shame, folly, wretchedness. There never was a
+cause more fatally abandoned. Every thing that could be done to ruin a
+monarchy was done. I was standing beside the royal group, when a
+deputation from the National Assembly made its appearance. At its head
+was a meagre villain, whom one might have taken for the public
+executioner. He came up, cringing and bowing, to the unfortunate king;
+but with a look which visibly said--We have you in our power. I could
+have plunged my sword in the triumphant villain's heart. I had even
+instinctively half drawn it, when I felt the gentle pressure of a hand
+on mine. It was the queen's. 'Remember the king's presence. We must owe
+nothing to violence,' were her words. And at this instant she looked so
+heart-broken, yet so noble, that I could have worshipped her. The
+deputation pressed the necessity of 'taking shelter,' as they phrased
+it, 'in the bosom of the faithful Assembly.' The words, 'assembly of
+traitors,' burst from my lips. A shout of approbation arose on all
+sides. But I was more rewarded by a sorrowing smile from the queen. She
+was indignant at the proposal. 'No; never shall I leave this spot but by
+the king's command!' she exclaimed. 'I would rather be chained to the
+walls.' As the guard pressed round her at the words, she suddenly
+stopped, took a pistol from one of the Garde du Corps, and forcing it on
+the king--'Now,' said the heroine--'now is the time to show yourself a
+king of France!' An universal cry of enthusiasm arose, and hundreds of
+swords were brandished in the air. The deputation, evidently expecting
+to be massacred, made an effort to reach the door, and the monarchy was
+on the point of being saved; when the leader of the party glanced back
+at the royal circle. There stood unfortunate Louis, hesitating, with the
+pistol in his hand. On such moments all depends. The villain crept up to
+the king, and whispered in his ear--'Would you have all your family put
+to death? In the Assembly all are safe.'--'Well, then, we shall go,' was
+the simple answer. He might have added--'To the scaffold.' The queen
+pressed her hands on her eyes, and wept bitterly. All were silent. In a
+few minutes more our sad procession was crossing the garden to the door
+of the Assembly, amid a roar, which could not have been fiercer or more
+triumphant had we been going to execution."
+
+It was already twilight; the fine summer's day, as if it had been
+dimmed by the desperate scenes of which it was witness, set in sudden
+clouds; and the distant shoutings of the populace seemed to be answered
+by the voice of a storm. Lafontaine's wound began to bleed afresh by the
+agitation of his story, and to find medical assistance, was my first
+object. Having seen him conveyed to my bed, and leaving him in charge of
+my valet, I hastened towards the residence of the physician to the
+embassy. In doing this, I had to cross the Rue St Honoré. But there my
+course was stopped. I shrink from alluding to those horrid scenes and
+times. The scene which there met my eyes has scarcely left them since.
+
+The populace were returning from the conquest and plunder of the palace
+to the Palais Royale, the headquarters of all convulsion; and they had
+arranged their ranks into something like a triumphal procession on the
+stage. The dead bodies of the brave Swiss were carried on boards or
+biers, preceded by banners of all kinds; the plundered ornaments of the
+Tuileries were borne on the heads of men; the horses from the royal
+stables, caparisoned for the occasion, drew hearses, in which the bodies
+of the mob who had fallen were deposited. Brief as the time for
+decoration had been, wreaths of artificial flowers, taken from the shops
+of the _marchandes de modes_, and theatrical shawls and mantles from the
+stores of the _fripiers_, covered the biers; and the whole, surrounded
+and followed by a forest of pikes and bayonets, plumes and flags, had no
+other light than the lurid and shifting blaze of thousands of torches
+tossing in the wild and howling wind.
+
+The train seemed endless; shocked and sickened, I had made repeated
+efforts to cross the column, but was repeatedly driven back. If all the
+dead criminality of Paris had risen to join all the living, it could
+scarcely have increased my astonishment at the countless thousands which
+continued to pour on before me; nor scarcely, if the procession had
+started from the grave, could it have looked more strange, squalid,
+haggard, and woebegone. In the rear came the cannon, which had achieved
+this melancholy victory. And they, again, were sometimes converted into
+the carriage of the dead, sometimes of the plunder, and, in every
+instance, were surmounted by women, female furies, drinking, shouting,
+and uttering cries of unspeakable savageness and blasphemy against
+priests, nobles, and kings; and, mingled with all this, were choruses of
+bacchanal songs, accompanied with shouts of laughter. It was now near
+midnight; and my anxiety for the condition of my unfortunate friend at
+last urged me to make a desperate attempt to force my way through the
+mass of pikes and daggers. After being swept far along with the stream,
+I reached the street in which the physician lived. He set out with me
+immediately, and, by his superior knowledge of the route, we were
+enabled to make our way unimpeded through streets, that looked like dens
+of robbers, to my hotel.
+
+But there a new and still more alarming disappointment awaited me. I
+found the porter and all the attendants of the establishment gathered on
+the stairs in terror. Lafontaine was gone! Whether, frenzied by the
+insults and yells of the populace, who continued to pass in troops from
+time to time, or anxious for my safety, he had started from his bed, put
+on his sword, and rushed into the street; without the possibility of
+being restrained, and without uttering a word of explanation.
+
+Exhausted as I was by fatigue, and still more by the sights and scenes
+through which I had just passed, this intelligence was a severe blow.
+The fate of a young enthusiast, and a foreigner, whom I had known but so
+lately, and of whom I knew so little, might not have justified much
+personal sacrifice. But the thought of the heart that would be broken by
+his falling into the hands of the barbarians, who were now masters of
+every thing, smote keenly upon me. Mariamne would die; and though I was
+by no means a lover of Mariamne, yet, where I had seen so much that was
+loveable, I might have a regard next in degree. There may, and does
+often, exist the tenderness of love without the flame. I could have
+looked on this pretty and animated creature as the wife of Lafontaine,
+or of any other object of her choice, without the slightest pang; but I
+could not have looked upon her pining away in hopelessness, wasting in
+silent sorrow, or with her gay and gentle existence clouded by a loss
+which nothing could repair, without thinking every effort of mine to
+avert evil from her, due on every principle of common feeling.
+
+While I pondered, a note was brought to me, written by Lafontaine before
+he had sallied from his chamber, and evidently written under the wildest
+emotion. It told me, in a few scarcely legible words, that he felt life
+a burden to him, and thanked Heaven for the opportunity now offered of
+dying for his king and the glory of France. That the monarchy had
+perished beyond redemption. But that, though the royal family were
+surrounded by the poniards of assassins, it was his determination to
+follow and find them, rescue them, or die at their feet. This strange
+production closed with--"You shall hear of me within twenty four hours,
+living or dead. If I fall, remember me to my affianced wife; and
+vindicate my character to the world."
+
+This was so like insanity, that it perplexed me more and more; but, on
+second thoughts, it appeared to offer some clue to his pursuit.--He had
+gone to die in presence of the royal family. If they were to be found by
+him at all, they must be found in the Assembly. I immediately went to
+the garden of the Tuileries, where they met until their new legislative
+palace should be erected. The multitude had now partially retired, for
+it was midnight; and the entrance was comparatively clear. A strong
+force of the National Guard still kept the drunken rabble at a distance;
+and the five franc piece, with which I tempted the incorruptibility of a
+peculiarly ferocious-looking patriot, admitted me without delay.
+
+What a scene there presented itself to my eyes! The "Salle" was large
+and showy; and when I had attended it in former debates, it exhibited
+the taste and skill which the French, more than any other people on
+earth, exhibit in temporary things. Nothing could exceed the elegance
+with which the Parisian decorators had fitted up this silk and tinsel
+abode, which was to be superseded, within a few months, by the solid
+majesty of marble. But, on this memorable and melancholy night, the
+ornaments bore, to me, the look of those sad frivolities with which
+France is fond of ornamenting her tombs. The chandeliers burned dim; the
+busts and statues looked ghostlike; the chief part of the members had
+thrown themselves drowsily on the benches; and the debate had languished
+into the murmurs of a speech, to which no one listened. If the loaded
+table, with its pile of petitions and ordonnances, in the midst of the
+hall, could have been imagined into a bier; the whole had the aspect of
+a _chapelle ardente_; there, indeed, lay in state the monarchy of
+France. My unlucky friend, of course, was not there; but I saw, in a
+narrow box, on the right of the president, a group, from which, when
+once seen, I found it impossible to withdraw my gaze--the first and most
+exalted victims of the Revolution, the king and his family. All but one
+were apparently overcome with fatigue; for they had sat there fifteen
+hours. But that one sat with a steady eye and an erect front, as if
+superior to all suffering. I had seen Marie Antoinette, the most
+splendid figure, in all the splendours of her court. I had seen her
+unshaken before vast popular assemblages, in which any rash or ruffian
+hand might have taken her life at the instant; but she now gave me an
+impression of a still higher order. Sitting in calm resignation and
+unstained dignity, her stately form and countenance, pale and pure as
+marble, looked like some noble statue on a tomb; or rather, sitting in
+that chamber of death, like some pure spirit, awaiting the summons to
+ascend from the relics of human guilt, infirmity, and passion before
+her.
+
+But the slumbers of the Assembly were soon to be broken. A tumult, and
+the tramping of many feet, was heard at the door. It was followed by the
+thunder of clubs and hammers breaking it in; the bars gave way; the
+huissiers and other attendants rushed through the body of the hall, and
+took refuge behind the chair of the president in affright; the sleepers
+started from their seats; and, with a roar which spoke the true
+supremacy of the new power in France, the mob poured in. They announced
+themselves a deputation from the Municipality, and instantly took
+possession of the benches. Men, women, and even children, composed this
+barbarian invasion; like all that I had seen, half intoxicated; but
+evidently trained by higher hands for more determined evil. A chosen
+set of orators, in Roman robes, probably plundered from some suburb
+theatre, moved forward to the table, and took their seats round it in as
+much solemnity as conscript fathers. The chief speaker then advanced
+from the door, preceded by the head of one of the murdered Swiss on a
+pike, a hideous spectacle, and, drawing from his belt a dagger,
+commenced a furious harangue against every thing that bore the shape of
+authority in the kingdom. The Assembly did not escape in the general
+outpouring of its bitterness. They were charged with want of zeal, with
+want of honesty, and, most formidable of all, want of patriotism. I saw
+many a member cower at the word; for it was the countersign of
+Jacobinism; and the man, on whom that charge was personally fastened,
+was sure to fall by pistol or dagger. But the rage of the harangue was
+levelled at the royal family. "There sits the tyrant!" he exclaimed,
+pointing with his poniard to the meekest of monarchs and of men. "The
+vengeance of the people calls for victims. How long shall it be
+insulted? If justice is blind, tear the bandage from her eyes. How long
+shall the sword of the people rust in its sheath! Liberty sitting on her
+altar demands new sacrifices to feed the flame. The blood of tyrants is
+the only incense worthy to be offered by a regenerated people!"
+
+At every pause of those fierce interjections, the crowd burst into yells
+of applause, drew knives and daggers from their bosoms, flourished them
+in the air, and echoed the words. The Assembly were evidently held in
+terror of their lives. The president made some faint attempts to restore
+order. A few of the members made faint attempts at speeches. But the mob
+were masters; and a night of such horrors passed, as I had never dreamed
+of before. At daybreak the orator demanded that a decree should be
+instantly passed, suspending the king, the ministry, and even the
+Assembly, in the midst of which he stood. Of all the extravagances ever
+conceived--of all the insolences of power--of all the licenses of
+popular licentiousness, this was the most daring, unrivalled, and
+unimagined; and yet this was carried, with scarcely a voice raised
+against it. The trembling president, with the dagger at his throat, put
+the motion for extinguishing the throne, the cabinet, and calling a new
+Assembly! From that hour the monarchy was no more.
+
+During this tremendous discussion, I had not ventured to raise my eyes
+towards the royal family; but, as all were now about to retire, I dared
+a single glance. The king was slowly leaving the box, leading the
+dauphin by the hand; the Princess Elizabeth was carrying the sleeping
+dauphiness in her arms; the queen stayed behind, alone, for a moment,
+sitting, as she had done for hours, with her eyes fixed on vacancy, and
+her countenance calm, but corpselike. At length she seemed to recollect
+that she was alone, and suddenly started up. Then nature had its way;
+she tottered, and fainted. From that night forth, that glorious creature
+never saw the light of day but through the bars of a prison. From the
+Feuillans, the royal family were consigned to the cells of the Temple,
+from which Louis and Marie Antoinette never emerged but to the grave!
+
+This night taught me a lesson, which neither time nor circumstance has
+ever made me forget. It cured me of all my republican fantasies at once,
+and for ever. I believe myself above the affectation of romantic
+sensibility. But it would not be less affectation to deny the feelings
+to which that awful scene of human guilt and human suffering gave birth.
+If the memory of the popular atrocities made me almost abhor human
+nature, the memory of that innocent and illustrious woman restored my
+admiration of the noble qualities that may still be found in human
+nature. "If I forget thee even in my mirth," the language of the
+Israelite to his beloved city, was mine, in scarcely a less solemn or
+sacred spirit, in those hours of early experience. Let the hearts and
+eyes of others refuse to acknowledge such feelings. I am not ashamed to
+say, that I have shed many a tear over the fate of the King and Queen of
+France. In the finest fictions of genius, in the most high-wrought
+sorrows of the stage, I have never been so deeply touched, I have never
+felt myself penetrated with such true and irresistible emotion, as in
+reading, many a year after, the simplest record of the unhappy Bourbons.
+What must it be, to have witnessed the last agonies of their hearts and
+throne!
+
+On returning to my chamber, shuddering and wretched, I found a despatch
+on my table. It was from Downing Street; an order, that within twelve
+hours after its receipt, I should set out from Paris, and make my way,
+with the utmost secrecy, to the headquarters of the Austrian and
+Prussian army; where further orders would be waiting for me.
+
+This command threw me into new perplexity. It had been my purpose to
+find my unfortunate friend, if he was not already in the bosom of the
+Seine, or a victim to some of the popular violences. But my orders were
+peremptory. I, however, did all that was in my power. I spent the day in
+looking for him through all the hotels and hospitals; and, after a
+hopeless search, gave my man of mystery, Mendoza, a commission--paid for
+at a rate that made him open his hollow eyes wide with incredulity on
+the coin--to discover and protect him, wherever he was to be found.
+
+But I had now another difficulty which threatened to nip my diplomatic
+honours in the bud. The news had just arrived, that the allied armies
+had passed the frontier, and were sweeping all before them with fire and
+sword. A populace is always mad with courage, or mad with cowardice; and
+the Parisians, who, but yesterday, were ready to have made a march round
+the globe, now thought the wells and cellars of the city not too deep,
+or too dark to hold them. They would have formed a camp in the
+catacombs, if they could. All was sudden terror. The barriers were shut.
+Guards were posted tenfold at all the gates. Men were ranged on the
+heights round the city, to make signals of the first approach of the
+Prussian hussars; and the inhabitants spent half the day on every house
+top that commanded a view of the country, waiting for the first glimpse
+of their devourers. To escape from this city of terror now became next
+to impossible. All my applications were powerless. The government were
+themselves regarded as under lock and key; the populace, as if
+determined that all should share a common massacre, were clustered at
+the barriers, pike in hand, to put all "emigrants" to death; the
+ambassador was, as ambassadors generally are in cases of real
+difficulty, a cipher; and yet I _must_ leave Paris within twelve hours,
+or be cashiered.
+
+It at length occurred to me to avail myself of my Jewish spy, and I
+found him listening to a midnight harangue in the midst of a Jacobin
+crowd, in the Palais Royal. He considered the matter for a while; and I
+walked about, leaving him to his free invention, while I contrasted the
+brilliant blaze of the gaming and dancing-rooms above me with the
+assassin-like darkness of the galleries below. At length he turned to
+me. "There is but one way. Have you any objection to be arrested?"
+
+"The greatest imaginable," was my answer.
+
+"Just as you please," he replied; "but I have here an order for the
+seizure of one of the emigrant agents, a Chevalier Lafontaine, lately
+arrived in Paris. He has been seen in the palace, but we have missed him
+for the last twelve hours. The order is for Vincennes. Will you take his
+place?"
+
+I naturally looked all surprise, and peremptorily refused.
+
+"Do as you will," said my intractable adviser; "but there is no other
+way to pass the gates. I shall take you to Vincennes as a state
+prisoner; I have influence there. In short, if you trust me, you shall
+be safe, and on your road by daybreak. If you do not, here your life is
+uncertain; you are known, watched, and the first order that I receive
+to-morrow, may be one for your apprehension."
+
+All this was likely enough; there was but a moment to deliberate, and I
+got into the first cabriolet, and drove with him to the barrier. The
+streets still exhibited scattered bands, who questioned us from time to
+time, but the words, "By order of the Municipality," which were enough
+to terrify the stoutest hearts, and the display of his badge, carried us
+through. We passed the guard at the gate, after a slight examination of
+the order, and galloped to Vincennes.
+
+At the sight of the frowning fortress my blood chilled, and I refused to
+go further. "In that case," said my conductor, "_I_ am compromised, and
+_you_ are ruined; the first patrol will seize you, while I shall be
+shot. I pledge myself, that here you shall not remain; but I must be
+acquitted to the head of the police. You shall be M. le Chevalier
+Lafontaine for the night; and, if such a man exists, you will probably
+be the means of saving his life. To-morrow I shall bring proofs of my
+mistake, and then you will be outside the walls of Paris, and free to go
+where you please."
+
+The name of Lafontaine decided me. Even the risk seemed less serious
+than before, and we drove over the drawbridge. The interior of the
+fortress formed a striking contrast to the scenes which I had just left
+behind me. All was still stern, and noiseless.
+
+"Give me your papers," said Mendoza; "they will be safer in my hands
+than in yours."
+
+I had but time to give him my despatch, as we passed through the court
+which led to the governor's apartments. I was searched in the presence
+of that important functionary, a meagre old captain of invalids, who had
+been roused from his bed, and was evidently half asleep. I stoutly
+denied my being "the criminal who had offended the majesty of the
+people." But as the governor himself, on gazing at me with his purblind
+eyes, was perfectly satisfied of my identity, there was no use in
+contesting the point. A couple of sentinels were placed at the door of
+my cell, and I was left, like himself, to my slumbers. Before the door
+closed, I grasped my guide by the throat. The thought that I had been
+entrapped, actually agonized me.
+
+"Am I betrayed?" I asked, in a whisper of fury.
+
+The only answer was, "Mordecai."
+
+I felt security in the word, and, without a further pang, heard his
+tread echoing along the distant corridor.
+
+Time rolls on, whether we are happy or miserable. Morning came, and
+found me feverish from a thousand dreams. Noon came, and my impatience
+grew with the hour. Evening came, and yet no symptom of my liberation.
+If, "hope deferred maketh the heart sick," confidence duped, and
+blindly, weakly, rashly duped, turns to torture.
+
+Why trust a known agent of the police? Why put my liberty into his
+hands? Why, above all, make him master of my papers? I was overwhelmed
+with shame. I writhed with remorse. As hour after hour dragged into slow
+length along, I sank from dejection to dejection, or burst from rage to
+rage. But at last, when the drums of the garrison were making their
+final flourish for the night, the key turned in the door of my cell, and
+the Jew entered. I almost sprang upon him, and his life would have been
+worth little, but for the words--"You may now leave the fortress." He
+told me, further, that my absence was fortunate, for a domiciliary visit
+had been paid to my apartments by direction of the municipality; my
+trunks examined, and my doors sealed. My absence was imputed to flight;
+and, as jails were then the only safe residences in France, I had
+escaped actual imprisonment simply by my volunteer detention; to watch
+the event, had been the source of his delay. All was speedily settled
+with the old commandant, who was now as perfectly "convinced, on his own
+knowledge," that I was not the chevalier, as he had been convinced on
+the night before that I was. Mendoza's proofs were registered in due
+form; and with unspeakable delight I once again mounted his cabriolet,
+and heard the chains of the drawbridge rattle behind me.
+
+My Jew had been true to his pledge. I found horses provided for me at a
+lonely cabaret, a league off. With the minute foresight which men of his
+trade learn, he had provided for me a couple of disguises--the garb of a
+peasant, which I was to use when I passed among the soldiery; and the
+uniform of an aide-de-camp, with which I was to keep down enquiries when
+I came among the peasantry. But I was weary of disguise. It had never
+thriven with my temperament. I was determined, at all events, now to
+trust to chance and my proper person; and if I must fail, have the
+satisfaction of failing after my own style. The only recompense which my
+magnanimous police-officer would receive, was a promise that I should
+mention his conduct to Mordecai; and, gathering up his rejected
+wardrobe, he departed.
+
+Fortunately I found disguises unnecessary, though at any other time they
+might have been essential. The country was all in a state of flight, and
+every man was too much employed in securing himself, to think of laying
+hold of others. Thus galloped I through hill and dale, through bush and
+brier, unquestioned and almost unseen; until, on the evening of the
+fourth day, as I plunged into a forest, which for the last half hour I
+had been imagining into a scene of fairyland, a bower where a pilgrim
+might finish his journey for life, or a man, "crazed by care, or crossed
+in hopeless love," might forget woman and woe together--I was awakened
+to the realities of things by the whistle of a bullet, which struck off
+a branch within an inch of my head, followed by a fierce howl for the
+countersign. By all the laws of war, the howl should have come first;
+but these were not times for ceremony. A troop of Hulans rushed round
+me, sabre in hand. I stood like a stoic; and, of course, attempted to
+tell who I was. But my German was unintelligible to my captors, and my
+French, a suspicious language on a Prussian outpost, only confirmed
+their opinion that I was born to be stripped. Accordingly one demanded
+my watch, another my purse, and I was in a fair way of entering the
+Prussian lines in a state of pauperism, or of being "left alone in my
+glory" by shot or sabre, when an officer rode up, whom I had casually
+known in some Parisian circle. To him I could explain myself, and to him
+I exhibited the envelope of my letter, inscribed with the words, "Grand
+Quartier General." My new friend bowed to this awful address like a Turk
+to the firman of the padisha, poured out a volley of wrath on the troop,
+ordered the instant and very reluctant restitution of my property, and
+with a couple of the squadron at our heels, took me under his escort, to
+deliver my papers in person.
+
+After an hour's gallop through rocks, rivulets, and brambles, which
+seemed without end, and totally uninhabited, except by an occasional
+patrol of the irregulars of the Austrian and Prussian forces--barbarians
+as savage-looking as ever were Goth or Hun, and capital substitutes for
+the wolves and wild-boars which they had ejected for the time--a sudden
+opening of the forest brought us within view of the immense camp of the
+combined armies.
+
+All the externals of war are splendid; it is the interior, the
+consequences, the operation of that mighty trampler of man that are
+startling. This was my first sight of that most magnificent of all the
+atrocious inventions of human evil--an army. The forces of the two most
+warlike monarchies of Europe were spread before me; nearly a hundred and
+fifty thousand troops, with all the numberless followers of a host in
+the field, covering a range of low hills which circled the horizon.
+While we were still at a considerable distance, a gun was fired from the
+central hill, answered by others from the flanks. The rolling of drums
+set the vast line in motion, and just at the moment when the sun was
+lying on the edge of the west, the brigades, descending each from its
+height, halted on the slope. The whole vast manoeuvre was executed
+with the exactness of a single mind. The blaze of the sun on the arms,
+the standards, and the tents crowning the brow of the hills, was
+magical. "Are they marching to battle?" was my amazed question to my
+companion. His only answer was to check his charger, take off his shako,
+and bend his forehead to his saddle-bow. A burst of universal harmony,
+richer than I had ever yet conceived, explained the mystery. It was the
+evening prayer. The fine bands of the regiments joined the voices of the
+soldiery, and I listened, in unbroken rapture and reverence, until its
+close. In court or cathedral, in concert or shrine, I had never before
+so much felt the power of sound. It finished in a solemn chorus, and
+accumulation of music. I could have almost imagined it ascending,
+embodied, to heaven.
+
+The fire of cannon announced the conclusion of the service; we put spurs
+to our horses, and soon entered the lines; and, on the strength of my
+credentials, I had distinguished quarters assigned to me.
+
+I now, for the first time since I left England, began to feel the
+advantages of birth. In London every man is so submerged in the
+multitude, that he who can hold his head high enough out of the living
+surge to be known, must have something of remarkable buoyancy, or
+peculiar villany, about him. Even Parliament, except to a few of the
+leaders, is no distinction. The member for the shire is clipped of all
+his plumage at the moment of his entering that colossal poultry-yard,
+and must take his obscure pickings with other unnoticeable fowl. In
+Paris, once the Mahometan paradise of stars and garters, the central
+herald's office of the earth, the royal region of the Parliament
+aristocracy, where the beggar with a _cordon_ on his breast outshone the
+banker with millions in his pocket-book, the world was changed; and to
+be the son or brother of a peer might have been only a speedier passport
+to the lamp-post. But, in Germany, the land of pedigrees, to be an
+"honourable" was to be one on whom the sun shone with double beams; the
+sex, young and old, smiled with double softness and the whole host of
+Serenities were doubly serene. In camp, nothing could be more hospitable
+or distinguished than my reception; for the soldier is always
+good-humoured under canvass, and the German is good-humoured every
+where. Perhaps he has rather too high an opinion of his descent from
+Goth and Vandal, but he makes allowance for the more modern savagery of
+Europe; and although the stranger may neither wear spectacles, nor smoke
+cigars, neither muzzle his visage with mustaches, nor speak the most
+formidable tongue on earth, the German will good-naturedly admit, that
+he may be a human being after all.
+
+But the man with whom my mission brought me most immediately into
+contact, and to whom I was most indebted for courtesy, would have been a
+remarkable personage in any country of Europe; that man was the Duke of
+Brunswick.
+
+On my arrival, I found two letters forwarded from London, and in the
+hands of an aide-de-camp of the generalissimo. The first which I opened
+was from the Foreign Office, a simple statement of the purpose for which
+I was sent--namely, to stimulate the activity of the Prussian councils,
+and to urge on the commander of the army an immediate march on the
+French capital; with a postscript, directing me, in case of tardiness
+being exhibited at headquarters, instantly to transmit a despatch home,
+and return to my post in Paris. The second letter--which I must, however
+undiplomatically, admit that I opened with much stronger interest--was
+from Mordecai. I glanced over it for some mention of the "ane braw
+name," and bitterly laughed at my own folly in expecting to find such
+communications in the letter of the hard-headed and busy Jew. All was
+brief and rapid.
+
+"If this shall find you in the Prussian camp, you will have no more time
+for me than I have for you. Let me not clip your diplomatic hopes; but
+this I forewarn you, you will not obtain a single object of your
+journey; except, perhaps, showing that you can gallop a hundred miles in
+the four-and-twenty hours, and can make your way through a country of
+lunatics without being piked or sabred.
+
+"The campaign is over already--over before it was begun. The battle was
+fought in the council at Berlin, and the allies were beaten. The duke,
+within the next fortnight, will be deciding on the merits of the ballet
+in Brunswick, and the French will be madder than ever with triumphs
+which they never won, preparing for conquests which are already gained,
+and knocking down thrones, the owners themselves supplying the pickaxes
+and hammers. You will see the two best armies of the Continent running
+away from their own shadows; the old councillors of Frederick and Maria
+Theresa baffled by cabinets of cobblers and tinkers; grey-beard
+generals, covered with orders, hunted over the frontier by boys, girls,
+and old women; and France, like a _poissarde_ in a passion, with her
+hair flying about her ears, a knife in her hand, and her tongue in full
+swing, scampering half naked over Europe, to the infinite wonder of the
+wearers of velvet, Mechlin lace, and diadems,--ha, ha, ha!"
+
+While I was trying to decipher this riddle, which was rather too
+contemptuous for my new views of things, but which I referred to the
+habitual feelings of a strong-headed man in humble life, brought just
+close enough to higher to feel his exclusion, an officer was announced
+as Count Varnhorst, on the staff of the duke. His countenance struck me
+at first sight, as one which I had seen before; and I soon discovered,
+that when I was a boy at Eton, he had been on a visit of a few days at
+Mortimer castle, in the suite of one of the Prussian princes. We had
+been thus old friends, and we now became young ones within the first
+quarter of an hour. His countenance was that of a humourist, and his
+recollections of the Great Frederick rendered him sarcastic on all
+things of the later generation.
+
+"The duke has sent me for you," said he, "with his apology for keeping
+you out of bed; but he has appointed midnight for the delivery of your
+despatches. The truth is, that hitherto we have all slept so soundly,
+that we must make up for lost time by turning night into day now, just
+as we have turned day into night for the last twelvemonth."
+
+"But what can you tell me of the duke?"
+
+"Oh! a great deal; but you know that I am on his staff, and therefore
+bound to keep his secrets."
+
+"Yet, count, remember that we have sworn an eternal friendship within
+the last five minutes. What can he or I be the worse for my knowing his
+great and good qualities?"
+
+"My dear young friend, when you are as old as I am, you will see the
+improprieties of such questions."
+
+"Well, then, to come to the point; is he a great general?"
+
+"He speaks French better than any other prince in Germany."
+
+"Is he an able politician?"
+
+"You must see him on horseback; he rides like a centaur."
+
+"Well, then, in one sentence, will he fight the French?"
+
+"That wholly depends on whether he turns his horse's head towards Paris
+or Berlin."
+
+"Count, but one question more, which you may answer without a riddle. Do
+you think that he will receive my mission cordially?"
+
+"He speaks your language; he wears your broad cloth; he loves your
+porter; and he has married one of your princesses."
+
+"All my difficulties are answered. I am ready; but what shall I find him
+doing at this extraordinary hour?"
+
+"If asleep, dreaming of the opera at Brunswick; if awake, dreaming of
+the opera at Paris."
+
+His diamond repeater, which he had laid on the table between us, struck
+twelve as he spoke; and, wrapping ourselves in our cloaks, we sallied
+forth into one of the most starry nights of autumn, and made our way,
+through long ranges of patrols and videttes, to the quarters of the
+generalissimo.
+
+The mansion was an old chateau, evidently long abandoned to loneliness
+and decay one of those huge edifices; whose building had cost one
+fortune, and whose support had exhausted another. But the struggle had
+been over for the last fifty years, and two or three shrivelled
+domestics remained to keep out the invasion of the bats and owls. But at
+this period the chateau exhibited, of course, another scene;
+aides-de-camp, generals, orderlies, couriers--all the clang and clamour
+of the staff of a great army--rang through the wild old halls, and
+echoed up the long ghostly corridors. Every apartment was a blaze of
+light, and filled with groups of officers of the Prussian and Austrian
+guards; all was billiard-playing, talking, singing in chorus, and
+carousing in all the noisy gaiety of the soldier in good quarters.
+
+"All this is tempting enough," said the old count, as we hastened along
+a gallery that seemed endless, but on which the open doors of the
+successive apartments threw broad illumination. "I dare say, Mr Marston,
+that you would prefer taking your seat among those lively fellows, to
+the honour of a ducal conference; but my orders are, that you must not
+be seen until the duke gives you _carte blanche_ to appear among human
+beings again."
+
+The count now opened the door of an apartment, which appeared to have
+been more lately tenanted than the rest, yet which exhibited signs of
+the general desertion; a marble table, covered with a decaying drapery,
+a Carrara alabaster of Niobe and her children on the mantelpiece, a huge
+mirror, and a tapestry of one of the hunts of Henri Quatre, showed that
+Time had been there, and that the Prussians had not; but the indistinct
+light of the single chandelier left me but little opportunity of
+indulging my speculations on the furniture. The count had left me, to
+ascertain when the duke should be at leisure to receive me; and my first
+process was, like a good soldier, to reconnoitre the neighbouring
+territory. The first door which I opened led into a conservatory, filled
+with the remnants of dead foliage, opening on the gardens of the
+chateau, which, wild as they now were, still sent up a fragrance doubly
+refreshing, after the atmosphere of meershaums, hot brandy, and Rhine
+beer, which filled the galleries. The casement distantly overlooked the
+esplanade in front of the chateau; and the perpetual movements of the
+couriers and estafettes, arriving and departing every moment, the
+galloping of cavalry, and the march of patrols, occupied me until a
+valet of the duke came to acquaint me that supper was served, by his
+highness's commands, in the apartment which I had lately quitted, and
+that he would be present in a few minutes.
+
+I returned of course; and found the chamber which I had left so dark and
+dilapidated, changed, as if by a fairy wand, into pomp and elegance. The
+duke was renowned for splendid extravagance, and the table was covered
+with rich plate, the walls glittered with a profusion of gilt lamps, and
+all round me had the look of regal luxury. But one object suddenly
+caught my gaze, and left me no power to glance at any other. In a
+recess, which had hitherto been obscure, but over which now blazed a
+brilliant girandole, hung a full-length portrait of a nun, which, but
+for the dress, I should have pronounced to be Clotilde; the same Greek
+profile, the same deep yet vivid eye, the same matchless sweetness of
+smile, and the same mixture of melancholy and enthusiasm, which had made
+me think my idol fit to be the worship of the world. I stood wrapped in
+astonishment, delight, pain, a thousand undefined feelings, until I
+could have almost imagined that the canvass before me lived. I saw its
+eye all but glisten, its lips all but open to speak; the very marble of
+its cheek begin to glow; when I was awakened by a lively voice, saying,
+in French--"Ah, Mr Marston, I perceive that you are a connoisseur." I
+turned, and saw the speaker, a man somewhat above the middle size; a
+remarkably noble-looking personage; in full dress even at that hour,
+powdered and perfumed, and altogether a court figure; his hands loaded
+with jewels, and a diamond star of the order of the garter upon his
+breast. It required no introducer to tell me that I was in the presence
+of the Duke of Brunswick.
+
+"Come," said he, "we have no time for etiquette, nor indeed for any
+thing else to-night--we must sup first, and then talk of your mission."
+
+We sat down; a double file of valets, in liveries, loaded with
+embroidery, attended at the table; though the party consisted of but
+four; Varnhorst, and a Colonel Guiseard, chief of the secret diplomacy,
+a pale Spanish-featured officer--to whom his highness did me the honour
+of introducing me, as the son of one of his old friends.
+
+"You remember Marston," said he, "at Brunswick, five-and-twenty years
+ago, in his envoyship--a capital horseman, a brilliant dresser, and a
+very promising diplomatist. I augured well of his future career,
+but" ----the infinite elevation of the ducal shoulders, and the infinite
+drooping of the ducal eyes, completed the remainder of my unfortunate
+parent's history; but whether in panegyric or censure, I was not
+sufficiently versed in the science of saying nothing and implying all
+things, to tell. Guiseard fixed his deep sallow eye on me, without a
+word: at that moment he reminded me exactly of one of the
+Inquisitors--the deep, dark-visaged men whom the matchless pencil of
+Velasquez has immortalized.
+
+Varnhorst burst out into a laugh.
+
+"What, Guiseard," said he, "are you reconnoitring the ground before you
+make the attack? Your royal highness, I think we ought to vindicate our
+country to this English gentleman, by assuring him that the colonel is
+not a cardinal in disguise."
+
+The colonel merely smiled, which seemed an effort for his cloistered
+physiognomy; the duke laughed, and began a general conversation upon all
+possible topics--England forming the chief; the royal family--the
+court--the theatres--parliament--the people--all whirled over with the
+ease and rapidity of one turning the leaves of an album; here a verse
+and there a portrait--here a sketch of a temple, and there an outline of
+a cottage--the whole pretty, and as trifling as pretty, and cast aside
+at the first moment when any thing better worth thinking of occurred.
+
+In the midst of our gaiety, in which the duke had completely laid down
+his sceptre, and taken his full share, the great clock of the chateau
+tolled one. The table was instantly swept of supper--the valets
+withdrew. I heard the tread of a sentinel at the door of the apartment;
+and the duke, instantly changing from the man of fashion to the
+statesman, began to enter into the questions then so deeply disturbing
+all the cabinets of Europe.
+
+I found the duke a very superior man to what I had conceived of him. He
+was frank and free, spoke of the intentions of the Allies in the most
+open manner, and censured the errors which they had already committed,
+with a plainness which I had not expected to find out of London. He had
+evidently made himself master of a great variety of knowledge, and with
+the happy but most unusual power of rendering it all applicable to the
+point in question. My impressions of him and his order, imbibed among
+the prejudices of England and the libels of France, was that of
+frivolity and flutter--an idle life and a stagnant understanding. I
+never was more surprised at the contrast between this conception and the
+animated and accomplished prince before me. He seemed to know not merely
+the persons of all the leading men of Europe--which might have naturally
+been the case with one who had visited every capital--but to be
+acquainted with their characters, their abilities, and even their modes
+of thinking. He seemed to me a man born to rule. It was in later days
+that the habits of a voluptuary, of which his peculiar love of dress
+might have been slightly symptomatic, produced their effect, in
+enfeebling a mind made for eminence. I saw him afterwards, broken with
+years and misfortune. But on this night I could only see a man on whom
+the destinies of Europe were rightly reposed. I pay this tribute of
+honour to his memory.
+
+He spoke a great deal, in our conference, on the necessity of a strong
+European combination against France, and flatteringly addressed to me a
+strong panegyric on my country.
+
+"If we can obtain," said he, "the cordial co-operation of the English
+people, I see no difficulty before us. We already have the Ministry with
+us; but I know the Englishman's hatred of a foreign war, his horror of
+public expenditure on continental interests, and his general distrust of
+the policy of foreign courts. And until we can give the people some
+evidence, not only that our intentions are sincere, but that our cause
+is their own, we shall never have the nation on our side."
+
+My remark was, "that the chief difficulty with the nation would be, to
+convince them that the Allied Powers were not influenced by personal
+motives; I said that the seizure of territory, while the French remained
+in their defenceless state, would probably excite strong public
+displeasure in England; and plainly stated, that the only thing which
+could engage the public spirit in the war, would be a conviction of its
+absolute justice and stern necessity."
+
+The conversation was here interrupted by the arrival of a staff-officer
+with despatches from Berlin. A number of papers were laid on the table,
+and handed over to Varnhorst and Guiseard to read. They proved chiefly
+notes and orders relative to the advance of the army. One paper,
+however, the duke read with evident interest, and marked with his pencil
+down the margin.
+
+"I am delighted," said he, "that this paper has reached us at last. Mr
+Marston will now see what my real advice has been from the beginning.
+The French journals have attacked me furiously for the declaration
+issued at our entrance on the frontier. The journals of England have
+partly echoed the French, and I am held up to the world as the author of
+the _Declaration of Pilnitz_. This paper, which Mr Marston will do me
+the honour to send at daybreak to his court by a special messenger, will
+clear my character with his countrymen at once--with the rest of Europe,
+I am content to wait a little longer."
+
+He then read the paper in his hand; and it was a long and striking
+protest against the idea of partitioning France, or having any other
+intention in the movement of the troops than the security of the French
+throne. This document had been sent to the Council at Berlin, and been
+returned by them for revision by the duke, and the softening of its
+rather uncourtly decisiveness of expression. It stated, that even the
+conquest of France, if it could be effected, must be wholly useless
+without the conciliation of the people: that it must be insecure, that
+it never could be complete, and that even the attempt might rouse this
+powerful people to feel its own force, and turn its vast resources to
+war. The first measure ought, therefore, to be an address to the nation,
+pronouncing, in the clearest language, an utter abjuration of all local
+seizure.
+
+The paper thus returned, and containing the observations of the council,
+was given to Varnhorst, to be copied. "And now," said the duke,
+"gentlemen, I think we may retire for the night; for we have but three
+hours until the march in the morning."
+
+I said some common-place thing, of the obligations which Europe must owe
+to a sovereign prince, exposing himself to such labours, honourable as
+they were.
+
+"No," he smilingly replied; "they are part of our office, the routine of
+the life of princes, the vocation of men born for the public, and living
+for the public alone. The prince must be a soldier, and the soldier must
+make the camp his home, and the palace only his sojourn. It is his
+fortune, perhaps his misfortune, that but one profession in life is left
+open to him, whether it be the bent of his temperament or not--while
+other men may follow their tastes in the choice, serve their fellows in
+a hundred different ways, and raise a bloodless reputation among
+mankind. And now, good-night. To-morrow at five the _advance_ moves. At
+six I shall be on horseback, and then--Well! what matter for the
+_then_? We shall sleep at least to-night; and so, farewell."
+
+
+
+
+INDEX TO VOL. LIV.
+
+
+Aberdeen, Lord, remarks on his church bill, 545.
+
+Adventures in Louisiana, No. I., The Prairie and the Swamp, 43
+  --No. II., The Blockhouse, 234.
+
+Adventures in Texas, No. I., A Scamper in the Prairie of Jacinto, 551
+  --No. II., A Trial by Jury, 777.
+
+Ahmed-Kiuprili, career of, 175.
+
+Anti-corn-law League, proceedings of the, 539.
+
+Ancient Towns, a plea for, against railways, 398.
+
+Aristocracy of England, the, 51.
+
+Armada, the, from Schiller, 143.
+
+Armansperg, Count, administration of, in Greece, 348.
+
+Arne the composer, 26.
+
+Art, British, present state of, 188.
+
+Athens, population, institutions, &c., of, 352.
+
+Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, on the best means of establishing a
+communication between the, 658.
+
+Austria, commerce, &c., of, 251.
+
+Ballads of Schiller, the. _See_ Schiller.
+
+Balzac, M., Two Dreams, a sketch by, 672.
+
+Banking-house, the, a history in three parts. Part I. Chap. I.,
+Prospective, 576
+  --Chap. II., Retrospective, 578
+  --Chap. III., The beginning of the end, 582
+  --Chap. IV., Miching mallecho, it means mischief, 585
+  --Chap. V., Matters of course, 588
+  --Chap. VI., A discovery, 592
+  --Chap. VII., The end of the beginning, 594.
+  Part II. Chap. I., A negotiation, 719
+  --Chap. II., A lull. 723
+  --Chap. III., A sweet couple, 725
+  --Chap. IV., A speculation, 730
+  --Chap. V., A landed proprietor, 733.
+
+Bankruptcy of the Greek kingdom, the, 345
+  --means of averting it, 361.
+
+Barrett, Elizabeth B., Cry of the Children, by, 260.
+
+Bavarian government of Greece, effects of the, 345.
+
+Bennett's Ceylon and its capabilities, review of, 622.
+
+Blockhouse, the, an adventure in Louisiana, 234.
+
+Bridge over the Thur, the, from the German of Gustav Schwab, 717.
+
+British institution, exhibition at the, 203.
+
+Brownrigg, Sir Robert, conquest of Kandy, by, 632.
+
+Bulwer, Sir Edward Lytton, Bart., translation of the poems and ballads
+of Schiller, by. Part the last, 139.
+  --Love and Death, by, 717.
+
+Bute, lines written in, by Delta, 749.
+
+Byrd, the composer, 24.
+
+Cabinet, the Greek, construction and powers of the, 350.
+
+Canadian corn bill, the, 543.
+
+Canal, proposed between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 658.
+
+Carlyle's Past and Present, review of, with notices of his other works,
+121.
+
+Ceylon and its capabilities, by Bennett, review of, 622
+  --its climate, 626
+  --sketch of its history, 627.
+
+Chapters of Turkish History; No. X. The Second Siege of Vienna, 173.
+
+Charles Edward at Versailles on the Anniversary of the Battle of
+Culloden, a poem, 107.
+
+Chronicles of Paris--the Rue St Denis, 524.
+
+Cinghalese, character of the, 627.
+
+Cobden, Mr, refutation of his statements regarding the colonies, 407, 637
+  --his misrepresentations on the corn question, 539.
+
+College Theatricals, a tale, 737.
+
+Colonies, the, examination of Cobden's statements regarding, 409, 637.
+
+Commencement of the New Century, the, from the German of Schiller, 151.
+
+Commercial Intercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, on the
+best means of establishing, 658.
+
+Commercial Policy, Europe, 243
+  --ships, colonies, and commerce, 406
+  --the same continued, 637.
+
+Comparison of the protective and free-trade
+systems, 243, 406, 637.
+Conflict, the, on the German of Schiller, 144.
+
+Continental nobility, comparison of with the British, 56.
+
+Corn-law Question, the, 539.
+
+Council of State, the Greek, 350.
+
+Creswick, Mr, remarks on the style of, 188.
+
+Cry of the Children, the, 260.
+
+Darien company, the, 661.
+
+Davie, Major, conduct of, in Ceylon, 628.
+
+Death from the Sting of a Serpent, lines on, 798.
+
+Delta, a Vision of the World by, 343
+  --Lines written in the Isle of Bute by, 749.
+
+Devil's Frills, the, a Dutch illustration of the water cure,
+  --Chap. I. 225
+  --Chap. II. ib.
+  --Chap. III. 227
+  --Chap. IV. 228
+  --Chap. V. 230
+  --Chap. VI. 232.
+
+Disturbed Districts of Wales, notes on a tour in the, by Joseph Downes,
+766.
+
+Downes, Joseph, tour in the disturbed districts of Wales by, 766.
+
+Dutch, landing of the, in Ceylon, 627.
+
+Early English Musicians, notices of, 23.
+
+Early Greek Romances, the Ethiopics of Heliodorus, 109.
+
+Education, institutions for, in Greece, 357.
+
+Education, the government scheme of, 548.
+
+Emma, lines to, from the German of Schiller, 150.
+
+England, the aristocracy of, 51.
+
+English music and musicians, 23.
+
+Epigram on Dr Toe, &c., 263.
+
+Erigena, letter from, to Christopher North, 263.
+
+Ethiopics of Heliodorus, account of the, 109.
+
+Europe, commercial policy of, 243.
+
+Exhibitions, notices of--the Royal Academy's, 188
+  --the Suffolk Street gallery, 199
+  --paintings in water-colours, 201
+  --the British Institution, 203.
+
+Factory bill, the, 548.
+
+Fanariotes, character of the, 351.
+
+Farewell to the Reader, from the German of Schiller, 152.
+
+Fate of Polycrates, the, 483.
+
+France, conduct of, towards Greece, 359.
+
+Frederick Schlegel, review of the works and character of, 311.
+
+Free-trade and protective systems, comparison of the, 248.
+
+French academy, 519.
+
+French and German works of fiction, comparison between, 672.
+
+Fuseli's Lectures at the Royal Academy: his introduction, 691
+  --Lecture I., 694
+    --II., 697
+    --III., 703.
+
+Game up with the repeal agitation, the, 679.
+
+German and French literature, comparison between, 672.
+
+Gibbons the composer, 24.
+
+Gifts of Térek the, translated from the Russian of Lermontoff, by J. B.
+Shaw, 799.
+
+Gods of Greece, the, from the German of Schiller, 146.
+
+Goethe, remarks by, on the Schlegels, 311.
+
+Great Britain, proceedings of, towards Greece, 359.
+
+Greece, present state and prospects of, 345
+  --peculiarities of its inhabitants, 350
+  --its present revenues and expenditure, 361.
+
+Guizot, M., opinion of, on the union of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans,
+659.
+
+Heliodorus, the Ethiopics of, 109.
+
+Heber, Bishop, the Whippiad, a poem, by. Canto I., 100
+  --Canto II., 102
+  --Canto III., 104.
+
+Hendia, the history of, 479.
+
+Hullah's method of teaching, strictures on, 37.
+
+Humboldt, M., on uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 659.
+
+Hymn to Joy, from the German of Schiller, 142.
+
+Inscription on the foundation stone of the new dining-hall, &c., 79.
+
+Invincible Armada, the, from the German of Schiller, 143.
+
+Irish arms bill, the, 549.
+
+Jacinto, a scamper in the prairie of, 521.
+
+Jack Stuart's bet on the Derby, and how he paid his losses, 67.
+
+Jolly Father Joe, a tale from the Golden Legend, 255.
+
+Joy, hymn to, from the German of Schiller, 142.
+
+Jury trial in Texas, a, 777.
+
+Kandy, description of the district of, 627
+  --its conquest by the British, 632.
+
+Kerim Khan, travels of. Part I., 453
+  --Part II., 564
+  --Part III., 753.
+
+King Arthur, Purcell's opera of, and its revival, 25.
+
+Last Session of Parliament, review of the, 538
+  --the corn question, 539
+  --the Canadian corn bill, 543
+  --the Scotch church bill, 545
+  --the factory bill, 548
+  --the Irish arms bill, 549.
+
+Letter to Christopher North, 263.
+
+Lectures at the Royal Academy--Henry Fuseli, 691.
+
+Lines written in the Isle of Bute, by Delta, 749.
+
+Lloyd, Mr, report by, on uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 663.
+
+Locke, Mathew, the composer, 25.
+
+Logic, Mill's elements of, reviewed, 415.
+
+Louisiana, adventures in; the Prairie and the Swamp, 43
+  --No. II., the Blockhouse, 234.
+
+Love and Death, by Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, 717.
+
+M'Dowall, General, proceedings of, in Ceylon, 628.
+
+Maclise, Mr, remarks on the style of, 188.
+
+Mainzer and Hullah, comparison of the methods of, 37.
+
+Marston; or, Memoirs of a Statesman. Part II., 1
+  --Part III., 207
+  --Part IV., 325
+  --Part V., 608
+  --Part VI., 801.
+
+Maurer, M., administration of, in Greece, 348.
+
+Meeting, the, from the German of Schiller, 149.
+
+Memoir on the best means of establishing a communication between the
+Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 658.
+
+Mill's elements of logic, review of, 415.
+
+Minstrels of Old, the, from the German of Schiller, 152.
+
+Modern painters, their superiority in the art of landscape painting to
+the old masters, review of, 485.
+
+Municipal institutions of Greece, the, 352.
+
+Music, something about, 709.
+
+Music and musicians, English, 23
+  --present state of, in England, 33.
+
+My country neighbours, a tale, 431.
+
+Napier's (Colonel) reminiscences of Syria, review of, 476.
+
+Nobility of England, characteristics of the, 56.
+
+Non-intrusionism, remarks on, and on the proceedings of the party, 545.
+
+Notes on a tour in the disturbed districts in Wales, by Joseph Downes, 766.
+
+O'Connell, Mr, present position of, 264
+  --proceedings of the government against, and their consequences, 685.
+
+Otho, King, state of Greece on his accession to the throne, 345
+  --effects of his government, 348.
+
+Over-production, effects of, 243.
+
+Pacific and Atlantic oceans, proposed communication between the, 658.
+
+Panama, the isthmus of, its advantages for a communication between the
+two oceans, 658
+  --description of the town, 665.
+
+Paris, chronicles of--the Rue St Denis, 524.
+
+Parliament, last session of, review of its measures, 538
+  --the corn-law question, 539
+  --Canadian corn-bill, 543
+  --Scotch church bill, 545
+  --Factory bill, 548
+  --the Irish arms bill, 549.
+
+Past and Present, by Thomas Carlyle, review of, 121.
+
+Patent law, effects of the, 519.
+
+Peel, Sir Robert, review of his speech on the Irish question, 270.
+
+Persian princes, notices of the narrative of the, 453.
+
+Philhellenic drinking-song, by B. Simmons, 41.
+
+Physical science in England, state and prospects of, 514.
+
+Plea for ancient towns against railways, a, 398.
+
+Poems and ballads of Schiller, the. _See_ Schiller.
+
+Poetry--Philhellenic drinking-song, by B. Simmons, 41
+  --inscription on the foundation stone of the new dining-hall, &c., 79
+  --the Whippiad, a satirical poem, by Bishop Heber, Canto I., 100
+    --Canto II., 102
+    --Canto III., 104
+    --Charles Edward at Versailles on the anniversary of the battle of
+      Culloden, 107
+  --Poems and Ballads of Schiller; Part the Last, 139
+  --Jolly Father Joe, a tale from the Golden Legend, 255
+  --the Cry of the Children, by Elizabeth B. Barrett, 260
+  --a Vision of the World, by Delta, 343
+  --the Fate of Polycrates, 483
+  --Lines written in the Isle of Bute, by Delta, 749
+  --Death from the sting of a serpent, 798
+  --the Purple Cloak, or the return of Syloson to Samos, 714
+  --Love and Death, 717
+  --the Bridge over the Thur, from the German, ib.
+  --Gifts of Térek, the, 799.
+
+Polycrates, the Fate of, a poem, 483.
+
+Poole, Mr, critique on his painting, "Solomon Eagle," &c., 189.
+
+Portugal, the French invasion of, causes of its success, 53.
+
+Prairie and the Swamp, the, an adventure in Louisiana, 43.
+
+Protective and free-trade systems, comparison of the, 243, 406, 637.
+
+Puppet-show of Life, the, from the German of Schiller, 150.
+
+Purcell the composer, revival of his opera King Arthur, and remarks on
+it, 25.
+
+Purple Cloak, the, or the return of Syloson to Samos, 714
+  --Part II., 715.
+
+Railroad, proposed, across the isthmus of Panama, 658.
+
+Railways, a plea for ancient towns against, 398.
+
+Reading party during the long vacation, a, 153.
+
+Rebeccaites in Wales, the, 766.
+
+Reminiscences of Syria, 476.
+
+Repeal agitation, the, 264
+  --game up with, 679.
+
+Resignation, from the German of Schiller, 145.
+
+Reviews.--Scrope's Days and nights of salmon fishing, 80
+  --Carlyle's Past and Present, 121
+  --the works of Frederick Schlegel, 311
+  --Woman's rights and duties, 373
+  --Mill's elements of logic, 415
+  --Colonel Napier's reminiscences of Syria, 476
+  --Modern painters, their superiority in the art of landscape painting to
+    the old masters, 485
+  --Bennett's Ceylon and its capabilities, 622.
+
+Roads, deficiency of, in Greece, 336.
+
+Royal Academy, exhibition of the, 188
+  --Fuseli's Lectures at the, 691.
+
+Royal salute, the, a tale, 504.
+
+Royal Society of London, the, 518.
+
+Rue St Denis, chronicles of the, 524.
+
+Russia, conduct of, towards Greece, 359.
+
+Salmon fishing, Scrope's days and nights of, reviewed, 80.
+
+Scamper in the prairie of Jacinto, a, 521.
+
+Schiller, the poems and ballads of, translated, Part the Last,
+introduction, 139
+  --remarks on those of the second period, 140
+  --hymn to joy, 142
+  --the invincible armada, 143
+  --the conflict, 144
+  --resignation, 145
+  --the gods of Greece, 146
+  --the meeting, 149
+  --to Emma, 150
+  --to a young friend devoting himself to philosophy, ib.
+  --the puppet-show of life, ib.
+  --the commencement of the new century, 151
+  --the minstrels of old, 152
+  --farewell to the reader, ib.
+
+Schlegel, Frederick, review of the works of, 311.
+
+Schwab, Gustav, the Bridge over the Thur, by, translated, 717.
+
+Scotch Church, remarks on the bill for the settlement of the, 544.
+
+Scrope on salmon fishing, review of, 80.
+
+Second siege of Vienna, the, a chapter of Turkish history, 173.
+
+Senses, a speculation on the, 650.
+
+Simmons, B., Philhellenic drinking-song, by, 41.
+
+Singers, English, notices of, 31.
+
+Singhalese, character of the, 627.
+
+Sketch in the tropics, a, from a super-cargo's log, 362.
+
+Sobieski, John, deliverance of Vienna, by, 184.
+
+Society of British artists, exhibition of the, 199.
+
+Something about Music, 709.
+
+Spain, effects of the want of an aristocracy in, 52.
+
+Speculation on the senses, a, 650.
+
+Stahrenberg, Count, defence of Vienna by, 181.
+
+Statesman, memoirs of a. Part II., 1
+  --Part III., 207
+  --Part IV., 325
+  --Part V., 608
+  --Part VI., 801.
+
+Suffolk street gallery, exhibition at the, 199.
+
+Supercargo's log, sketch from a, 362.
+
+Switzerland, commercial policy, &c., of, 248.
+
+Syloson's return to Samos, 714
+  --Part II., 715.
+
+Syria, Colonel Napier's reminiscences of, 476.
+
+Tallis, the English musician, notices of, 23-24.
+
+Taprobane of the Romans, the, 623.
+
+Taxation, pressure of, in Greece, 358.
+
+Texas, adventures in. No. I., a scamper in the prairie of Jacinto, 551
+  --No. II., a trial by jury, 777.
+
+Thirteenth, the, a tale of doom, 465.
+
+To a young friend devoting himself to philosophy, from the German of
+Schiller, 150.
+
+Travels of Kerim Khan. Part I., 453
+  --Part II., 564
+  --conclusion, 753.
+
+Trial by jury, a; an adventure in Texas, 777.
+
+Tropics, a sketch in the, from a super-cargo's log, 362.
+
+Turkish history, chapters of. No. X., the second siege of Vienna, 173.
+
+Turner, J. W., strictures on the works of, 497.
+
+Two dreams, from the French of Balzac, 672.
+
+University of Athens, the, 358.
+
+Vienna, the second siege of, a chapter of Turkish history, 173.
+
+Vision of the world, a, by Delta, 343.
+
+Wales, notes on a tour in the disturbed districts of, 766.
+
+Water-colour paintings, exhibitions of, 201.
+
+"We are all low people there," a tale of the assizes. Chapter I., 273
+  --Chapter II., 288.
+
+Whewell's philosophy of the inductive sciences, remarks on, 422.
+
+Whippiad, the, a satirical poem, by Bishop Heber. Canto I., 100
+  --Canto II., 102
+  --Canto III., 104
+  --Letter relating to, 263.
+
+Woman's rights and duties, review of, 373.
+
+Women, the wrongs of, 597.
+
+Wood-paving for locomotives, advantages of, 398.
+
+World, a vision of the, by Delta, 343.
+
+Wrongs of women, the, 597.
+
+Young, A., on the habits of the Salmon, 82.
+
+
+END OF VOL. LIV.
+
+
+_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine -
+Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
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+  Magazine - Volume 54 No. 338, December, 1843 by Various</title>
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54,
+No. 338, December 1843, by Various
+
+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: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: April 27, 2008 [EBook #25193]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Patricia Bennett, Jonathan
+Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Library of Early
+Journals.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+  <div class="transnote">
+    <h4>Transcriber&#39;s Note</h4>
+
+    <p>Minor typos have been corrected. Table of contents has been
+    generated for HTML version. Footnotes have been moved to the end of
+    the articles.</p>
+  </div>
+
+  <h1>BLACKWOOD&#8217;S<br />
+  EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.</h1>
+
+  <h3><span class="rspace">No. CCCXXXVIII.</span> <span class=
+  "btbb">DECEMBER, 1843.</span> <span class="lspace">VOL.
+  LIV.</span></h3>
+
+  <h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+  <div class="center">
+    <table summary="table of contents">
+      <tr>
+        <td>LECTURES AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_691">691</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_709">709</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>THE PURPLE CLOAK; OR, THE RETURN OF SYLOSON TO SAMOS.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_714">714</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>LOVE AND DEATH.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_717">717</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>THE BRIDGE OVER THE THUR.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_717b">717</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>THE BANKING-HOUSE.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_719">719</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>COLLEGE THEATRICALS.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_737">737</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>LINES WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF BUTE.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_749b">749</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_753">753</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>NOTES ON A TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_766">766</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>ADVENTURES IN TEXAS.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_777">777</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>DEATH FROM THE STING OF A SERPENT.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_798b">798</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>GIFTS OF TÉREK.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_799">799</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_801">801</a></td>
+      </tr>
+
+	   <tr>
+        <td>&nbsp;</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage">&nbsp;</td>
+      </tr>
+
+      <tr>
+        <td>INDEX TO VOL. LIV.</td>
+
+        <td class="tocpage"><a href="#Page_815">815</a></td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+  </div>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_691" id="Page_691">[Pg
+  691]</a></span></p>
+
+  <h2><a name="LECTURES_AT_THE_ROYAL_ACADEMY" id=
+  "LECTURES_AT_THE_ROYAL_ACADEMY"></a>LECTURES AT THE ROYAL
+  ACADEMY.</h2>
+
+  <h3>HENRY FUSELI.</h3>
+
+  <p>At a time when the eye of the public is more remarkably, and we
+  trust more kindly, directed to the Fine Arts, we may do some service
+  to the good cause, by reverting to those lectures delivered in the
+  Royal Academy, composed in a spirit of enthusiasm honourable to the
+  professors, but which kindled little sympathy in an age strangely
+  dead to the impulses of taste. The works, therefore, which set forth
+  the principles of art, were not read extensively at the time, and had
+  little influence beyond the walls within which they were delivered.
+  Favourable circumstances, in conjunction with their real merit, have
+  permanently added the discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds to the
+  standard literature of our country. They have been transferred from
+  the artist to the scholar; and so it has happened, that while few of
+  any pretension to scholarship have not read the &quot;The
+  Discourses,&quot; they have not, as they should have, been
+  continually in the hands of artists themselves. To awaken a feeling
+  for this kind of professional reading&#8212;yet not so professional
+  as not to be beneficial&#8212;reflectingly upon classical learning;
+  indeed, we might say, education in general, and therefore more
+  comprehensive in its scope&#8212;we commenced our remarks on the
+  discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds, which have appeared in the pages
+  of Maga. There are now more than symptoms of the departure of that
+  general apathy which prevailed, when most of the Academy lectures
+  were delivered. It will be, therefore, a grateful, and may we hope a
+  useful, task, by occasional notices to make them more generally
+  known.</p>
+
+  <p>The successors of Reynolds labour under a twofold disadvantage;
+  they find that he has occupied the very ground they would have taken,
+  and written so ably and fully upon all that is likely to obtain a
+  general interest, as to leave a prejudice against further attempts.
+  Of necessity, there must be, in every work treating of the same
+  subject, much repetition; and it must require no little ingenuity to
+  give a novelty and variety, that shall yet be safe, and within the
+  bounds of the admitted principles of art. On this account, we have no
+  reason to complain of the lectures of Fuseli, which we now purpose to
+  notice. Bold and original as the writer is, we find him every where
+  impressed with a respect for Reynolds, and with a conviction of the
+  truth of the principles which he had collected and established. If
+  there be any difference, it is occasionally on the more debatable
+  ground&#8212;particular passages of criticism.</p>
+
+  <p>In the &quot;Introduction,&quot; the student is supplied with a
+  list of the authorities he should consult for the &quot;History and
+  Progress of his Art.&quot; He avoids expatiating on the books purely
+  elementary&#8212;&quot;the van of which is led by Leonardo da Vinci
+  and Albert <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_692" id="Page_692">[Pg
+  692]</a></span> Durer, and the rear by Gherard Lavresse&#8212;as the
+  principles which they detail must be supposed to be already in the
+  student&#39;s possession, or are occasionally interwoven with the
+  topics of the lectures;&quot; and proceeds &quot;to the historically
+  critical writers, who consist of all the ancients yet remaining,
+  Pausanias excepted.&quot; Fortunately, there remain a sufficient
+  number of the monuments of ancient art &quot;to furnish us with their
+  standard of style;&quot; for the accounts are so contradictory, that
+  we should have little to rely upon. The works of the ancient artists
+  are all lost: we must be content with the &quot;hasty compilations of
+  a warrior,&quot; Pliny, or the &quot;incidental remarks of an
+  orator,&quot; (rhetorician,) Quintilian. The former chiefly valuable
+  when he quotes&#8212;for then, as Reynolds observed, &quot;he speaks
+  the language of an artist:&quot; as in his account of the glazing
+  method of Apelles; the manner in which Protogenes embodied his
+  colours; and the term of art <i>circumlitio</i>, by which Nicias gave
+  &quot;the line of correctness to the models of Praxiteles;&quot; the
+  foreshortening the bull by Pausias, and throwing his shade on the
+  crowd&#8212;showing a forcible chiaroscuro. &quot;Of Quintilian,
+  whose information is all relative to style, the tenth chapter of the
+  XII.th book, a passage on expression in the XI.th, and scattered
+  fragments of observations analogous to the process of his own art, is
+  all that we possess; but what he says, though comparatively small in
+  bulk, with what we have of Pliny, leaves us to wish for more. His
+  review of the revolutions of style in painting, from Polygnotus to
+  Apelles, and in sculpture, from Phidias to Lysippus, is succinct and
+  rapid; but though so rapid and succinct, every word is poised by
+  characteristic precision, and can only be the result of long and
+  judicious enquiry, and perhaps even minute examination.&quot; Still
+  less have we scattered in the writings of Cicero, who, &quot;though
+  he seems to have had little native taste for painting and sculpture,
+  and even less than he had taste for poetry, had a conception of
+  nature; and with his usual acumen, comparing the principles of one
+  art with those of another, frequently scattered useful hints, or made
+  pertinent observations. For many of these he might probably be
+  indebted to Hortensius, with whom, though his rival in eloquence, he
+  lived on terms of familiarity, and who was a man of declared taste,
+  and one of the first collectors of the time.&quot; He speaks somewhat
+  too slightingly of Pausanias,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id=
+  "FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
+  as &quot;the indiscriminate chronicler of legitimate tradition and
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_693" id="Page_693">[Pg
+  693]</a></span> legendary trash,&quot; considering that he praises
+  &quot;the scrupulous diligence with which he examined what fell under
+  his own eye.&quot; He recommends to the epic or dramatic artist the
+  study of the heroics of the elder, and the Eicones or Picture
+  Galleries of the elder and younger Philostratus.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;The innumerable hints, maxims, anecdotes, descriptions,
+  scattered over Lucian, &#338;lian, Athenæus, Achilles Tatius, Tatian
+  Pollux, and many more, may be consulted to advantage by the man of
+  taste and letters, and probably may be neglected without much loss by
+  the student.&quot; &quot;Of modern writers on art Vasari leads the
+  van; theorist, artist, critic, and biographer, in one. The history of
+  modern art owes, no doubt, much to Vasari; he leads us from its
+  cradle to its maturity with the anxious diligence of a nurse; but he
+  likewise has her derelictions: for more loquacious than ample, and
+  less discriminating styles than eager to accumulate descriptions, he
+  is at an early period exhausted by the superlatives lavished on
+  inferior claims, and forced into frigid rhapsodies and astrologic
+  nonsense to do justice to the greater. He swears by the divinity of
+  M. Agnolo. He tells us that he copied every figure of the Capella
+  Sistina and the stanze of Raffaelle, yet his memory was either so
+  treacherous, or his rapidity in writing so inconsiderate, that his
+  account of both is a mere heap of errors and unpardonable confusion,
+  and one might almost fancy he had never entered the Vatican.&quot; He
+  is less pleased with the &quot;rubbish of his contemporaries, or
+  followers, from Condior to Ridolfi, and on to Malvasia.&quot; All is
+  little worth &quot;till the appearance of Lanzi, who, in his
+  &#39;Storia Pittorica della Italia,&#39; has availed himself of all
+  the information existing in his time, has corrected most of those who
+  wrote before him, and, though perhaps not possessed of great
+  discriminative powers, has accumulated more instructive anecdotes,
+  rescued more deserving names from oblivion, and opened a wider
+  prospect of art, than all his predecessors.&quot; But for the
+  valuable notes of Reynolds, the idle pursuit of Du Fresnoy to clothe
+  the precepts of art in Latin verse, would be useless. &quot;The notes
+  of Reynolds, treasures of practical observation, place him among
+  those whom we may read with profit.&quot; De Piles and Felibien are
+  spoken of next, as the teachers of &quot;what may be learned from
+  precept, founded on prescriptive authority more than on the verdicts
+  of nature.&quot; Of the effects of the system pursued by the French
+  Academy from such precepts, our author is, perhaps, not undeservedly
+  severe.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;About the middle of the last century the German critics,
+  established at Rome, began to claim the exclusive privilege of
+  teaching the art, and to form a complete system of antique style. The
+  verdicts of Mengs and Winkelmann, become the oracles of antiquaries,
+  dilettanti, and artists, from the Pyrenees to the utmost north of
+  Europe, have been detailed, and are not without their influence here.
+  Winkelmann was the parasite of the fragments that fell from the
+  conversation or the tablets of Mengs&#8212;a deep scholar, and better
+  fitted to comment on a classic than to give lessons on art and style,
+  he reasoned himself into frigid reveries and Platonic dreams on
+  beauty. As far as the taste or the instruction of his tutor directed,
+  he is right when they are; and between his own learning and the
+  tuition of the other, his history of art delivers a specious system,
+  and a prodigious number of useful observations.&quot; &quot;To him
+  Germany owes the shackles of her artists, and the narrow limits of
+  their aim.&quot; Had Fuseli lived to have witnessed the
+  &quot;revival&quot; at Munich, he would have appreciated the efforts
+  made, and still making, there. He speaks of the works of Mengs with
+  respect. &quot;The works of Mengs himself are, no doubt, full of the
+  most useful information, deep observation, and often consummate
+  criticism. He has traced and distinguished the principles of the
+  moderns from those of the ancients; and in his comparative view of
+  the design, colour, composition, and expression of Raffaelle,
+  Correggio, and Tiziano, with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_694"
+  id="Page_694">[Pg 694]</a></span> luminous perspicuity and deep
+  precision, pointed out the prerogative or inferiority of each. As an
+  artist, he is an instance of what perseverance, study, experience,
+  and encouragement can achieve to supply the place of genius.&quot; He
+  then, passing by all English critics preceding Reynolds, with the
+  petty remark, that &quot;the last is undoubtedly the first,&quot;
+  says&#8212;&quot;To compare Reynolds with his predecessors, would
+  equally disgrace our judgment, and impeach our gratitude. His volumes
+  can never be consulted without profit, and should never be quitted by
+  the student&#39;s hand but to embody, by exercise, the precepts he
+  gives and the means he points out.&quot; It is useful thus to see
+  together the authorities which a student should consult, and we have
+  purposely characterized them as concisely as we could, in our
+  extracts, which strongly show the peculiar style of Mr Fuseli. If
+  this introduction was, however, intended for artists, it implies in
+  them a more advanced education in Greek and Latin literature than
+  they generally possess. Mr Fuseli was himself an accomplished
+  scholar. How desirable is it that the arts and general scholarship
+  should go together! The classics, fully to be enjoyed, require no
+  small cultivation in art; and as the greater portion of ancient art
+  is drawn from that source, Greek mythology, and classical history and
+  literature, such an education would seem to be the very first step in
+  the acquirements of an artist. We believe that in general they
+  content themselves with Lempriere&#39;s Dictionary; and that rather
+  for information on subjects they may see already painted, than for
+  their own use; and thus, for lack of a feeling which only education
+  can give, a large field of resources is cut off from them. If it be
+  said that English literature&#8212;English classics, will supply the
+  place, we deny it; for there is not an English classic of value to an
+  artist, who was not, to his very heart&#39;s core, embued with a
+  knowledge and love of the ancient literature. We might instance but
+  two, Spenser and Milton&#8212;the statute-books of the better English
+  art&#8212;authors whom, we do not hesitate to say, no one can
+  thoroughly understand or enjoy, who has not far advanced in classical
+  education. We shall never cease to throw out remarks of this kind,
+  with the hope that our universities will yet find room to foster the
+  art within them; satisfied as we are that the advantages would be
+  immense, both to the art and to the universities. How many would then
+  pursue pleasures and studies most congenial with their usual
+  academical education, and, thus occupied, be rescued from pursuits
+  that too often lead to profligacy and ruin; and sacrifice to
+  pleasures that cannot last, those which, where once fostered, have
+  ever been permanent!</p>
+  <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+  <p><a name="FIRST_LECTURE" id="FIRST_LECTURE"></a>The <span class=
+  'smcap'>First Lecture</span> is a summary of ancient art&#8212;one
+  rather of research than interest&#8212;more calculated to excite the
+  curiosity of the student than to offer him any profitable
+  instruction. The general matter is well known to most, who have at
+  all studied the subject. Nor have we sufficient confidence in any
+  theory as to the rise and growth of art in Greece, to lay much stress
+  upon those laid down in this lecture. We doubt if the religion of
+  Greece ever had that hold upon the feelings of the people, artists,
+  or their patrons, which is implied in the supposition, that it was an
+  efficient cause. A people that could listen to the broad farce of
+  Aristophanes, and witness every sort of contempt thrown upon the
+  deities they professed to worship, were not likely to seek in
+  religion the advancement of art; and their licentious
+  liberty&#8212;if liberty it deserved to be called&#8212;was of too
+  watchful a jealousy over greatness of every kind, to suffer genius to
+  be free and without suspicion. We will not follow the lecturer
+  through his conjectures on the mechanic processes. It is more curious
+  than useful to trace back the more perfect art through its
+  stages&#8212;the &quot;Polychrom,&quot; the &quot;Monochrom,&quot;
+  the &quot;Monogram,&quot; and &quot;Skiagram&quot;&#8212;nor from the
+  pencil to the &quot;cestrum.&quot; Polygnotus is said to be the first
+  who introduced the &quot;essential style;&quot; which consisted in
+  ascertaining the abstract, the general form, as it is technically
+  termed the central form. Art under Polygnotus was, however, in a
+  state of formal &quot;parallelism;&quot; certainly it could boast no
+  variety of composition. Apollodorus &quot;applied the essential
+  principles of Polygnotus to the delineation of the species, by
+  investigating the leading forms that discriminate the various classes
+  of human qualities and passions.&quot; He saw that all men were
+  connected together by one general form, yet were separated by some
+  predominant power into classes; &quot;thence he drew his line of
+  imitation, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_695" id=
+  "Page_695">[Pg 695]</a></span> personified the central form of the
+  class to which his object belonged, and to which the rest of its
+  qualities administered, without being absorbed.&quot; Zeuxis, from
+  the essential of Polygnotus and specific discrimination of
+  Apollodorus, comparing one with the other, formed his ideal style.
+  Thus are there the three styles&#8212;the essential, the
+  characteristic, the ideal.</p>
+
+  <p>Art was advanced and established under Parrhasius and Timanthes,
+  and refined under Eupompus, Apelles, Aristides, and Euphranor.
+  &quot;The correctness of Parrhasius succeeded to the genius of
+  Zeuxis. He circumscribed the ample style, and by subtle examination
+  of outline, established that standard of divine and heroic form which
+  raised him to the authority of a legislator, from whose decisions
+  there was no appeal. He gave to the divine and heroic character in
+  painting, what Polycletus had given to the human in sculpture by his
+  Doryphorus, a canon of proportion. Phidias had discovered in the nod
+  of the Homeric Jupiter the characteristic of majesty, <i>inclination
+  of the head</i>. This hinted to him a higher elevation of the neck
+  behind, a bolder protrusion of the front, and the increased
+  perpendicular of the profile. To this conception Parrhasius fixed a
+  maximum; that point from which descends the ultimate line of
+  celestial beauty, the angle within which moves what is inferior,
+  beyond which what is portentous. From the head conclude to the
+  proportions of the neck, the limbs, the extremities; from the Father
+  to the race of gods; all, the sons of one, Zeus; derived from one
+  source of tradition, Homer; formed by one artist, Phidias; on him
+  measured and decided by Parrhasius. In the simplicity of this
+  principle, adhered to by the succeeding periods, lies the
+  uninterrupted progress and the unattainable superiority of Grecian
+  art.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>In speaking of Timanthes as the competitor with Parrhasius, as one
+  who brought into the art more play of the mind and passions, the
+  lecturer takes occasion to discuss the often discussed and disputed
+  propriety of Timanthes, in covering the head of Agamemnon in his
+  picture of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. He thinks it the more
+  incumbent on him so to do, as the &quot;late president&quot; had
+  passed a censure upon Timanthes. Sir Joshua expressed his
+  <i>doubt</i> only, not his censure absolutely, upon the delivery of
+  the prize at the Academy for the best picture painted from this
+  subject. He certainly dissents from bestowing the praise, upon the
+  supposition of the intention being the avoiding a difficulty. And as
+  to this point, the well-known authorities of Cicero, Quintilian,
+  Valerius Maximus, and Pliny, seem to agree. And <i>if</i>, as the
+  lecturer observes in a note, the painter is made to waste expression
+  on inferior actors at the expense of a principal one, he is an
+  improvident spendthrift, not a wise economist. The pertness of
+  Falconet is unworthy grave criticism and the subject, though it is
+  quoted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He assumes that Agamemnon is the
+  principal figure. Undoubtedly Mr Fuseli is right&#8212;Iphigenia is
+  the principal figure; and it may be fairly admitted, that the
+  overpowering expression of the grief of the father would have divided
+  the subject. It might be more properly a separate picture. Art is
+  limited; nothing should detract from the principal figure, the
+  principal action&#8212;passion. Our sympathy is not called for on
+  behalf of the father here: the grief of the others in the picture is
+  the grief in perfect sympathy with Iphigenia; the father would have
+  been absorbed in his own grief, and his grief would have been an
+  unsympathetic grief towards Iphigenia. It was his own case that he
+  felt; and it does appear to us an aggravation of the suffering of
+  Iphigenia, that, at the moment of her sacrifice, she saw indeed her
+  father&#39;s person, but was never more&#8212;and knew she was never
+  more&#8212;to behold his face again. This circumstance alone would
+  justify Timanthes, but other concurrent reasons may be given. It was
+  no want of power to express the father&#39;s grief, for it is in the
+  province of art to express every such delineation; but there
+  <i>is</i> a point of grief that is ill expressed by the countenance
+  at all; and there is a natural action in such cases for the sufferer
+  himself to hide his face, as if conscious that it was not in
+  agreement with his feelings. Such grief is astounding: we look for
+  the expression of it, and find it not: it is better than receive this
+  shock to hide the face. We do it naturally; so that here the art of
+  the painter, that required that his picture should be a whole, and
+  centre in Iphigenia, was mainly assisted by the proper adoption of
+  this natural action of Agamemnon. Mr Fuseli, whose criticism
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_696" id="Page_696">[Pg
+  696]</a></span> is always acute, and generally just and true, has
+  well discussed the subject, and properly commented upon the flippancy
+  of Falconet. After showing the many ways in which the painter might
+  have expressed the parent&#39;s grief, and that none of them would be
+  <i>decere, pro dignitate, digne</i>, he adds&#8212;&#39;But Timanthes
+  had too true a sense of nature to expose a father&#39;s feelings, or
+  to tear a passion to rags; nor had the Greeks yet learned of Rome to
+  steel the face. If he made Agamemnon bear his calamity as a man, he
+  made him also feel it as a man. It became the leader of Greece to
+  sanction the ceremony with his presence: it did not become the father
+  to see his daughter beneath the dagger&#39;s point: the same nature
+  that threw a real mantle over the face of Timoleon, when he assisted
+  at the punishment of his brother, taught Timanthes to throw an
+  imaginary one over the face of Agamemnon; neither height nor depth,
+  <i>propriety</i> of expression was his aim.&#39; It is a question
+  whether Timanthes took the idea from the text of Euripides, or
+  whether it is his invention, and was borrowed by the dramatist. The
+  picture must have presented a contrast to that of his rival
+  Parrhasius, which exhibited the fury of Ajax.</p>
+
+  <p>Whether the invention was or was not the merit of Euripides,
+  certainly this is not the only instance wherein he has turned it to
+  dramatic advantage. No dramatist was so distinct a painter as
+  Euripides; his mind was ever upon picture. He makes Hecuba, in the
+  dialogue with Agamemnon, say, &quot;Pity me, and, standing apart as
+  would a painter, look at me, and see what evils I have,&quot;</p>
+
+  <div class="blockquot">
+    &#927;&#953;&#967;&#964;&#949;&#953;&#961;&#959;&#957;
+    &#951;&#956;&#945;&#962;, &#969;&#962;
+    &#947;&#961;&#945;&#966;&#949;&#965;&#962; &#964;
+    &#945;&#960;&#959;&#959;&#964;&#945;&#952;&#949;&#953;&#962;,<br />
+    &#921;&#948;&#945; &#956;&#949;
+    &#967;&#945;&#957;&#945;&#952;&#961;&#951;&#963;&#959;&#957;,
+    &#959;&#953; &#949;&#967;&#969; &#967;&#945;&#967;&#945;.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>And this Hecuba, when Talthybius comes to require her presence for
+  the burial of Polyxena, is found lying on the ground, <i>her face
+  covered</i> with her robe:&#8212;</p>
+
+  <div class="blockquot">
+    &#913;&#965;&#964;&#951; &#960;&#949;&#955;&#945;&#962;
+    &#963;&#945;, &#957;&#969;&#964; &#949;&#967;&#945;&#963;
+    &#949;&#960;&#953; &#967;&#952;&#959;&#957;&#953;,<br />
+    &#932;&#945;&#955;&#952;&#965;&#946;&#953;&#949;,
+    &#954;&#949;&#953;&#964;&#945;&#953;
+    &#963;&#957;&#947;&#954;&#967;&#955;&#949;&#953;&#963;&#956;&#949;&#957;&#951;
+    &#960;&#949;&#960;&#955;&#959;&#953;&#962;.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>And in the same play, Polyxena bids Ulysses to cover her head with
+  a robe, as he leads her away, that she might not see her mother&#39;s
+  grief.</p>
+
+  <div class="blockquot">
+    &#922;&#959;&#956;&#953;&#950;,
+    &#927;&#948;&#957;&#963;&#963;&#949;&#965;,
+	&#956;&#39;&#945;&#956;&#966;&#953;&#952;&#949;&#953;&#962;
+    &#960;&#949;&#960;&#955;&#959;&#953;&#962;
+    &#967;&#945;&#961;&#945;.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>But in the instance in question, in the Iphigenia, there is one
+  circumstance that seems to have been overlooked by the critics, which
+  makes the action of Agamemnon the more expressive, and gives it a
+  peculiar force: the dramatist takes care to exhibit the more than
+  common parental and filial love; when asked by Clytemnestra what
+  would be her last, her dying request, it is instantly, on her
+  father&#39;s account, to avert every feeling of wrath against
+  him:&#8212;</p>
+
+  <div class="blockquot">
+    &#928;&#945;&#964;&#949;&#961;&#945; &#947;&#949;
+    &#964;&#959;&#957; &#949;&#956;&#959;&#957; &#956;&#951;
+    &#963;&#964;&#965;&#947;&#949;&#953;,
+    &#960;&#959;&#963;&#953;&#957; &#964;&#949; &#963;&#959;&#957;.
+  </div>
+
+  <p>And even when the father covers his face, she is close beside him,
+  <i>tells him that she is beside him</i>, and her last words are to
+  comfort him. Now, whether Timanthes took the scene from Euripides or
+  Euripides from Timanthes, it could not be more powerfully, more
+  naturally conceived; for this dramatic incident, the tender movement
+  to his side, and speech of Iphigenia, could not have been imagined,
+  or at least with little effect, had not the father first covered his
+  face. Mr Fuseli has collected several instances of attempts something
+  similar in pictures, particularly by Massaccio, and Raffaelle from
+  him; and he well remarks&#8212;&quot;We must conclude that Nature
+  herself dictated to him this method, as superior to all he could
+  express by features; and that he recognized the same dictate in
+  Massaccio, who can no more be supposed to have been acquainted with
+  the precedent of Timanthes than Shakspeare with that of Euripides,
+  when he made Macduff draw his hat over his face.&quot; From Timanthes
+  Mr Fuseli proceeds to eulogize Aristides; whom history records as, in
+  a peculiar excellence, the painter of the passions of nature.
+  &quot;Such, history informs us, was the suppliant whose voice you
+  seemed to hear, such his sick man&#39;s half-extinguished eye and
+  labouring breast, such Byblis expiring in the pangs of love, and,
+  above all, the half-slain mother shuddering lest the eager babe
+  should suck the blood from her palsied
+  nipple.&quot;&#8212;&quot;Timanthes had marked the limits that
+  discriminate terror from the excess of horror; Aristides drew the
+  line that separates it from disgust.&quot; Then follows a very just
+  criticism upon instances in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_697"
+  id="Page_697">[Pg 697]</a></span> which he considered that Raffaelle
+  himself and Nicolo Poussin had overstepped the bounds of propriety,
+  and averted the feelings from their object, by ideas of disgust. In
+  the group of Raffaelle, a man is removing the child from the breast
+  of the mother with one hand, while the other is applied to his
+  nostrils. Poussin, in his plague of the Philistines, has copied the
+  loathsome action&#8212;so, likewise, in another picture, said to be
+  the plague of Athens, but without much reason so named, in the
+  collection of J. P. Mills, Esq. Dr Waagen, in his admiration for the
+  executive part of art, speaks of it as &quot;a very rich masterpiece
+  of Poussin, in which we are reconciled by his skill to the horrors of
+  the subject.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>In the commencement of the lecture, there are offered some
+  definitions of the terms of art, &quot;nature, grace, taste, copy,
+  imitation, genius, talent.&quot; In that of nature, he seems entirely
+  to agree with Reynolds; that of beauty leaves us pretty much in the
+  dark in our search for it, &quot;as that harmonious whole of the
+  human frame, that unison of parts to one end, which enchants us. The
+  result of the standard set by the great masters of our art, the
+  ancients, and confirmed by the submissive verdict of modern
+  imitation.&quot; This is unphilosophical, unsatisfactory; nor is that
+  of grace less so&#8212;&quot;that artless balance of motion and
+  repose, sprung from character, founded on propriety, which neither
+  falls short of the demands, nor overleaps the modesty of nature.
+  Applied to execution it means that dexterous power which hides the
+  means by which it was attained, the difficulties it has
+  conquered.&quot; We humbly suggest, that both parts of this
+  definition may be found where there is little grace. It is evident
+  that the lecturer did not subscribe to any theory of lines, as <i>per
+  se</i> beautiful or graceful, and altogether disregarded
+  Hogarth&#39;s line of beauty. Had Mr Hay&#39;s very admirable short
+  works&#8212;his &quot;Theory of Form and
+  Proportion&quot;&#8212;appeared in Mr Fuseli&#39;s day, he would have
+  taken a new view of beauty and grace. By taste, he means not only a
+  knowledge of what is right in art, but a power to estimate degrees of
+  excellence, &quot;and by comparison proceeds from justness to
+  refinement.&quot; This, too, we think inadequate to express what we
+  mean by taste, which appears to us to have something of a sense,
+  independent of knowledge. Using words in a technical sense, we may
+  define them to mean what we please, but certainly the words
+  themselves, &quot;copy&quot; and &quot;imitation,&quot; do not mean
+  very different things. He thinks &quot;precision of eye, and
+  obedience of hand, are the requisites for copy, without the least
+  pretence to choice, what to select, what to reject; whilst choice,
+  directed by judgment or taste, constitutes the essence of imitation,
+  and alone can raise the most dexterous copyist to the noble rank of
+  an artist.&quot; We do not exactly see how this judgment arises out
+  of his definition of &quot;taste.&quot; But it may be fair to follow
+  him still closer on this point. &quot;The imitation of the ancients
+  was, <i>essential</i>, <i>characteristic</i>, <i>ideal</i>. The first
+  cleared nature of accident, defect, excrescence, (which was in fact
+  his definition of nature, as so cleared;) the second found the
+  <i>stamen</i> which connects character with the central form; the
+  third raised the whole and the parts to the highest degree of
+  unison.&quot; This is rather loose writing, and not very close
+  reasoning. After all, it may be safer to take words in their common
+  acceptation; for it is very difficult in a treatise of any length, to
+  preserve in the mind or memory the precise ideas of given
+  definitions. &quot;Of genius, I shall speak with reserve; for no word
+  has been more indiscriminately confounded. By genius, I mean that
+  power which enlarges the circle of human knowledge, which discovers
+  new materials of nature, or combines the known with novelty; whilst
+  talent arranges, cultivates, polishes the discoveries of
+  genius.&quot; Definitions, divisions, and subdivisions, though
+  intended to make clear, too often entangle the ground unnecessarily,
+  and keep the mind upon the stretch to remember, when it should only
+  feel. We think this a fault with Mr Fuseli; it often renders him
+  obscure, and involves his style of aphorisms in the mystery of a
+  riddle.</p>
+  <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+  <p><a name="SECOND_LECTURE" id="SECOND_LECTURE"></a><span class=
+  'smcap'>Second Lecture</span>.&#8212;This lecture comprises a
+  compendious history of modern art; commencing with Massaccio. If
+  religion gave the impulse to both ancient and modern, so has it
+  stamped each with the different characters itself assumed. The
+  conceptions the ancients had of divinity, were the perfection of the
+  human form; thus form and beauty became godlike. The Christian
+  religion wore a more spiritual character. In ancient <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_698" id="Page_698">[Pg 698]</a></span> art,
+  human form and beauty were triumphant; in modern art, the greater
+  triumph was in humility, in suffering; the religious inspiration was
+  to be shown in its influence in actions less calculated to display
+  the powers, the energies of form, than those of mind. Mere external
+  beauty had its accompanying vices; and it was compelled to lower its
+  pretensions considerably, submit to correction, and take a more
+  subordinate part. Thus, if art lost in form it gained in expression,
+  and thus was really more divine. Art in its revival, passing through
+  the barbarity of Gothic adventurers, not unencumbered with senseless
+  superstitions, yet with wondrous rapidity, raised itself to the
+  noblest conceptions of both purity and magnificence. Sculpture had,
+  indeed, preceded painting in the works of Ghiberti Donato and
+  Philippo Brunelleschi, when Massaccio appeared. &quot;He first
+  perceived that parts are to constitute a whole; that composition
+  ought to have a centre; expression, truth; and execution, unity. His
+  line deserves attention, though his subjects led him not to
+  investigation of form, and the shortness of his life forbade his
+  extending those elements, which Raffaelle, nearly a century
+  afterwards, carried to perfection.&quot; That great master of
+  expression did not disdain to borrow from him&#8212;as is seen in the
+  figure of &quot;St Paul preaching at Athens,&quot; and that of
+  &quot;Adam expelled from Paradise.&quot; Andrea Mantegna attempted to
+  improve upon Massaccio, by adding form from study of the antique. Mr
+  Fuseli considers his &quot;taste too crude, his fancy too grotesque,
+  and his comprehension too weak, to advert from the parts that
+  remained to the whole that inspired them; hence, in his figures of
+  dignity or beauty, we see not only the meagre forms of common models,
+  but even their defects tacked to ideal torsos.&quot; We think,
+  however, he is deserving of more praise than the lecturer was
+  disposed to bestow upon him, and that his &quot;triumphs,&quot; the
+  processions, (at Hampton Court,) are not quite justly called &quot;a
+  copious inventory of classic lumber, swept together with more
+  industry than taste, but full of valuable materials.&quot; Yet when
+  it is said, that he was &quot;not ignorant of expression,&quot; and
+  that &quot;his Burial of Christ furnished Raffaelle with composition,
+  and even &quot;some figures and attitudes,&quot; the severity of the
+  opinion seems somewhat mitigated. Luca Signorelli, more indebted to
+  nature than the study of the antique, &quot;seems to have been the
+  first who contemplated with a discriminating eye his object; saw what
+  was accidental, and what essential; balanced light and shade, and
+  decided the motion of his figures. He foreshortened with equal
+  boldness and intelligence.&quot; It was thought by Vasari, that in
+  his &quot;Judgment,&quot; Michael Angelo had imitated him. At this
+  period of the &quot;dawn of modern art, Leonardo da Vinci broke forth
+  with a splendour which distanced former excellence; made up of all
+  the elements that constitute the essence of genius; favoured by
+  education and circumstances&#8212;all ear, all eye, all grasp;
+  painter, poet, sculptor, anatomist, architect, engineer, chemist,
+  machinist, musician, man of science, and sometimes empiric, he laid
+  hold of every beauty in the enchanted circle, but without exclusive
+  attachment to one, dismissed in her turn each.&quot; &quot;We owe him
+  chiaroscuro, with all its magic&#8212;we owe him caricature, with all
+  its incongruities.&quot; His genius was shown in the design of the
+  cartoon intended for the council-chamber at Florence, which he
+  capriciously abandoned, wherein the group of horsemen might fairly
+  rival the greatness of Michael Angelo himself; and in the well-known
+  &quot;Last Supper,&quot; in the refectory of the Dominicans at Milan,
+  best known, however, from the copies which remain of it, and the
+  studies which remain. Fra Bartolomeo, &quot;the last master of this
+  period, first gave gradation to colour, form and masses to drapery,
+  and a grave dignity, till then unknown, to execution.&quot; His was
+  the merit of having weaned Raffaelle &quot;from the meanness of
+  Pietro Perugino, and prepared for the mighty style of Michael Angelo
+  Buonarotti.&quot; Mr Fuseli is inspired by his admiration of that
+  wonderful man, as painter, sculptor, and architect.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Sublimity of conception, grandeur of form, and breadth of
+  manner, are the elements of Michael Angelo&#39;s style. By these
+  principles, he selected or rejected the objects of imitation. As
+  painter, as sculptor, as architect, he attempted&#8212;and above any
+  other man, succeeded&#8212;to unite magnificence of plan, and endless
+  variety of subordinate parts, with the utmost simplicity and breadth.
+  His line is uniformly grand. Character and beauty were <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_699" id="Page_699">[Pg 699]</a></span>
+  admitted only as far as they could be made subservient to grandeur.
+  The child, the female, meanness, deformity, were by him
+  indiscriminately stamped with grandeur. A beggar rose from his hand
+  the patriarch of poverty; the hump of his dwarf is impressed with
+  dignity; his women are moulds of generation, his infants teem with
+  man; his men are a race of giants. This is the &#39;terribile
+  via&#39; hinted at by Agostino Caracci; though, perhaps, as little
+  understood by the Bolognese as by the blindest of his Tuscan adorers,
+  with Vasari at their head. To give the appearance of perfect ease to
+  the most perplexing difficulty, was the exclusive power of Michael
+  Angelo. He is the inventor of epic in painting, in that sublime
+  circle of the Sistine chapel which exhibits the origin, the progress,
+  and the final dispensations of theocracy. He has personated motion in
+  the groups of the cartoon of Pisa; embodied sentiment on the
+  monuments of St Lorenzo; unraveled the features of meditation in the
+  prophets and sibyls of the Sistine chapel; and in the &#39;Last
+  Judgment,&#39; with every attitude that varies the human body, traced
+  the master trait of every passion that sways the human heart. Though,
+  as sculptor, he expressed the character of flesh more perfectly than
+  all who went before or came after him, yet he never submitted to copy
+  an individual&#8212;Julio the Second only excepted; and in him he
+  represented the reigning passion rather than the man. In painting, he
+  contented himself with a negative colour, and as the painter of
+  mankind, rejected all meretricious ornament. The fabric of St
+  Peter&#39;s scattered into infinity of jarring parts by Bramante and
+  his successors, he concentrated; suspended the cupola, and to the
+  most complex, gave the air of the most simple of edifices. Such, take
+  him for all in all, was Michael Angelo, the salt of art; sometimes,
+  no doubt, he had his moments of dereliction, deviated into manner, or
+  perplexed the grandeur of his forms with futile and ostentatious
+  anatomy; both met with armies of copyists, and it has been his fate
+  to have been censured for their folly.&quot; This studied panegyric
+  is nevertheless vigorous&#8212;emulous as that of Longinus, of
+  showing the author to be&#8212;</p>
+
+  <div class="blockquot">
+    &quot;Himself, the great sublime he draws.&quot;
+  </div>
+
+  <p>It hurries away the mind of the reader till it kindles a congenial
+  enthusiasm, we have the more readily given the quotation, as it is
+  not an unfair specimen of Mr Fuseli&#39;s power, both of thought and
+  language. Our author is scarcely less eloquent in his eulogy of
+  Raffaelle which follows. He has seized on the points of character of
+  that great painter very happily. &quot;His composition always hastens
+  to the most necessary point as its centre, and from that
+  disseminates, to that leads back, as rays, all secondary ones. Group,
+  form, and contrast are subordinate to the event, and common-place
+  ever excluded. His expression, in strict unison with, and inspired by
+  character; whether calm, agitated, convulsed, or absorbed by the
+  inspiring passion, unmixed and pure, never contradicts its cause,
+  equally remote from tameness and grimace: the moment of his choice
+  never suffers the action to stagnate or expire; it is the moment of
+  transition, the crisis, big with the past, and pregnant with the
+  future.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>It is certainly true&#8212;the moment generally chosen by
+  Raffaelle, is not of the action completed, the end&#8212;but that in
+  which it is doing. You instantly acknowledge the power, while your
+  curiosity is not quenched. For instance, in the cartoon of the
+  &quot;Beautiful Gate,&quot; you see the action at the word is just
+  breaking into the miracle&#8212;the cripple is yet in his distorted
+  infirmity&#8212;but you see near him grace and activity of limb
+  beautifully displayed, in that mother and running child; and you look
+  to the perfection which, you feel sure, the miracle will complete.
+  This is by no means the best instance&#8212;it is the case in all his
+  compositions where a story is to be told. It is this action which,
+  united with most perfect character and expression, makes the life of
+  Raffaelle&#39;s pictures. We think, however, that even in so summary
+  a history of art as this, the object of which seems to be to mark the
+  steps to its perfection, the influence of Pietro Perugino should not
+  have been omitted. He is often very pure in sentiment, often more
+  than bordering on grace, and in colour perhaps superior to Raffaelle.
+  Notwithstanding Mr Fuseli&#39;s eulogy of Raffaelle, we doubt if he
+  fully entered into his highest sentiment. This we may show when we
+  comment on another lecture. While Rome and Tuscany were thus
+  fostering the higher principles of art, the fascination <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_700" id="Page_700">[Pg 700]</a></span> of
+  colour was spreading a new charm to every eye at Venice, from the
+  pencils of Giorgione, and of Titian. Had not Titian been a colourist,
+  his genius was not unequal to the great style; perhaps he has
+  admitted of that style as much as would suit the predominant
+  character of his colouring. He worked less with chiaroscuro than
+  colour, which he endowed with all the sentiment of his subject. Mr
+  Fuseli considers landscape to have originated with Titian.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Landscape, whether it be considered as the transcript of a
+  spot, or the rich combination of congenial objects, or as the scene
+  of a phenomenon, dates its origin from him:&quot; so of portrait, he
+  says&#8212;&quot;He is the father of portrait painting, of
+  resemblance with form, character with dignity, and costume with
+  subordination.&quot; The yet wanting charm of art&#8212;perfect
+  harmony, was reserved for Correggio. &quot;The harmony and grace of
+  Correggio are proverbial; the medium which, by breadth of gradation,
+  unites two opposite principles, the coalition of light and darkness,
+  by imperceptible transition, are the element of his style.&quot;
+  &quot;This unison of a whole predominates in all that remains of him,
+  from the vastness of his cupolas to the smallest of his oil pictures.
+  The harmony of Correggio, though assisted by exquisite hues, was
+  entirely independent of colour; his great organ was chiaroscuro in
+  its most extensive sense&#8212;compared with the expanse in which he
+  floats, the effects of Leonardi da Vinci are little more than the
+  dying ray of evening, and the concentrated flash of Giorgione
+  discordant abruptness. The bland, central light of a globe,
+  imperceptibly gliding through lucid demi-tints into rich reflected
+  shades, composes the spell of Correggio, and affects us with the soft
+  emotions of a delicious dream.&quot; Here terminates the great, the
+  primal era. Such were the patriarchs of modern art. Here, it may be
+  said, terminated the great discoverers. Mr Fuseli pauses here to
+  observe, that we should consider the characteristic of each of these
+  painters, not their occasional deviations; for not unfrequently did
+  Titian rise to the loftiness of conception of Michael Angelo, and
+  Correggio occasionally &quot;exceeded all competition in expression
+  in the divine features of his <i>Ecce Homo</i>.&quot; If Mr Fuseli
+  alludes to the <i>Ecce Homo</i> now in our National Gallery, we
+  cannot go along with him in this praise&#8212;but in that picture,
+  the expression of the true &quot;Mater dolorosa&quot; was never
+  equaled. Art now proceeds to its period of &quot;Refinement.&quot;
+  The great schools&#8212;the Tuscan, the Roman, the Venetian, and the
+  Lombard&#8212;from whatever cause, separated. Michael Angelo lived to
+  see his great style polluted by Tuscan and Venetian, &quot;as the
+  ostentatious vehicle of puny conceits and emblematic quibbles, or the
+  palliative of empty pomp and degraded luxuriance of colour.&quot; He
+  considers Andrea del Sarto to have been his copyer, not his imitator.
+  Tibaldi seems to have caught somewhat of his mind. As did Sir Joshua,
+  so does Mr Fuseli mention his Polypheme groping at the mouth of his
+  cave for Ulysses. He expresses his surprise that Michael Angelo was
+  unacquainted with the great talent of Tibaldi, but lavished his
+  assistance on inferior men, Sebastian del Piombo and Daniel of
+  Volterra. We think he does not do fair justice to the merits of these
+  undoubtedly great men. We shall have occasion hereafter to notice his
+  criticism on the great work of Sebastian, in our National Gallery. We
+  are surprised that he should consider Sebastian del Piombo deficient
+  in ideal colour, and that the lines of Daniel of Volterra are meagre
+  and sterile of idea&#8212;his celebrated Descent from the Cross being
+  in its lines, as tending to perfect the composition, and to make full
+  his great idea, quite extraordinary. Poor Vasari, who can never find
+  favour with our author, is considered the great depravator of the
+  style of Michael Angelo.</p>
+
+  <p>At the too early death of Raffaelle, his style fell into gradual
+  decay. Still Julio Romano, and Polidoro da Carravaggio,
+  &quot;deserted indeed the standard of their master, but with a
+  dignity and magnitude of compass which command respect.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The taste of Julio Romano was not pure enough to detach him from
+  &quot;deformity and grimace&quot; and &quot;ungenial colour.&quot;
+  Primaticcio and Nicolo dell Abate propagated the style of Julio
+  Romano on the Gallic side of the Alps, in mythologic and allegoric
+  works. These frescoes from the Odyssea at Fontainbleau are lost, but
+  are worthy admiration, though in the feeble etchings of Theodore van
+  Fulden. The &quot;ideal light and shade, and tremendous breadth of
+  manner&quot; of Michael <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_701" id=
+  "Page_701">[Pg 701]</a></span> Angelo Amerigi, surnamed Il Caravaggi,
+  are next commended. &quot;The aim and style of the Roman school
+  deserve little further notice here, till the appearance of Nicolo
+  Poussin.&quot; His partiality for the antique mainly affected his
+  style. &quot;He has left specimens to show that he was sometimes
+  sublime, and often in the highest degree pathetic.&quot; Mr Fuseli
+  takes occasion, by contrasting &quot;the classic regularity&quot; of
+  Poussin with the &quot;wildness of Salvator Rosa&quot;&#8212;we think
+  unnecessarily, because there seems to be no true point of comparison,
+  and unjustly to censure that great, we may say, that original
+  painter. We have noticed occasionally a capricious dislike in our
+  author to some artists, for which we are at a loss to account. That
+  Salvator should &quot;hide by boldness of hand his inability of
+  exhibiting her (Nature) impassioned,&quot; is a sentence that will
+  scarcely meet with an assenting critic. The wealth and luxury of
+  Venice soon demanded of art, to sacrifice the modesty of nature to
+  ostentation. The principle of Titian was, however, followed by
+  Tintoretto, Bassan, Paul Veronese, and then passed to Velasquez the
+  Spaniard, in Italy. From him &quot;Rubens and Vandyck attempted to
+  transplant it to Flanders, France, and England, with unequal
+  success.&quot; The style of Correggio scarcely survived him, for he
+  had more imitators of parts than followers of the whole. His grace
+  became elegance under the hand of Parmegiano. &quot;That disengaged
+  play of delicate forms, the &#39;saltezza&#39; of the Italians, is
+  the prerogative of Parmegiano, though nearly always obtained at the
+  expense of proportion.&quot; We cannot agree with the lecturer, that
+  the Moses of Parmegiano&#8212;if he speaks of <i>the</i> Moses
+  referred to in the Discourses of Sir Joshua, of which Mr Burnet, in
+  his second edition, has given a plate&#8212;loses &quot;the dignity
+  of the lawgiver in the savage.&quot; Such was the state of art to the
+  foundation of the Eclectic School by the Caracci&#8212;an attempt to
+  unite the excellences of all schools. The principles are perpetuated
+  in a sonnet by Agostino Caracci. The Caracci were, however, in their
+  practice above their precepts. Theirs, too, was the school of the
+  &quot;Naturalists.&quot; Ludovico is particularly praised for his
+  solemnity of hue, most suited to his religious
+  subjects&#8212;&quot;that sober twilight, the air of cloistered
+  meditation, which you have so often heard recommended as the proper
+  tone of historic colour.&quot; If the recommendation has at our
+  Academy been often heard, it has entirely lost its influence; our
+  English school is&#8212;with an ignorance of the real object of
+  colour, or with a very bad taste as to its harmony&#8212;running into
+  an opposite extravagance, destructive of real power, glaring and
+  distracting where it ought to concentrate through vision the ideas of
+  the mind. Annibal Caracci had more power of execution, but not the
+  taste of Agostino. In their immediate scholars, the lecturer seems
+  little disposed to see fairly their several excellences. They are out
+  of the view of his bias. They are not Michael Angelesque. His
+  judgment of Domenichino&#8212;a painter who greatly restored the
+  simplicity and severity of the elder schools, and greatly surpassed
+  his masters&#8212;is an instance of blindness to a power in art which
+  we would almost call new, that is very strange to see.
+  &quot;Domenichino, more obedient than the rest to his masters, aimed
+  at the beauty of the antique, the expression of Raphael, the vigour
+  of Annibal, the colour of Ludovico; and mixing something of each,
+  fell short of all.&quot; Nor do we think him just with regard to
+  Guercino, or even at all describing his characteristic style, when he
+  speaks of his &quot;fierceness of chiaroscuro, and intrepidity of
+  hand.&quot; We readily give up to him &quot;the great but abused
+  talents of Pietro da Cortona,&quot; a painter without sentiment, and
+  the &quot;fascinating but debauched and empty facility of Luca
+  Giordano.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The German schools here come under consideration, which,
+  simultaneously with those of Italy, and without visible
+  communication, spread the principles of art. &quot;Towards the
+  decline of the fifteenth century, the uncouth essays of Martin Schön,
+  Michael Wolgemuth, and Albrecht Altorfer, were succeeded by the finer
+  polish and the more dexterous method of Albert Durer.&quot; His
+  well-known figure of &quot;Melancholy&quot; would alone entitle him
+  to rank. The breadth and power of his wood engravings are worthy of
+  admiration. Mr Fuseli thinks &quot;his colour went beyond his age,
+  and as far excelled, in truth and breadth of handling, the oil-colour
+  of Raphael, as Raphael excels him in every other quality.
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_702" id="Page_702">[Pg
+  702]</a></span> His influence was not unfelt in Italy. It is visible
+  in the style of even the imitators of Michael Angelo&#8212;Andrea del
+  Sarto, particularly in the angular manner of his draperies. Though
+  Albert Durer had no scholars, he was imitated by the Dutch Lucas of
+  Leyden. Now it was that the style of Michael Angelo, spread by the
+  graver of Giorgio Mantuano, brought to Italy &quot;those caravans of
+  German, Dutch, and Flemish students, who, on their return from Italy,
+  at the courts of Prague and Munich, in Flanders and the Netherlands,
+  introduced the preposterous manner, the bloated excrescence of
+  diseased brains, which, in the form of man, left nothing human;
+  distorted action and gesture with insanity of affectation, and
+  dressed the gewgaws of children in colossal shapes.&quot; But though
+  such as Golzius, Spranger, Heyntz, and Abach, &quot;fed on the husks
+  of Tuscan design, they imbibed the colour of Venice, and spread the
+  elements of that excellence which distinguished the succeeding
+  schools of Flanders and of Holland.&quot; So it was till the
+  appearance of Rubens and Rembrandt&#8212;&quot;both of whom,
+  disdaining to acknowledge the usual laws of admission to the temple
+  of Fame, boldly forged their own keys, entered, and took possession,
+  each of a most conspicuous place, by his own power.&quot; Rubens,
+  with many advantages, acquired in his education at Antwerp, and
+  already influenced by the gorgeous pomp of Austrian and Spanish
+  superstition, arrived in Italy rather as the rival than pupil of the
+  masters whom he travelled to study. Whatever he borrowed from the
+  Venetian school&#8212;the object of his admiration&#8212;he converted
+  into a new manner of florid magnificence. It is just the excellence
+  of Rubens&#8212;the completeness, the congruity of his
+  style&#8212;that has raised him to the eminence in the temple of fame
+  which he will ever occupy. A little short of Rubens is intolerable:
+  the clumsy forms and improprieties of his imitators are not to be
+  endured. Mr Fuseli excepts Vandyck and Abraham Drepenbeck from the
+  censure passed upon the followers of Rubens. As Drepenbeck is not so
+  well known, we quote the passage respecting him:&#8212;&quot;The
+  fancy of Drepenbeck, though not so exuberant, if I be not mistaken,
+  excelled in sublimity the imagination of Rubens. His Bellerophon,
+  Dioscuri, Hippolytus, Ixion, Sisyphus, fear no competitor among the
+  productions of his master.&quot; Rembrandt he considers a genius of
+  the first class in all but form. Chiaroscuro and colour were the
+  elements, in fact, in which Rembrandt reveled. In these he was the
+  poet&#8212;the maker. He made colour and chiaroscuro throw out ideas
+  of sublimity: that he might throw himself the more into these great
+  elements of his art, and depend solely on their power, he seems
+  purposely not to have neglected form, but to have selected such as,
+  without beauty to attract, should be merely the objects of life, the
+  sensitive beings in his world of mystery. That such was his intention
+  we cannot doubt; because we cannot imagine the beautiful but too
+  attractive figures of the Apollo or the Venus adopted into one of his
+  pictures. Excepting in a few instances, we would not wish
+  Rembrandt&#39;s forms other than they are. They appear necessary to
+  his style. Mr Fuseli speaks very favourably of art in Switzerland;
+  but says there are only two painters of name&#8212;Holbein, and
+  Francis Mola. The designs of the Passion and Dance of Death of the
+  former, are instanced as works of excellence. Mola, we are surprised
+  to find ranked as Swiss; for he is altogether, in art, Italian. The
+  influence of the school and precepts of the Caracci, produced in
+  France an abundant harvest of mediocrity. In France was the merit of
+  Michael Angelo first questioned. There are, however, names that
+  rescue France from the entire disgrace of the abandonment of the true
+  principles of art: Nicolo Poussin, Le Sueur, Le Brun, Sebastian
+  Bourdon, and Pierre Mignard. The Seven Works of Charity, by Seb.
+  Bourdon, teem with surprising, pathetic, and always novel images; and
+  in the Plague of David, by Pierre Mignard, our sympathy is roused by
+  energies of terror and combinations of woe, which escaped Poussin and
+  Raphael himself.&quot; Of Spanish art he says but little, but that
+  &quot;the degree of perfection attained by Diego Velasquez, Joseph
+  Ribera, and Murillo, in pursuing the same object by means as
+  different as successful, impresses us with deep respect for the
+  variety of their powers.&quot; Art, as every thing else, has its
+  fashion. The Spanish school have, of later years, been more eagerly
+  sought for; and a strange <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_703"
+  id="Page_703">[Pg 703]</a></span> whim of the day has attached a very
+  extraordinary value to the works of Murillo&#8212;a painter in colour
+  generally monotonous, and in form and expression almost always
+  vulgar.</p>
+
+  <p>Art in England is the next subject of the lecture. He takes a view
+  of it from the age of Henry VIII. to our own. No great encouragement
+  was here given to art till the time of Charles I.: Holbein, indeed,
+  and Zucchero, under Elizabeth, were patronized, but &quot;were
+  condemned to Gothic work and portrait painting.&quot; The troubles
+  and death of Charles I. were a sad obstacle to art. &quot;His son, in
+  possession of the Cartoons of Raphael, and with the magnificence of
+  Whitehall before his eyes, suffered Verio to contaminate the walls of
+  his palaces, or degraded Lely to paint the Cymons and Iphigenias of
+  his court; whilst the manner of Kneller swept completely what might
+  yet be left of taste under his successors. Such was the equally
+  contemptible and deplorable state of English art, till the genius of
+  Reynolds first rescued from the mannered depravation of foreigners
+  his own branch; and, soon extending his view to the higher
+  departments of art, joined that select body of artists who addressed
+  the ever open ear, ever attentive mind, of our royal founder with the
+  first idea of this establishment.&quot; After this little parade of
+  our artists as a body, but four are mentioned by
+  name&#8212;&quot;Reynolds, Hogarth, Gainsborough, and
+  Wilson.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>We are surprised that, in this summary history of art, no notice
+  has been taken of Van Eyck, and the influence of his discovery on
+  art. Nor are we less surprised that so important a branch as
+  landscape painting should have been omitted; Claude and Gaspar
+  Poussin not mentioned; yet, in the English school, Wilson is spoken
+  of, whose sole merit rested upon his landscape. He should more
+  distinctly have stated his purpose to treat only of high and
+  historical art.</p>
+  <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+  <p><a name="THIRD_LECTURE" id="THIRD_LECTURE"></a><span class=
+  'smcap'>Third Lecture</span>.&#8212;In the commencement, there is an
+  unnecessary, and rather affectedly written disquisition of the old
+  question, or rather comparison between poetry and painting, from
+  which nothing is to be learned; nor does it suggest any thing. Nor do
+  we now-a-days want to read pages to tell us what invention is, and
+  how it differs from creation&#8212;nor is it at all important in
+  matters of art, that we should draw any such distinction at all. It
+  is far better to go at once &quot;in medias res,&quot; and take it
+  for granted that the reader both knows and feels, without
+  metaphysical discussion, what that invention is which is required to
+  make a great painter. Nor are we disposed to look upon otherwise than
+  impertinent, while we are waiting for didactic rules, the being told
+  that &quot;he who discovers a gold mine, is surely superior to him
+  who afterwards adapts the metal for use;&quot; especially when it is
+  paraded with comparisons between &quot;Colombo&quot; and
+  &quot;Amerigo Vespucci,&quot; and a misplaced panegyric on Newton.
+  And much of this is encumbered with language that fatigues and makes
+  a plain matter obscure. There is a little affectation sometimes in Mr
+  Fuseli&#39;s writing of Ciceronic <i>ambages</i>, that is really
+  injurious to the good sense and just thoughts, which would without
+  this display, come free, open, and with power. Some pages, too, are
+  taken up with a preliminary argument&#8212;&quot;<i>whether it be
+  within the artist&#39;s province or not, to find or to combine a
+  subject from himself, without having recourse to tradition, or the
+  stores of history and poetry</i>.&quot; We have a display of learning
+  to little purpose, quotations from Latin and Greek, really
+  &quot;nihil ad rem;&quot; the
+  &quot;&#966;&#945;&#957;&#964;&#945;&#963;&#953;&#945;&#962;&quot; of
+  the Greek, and &quot;visiones&quot; of the Romans. Who that ever saw
+  even one work of Hogarth, the &quot;Marriage à la Mode,&quot; would
+  for a moment think the question worth a thought. &quot;The misnamed
+  gladiator of Agasias,&quot; seems forced into this treatise, for the
+  sole purpose of showing Mr Fuseli&#39;s reading, and after all, he
+  leaves the figure as uncertain as he finds it. He <i>once</i> thought
+  it might have been an Alcibiades rushing from the flames, when his
+  house was fired; but is more satisfied that &quot;it might form an
+  admirable Ulysses bestriding the deck of his ship to defend his
+  companions from the descending fangs of Scylla, or rather, with
+  indignation and anguish, seeing them already snatched up, and
+  writhing in the mysterious gripe.&quot; In such fanciful humours, it
+  might be made to mean any thing or any body. And we are, after all,
+  quite at a loss to know whether the <i>conjecture</i> is offered as a
+  specimen of &quot;<i>invention</i>.&quot; He considers the cartoon of
+  Pisa &quot;the most <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_704" id=
+  "Page_704">[Pg 704]</a></span> striking instance, of the eminent
+  place due to this <i>intuitive faculty among the principal organs of
+  invention</i>&quot;&#8212;we mark these words in italics, not quite
+  certain of their meaning. The work is engraved for Foster, by
+  Schiavonetti; and a wonderful work it is&#8212;the work of Michael
+  Angelo begun in competition with Leonardo da Vinci. The original is
+  said to have been destroyed by Baccio Bandinelli; still there are the
+  ancient prints and drawings which show the design, and there is a
+  small copy at Holkham. Benvenuto Cellini&#8212;and could there be a
+  better authority?&#8212;denies that the powers afterwards exerted in
+  the Capella Sistina, arrive at half its excellence. Mr Fuseli&#39;s
+  description is so good, that we give it entire. &quot;It represents
+  an imaginary moment relative to the war carried on by the Florentines
+  against Pisa; and exhibits a numerous group of warriors, roused from
+  their bathing in the Arno, by the sudden signal of a trumpet, and
+  rushing to arms. This composition may, without exaggeration, be said
+  to personify with unexampled variety, that motion which Agasias and
+  Theon embodied in single figures. In imagining this transient moment
+  from state of relaxation to a state of energy, the ideas of motion,
+  to use the bold figure of Dante, seem to have showered into the
+  artist&#39;s mind. From the chief, nearly placed in the centre, who
+  precedes, and whose voice accompanies the trumpet, every age of human
+  agility, every attitude, every feature of alarm, haste, hurry,
+  exertion, eagerness, burst into so many rays, like sparks flying from
+  the hammer. Many have reached, some boldly step, some have leaped on
+  the rocky shore; here two arms emerging from the water, grapple with
+  the rock, there two hands cry for help, and their companions bend
+  over or rush on to assist them: often imitated, but inimitable, is
+  the ardent feature of the grim veteran, whose every sinew labours to
+  force over the dripping limbs his clothes, whilst gnashing, he pushes
+  the foot through the rending garment. He is contrasted by the slender
+  elegance of a half-averted youth, who, though eagerly buckling the
+  armour to his thigh, methodizes haste; another swings the high-raised
+  hauberk on his shoulder; whilst one, who seems a leader, mindless of
+  his dress, ready for combat, and with brandished spear, overturns a
+  third, who crouched to grasp a weapon; one, naked himself, buckles on
+  the mail of his companion, and he, turned toward the enemy, seems to
+  stamp impatiently the ground. Experience and rage; old vigour, young
+  velocity; expanded or contracted, vie in exertions of energy. Yet in
+  this scene of tumult, one motive animates the whole&#8212;eagerness
+  to engage, with subordination to command. This preserves the dignity
+  of the action, and from a strangling rabble, changes the figures to
+  men, whose legitimate contest interests our wishes.&quot; Another
+  example is given&#8212;Raffaelle&#39;s &quot;Incendio del
+  Borgo&quot;&#8212;a good description follows: &quot;the enraged
+  elements of <i>wind</i> and fire,&quot; we do not see in the
+  original, not even in the drapery of the woman with her back to us in
+  the foreground. Speaking of this power of &quot;invention,&quot; he
+  says&#8212;after having, as we conceive, mistaken the aim of
+  Raffaelle in his Madonnas, and Holy families, which was somewhat
+  beyond even the &quot;charities of father, son, and
+  mother&quot;&#8212;&quot;Nor shall I follow it in its more
+  contaminated descent, to those representations of local manners and
+  national modifications of society, whose characteristic
+  discrimination and humorous exuberance, for instance, we admire in
+  Hogarth, but which, like the fleeting passions of the day, every hour
+  contributes something to obliterate, which soon become unintelligible
+  by time, or degenerate into caricature, the chronicle of scandal, the
+  history-book of the vulgar.&quot; It seems, strangely enough, to have
+  been the fashion among the, in comparison with Hogarth, puny
+  academicians of that day, to underrate that great painter, that moral
+  painter. We really should pity the infatuated prejudice of the man,
+  who could see in the deep tragedy, the moral tragedy, &quot;Marriage
+  à la Mode,&quot; any <i>humorous</i> exuberance; or not understand
+  that the passions set forth, and for a moral end, are not &quot;the
+  fleeting passions of the day,&quot; but as permanent as human
+  nature&#8212;who could see, in such series of pictures, any
+  &quot;caricature,&quot; or that their object is to &quot;chronicle
+  scandal.&quot; That it is the &quot;history of the vulgar,&quot; we
+  dispute not. For it is drama of the vulgar as of the unvulgar&#8212;a
+  deep tragedy of human nature; alas! time has not made
+  &quot;<i>unintelligible</i>&quot; these <i>not</i> &quot;fleeting
+  passions of the day.&quot; As <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_705" id="Page_705">[Pg 705]</a></span> long as man is man, will
+  Hogarth be true to nature; and nothing in art is more strange, than
+  that such opinions should emanate from an Academy, and be either
+  ventured upon or received <i>ex cathedra</i>.</p>
+
+  <p>Invention, according to Mr Fuseli, receives its subjects from
+  poetry or tradition&#8212;&quot;they are <i>epic</i> or sublime,
+  <i>dramatic</i> or impassioned, <i>historic</i> or circumscribed by
+  truth. The first <i>astonishes</i>, the second <i>moves</i>, the
+  third <i>informs</i>.&quot; We confess ourselves weary of this sort
+  of classification. They only tend to hamper the writer, painter, and
+  critic. It is possible for a work to admit all three, and yet
+  preserve its unity. And such we believe to be the case with Homer. He
+  is epic and dramatic in one, and certainly historic. It is more
+  ingenious than unquestionable, that Homer&#39;s purpose was to
+  &quot;impress one forcible idea of war&#8212;its origin, its
+  progress, and its end.&quot; Nor will the &quot;Iliad&quot; be read
+  with greater delight, by the reader&#39;s reception of such an idea.
+  The drawing forth the purpose of Michael Angelo&#39;s
+  design&#8212;his invention, in the series of frescoes in the Sistine
+  Chapel&#8212;is more happy. That theocracy is the subject&#8212;the
+  dispensations of Providence to man&#8212;the Creation&#8212;life and
+  adoration in Adam and Eve, their sin, their punishment, their
+  separation from God&#8212;justice and grace in the Deluge and
+  covenant with Noah&#8212;prophets, sibyls, herald the
+  Redeemer&#8212;and the patriarchs&#8212;the Son of Man&#8212;the
+  brazen serpent&#8212;and the Fall of Haman&#8212;the giant subdued by
+  the stripling in Goliah and David&#8212;and the conqueror destroyed
+  by female weakness in Judith, are types of his mysterious progress,
+  till Jonah pronounces him immortal. The Last Judgment, and the
+  Saviour the Judge of man, complete the whole&#8212;and the Founder
+  and the race are reunited. Such is the spirit of the general
+  invention. &quot;The specific invention of the pictures separate, as
+  each constitutes an independent whole, deserves our consideration
+  next: each has its centre, from which it disseminates, to which it
+  leads back all secondary points, arranged, hid, or displayed, as they
+  are more or less organs of the inspiring plan; each rigorously is
+  circumscribed by its generic character.&quot; The more particular
+  criticism on this great work of Michael Angelo, is very good, and we
+  earnestly refer the reader to it. He thinks the genius of Michael
+  Angelo more generic in its aim&#8212;that of Raffaelle more specific.
+  That as M. Angelo&#39;s aim was the &quot;destiny of man, simply
+  considered as the subject of religion, faithful or rebellious,&quot;
+  admitting only a &quot;general feature of the passions;&quot; so, in
+  the hands of Raffaelle, the subject would have teemed with a choice
+  of imagery to excite our sympathies; &quot;he would have combined all
+  possible emotions with the utmost variety of probable or real
+  character; all domestic, politic, religious relations&#8212;whatever
+  is not local in virtue and in vice; and the sublimity of the greatest
+  events would have been merely the minister of sympathies and
+  passions.&quot; The latter mode of representing the subject, that of
+  Raffaelle, he considers dramatic. The distinction is, however,
+  doubtful: we do not see why the mode of M. Angelo may not be held to
+  be equally dramatic. The criticism on the comparison between
+  Raffaelle&#39;s and Michael Angelo&#39;s Adam and Eve, if not quite
+  just, is striking. &quot;The elevation of Michael Angelo&#39;s soul,
+  inspired by the operation of creation itself, furnished him at once
+  with the feature that stamped on human nature its most glorious
+  prerogative; whilst the characteristic subtility, rather than
+  sensibility, of Raffaelle&#39;s mind, in this instance, offered
+  nothing but a frigid succedaneum&#8212;a symptom incident to all,
+  when, after the subsided astonishment on a great and sudden event,
+  the mind, recollecting itself, ponders on it with inquisitive
+  surmise. In Michael Angelo, all self-consideration is absorbed in the
+  sublimity of the sentiment which issues from the august presence that
+  attracts Eve; &#39;her earthly,&#39; in Milton&#39;s expression,
+  &#39;by his heavenly overpowered,&#39; pours itself in adoration;
+  whilst, in the inimitable cast of Adam&#39;s figure, we trace the
+  hint of that half-conscious moment, when sleep began to give way to
+  the vivacity of the dream inspired. In Raffaelle, creation is
+  complete&#8212;Eve is presented to Adam, now awake; but neither the
+  new-born charms, the submissive grace, and virgin purity, of the
+  beauteous image; nor the awful presence of her Introductor, draw him
+  from his mental trance, into effusions of love or gratitude; at ease
+  reclined, with fingers pointing at himself and his <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_706" id="Page_706">[Pg 706]</a></span> new
+  mate, he seems to methodize the surprising event that took place
+  during his sleep, and to whisper the words&#8212;&#39;flesh of my
+  flesh.&#39;&quot; Not subscribing to any criticism which concludes
+  insensibility of mind to Raffaelle, and which is rather inconsistent
+  with the judgment made by Mr Fuseli, that he was the painter of
+  expression, from the utmost conflict of passions, to the enchanting
+  round of gentler emotion, and the nearly silent hints of mind and
+  character&#8212;we look to the object of the painter in this his
+  series of works called his Bible. The first five pictures represent
+  only the act of creation&#8212;the Deity, the Creator&#8212;all
+  nature, is as yet passive&#8212;even adoration, the point chosen by
+  Michael Angelo, might be said scarcely to have begun&#8212;the plan
+  is developed, not put in action. As yet, the Deity is all in
+  all&#8212;Eve, his gift to Adam, is the last of this division of the
+  series. As in Genesis, there is the bare, short statement, grand from
+  its simplicity, and our knowledge of its after consequences; but in
+  the words unimpassioned&#8212;so Raffaelle, that he might make his
+  pictorial language agree with the written book, with utmost
+  forbearance, lest he should tell more, and beyond his authority, in
+  this portion of the series manifestly avoids expression, or the
+  introduction of any feeling that would make the creatures more than
+  the most passive recipients of the goodness of their Maker. Nor is
+  there authority to show, that as <i>yet</i> they were fully,
+  perfectly conscious of the nature of the gifts of life and
+  companionship; and we certainly do not agree with Mr Fuseli, that it
+  was a moment for Adam to show his sensibility to the personal charms
+  of Eve&#8212;the pure Adam&#8212;nor was he&#8212;the as yet
+  untransgressing Adam&#8212;to feel fear, in &quot;the awful presence
+  of the Introductor.&quot; Raffaelle&#39;s aim seems to have been, to
+  follow the text in its utmost simplicity, that the unlettered might
+  read&#8212;and this justifies in him the personality of the Creator,
+  and the apparently manual act of his creation, corresponding with the
+  words&#8212;&quot;God <i>made</i>.&quot; The &quot;allegoric
+  drama&quot; of the Church empire, that fills the stanzas of the
+  Vatican, is praised by Mr Fuseli, with a full understanding of the
+  purpose of the painter, and feeling for its separate parts. He does
+  not cavil, as some have done, at the anachronisms. &quot;When,&quot;
+  says an able, reflecting, and very amusing author,<a name=
+  "FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class=
+  "fnanchor">[2]</a> &quot;Aristotle, Plato, Leo X., and Cardinal
+  Bembo, are brought together in the school of Athens, every person
+  must admit, that such offences as these, against truths so obvious,
+  if they do not arise from a defect of understanding, are instances of
+  inexcusable carelessness.&quot; Here we think this writer has missed
+  the key of explanation. The very picture is the history of the
+  progress of mind, through science and philosophy, to the
+  acknowledgment of an immortal being. The very subject amalgamates, in
+  one moral idea, times, epochs, localities. It treats of that which
+  passes over time, and embodies only its results. Mr Fuseli notices
+  not these anachronisms, but says aptly of the
+  picture&#8212;&quot;What was the surmise of the eye and wish of
+  hearts, is gradually made the result of reason, in the characters of
+  the school of Athens, by the researches of philosophy, which, from
+  bodies to mind, from corporeal harmony to moral fitness, and from the
+  duties of society, ascends to the doctrine of God and hopes of
+  immortality.&quot; The very entertaining author whom we have quoted
+  above, we must here, somewhat out of place, observe, has, with Mr
+  Fuseli, mistaken the character of Hogarth&#39;s works. He
+  says&#8212;&quot;Hogarth has painted comedy!&quot; and what is very
+  strange, he seems to rank him as a comedian with &quot;Pope, Young
+  and Crabbe&quot;&#8212;the last, the most tragic in his pathos of any
+  writer. The invention in the Cartoons comes next under Mr
+  Fuseli&#39;s observation. &quot;In whatever light we consider their
+  invention, as parts of <i>one whole</i>, relative to each other, or
+  independent <i>each of the rest</i>, and as single subjects, there
+  can be scarcely named a beauty or a mystery, of which the Cartoons
+  furnish not an instance or a clue; <i>they are poised between
+  perspicuity and pregnancy of moment</i>.&quot; We believe we
+  understand the latter sentence; it is, however, somewhat affected,
+  and does not rightly balance the <i>perspicuity</i>. We must go back,
+  however, to a passage <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_707" id=
+  "Page_707">[Pg 707]</a></span> preceding the remarks on the Cartoons;
+  because we wish, above all things, to vindicate the purest of
+  painters from charges of licentiousness. He sees in Cupid and Psyche
+  a voluptuous history: this may or may not be so&#8212;we think it is
+  far from being such; but when he adds, &quot;the voluptuous history
+  of his (Raffaelle&#39;s) own <i>favourite passion</i>,&quot; he is
+  following a prejudice, an unfounded story&#8212;one which we think,
+  too, has in no slight degree influenced his general criticism and
+  estimation of Raffaelle. We would refer the reader to
+  &quot;Passavant&#39;s Life of Raffaelle,&quot; where he will see this
+  subject investigated, and the tale refuted. It is surprising, but
+  good men affect to speak of amorous passion as if it were a crime; by
+  itself it may disgust, but surely coldness is not the better nature.
+  Insensibilities of all kinds must be avoided, even where
+  &quot;Amor,&quot; as Mr Fuseli calls him, and Psyche are the
+  subjects. It is the happiest genius that shall signify without
+  offence the necessary existence of passion, and leave purity in its
+  singleness and innocence. How exquisitely is this done by Shakspeare
+  in his &quot;Romeo and Juliet!&quot; He keeps the lovers free from
+  every grosser particle of love, while he throws it all upon the
+  subordinate characters, particularly the nurse, whose part in the
+  drama, in no small degree, tends to naturalise to our sympathy the
+  youth, the personal beauty, and whole loveliness, of the unhappy
+  Romeo and Juliet.</p>
+
+  <p>The differences of manner in which the same subject, &quot;the
+  Murder of the Innocents,&quot; has been represented by several
+  painters, according to the genius of each, are well noticed.
+  &quot;History, strictly so called, follows the drama; fiction now
+  ceases, and invention consists only in selecting and fixing with
+  dignity, precision, and sentiment, the moments of
+  <i>reality</i>.&quot; He instances, by a given subject, that were the
+  artist to choose the &quot;Death of Germanicus,&quot; he is never to
+  forget that he is to represent &quot;a Roman dying amidst
+  Romans,&quot; and not to suffer individual grief to un-Romanize his
+  subject. &quot;Germanicus, Agrippina, Caius, Vitellius, the Legates,
+  the Centurions at Antioch, the hero, the husband, the father, the
+  friend, the leader&#8212;the struggles of nature and sparks of hope,
+  must be subjected to the physiognomic character and features of
+  Germanicus, the son of Drusus, the Cæsar of Tiberius. Maternal,
+  female, connubial passion, must be tinged by Agrippina, the woman
+  absorbed in the Roman, less lover than companion of her husband&#39;s
+  grandeur. Even the bursts of friendship, attachment, allegiance, and
+  revenge, must be stamped by the military ceremonial, and distinctive
+  costume of Rome.&quot; For an instance of this propriety of invention
+  in history, reference is made, we presume as much, to Mr West&#39;s
+  &quot;Death of Wolfe.&quot; Undoubtedly, this is Mr West&#39;s best
+  picture. The praise from Mr Fuseli was, in all probability, purely
+  academic; he frequently showed that he did not too highly estimate
+  the genius of the painter. Having given these outlines of general and
+  specific invention in the epic, dramatic, and historic branches of
+  art, he admits that there is not always a nice discrimination of
+  their limits: &quot;and as the mind and fancy of man, upon the whole,
+  consist of mixed qualities, we seldom meet with a human performance
+  exclusively made up of epic, dramatic, or pure historic
+  materials.&quot; This confession, as it appears to us, renders the
+  classification useless to a student, and shows a yet incomplete view
+  of arrangement, and specification of the power, subjects, and means
+  of art.</p>
+
+  <p>Indeed Mr Fuseli proceeds to instances wherein his epic assumes
+  the dramatic, the dramatic the epic, and the historic both. There
+  does seem something wanting in an arrangement which puts the
+  <i>Iliad</i> and <i>Odyssey</i>, two works essentially different, in
+  the same category. We do, therefore, venture the opinion, that such
+  distinctions are, more particularly in painting, not available. With
+  Sir Joshua, he considers borrowing justifiable, and that it does not
+  impair the originality of invention. The instances given of happy
+  adoption are the &quot;Torso of Apollonius,&quot; by Michael Angelo;
+  of the figure of &quot;Adam dismissed from Paradise,&quot; by
+  Raffaelle, borrowed from Massaccio, as likewise the figure of
+  &quot;Paul at Athens;&quot; and for figures of Michael Angelo&#39;s,
+  Raffaelle, Parmegiano, Poussin, are all indebted to the cartoon of
+  Pisa. The lecture concludes with some just remarks upon the
+  &quot;Transfiguration,&quot; and a censure upon the coldness of
+  Richardson, and the burlesque of the French critic Falconet, who
+  could not discover the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_708" id=
+  "Page_708">[Pg 708]</a></span> point of contact which united the two
+  parts of this celebrated picture. &quot;Raphael&#39;s design was to
+  represent Jesus as the Son of God, and, at the same time, the
+  reliever of human misery, by an unequivocal fact. The transfiguration
+  on Tabor, and the miraculous cure which followed the descent of
+  Jesus, united, furnished the fact. The difficulty was, how to combine
+  two successive actions in one moment. He overcame it, by sacrificing
+  the moment of cure to that of the apparition, by implying the lesser
+  miracle in the greater. In subordinating the cure to the vision, he
+  obtained sublimity; in placing the crowd and patient on the
+  foreground, he gained room for the full exertion of his dramatic
+  powers. It was not necessary that the demoniac should be represented
+  in the moment of recovery, if its certainty could be expressed by
+  other means. It is implied, it is placed beyond all doubt, by the
+  glorious apparition above; it is made nearly intuitive by the
+  uplifted hand and finger of the apostle in the centre, who, without
+  hesitation, undismayed by the obstinacy of the demon, unmoved by the
+  clamour of the crowd, and the pusillanimous scepticism of some of his
+  companions, refers the father of the maniac, in an authoritative
+  manner, for certain and speedy help to his Master on the mountain
+  above, whom, though unseen, his attitude at once connects with all
+  that passes below. Here is the point of contact; here is that union
+  of the two parts of the fact in one moment, which Richardson and
+  Falconet could not discover.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>It is with diffidence that we would suggest any thing upon a work
+  that has so nearly exhausted criticism; but we will venture an
+  observation, and if we are correct, the glory of the subject is
+  heightened by its adoption. It has ever appeared to us to have
+  purposed showing at one view, humanity in its highest, its divinely
+  perfected state, the manhood taken into Godhead; and humanity in its
+  lowest, its most forlorn, most degraded state, in the person of a
+  demoniac: and this contrast seems acknowledged&#8212;abhorrently
+  felt, by the reluctant spirit within the sufferer, whose attitude,
+  starting from the effulgence and the power which is yet to heal him,
+  being the strong action of the lower part of the picture, and one of
+  suffering, throws the eye and mind of the spectator at once and
+  permanently from earth to the heavenly vision, to ascending prophets,
+  and that bright and central majesty, &quot;whose countenance,&quot;
+  Mr. Fuseli observes, &quot;is the only one we know expressive of his
+  superhuman nature.&quot; This idea of transformation to a higher
+  nature is likewise kept up in the figures of the ascending prophets,
+  and the apostles below.</p>
+  <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+  <p>The Fourth Lecture is in continuation of the
+  subject&#8212;Invention; but we have left little space for further
+  remarks. In another number of Maga we shall resume our review of the
+  lectures.</p>
+
+  <div class="footnotes">
+    <h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Perhaps the
+      author of the lectures received this ill opinion of Pausanias
+      from Julius Cæsar Scaliger, who treats him as an impostor; but he
+      is amply vindicated by Vossius. He lived in the second century,
+      and died very old at Rome. In his account of the numerous
+      representations of the
+      &#935;&#945;&#961;&#953;&#964;&#949;&#962;, he seems to throw
+      some light upon a passage in Xenophon&#39;s Memorabilia, which,
+      as far as we know, has escaped the notice of the commentators. It
+      is in the dialogue between Socrates and the courtesan Theodote.
+      She wishes that he would come to her, to teach her the art of
+      charming men. He replies, that he has no leisure, being hindered
+      by many matters of private and public importance; and he adds,
+      &quot;I have certain mistresses which will not allow me to be
+      absent from them day nor night, on account of the spells and
+      charms, which learning, they receive from me&quot;&#8212;
+      &#949;&#953;&#963;&#953; &#948;&#949; &#954;&#945;&#953;
+      &#966;&#953;&#955;&#945;&#953; &#956;&#959;&#953;, &#945;&#953;
+      &#959;&#965;&#964;&#949; &#951;&#956;&#949;&#961;&#945;&#987;
+      &#959;&#965;&#964;&#949; &#957;&#965;&#954;&#964;&#959;&#962;
+      &#945;&#966; &#945;&#965;&#964;&#969;&#957;
+      &#949;&#945;&#963;&#959;&#965;&#963;&#953; &#956;&#949;
+      &#945;&#960;&#953;&#949;&#957;&#945;&#953;,
+      &#966;&#953;&#955;&#964;&#961;&#945; &#964;&#949;
+      &#956;&#945;&#957;&#952;&#945;&#957;&#959;&#965;&#963;&#945;&#953;
+      &#960;&#945;&#961; &#949;&#956;&#959;&#957; &#954;&#945;&#953;
+      &#949;&#960;&#969;&#948;&#945;&#962;. Who were these
+      &#966;&#953;&#955;&#945;&#953;? Had he meant the virtues or moral
+      qualities, he would have spoken plainer, as was his wont; but
+      here, where the subject is the personal beauty, the charms of
+      Theodote, it is more in the Socratic vein that he refers to other
+      <i>personal</i> charms, which engage his thoughts night and day,
+      and keep him at home. Now, it appears too, that Socrates was
+      taken to see her, on account of the fame of her beauty, and goes
+      to her when she is sitting, or rather standing, to a painter; and
+      it is evident from the dialogue, that she did not refuse the
+      exhibition of her personal charms. It seems, then, not
+      improbable, that Socrates was induced to go to her as the painter
+      went, for the advantage of his art as a sculptor, and that the
+      art was that one at home, the &#964;&#953;&#962;
+      &#966;&#953;&#955;&#969;&#964;&#949;&#961;&#945;
+      &#963;&#959;&#965; &#949;&#957;&#948;&#959;&#957;. Be that as it
+      may, it is extremely probable that the
+      &#966;&#953;&#955;&#945;&#953; were some personifications of
+      feminine beauty, upon which he was then at work. Are there, then,
+      any such recorded as from his hand? Pausanias says there were.
+      &quot;Thus Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, made for the
+      Athenians statues of the Graces, before the vestibule of the
+      citadel,&quot; And adds the curious fact, that after that time
+      the Graces were represented naked, and that these were clothed.
+      &#931;&#969;&#954;&#961;&#945;&#964;&#951;&#962; &#964;&#949;
+      &#959;
+      &#931;&#969;&#966;&#961;&#959;&#957;&#953;&#963;&#967;&#959;&#957;
+      &#960;&#961;&#959; &#964;&#951;&#962; &#949;&#962;
+      &#964;&#951;&#957;
+      &#945;&#954;&#961;&#959;&#960;&#959;&#955;&#953;&#957;
+      &#949;&#963;&#959;&#948;&#959;&#957;
+      &#935;&#945;&#961;&#953;&#964;&#969;&#957;
+      &#949;&#953;&#961;&#947;&#945;&#963;&#945;&#964;&#959;
+      &#945;&#947;&#945;&#955;&#956;&#945;&#964;&#945;
+      &#913;&#952;&#951;&#957;&#945;&#953;&#959;&#953;&#962;.
+      &#922;&#945;&#953; &#964;&#945;&#965;&#964;&#945;
+      &#956;&#949;&#957; &#949;&#963;&#964;&#953;&#957;
+      &#8001;&#956;&#959;&#953;&#969;&#962;
+      &#945;&#960;&#945;&#957;&#964;&#945; &#949;&#957;
+      &#949;&#963;&#952;&#949;&#964;&#953;. &#927;&#953; &#948;&#949;
+      &#965;&#963;&#964;&#949;&#961;&#959;&#957;, &#959;&#965;&#954;
+      &#959;&#953;&#948;&#945; &#949;&#966; &#959;&#964;&#969;,
+      &#956;&#949;&#964;&#945;&#946;&#949;&#946;&#955;&#951;&#954;&#945;&#963;&#953;
+      &#964;&#959; &#963;&#967;&#951;&#956;&#945;
+      &#945;&#965;&#964;&#945;&#953;&#962;.
+      &#935;&#945;&#961;&#953;&#964;&#945;&#962;
+      &#947;&#959;&#965;&#957;, &#959;&#953; &#954;&#945;&#964;
+      &#949;&#956;&#949;
+      &#949;&#960;&#955;&#945;&#963;&#963;&#959;&#957; &#964;&#949;
+      &#954;&#945;&#953; &#949;&#947;&#961;&#945;&#966;&#959;&#957;
+      &#947;&#965;&#956;&#957;&#945;&#962;. Did not Socrates allude to
+      these his statues of the Graces?&#8212;<i>Pausanias</i>, cap.
+      xxxv. lib. 9.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>The
+      Literary Conglomerate, or Combination of Various Thoughts and
+      Facts.</i> Oxford: 1839. Printed by Thomas Combe.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_709" id="Page_709">[Pg
+  709]</a></span>
+
+  <h2><a name="SOMETHING_ABOUT_MUSIC" id=
+  "SOMETHING_ABOUT_MUSIC"></a>SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC.</h2>
+
+  <p>Gentle Christians, pity us! We are just returned from a musical
+  entertainment, and, with aching head and stunned ears, sit down and
+  try to recover our equanimity, sorely disturbed by the infliction
+  which, we regret to say, we have survived. Had we known how to faint,
+  we had done so on the spot, that ours might have been the bliss of
+  being carried out over the heads and shoulders of the audience ere
+  the performance had well begun&#8212;a movement that would have
+  insured us the unfeigned thanks of all whom we had rescued from their
+  distressing situation under pretence of bearing us off, splashing us
+  with cold water, causing doors to bang impressively during our exit,
+  and the various other <i>petit soins</i> requisite to the conducting
+  a &quot;faint&quot; with dignity.</p>
+
+  <p>But it could not be accomplished. We made several awkward
+  attempts, so little like, that their only result was our being
+  threatened with a policeman it we made any more disturbance; so,
+  after a hasty glance round had assured us of the impracticability of
+  making our escape in any more everyday style, we sat down with a
+  stern resolution of endurance&#8212;lips firmly compressed, eyes
+  fixed in a stony gaze on the orchestra, whence issued by turns
+  groans, shrieks, and screams, from sundry foully-abused instruments
+  of music; accompanied by equally appalling sounds from flat, shrill
+  signorinas, quavering to distraction, backed by gigantic
+  &quot;basses,&quot; (double ones surely,) who, with voices like the
+  &quot;seven devils&quot; of the old Grecian, bellowed out divers
+  sentimentalisms about dying for love, when assuredly their most
+  proximate danger was of apoplexy.</p>
+
+  <p>Well, the affair came to an end, as, it is to be hoped, will every
+  other evil in this wicked world; in a spasm of thankfulness we
+  extricated ourselves from the crush, and reached our home, where,
+  under the genial influence of quiet and a cup of coffee, we can
+  afford to laugh at the past, (our own vehement indignation included,)
+  and ruminate calmly on the &quot;how&quot; and the &quot;why&quot; of
+  the nuisance, which appears to us as well worthy of being put down by
+  act of parliament, as the ringing of muffin bells and crying
+  &quot;sweep!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>It is a perfect puzzle to us by what process the standard of music
+  has become so lowered, as to make what is ordinarily served up under
+  that name be received as the legitimate descendant of the harmony
+  divine which erst broke on the ear of the listening world, when
+  &quot;the morning stars sang together;&quot; and, in the first
+  freshness of its creation&#8212;teeming with melody&#8212;angels
+  deigned to visit this terrestrial paradise, nor turned an exile&#39;s
+  gaze to that heaven whose strains were chanted in glad accordance
+  with the murmuring stream, and music of the waving
+  forest&#8212;which, in its greenness and beauty, seemed but &quot;a
+  little lower&quot; than its celestial archetype, for</p>
+
+  <div class="blockquot">
+    &quot;Earth hath <i>this</i> variety from heaven.&quot;
+  </div>
+
+  <p>(Blessings on the poet for that line! We have a most firm belief
+  in Milton, and receive his representations of heaven as we would
+  those of a Daguerreotype.)</p>
+
+  <p>But it is even so. There is but one step from the sublime to the
+  ridiculous, and this entrancing art, it seems, has taken it; sorely
+  dislocating its graceful limbs, and injuring its goodly proportions
+  in the unseemly escapade. There&#8212;we have played over a simple
+  air, one that thrills through our heart of hearts; and as the notes
+  die on our ears, soothing though the strain be, we feel our
+  indignation increase, and glow still more fiercely against
+  this&#8212;music, as it is by courtesy called, for Heaven knows it
+  has no legitimate claim to the name!&#8212;till it reaches the
+  crusading point, and we rush headlong to a war of extermination
+  against bars, rests, crotchets, quavers&#8212;undaunted even by
+  &quot;staves,&quot; and formidable inflated semibreves.</p>
+
+  <p>We hate your crashing, clumsy chords, and utterly spit at and defy
+  chromatic passages from one end of the instrument to the other, and
+  back again; flats, sharps, and most appropriate &quot;naturals,&quot;
+  splattered all over the page. The essential spirit of discord seems
+  let loose on our modern music, tainted, as it were, with the moral
+  infection that has seized the <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_710" id="Page_710">[Pg 710]</a></span> land; it is music for a
+  democracy, not the stately, solemn measure of imperial majesty. Music
+  to soothe! the idea is obsolete, buried with the ruffs and
+  farthingales of our great-grandmothers; or, to speak more soberly,
+  with the powdered wigs and hoops of their daughters. There is music
+  to excite, much to irritate one, and much more to drive a really
+  musical soul stark mad; but none to soothe, save that which is drawn
+  from the hiding-places of the past.</p>
+
+  <p>We should like to catch one of the old masters&#8212;Handel, for
+  instance&#8212;and place him within the range of one of our modern
+  executioners, to whose taste(!) <i>carte-blanche</i> had been given.
+  We think we see him under the infliction. Neither the hurling of wig,
+  nor yet of kettle-drum, at the head of the performer, would relieve
+  his outraged spirit: he would strangle the offender on the spot, and
+  hang himself afterwards; and the jury would, in the first case,
+  return a verdict of justifiable homicide, and, in the second, of
+  justifiable suicide, with a deodand of no ordinary magnitude on the
+  musical instrument that had led to the catastrophe.</p>
+
+  <p>There is no repose, no refreshment to the mind, in our popular
+  compositions; they are like Turner&#39;s skies&#8212;they harass and
+  fatigue, leaving you certainly wondering at their difficulty, but, as
+  certainly, wishing they had been &quot;impossible.&quot; There is to
+  us more of touching pathos, heart-thrilling expression, in some of
+  the old psalm-tunes, feelingly played, than in a whole batch of
+  modernisms. The strains go <i>home</i>, and the &quot;fountains of
+  the great deep are broken up&quot;&#8212;the great deep of
+  unfathomable feeling, that lies far, far below the surface of the
+  world-hardened heart; and as the unwonted, yet unchecked, tear starts
+  to the eye, the softened spirit yields to their influence, and shakes
+  off the moil of earthly care; rising, purified and spiritualized,
+  into a clearer atmosphere. Strange, inexplicable associations brood
+  over the mind,</p>
+
+  <div class="blockquot">
+    &quot;Like the far-off dreams of paradise,&quot;
+  </div>
+
+  <p>mingling their chaste melancholy with musings of a still subdued,
+  though more cheerful character. How many glad hearts in the olden
+  time have rejoiced in these songs of praise&#8212;how many sorrowful
+  ones sighed out their complaints in those plaintive notes, that steal
+  sadly, yet sweetly, on the ear&#8212;hearts that, now cold in death,
+  are laid to rest around that sacred fane, within whose walls they had
+  so often swelled with emotion! Tell us not of neatly trimmed
+  &quot;cemeteries,&quot; redolent of staring sunflowers, priggish
+  shrubs, and all the modern coxcombry of the tomb; with nicely swept
+  gravel walks, lest the mourner should get &quot;wet on&#39;s
+  feet,&quot; and vaults numbered like warehouses, where &quot;parties
+  may bring their own minister,&quot; and be buried with any form, or
+  no form, if they like it better. No, give us the village churchyard
+  with its sombre yew-trees, among which</p>
+
+  <div class="blockquot">
+    &quot;The dial, hid by weeds and flowers,<br />
+    Hath told, by none beheld, the solitary hours;&quot;
+  </div>
+
+  <p>its grassy hillocks, and mouldering grave-stones, where haply all
+  record is obliterated, and nought but a solitary &quot;resurgam&quot;
+  meets the enquiring eye; its white-robed priest reverently committing
+  &quot;earth to earth,&quot; in sure and certain hope &quot;of a
+  joyful resurrection&quot; to the slumbering clay, that was wont to
+  worship within the grey and time-stained walls, whence the mournful
+  train have now borne him to his last rest; while on the ivy-clad
+  tower fall the slanting golden beams of an autumnal sun, that, in its
+  declining glory, seems to whisper of hope and consolation to the
+  sorrowful ones, reminding them that the night of the tomb shall not
+  endure for ever, but that, so surely as the great orb of day shall
+  return on the wings of the morning to chase away the tears of the
+  lamenting earth, so surely shall the dust, strewed around that
+  temple, scattered though it may be to the winds of heaven, &quot;rise
+  again&quot; in the morning of the Resurrection, when death
+  &quot;shall be swallowed up in victory.&quot;</p>
+
+  <div class="blockquot">
+    &quot;&#39;Tis fit his trophies should be rife<br />
+    Around the place where he&#39;s subdued;<br />
+    The gate of death leads forth to life.&quot;
+  </div>
+
+  <p>But we are wandering sadly from our subject; it is perhaps quite
+  as well that we have done so, for we should have become dangerous had
+  we dwelt much longer on it. We were on the point of wishing
+  (Nero-like) that our popular professors of <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_711" id="Page_711">[Pg 711]</a></span> the
+  tuneful art had but one neck, that we might exterminate them at a
+  blow, or hang them with one gigantic fiddle-string; but now, thanks
+  to our episode, our exacerbated feelings are so far mollified, that
+  we will be content with wishing them sentenced to grind knives on
+  oil-less stones with creaking axles, till the sufferings of their own
+  shall have taught them consideration for the ears of other
+  people.</p>
+
+  <p>But music, real music&#8212;not in the harsh, exaggerated style
+  now in the ascendant, but simple, pure, melodious, such as might have
+  entranced the soul of a Handel, when, in some vision of night, sounds
+  swept from angelic harps have floated around him, the gifted one, in
+  whose liquid strains and stately harmonies fall on our ravished ears
+  the echoes of that immortal joy&#8212;such we confess to be one of
+  our idols, before whose shrine we pay a willing, gladsome homage;
+  though now, alas! it must be in dens and caves of the earth, since
+  <i>modern</i> heresy has banished it from the temple of Apollo.</p>
+
+  <p>See how Toryism peeps out even in the fine arts! <i>Even</i> did
+  we say? They are its legitimate province; &quot;The old is
+  better,&quot; is inscribed in glowing character on the portals of the
+  past. Old Painting! See the throbbing form start from the pregnant
+  canvass&#8212;the &quot;Mother of God&quot; folding her Divine Son to
+  her all but celestial arms&#8212;the Son of God fainting beneath a
+  load of woe, not his own. Old Poetry! Glorious old Homer, with his
+  magic song; and sturdy, oak-like in his strength, as in his verdure,
+  old Chaucer. Old Music! Hail, ye inspired sons of the lyre! A noble
+  host are ye, enshrined in the hearts of all loyal worshippers of the
+  tuneful god. And yet (we grieve to confess it) we, even we, spite of
+  all our enthusiasm, have been seen laughing at &quot;old music,&quot;
+  the aspiring psalmody of a country church singing-pew.</p>
+
+  <p>Oh, to see the row of performers, the consequential choir,
+  transcending in importance (in their own eyes) the clerk, the curate,
+  the rector, and even the squire from the great hall, majestic and
+  stern though he be, with his awful wig and gold-headed cane! There
+  are the fubsy boys&#8212;copied apparently from cherubim&#8212;who,
+  with glowing, distended cheeks, are simpering on the ceiling,
+  <i>doing</i> the tenor, with wide open mouths that would shame
+  e&#39;er a barn-door in the village; their red, stumpy fingers
+  sprawling over the music which they are (not) reading. The pale,
+  lantern-jawed youths, in yellow waistcoats and tall shirt-collars,
+  who look as if they were about to whistle a match, are holloing out
+  what is professionally, and in this instance with most distressing
+  truth, termed counter. &quot;Counter&quot; it is with a vengeance;
+  and not only so, but it is a neck-and-neck race between them and the
+  urchins aforesaid, which shall have done first. The shock-headed man,
+  with chin dropped into his neckerchief, and mouth twisted into every
+  <i>un</i>imaginable contortion, as though grinning through a
+  horse-collar, has the bass confided to his faithful keeping; and
+  emits a variety of growls and groans truly appalling, though
+  evidently to his own great comfort and satisfaction. The bassoon, the
+  clarinet, the flute&#8212;but how shall we describe them! Suffice it
+  to say, that they appeared to be suffering inexpressible torments at
+  the hands of their apoplectic-looking performers; who were all at the
+  last gasp, and all determined to die bravely at their posts. And then
+  the entranced audience, with half-shut eyes and quivering palms! Oh,
+  it was too much; we lost our character typo irretrievably that day;
+  half suppressed titters from the squire&#39;s pew were not to be
+  borne. In that unhappy moment we sinned away some quarter of a
+  century&#39;s unrivalled reputation for good manners and musical
+  taste. Old Fiddlestrings never forgave us, never did he vouchsafe us
+  another anthem, spite of our entreaties and protestations, and the
+  thousand and one apologies for our ill-timed merriment, which our
+  fruitful brain invented on the spot. To his dying day he preserved
+  the utmost contempt for our judgment, not only in this department of
+  the fine arts, but also on every other subject. Not to admire his
+  music, was condemnation in every thing&#8212;an unpardonable offence.
+  We, who had been his great friend, patron, (or rather he was ours,)
+  to whom he had so often condescended on the Saturday evening to hum,
+  whistle, and too-too over the tune&#8212;of his own
+  composing&#8212;that was to be the admiration of the whole parish on
+  the succeeding day&#8212;we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_712"
+  id="Page_712">[Pg 712]</a></span>were henceforth to be as the
+  uninitiated, and left to find out, and follow, as we best might, the
+  very eccentric windings of his Sunday&#39;s asthmatic performance;
+  which always went at the rate of three crotchets and a cough, to the
+  end of the psalm, which he took care should be an especial long
+  one.</p>
+
+  <p>Poor old man! we see him now, with his unruly troop of Sunday
+  scholars (in training for some important festival, to the due
+  celebration of which their labours were essential) singing, bawling
+  we should say, out of time and tune, to the utter discomfiture of his
+  irritable temper, (there is nothing like a false note for throwing
+  your musical man into a perfect tantrum,) and the bringing down on
+  their unlucky heads a smart tap with the bow of his violin, which led
+  the harmony. There they stood with their brown cheeks and white
+  heads, fine specimens of the agricultural interest; each one of them
+  looking as if he could bolt a poor, half-starved factory child at a
+  mouthful&#8212;but certainly no singers. It was beyond the power even
+  of the accomplished old clerk himself to make then such&#8212;an
+  oyster, with its mouth full of sand, would have sung quite as well;
+  but still he laboured on with might and main&#8212;with closed eyes,
+  and open mouth&#8212;delightedly beating time with his head, as long
+  as matters went on not intolerably; for David&#39;s musical soul
+  supplied the deficiency in the sounds that entered his unwearied
+  ears. And then he sang so loud himself, that he certainly could hear
+  no one else, his voice being as monopolizing as the drone of a
+  bagpipe&#8212;or as a violent advocate for free trade! Happy urchins
+  when this was the case! for they were sure to be dismissed with the
+  most flattering encomiums on their vocal powers, when, if truth must
+  be told, the good old man had not heard a note.</p>
+
+  <p>But he is gathered to his fathers, and now sleeps beneath the sod
+  in the quiet churchyard of&#8212;&#8212;. We well remember his
+  funeral. &#39;Twas a lovely day in spring when the long, lifeless
+  trees and fields were bursting into all the glory of May&#8212;for
+  May was spring then, and not, as now, cousin-german to winter; while
+  the gay sunbeams played lovingly, like youth caressing age, on the
+  low church-tower, gilding the ivy that waved in wild luxuriance
+  around it. Slowly moved on the lowly train that bore to the
+  &quot;house appointed for all living&quot; the mortal remains of one
+  whom they well loved, and whose removal from among
+  them&#8212;essential as he had always seemed to the very identity of
+  the village&#8212;was an event they had never contemplated and which
+  they now, in its unexpectedness, sorely lamented. The village choir
+  preceded it, singing those strains which poor David&#39;s voice had
+  so often led; and surely, for once, the spirit of the old man rested
+  on his refractory pupils; for rarely have I heard sweeter notes than
+  those that swelled on the balmy air, as the dusky procession wound
+  its way across the heath, waving with harebells, and along the narrow
+  lane, whose hedges were beginning to show the first faint rose, till
+  it reached the church porch, where the good rector himself was
+  waiting to pay the last token of respect to his humble friend; while
+  groups of villagers were loitering around to witness the simple
+  rites. Entering within the church, again was the voice of melody
+  heard, and again was as sweetly chanted that mournful psalm, which is
+  appointed, with such affecting appropriateness, for the burial of the
+  dead. &quot;I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not in
+  my tongue; I will keep my mouth, as it were, with a bridle, while the
+  ungodly is in my sight.&quot; Then came the dull, hollow sound of
+  &quot;earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes;&quot; and so,
+  amid many tears, (and we confess our eyes were not dry,) closed the
+  grave over one who, despite some innocent, though mirth-provoking
+  failings, was honoured by all who knew him for the stern, unbending
+  integrity of his character, and the strictness with which he
+  fulfilled all the duties of life. David was an <i>honest</i> man, one
+  whose &quot;word was as good as his bond,&quot; who &quot;promised to
+  his hurt, and changed not.&quot; Would that as much might be said of
+  many who move in a higher sphere, and make far larger professions of
+  sanctity than he did! But he shall be remembered, when their names
+  are blotted out for ever.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    <span style="margin-left: 8em;">&quot;Only the actions of the
+    just</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 6em;">Smell sweet in death, and blossom
+    in the dust.&quot;</span>
+  </div>
+
+  <p>The music which we hear in our <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_713" id="Page_713">[Pg 713]</a></span> social intercourse, is
+  too generally&#8212;we say it in grief, but in
+  truth&#8212;detestable. &quot;Like figures on a dial-plate,&quot; sit
+  the four-and-twenty Englishmen and Englishwomen, who have been drawn
+  together to receive their friend&#39;s hospitality; till the awful
+  silence convinces the host that some desperate effort must be made to
+  break the spell, and that the best thing is some music to set them
+  a-talking. Some <i>mimini-pimini</i> Miss is in consequence selected
+  as the victim, (or rather, the victimizer,) and requested to
+  &quot;pain&quot; the company. She fidgets, bridles, and duly
+  declines, at the same time vigorously pulling off one of her gloves
+  in evident preparation for the attack. After much pressing, she
+  reluctantly yields to what she had from the first made up her mind to
+  do; takes her seat at a grand pianoforte, behind a couple of candles
+  and an enormous music-book, and&#8212;crash go the keys in a
+  thundering prelude, (the pedal, and every other means of increasing
+  the noise being unscrupulously resorted to,) which, after superhuman
+  exertions, lands her in what, to our affrighted and stunned ears, is
+  evidently the key of Z flat! Who would have thought those delicate
+  hands could thus descend with the vigour of a pavior&#39;s hammer on
+  the unhappy ivories, that groan and shriek beneath the infliction, as
+  though fully sensible of the surpassing cruelty with which they are
+  treated.</p>
+
+  <p>But hark! she sings&#8212;&quot;Romè, Romè, thou art
+  <i>n&#39;more</i>,&quot; (<i>sic</i>)&#8212;a furious scramble on the
+  keys, with a concluding bang&#8212;&quot;On thy seven hills thou
+  satt&#39;st of yore,&quot;&#8212;another still more desperate and
+  discordant flourish, which continues alternating with her &quot;most
+  sweet voice,&quot; till she has piped through the whole of her song:
+  when the group around, apprehensive of a repetition of the torture to
+  which they have been subjected, overwhelm her with thanks and
+  expressions of admiration, under cover of which they hurry her to her
+  seat. Such is the stuff palmed off on us, varied as it is by glees,
+  screamed out by four voices all in different keys; solos, squeaked
+  out by stout gentlemen, and roared by pale lanky lads of eighteen;
+  duets by young ladies, who accidentally set out on discordant notes,
+  and don&#39;t find out the mistake till they come to the finale; with
+  occasionally a psalm crooned by worthy sexagenarians, guiltless alike
+  of ear and voice, but who, seeming to think it a duty to add their
+  mite to the inexpressible dissonance, perform the same to the unmixed
+  dismay of all their hearers.</p>
+
+  <p>We would far rather hear an unpretending street organ than such
+  abominations; and, indeed, some of the itinerant music is, to our
+  unsophisticated ears, sweet beyond expression, especially when
+  accompanied, as it is sometimes, by a rich Italian or reedy German
+  voice; for whose sake we can forgive the tuneless squalls that too
+  often greet our ears from ambulatory minstrels, be they of the
+  Madonna, or fishy, Dutch-swamp style of beauty. A sweet-toned street
+  organ, heard in the distance, when all around is still, is not a
+  thing to be despised, by those who have music enough in their souls
+  to respond to the slightest touches of Apollo&#39;s lyre. If the
+  heart be but attuned to harmony, it will vibrate to the simplest
+  notes, faint though they be, as by the wafting of the evening breeze
+  among the chords of a neglected harp, sadly hung upon the willows; it
+  will cherish the feeblest idea, and nurture it into perfect melody.
+  As love begets love, so does harmony beget its kind in the heart of
+  him who can strike the keynote of nature, and listen to the wild and
+  solemn sounds that swell from her mysterious treasure-house, and echo
+  among her &quot;eternal hills,&quot; while the celestial arch
+  concludes and re-affirms the wondrous cadence. But these are secrets
+  revealed to none but her loving worshipper; he who, with a
+  reverential homage, seeks the hidden recesses of her temple, to bend
+  in awe before her purest shrine. From him who lingers heedlessly in
+  her antechamber with faint loyalty, they are deeply veiled, and the
+  glowing revelations of her favoured ones seem but as the recital of a
+  dream to his cold heart: for &quot;to <i>love</i> is to
+  know.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>But surely of all instruments, the violin, first-rately played, is
+  the most&#8212;yes, we will say it&#8212;heavenly. Hark! to the
+  clear, vocal melody, now rapturously rising in one soul-exalting
+  strain, anon melting away in the saddest, tenderest lament, as though
+  the soft summer breeze sighed forth a requiem over the dying graces
+  of its favourite flower; then bursting <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_714" id="Page_714">[Pg 714]</a></span> forth in haughty,
+  triumphant notes, swept in gusts from the impassioned strings, as
+  though instinct with life, and glowing with disdain. Any one may see
+  that painters are no musicians, else had they furnished their angels
+  not with harps&#8212;beautiful and sparkling as the sea-foam, as are
+  their most graceful chords&#8212;but with this, of all instruments
+  the most musical, whose tones admit of more variety than any, (the
+  Proteus organ alone excepted,) and whose delicious long-drawn notes
+  must entrance every one not absolutely soulless. Oh, they are
+  excruciatingly delightful! And yet you shall hear this identical
+  violin, in the hands of an everyday performer, emit such squeals and
+  screams as shall set your teeth on edge for a twelvemonth, curdle
+  your whole frame, and make you vehemently anathematize all benevolent
+  institutions for the relief of deafness.</p>
+
+  <p>Verily your violin is an exclusive instrument, and approachable by
+  none but the eldest born of Apollo, who, in all the majesty of
+  hereditary prerogative, calmly sway the dominions of their sire;
+  while usurpers (as is the meed of all who grasp unrighteous rule) are
+  plunged in utter confusion and ruin.</p>
+
+  <p>Warming with our theme, and impatient to manifest our royal
+  descent, in a paroxysm of enthusiasm we clutch our Cremona, clasp him
+  lovingly to our shoulder, and high waving in air our magical bow,
+  which is to us a sceptre, bring it down with a crash, exulting in the
+  immortal harmony about to gush, like a mountain torrent, from the
+  teeming strings; when lo! to our unmitigated disgust, it glides
+  noiselessly along its hitherto resounding path, for&#8212;ye gods and
+  little fishes!&#8212;some murderous wretch, at the instigation of we
+  know not what evil sprite, has <i>greased</i> the horsehair, for
+  which we solemnly devote him to the &quot;bowstring,&quot; the first
+  time he is caught napping.</p>
+
+  <p>Well, it is over now, and we find ourselves once more on earth,
+  after knocking our head gainst the stars; and, &#8212;&#8212;
+  &#8212;&#8212; bless us! we have sat the fire out, having precisely
+  one inch of candle left to go to bed by.</p>
+
+  <p>Good night, dearest reader. Can you find your way in the dark?</p>
+
+  <p>M. J.</p>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <h2><a name="THE_PURPLE_CLOAK_OR_THE_RETURN_OF_SYLOSON_TO_SAMOS" id=
+  "THE_PURPLE_CLOAK_OR_THE_RETURN_OF_SYLOSON_TO_SAMOS"></a>THE PURPLE
+  CLOAK; OR, THE RETURN OF SYLOSON TO SAMOS.</h2>
+
+  <h3>HEROD. III. 139.</h3>
+
+  <h5>I.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">The king sat on his lofty throne in Susa&#39;s
+      palace fair,</span> <span class="i0">And many a stately Persian
+      lord, and satrap proud, was there:</span> <span class="i0">Among
+      his councillors he sat, and justice did to all&#8212;</span>
+      <span class="i0">No supplicant e&#39;er went unredrest from
+      Susa&#39;s palace-hall.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>II.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">There came a slave and louted low before
+      Darius&#39; throne,</span> <span class="i0">&quot;A wayworn
+      suppliant waits without&#8212;he is poor and all alone,</span>
+      <span class="i0">And he craves a boon of thee, oh king! for he
+      saith that he has done</span> <span class="i0">Good service, in
+      the olden time, to Hystaspes&#39; royal son.&quot;</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>III.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">&quot;Now lead him hither,&quot; quoth the king;
+      &quot;no suppliant e&#39;er shall wait,</span> <span class=
+      "i0">While I am lord in Susa&#39;s halls, unheeded at the
+      gate;</span> <span class="i0">And speak thy name, thou wanderer
+      poor, pray thee let me know</span> <span class="i0">To whom the
+      king of Persia&#39;s land this ancient debt doth
+      owe.&quot;</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>IV.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">The stranger bow&#39;d before the king&#8212;and
+      thus began to speak&#8212;</span> <span class="i0">Full well, I
+      ween, his garb was worn, and with sorrow pale his cheek,</span>
+      <span class="i0">But his air was free and noble, and proudly
+      flash&#39;d his eye,</span> <span class="i0">As he stood unknown
+      in that high hall, and thus he made reply&#8212;</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>V.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">&quot;From Samos came I, mighty king, and
+      Syloson my name;</span> <span class="i0">My brother was
+      Polycrates, a chief well known to fame;</span> <span class=
+      "i0">That brother drove me from my home&#8212;a wanderer forth I
+      went&#8212;</span> <span class="i0">And since that hour my weary
+      soul has never known content!</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>VI.</h5>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_715" id="Page_715">[Pg
+  715]</a></span></p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">&quot;Methinks I need not tell to thee my
+      brother&#39;s mournful fate;</span> <span class="i0">He lies
+      within his bloody grave&#8212;a churl usurps his
+      state&#8212;</span> <span class="i0">M&#339;andrius lords it
+      o&#39;er the land, my brother&#39;s base born slave;</span>
+      <span class="i0">Restore me to that throne, oh king! this, this,
+      the boon I crave.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>VII.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">&quot;Nay, start not; let me tell my tale! I
+      pray thee look on me,</span> <span class="i0">And, prince, thou
+      soon shalt know the cause that I ask this gift of thee;</span>
+      <span class="i0">Round Persia&#39;s king a bristling ring of
+      spearmen standeth now,</span> <span class="i0">But when Cambyses
+      wore the crown&#8212;a wanderer poor wast <i>thou</i>!</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>VIII.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">&quot;Remember&#39;st not, oh king! the day
+      when, in old Memphis town,</span> <span class="i0">Upon the night
+      ye won the fight, thou wast pacing up and down?</span>
+      <span class="i0">The costly cloak that then I wore, its colours
+      charm&#39;d thy eye&#8212;</span> <span class="i0">In sooth it
+      was a gorgeous robe, of purple Tyrian dye&#8212;</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>IX.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">&quot;Let base-born peasants buy and sell, I
+      gave that cloak to thee!</span> <span class="i0">And for that
+      gift on thee bestow&#39;d, grant thou this boon to
+      me&#8212;</span> <span class="i0">I ask not silver, ask not
+      gold&#8212;I ask of thee to stand</span> <span class="i0">A
+      prince once more on Samos&#39; shore&#8212;my own ancestral
+      land!&quot;</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>X.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">&quot;Oh! best and noblest,&quot; quoth the
+      king, &quot;thou ne&#39;er shalt rue the day,</span> <span class=
+      "i0">When to Cambyses&#39; spearman poor thou gav&#39;st thy
+      cloak away;</span> <span class="i0">The faithless eye each
+      well-known form and feature may forget,</span> <span class=
+      "i0">But the deeds of generous kindness done&#8212;the heart
+      remembers yet.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>XI.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">&quot;To-day thou art a wanderer sad, but thou
+      shalt sit, erelong,</span> <span class="i0">Within thy fair
+      ancestral hall, and hear the minstrel&#39;s song;</span>
+      <span class="i0">To-day thou art a homeless man&#8212;to-morrow
+      thou shalt stand&#8212;</span> <span class="i0">A conqueror and a
+      sceptred king&#8212;upon thy native land.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>XII.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">&quot;A cloud is on thy brow to-day&#8212;thy
+      lot is poor and low,</span> <span class="i0">To all who gaze on
+      thee thou seem&#39;st a man of want and wo;</span> <span class=
+      "i0">But thou shalt drain the bowl erelong within thy own bright
+      isle,</span> <span class="i0">A wreath of roses round thy head,
+      and on thy brow a smile.&quot;</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>XIII.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">And he called the proud Otanes, one of the seven
+      was he</span> <span class="i0">Who laid the Magian traitor low,
+      and set their country free;</span> <span class="i0">And he bade
+      him man a gallant fleet, and sail without delay,</span>
+      <span class="i0">To the pleasant isle of Samos, in the fair
+      Icarian bay.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>XIV.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">&quot;To place yon chief on Samos&#39; throne,
+      Otanes, be thy care,</span> <span class="i0">But bloodless let
+      thy victory be, his Samian people spare!&quot;</span>
+      <span class="i0">For thus the generous chieftain said, when he
+      made his high demand,</span> <span class="i0">&quot;I had rather
+      still an exile roam, than waste my native land.&quot;</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+  <hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+  <h3><a name="PURPLE_CLOAK_PART_II" id="PURPLE_CLOAK_PART_II"></a>PART
+  II.</h3>
+
+  <h5>I.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">Oh, &quot;monarchs&#39; arms are wondrous
+      long!&quot;<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href=
+      "#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> their power is wondrous
+      great,</span> <span class="i0">But not to them &#39;tis given to
+      stem the rushing tide of fate.</span> <span class="i0">A king may
+      man a gallant fleet, an island fair may give,</span> <span class=
+      "i0">But can he blunt the sword&#39;s sharp edge, or bid the dead
+      to live?</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>II.</h5>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_716" id="Page_716">[Pg
+  716]</a></span></p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">They leave the strand, that gallant band, their
+      ships are in the bay,</span> <span class="i0">It was a glorious
+      sight, I ween, to view that proud array;</span> <span class=
+      "i0">And there, amid the Persian chiefs, himself he holds the
+      helm,</span> <span class="i0">Sits lovely Samos&#39; future
+      lord&#8212;he comes to claim his realm!</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>III.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">M&#339;andrius saw the Persian fleet come
+      sailing proudly down,</span> <span class="i0">And his troops he
+      knew were all too few to guard a leaguer&#39;d town;</span>
+      <span class="i0">So he laid his crown and sceptre down, his
+      recreant life to save&#8212;</span> <span class="i0">Who thus
+      resigns a kingdom fair deserves to be a slave.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>IV.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">He calls his band&#8212;he seeks the
+      strand&#8212;they grant him passage free&#8212;</span>
+      <span class="i0">&quot;And shall they then,&quot; his brother
+      cried, &quot;have a bloodless victory?</span> <span class=
+      "i0">No&#8212;grant me but those spears of thine, and I soon to
+      them shall show,</span> <span class="i0">There yet are men in
+      Samos left to face the Persian foe.&quot;</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>V.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">The traitor heard his brother&#39;s word, and he
+      gave the youth his way;</span> <span class="i0">&quot;An empty
+      land, proud Syloson, shall lie beneath thy sway.&quot;</span>
+      <span class="i0">That youth has arm&#39;d those spearmen
+      stout&#8212;three hundred men in all&#8212;</span> <span class=
+      "i0">And on the Persian chiefs they fell, before the city&#39;s
+      wall.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>VI.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">The Persian lords before the wall were sitting
+      all in state,</span> <span class="i0">They deem&#39;d the island
+      was at peace&#8212;they reck&#39;d not of their fate;</span>
+      <span class="i0">When on them came the fiery youth<a name=
+      "FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4"
+      class="fnanchor">[4]</a>&#8212;with desperate charge he
+      came&#8212;</span> <span class="i0">And soon lay weltering in his
+      gore full many a chief of fame.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>VII.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">The outrage rude Otanes view&#39;d, and fury
+      fired his breast&#8212;</span> <span class="i0">And to the winds
+      the chieftain cast his monarch&#39;s high behest.</span>
+      <span class="i0">He gave the word, that angry
+      lord&#8212;&quot;War, war unto the death!&quot;</span>
+      <span class="i0">Then many a scimitar flash&#39;d forth impatient
+      from its sheath.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>VIII.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">Through Samos wide, from side to side, the
+      carnage is begun,</span> <span class="i0">And ne&#39;er a mother
+      there is seen, but mourns a slaughter&#39;d son;</span>
+      <span class="i0">From side to side, through Samos wide, Otanes
+      hurls his prey,</span> <span class="i0">Few, few, are left in
+      that fair isle, their monarch to obey!</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>IX.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">The new-made monarch sits in state in his loved
+      ancestral bow&#39;rs,</span> <span class="i0">And he bids his
+      minstrel strike the lyre, and he crowns his head with
+      flow&#39;rs;</span> <span class="i0">But still a cloud is on his
+      brow&#8212;where is the promised smile?</span> <span class=
+      "i0">And yet he sits a sceptred king&#8212;in his own dear native
+      isle.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>X.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">Oh! Samos dear, my native land! I tread thy
+      courts again&#8212;</span> <span class="i0">But where are they,
+      thy gallant sons? I gaze upon the slain&#8212;</span>
+      <span class="i0">&quot;A dreary kingdom mine, I ween,&quot; the
+      mournful monarch said,</span> <span class="i0">&quot;Where are my
+      subjects good and true? I reign but o&#39;er the dead!</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>XI.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">&quot;Ah! woe is me&#8212;I would that I had
+      ne&#39;er to Susa gone,</span> <span class="i0">To ask that fatal
+      boon of thee, Hystaspes&#39; generous son.</span> <span class=
+      "i0">Oh, deadly fight! oh, woeful sight! to greet a monarch&#39;s
+      eyes!</span> <span class="i0">All desolate&#8212;my native land,
+      reft of her children, lies!&quot;</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>XII.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">Thus mourn&#39;d the chief&#8212;and no relief
+      his regal state could bring.</span> <span class="i0">O&#39;er
+      such a drear unpeopled waste, oh! who would be a king?</span>
+      <span class="i0">And still, when desolate a land, and her sons
+      all swept away,</span> <span class="i0">&quot;The waste domain of
+      Syloson,&quot; &#39;tis call&#39;d unto this day!</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="footnotes">
+    <h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Greek
+      proverb.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> &quot;The
+      fiery youth, with desperate charge,<br />
+      <span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">Made for a space an opening
+      large.&quot;&#8212;<span class='smcap'>Marmion</span>.</span></p>
+    </div><br />
+  </div>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_717" id="Page_717">[Pg
+  717]</a></span></p>
+
+  <h2><a name="LOVE_AND_DEATH" id="LOVE_AND_DEATH"></a>LOVE AND
+  DEATH.</h2>
+
+  <div>
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">O strong as the
+    Eagle,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">O mild as the Dove!</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">How like, and how
+    unlike,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">O Death and O Love!</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">Knitting Earth to the
+    Heaven,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">The Near to the
+    Far&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">With the step on the
+    dust,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">And the eyes on the
+    star!</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">Interweaving,
+    commingling,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;"><i>Both</i> rays from God&#39;s
+    light!</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">Now in sun, now in
+    shadow,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">Ye shift to the
+    sight!</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">Ever changing the
+    sceptres</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">Ye bear&#8212;as in
+    play;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">Now Love as Death rules
+    us,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">Now Death has Love&#39;s
+    sway!</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">Why wails so the
+    New-born?</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">Love gave it the
+    breath.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">The soul sees Love&#39;s
+    brother&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">Life enters on Death!</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">Why that smile the wan
+    lips</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">Of the dead man
+    above?</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">The soul sees Death
+    changing</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">Its shape into Love.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">So confused and so
+    blending</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">Each twin with its
+    brother,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">The frown of one
+    melts</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">In the smile of the
+    other.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">Love warms where Death
+    withers,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">Death blights where Love
+    blooms;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 26em;">Death sits by our
+    cradles,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 27em;">Love stands by our
+    tombs!</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span class='smcap'><span style="margin-left: 36em;">Edward Lytton
+    Bulwer.</span></span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 18em;">Nov. 9, 1843.</span>
+  </div>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_717b" id=
+  "Page_717b"></a></span></p>
+
+  <h2><a name="THE_BRIDGE_OVER_THE_THUR" id=
+  "THE_BRIDGE_OVER_THE_THUR"></a>THE BRIDGE OVER THE THUR.</h2>
+
+  <h3>FROM THE GERMAN.&#8212;GUSTAV SCHWAB.</h3>
+
+  <div>
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Spurning the loud <span class=
+    'smcap'>Thur&#39;s</span> headlong march,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Who hath stretcht the stony
+    arch?</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">That the wayfarer blesses his
+    path!</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">That the storming river wastes his
+    wrath!</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Was it a puissant prince, in
+    quelling</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">This watery vassal, oft
+    rebelling?&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Or earthly Mars, the bar
+    o&#39;erleaping,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">That wrong&#39;d his war of its
+    onward sweeping?</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Did yon high-nesting
+    Castellan</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Lead the brave Street, for horse
+    and man?</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">And, the whiles his House creeps
+    under the grass,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">The Road, that he built, lies fair
+    to pass?</span><br />
+    <br />
+
+    <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_718" id="Page_718">[Pg
+    718]</a></span></p><span style="margin-left: 20em;">Nay! not for
+    the Bridge, which ye look upon,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Manly hest knit stone with
+    stone.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">The loved word of a woman&#39;s
+    mouth</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Bound the thundering chasm with a
+    rocky growth.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">She, in turret, who sitteth
+    lone,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Listing the broad stream&#39;s
+    heavier groan,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Kenning the flow, from his
+    loosen&#39;d fountains,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">From the clouds, that have
+    wash&#39;d a score of mountains.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">A skiff she notes, by the shelvy
+    marge,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Wont deftly across to speed its
+    charge;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Now jumping and twisting, like
+    leaf on a lynn,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Wo! if a foot list cradle
+    therein!</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Sooner, than hath she <span class=
+    'smcap'>thought</span> her <span class=
+    'smcap'>feeling</span>,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">With travellers twain is the light
+    plank reeling.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Who are they?... Marble watcher!
+    Who?</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Thy beautiful, youthful, only
+    two!</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Coming, glad, from the greenwood
+    slaughter,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">They reach the suddenly-swollen
+    water;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">But the nimble, strong, and
+    young,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Boldly into the bark have
+    sprung.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">The game in the forest fall,
+    stricken and bleeding;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Those river-waves are of other
+    breeding!</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">And the shriek of the mother
+    helpeth not,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">At seeing turn upwards the keel of
+    the boat.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Whilst her living pulses
+    languish,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">As she taketh in her
+    anguish,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">By the roar, her soul which
+    stuns,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">On the corses of her
+    sons.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Needs must she upon the mothers
+    think,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Who yet may stand beholding
+    sink,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Under the hastily-roused
+    billow,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Sons, upthriven to be their
+    pillow.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Till, in her deeply-emptied
+    bosom,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">There buds a melancholy
+    blossom,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Tear-nourisht:&#8212;the will the
+    wo to spare</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">To others, which hath left her
+    bare.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Ere doth her sorrow a throe
+    abate,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Is chiseling and quarrying, early,
+    late.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">The hoarse flood chafes, with
+    straiten&#39;d tides:</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Aloft, the proud Arch climbs and
+    strides.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">How her eyes, she fastens on
+    frolicsome boys,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">O&#39;er the stone way racing,
+    with careless noise.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Hark!&#8212;hark!&#8212;the wild
+    Thur, how he batters his rocks!</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">But <span class='smcap'>ye</span>
+    gaze, laugh, and greet the gruff chider, with mocks.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Or, she vieweth with soft
+    footfall,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Mothers, following their children
+    all.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">A gleam of pleasure, a spring of
+    yearning,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Sweetens her tears, dawns into her
+    mourning.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">And her pious work
+    endureth!</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">And her pain a slumber
+    cureth!</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Heareth not yonder torrent&#39;s
+    jars!</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Hath her young sons above the
+    stars!</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 10em;">Fontainbleau, 1843.</span>
+  </div>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_719" id="Page_719">[Pg
+  719]</a></span></p>
+
+  <h2><a name="THE_BANKING-HOUSE" id="THE_BANKING-HOUSE"></a>THE
+  BANKING-HOUSE.</h2>
+
+  <h2>A HISTORY IN THREE PARTS. PART II.</h2>
+
+  <h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+
+  <h3>A NEGOTIATION.</h3>
+
+  <p>It is vastly amusing to contemplate the activity and perseverance
+  which are exhibited in the regard shown by every man for his
+  individual interests. Be our faults what they may&#8212;and our
+  neighbours are not slow to discover them&#8212;it is very seldom
+  indeed that we are charged with remissness in this respect. So far
+  from this being the case, a moralist of the present day, in a work of
+  no mean ability, has undertaken to prove that selfishness is the
+  great and crying evil of the age. Without venturing to affirm so
+  wholesale a proposition, which necessarily includes in its censure
+  professors and professions <i>par excellence</i> unsecular and
+  liberal, we may be permitted in charity to express our regret, that
+  the rewards apportioned to good men in heaven are not bestowed upon
+  those in whom the selfish principle is most rampant, instead of being
+  strictly reserved for others in whom it is least influential; since
+  it is more pleasing to consider celestial joys in connexion with
+  humanity at large, than with an infinitesimal minority of
+  mortals.</p>
+
+  <p>Whilst Michael Allcraft coolly and designedly looked around him,
+  in the hope of fixing on the prey he had resolved to
+  find&#8212;whilst, cautious as the midnight housebreaker, who dreads
+  lest every step may wake his sleeping victim, he almost feared to do
+  what most he had at heart, and strove by ceaseless effort to bring
+  into his face the show of indifference and repose;&#8212;whilst he
+  was thus engaged, there were many, on the other hand, eager and
+  impatient to crave from him, as for a boon, all that he himself was
+  but too willing to bestow. Little did Michael guess, on his eventful
+  wedding-day, as his noble equipage rattled along the public roads,
+  what thoughts were passing in the minds of some who marked him as he
+  went, and followed him with longing eyes. His absorbing passion, his
+  exhilaration and delight, did not suffer him to see one thin and
+  anxious-looking gentleman, who, spyglass in hand, sat at his cottage
+  window, and brought as near as art allowed&#8212;not near enough to
+  satisfy him&#8212;the entranced and happy pair. That old man, with
+  nine times ten thousand pounds safe and snug in the stocks, was
+  miserable to look at, and as miserable in effect. He was a widower,
+  and had a son at Oxford, a wild, scapegrace youth, who had never been
+  a joy to him, but a trial and a sorrow even from his cradle. Such
+  punishments there are reserved for men&#8212;such visitations for the
+  sins our fathers wrought, too thoughtless of their progeny. How the
+  old man envied the prosperous bridegroom, and how vainly he wished
+  that his boy might have done as well; and how through his small grey
+  eye, the labouring tear-drops oozed, as he called fresh to mind again
+  all that he had promised himself at the birth of his unhappy
+  prodigal! What would he not give to recover and reform the wayward
+  boy? The thought occurred to him, and he dallied with it for his
+  pleasure. &quot;If I could but settle him with this young Allcraft!
+  Why should it not be done? I will give him all I have at once, if
+  necessary, and live in a garret, if it will save my poor Augustus. I
+  will speak to him on his return. What a companion and example for my
+  boy! Open and straightforward&#8212;steady as a rock&#8212;as rich as
+  Cr&#339;sus. Most certainly I&#39;ll see him. I knew his father.
+  I&#39;ll not grudge a few thousands to establish him. Stick him to
+  business, and he shall do yet.&quot; The equipage rolled on as
+  unconscious of the old man&#39;s dreams as were its animated inmates;
+  and in due time it passed a massive lodge, which led through green
+  and winding paths to the finest park and mansion in the parish. Close
+  to the lodge&#39;s porch there stood a tall and gloomy-looking man,
+  neatly dressed&#8212;alone. His arms were folded, and he eyed the
+  carriage thoughtfully and seriously, as though he had an interest
+  there,</p>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_720" id="Page_720">[Pg
+  720]</a></span></p>known to himself, and to no one else. He was a
+  very proud man that&#8212;the owner of this vast estate, master of
+  unnumbered acres, and feared rather than loved by the surrounding
+  people. Wealth is the most royal of despots&#8212;the autocrat of all
+  the world. Men whose sense of liberty forbids them to place their
+  worst passions under wise control, will crawl in fetters to lick the
+  basest hand well smeared with gold. There was not an individual who
+  could say a good word for the squire behind his back. You would
+  hardly believe it, if you saw individual and squire face to face. And
+  there he stood, with as ill-omened a visage as ever brought blight
+  upon a party of pleasure. He watched the panting horses out of
+  sight&#8212;opened his gate, and walked the other way. He, like the
+  old man, had his plans, and an itching for a share in Michael
+  Allcraft&#39;s fortune. How he, so wealthy and respected, could need
+  a part of it, remains a mystery at present. The squire knew his
+  business. He went straightway to the banking-house, and made enquiry
+  respecting Allcraft&#39;s destination. He gained intelligence, and
+  followed him at once. They met abroad&#8212;they returned home in
+  company. They became great friends, and within three
+  months&#8212;<span class='smcap'>partners</span>. And the old man had
+  been, as he threatened to be, very busy likewise. He had fought his
+  son&#39;s battle very hardly and very successfully, as he believed,
+  and with twenty thousand pounds had purchased for him a junior
+  partner&#39;s interest in the estate. The hopeful boy was admitted
+  into the concern during his residence in Oxford. He had never been
+  seen, but his father was a man of substance, well known and esteemed.
+  The character which he gave with his son was undeniable. Its truth
+  could not be questioned, backed as it was by so liberal an
+  advance.<br />
+  <br />
+
+  <p>Let it not be supposed that Michael, in his anxiety to involve
+  other men in his own fearful responsibility, was injudicious enough
+  to act without all forethought and consideration. Not he. He had
+  inherited from his sire the valuable faculty of detecting the wishes
+  and views of men in their external evidences. On the countenances of
+  men he read their hearts. It did not take long to discover that the
+  venerable Mr Brammel and the haughty Mr Bellamy were bent upon the
+  partnership, and would secure it at any cost. Satisfied of this, like
+  a lazy and plethoric fish he kept within sight of his bait, close
+  upon it, without deigning for a time as much as a nibble. It was his
+  when he chose to bite. But there were deep enquiries to make, and
+  many things to do, before he could implicate himself so far. In every
+  available quarter he sought information respecting the one partner,
+  and the father of the other, and of both; the intelligence that he
+  received well repaid his trouble. Nothing could be more promising and
+  satisfactory. Nor did he content himself with such arms against the
+  selfishness of gentlemen, who, he was shrewd enough to know, were
+  seeking only their own advantage in their earnest desire of a union
+  with him. He had an eye to the balance of power. Two men, united and
+  active, in the firm, pulling together on all occasions, might, not by
+  one blow perhaps, but in the course of time, and by accumulating
+  force and skill, oust him from his present elevated and natural
+  position. Once admit them to authority, and the limits of their
+  dominion must be prescribed by their own sense of honour, or by the
+  opportunities afforded them of supremacy and independent action.
+  Michael the impulsive saw and felt this most acutely, and took
+  occasion, from their eagerness, to insure a proper equilibrium of the
+  forces before permitting them to coalesce. There lived in the same
+  city with Michael, and within a quarter of a mile of the
+  banking-house, an individual to whom he turned his thoughts in his
+  emergency. Mr Planner was his name, and his character is worth more
+  than a mere passing observation. He was a study for an artist&#8212;a
+  lesson for mankind. He was a man of surprising abilities, ill
+  directed, and badly educated; at any period of his life capable of
+  any thing&#8212;to the last moment of his existence accomplishing
+  nothing. From a child he had displayed a love of admiration and
+  applause, a craving after superiority and distinction, a burning
+  ambition for fame. He had the body of a giant, and a giant&#39;s
+  mental apparatus. But with all his gifts, physical and spiritual, all
+  his energies and aims, he arrived at middle life a melancholy
+  spectacle of failure and incompetency. There was no one object which
+  he could pursue with steadiness</p>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_721" id="Page_721">[Pg
+  721]</a></span></p>and patience&#8212;no single mark to which he
+  could perseveringly apply the combined powers of his gifted
+  intellect. He frittered his faculties upon a hundred trifles, never
+  concentrated them upon a worthy purpose once. Pride, emulation, and
+  the internal consciousness of strength, led him, year after year, and
+  day after day, into difficulties and trials, and carried him through
+  them only to drag him into deeper. There was no one man whom he would
+  allow to perform any one thing so skilfully as himself. There was no
+  branch of knowledge into which he did not grope his way, and from
+  which he would not manage to extract sufficient learning to render
+  his conceit intolerable, and his opposition dangerous to a more
+  erudite antagonist. He could build a church&#8212;dam a
+  river&#8212;form a company&#8212;warm a house&#8212;cool a
+  room&#8212;one and all he would undertake at a minute&#39;s notice,
+  and engage to execute better than any person living. He asserted it
+  with confidence, and you believed him when he spoke with all the
+  earnestness of self-conviction and of truth. He despised all
+  works&#8212;all theories but his own; and these were unapproachable,
+  inimitable. He wrote with his own invented pen, used his own ink, sat
+  on his own chair, made with his own incomparable tools. Men were
+  ignorant, behind their age&#8212;burdened with superstitions, clogged
+  by false principles. This was a text from which he never ceased to
+  preach. As a youth he was engaged in profitable business. Before he
+  reached his thirtieth year he had realized a handsome competency. He
+  retired from his occupation, and went abroad to found a city across
+  the ocean, with views that were unknown to man, and which, well
+  carried out, must prove infallible. He chose a spot removed from
+  civilized society&#8212;lived for three years amongst a tribe of
+  savages, and came home at last without a farthing in his
+  scrip&#8212;beggared but not depressed. He had dwelt for many months
+  in a district of swamps, and he had discovered a method of draining
+  lands cheaper and more effectual than any hitherto attempted. He
+  contracted to empty some thousand acres&#8212;began his work,
+  succeeded for a time, and failed at last, from having falsely
+  calculated his expenses, and for lack of means to carry out his
+  plans. There were few public matters in which Mr Planner did not
+  meddle. He wrote pamphlets, and &quot;hints,&quot; and &quot;original
+  views&quot; by dozens. His articles on the currency and corn-laws
+  were full of racy hits and striking points&#8212;his criticisms on
+  the existing state of art worthy of the artist&#39;s best attention.
+  The temper of Mr Planner was such as might be expected from such a
+  mass of arrogance and conceit. A man who, in the easiness of his
+  heart, would listen humbly, patiently, approvingly to Mr Planner,
+  must pronounce the ardent character an angel. The remarkable docility
+  which Mr Planner evinced under such treatment, was only to be
+  equalled by the volubility and pleasure with which he communicated
+  his numerous and ingenious ideas. Sceptics&#8212;nay, men who had
+  ventured only to contend for the soundness of their preconceived
+  ideas, and who had been met with a torrent of vituperation and
+  reproach in consequence&#8212;did not hesitate to call Mr
+  Planner&#8212;the devil incarnate. Such as he was, he had become an
+  agent and a tool in the hands of Allcraft&#39;s father. Michael had
+  been his friend for years, and Planner liked the boy who had ever
+  regarded him with awe and veneration. The youth had been taught by
+  his parent to note the faults and inconsistencies of his character;
+  but these had not rendered him insensible to the talents which had
+  commanded even that discerning parent&#39;s respect and admiration.
+  It was this personage, for some years the hanger-on at the bank, and
+  the traveller and negotiator of many things for Allcraft senior,
+  whose name suggested to Michael the means of providing against the
+  encroachments of his future brethren. Planner could be relied upon.
+  The smallest possible interest in the business would excite in him a
+  corresponding interest in its prosperity, and secure his steadiness
+  and good behaviour. Why not offer it then, and make his entrance into
+  the firm a <i>sine qua non</i> in the bargain with Bellamy and
+  Brammel? He revolved the matter, and saw no real objection to it.
+  Planner was reputed a first-rate accountant; his services would be
+  important, no remuneration could be too great, provided he would
+  settle down, and fix his energies upon the one great object of
+  advancing the welfare of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_722"
+  id="Page_722">[Pg 722]</a></span> establishment. His friendship was
+  secured, and a word or two would suffice to gain his faithful support
+  and co-operation. So far from his becoming burdensome and useless in
+  the bank, his talents would be in every way desirable. A coadjutor,
+  such as he might be, firm and trusty, was invaluable. And why should
+  he not be? A day had been fixed for accepting or rejecting the
+  propositions of the gentlemen. The time was drawing on, when Michael
+  visited his friend to sound him on his purpose.<br />
+  <br />
+
+  <p>Planner lived in a very humble part of a very humble house, in a
+  very humble street. The two-pair back was his domain, and his
+  territory was less adorned than crowded with the evidences of his
+  taste and handiwork. In the remote corner of his unclean apartment
+  was a lathe for turning ivory&#8212;near it the material, a monstrous
+  elephant&#39;s tusk. Shelves, carried round the room, supported
+  bottles of various sizes, externally very dirty, and internally what
+  you please; for eyes could not penetrate so far, and determine the
+  contents. A large label, crowning all, announced them to be
+  &quot;samples.&quot; Books were strewed every where&#8212;manuscripts
+  met you at every turn. The walls were filled with charts and
+  drawings, one of the former representing the field of Waterloo,
+  dissected and intersected, with a view to prove Lord Wellington
+  guilty of winning a battle, which, in conformity with every law of
+  strategy, he should have lost. One drawing was a rough sketch of his
+  unhappy swamp; another, the elaborate delineation of a hydraulic
+  pump. In the niche corresponding to that in which the lathe was
+  fixed, there was a small iron bedstead; and in this, although it was
+  nearly noon when Michael paid his friendly visit, Mr Allcraft caught
+  sight of Mr Planner when he opened the door, in obedience to the very
+  sharp and loud voice which invited him to &quot;walk in.&quot; The
+  ingenious gentleman had breakfasted. The tea things were on a stool
+  at his side. He wore his nightcap, and he was busy in examining a
+  crimson liquid, which he held in a glass close to his eyes.
+  &quot;That man was murdered, Allcraft!&quot; exclaimed Mr Planner
+  after the briefest possible salutation. &quot;Murdered, as I am a
+  living Christian!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What man?&quot; asked Allcraft.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Him they hanged last week for poisoning his father. What was
+  the evidence? Why, when they opened the body, they found a grain or
+  two of arsenic. Hang a man upon that! A pretty state of
+  things&#8212;look here, sir&#8212;look here!&quot;&#8212;and he
+  pointed triumphantly to his crimson liquid.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What is that, Mr Planner?&quot; inquired the visitor.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What? My blood, sir. I opened a vein the very day they
+  hanged him. I suspected it all along, and there it is. There is more
+  arsenic there, sir, than they found in the entire carcass of that
+  man. Arsenic! Why, it&#39;s a prime ingredient in the blood. This it
+  is to live in the clouds. Talk of dark ages&#8212;when shall we get
+  light?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I was not aware, Mr Planner,&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Of course you were not. How should you be? It is the
+  interest of the ruling powers to darken the intellect of society. Why
+  am I kept down? Why don&#39;t I prosper? Why don&#39;t my works sell?
+  Ah, Allcraft&#8212;put that small pamphlet in your pocket&#8212;there
+  it is&#8212;under the model&#8212;take care what you are
+  about&#8212;don&#39;t break it&#8212;there, that&#39;s right! What is
+  it called?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Popular delusions.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah, true enough!&#8212;put it into your pocket and read it.
+  If Pitt could be alive to read it!&#8212;-- Well, never mind! I say,
+  Allcraft, how does that back room flue get on&#8212;any smoke
+  now?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;None.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No. I should think not. Michael, I must say it, though the
+  old gentleman is dead, he was one of the hardest fellows to move I
+  ever met. He would have been smoke-dried&#8212;suffocated, years ago,
+  if it hadn&#39;t been for me. I was the first man that ever sent
+  smoke up that chimney. Nobody could do it, sir. A fellow came from
+  London, tried, and failed.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It is a pity, Mr Planner, that, with abilities like yours,
+  you have not been more successful in life. Pardon me if I say that
+  success would have made you a quieter and a happier man.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah, Michael, so your father used to say! Well, I don&#39;t
+  know&#8212;people are such fools. They will not think for themselves,
+  and they are ready to crush any one who offers to think for them. It
+  has ever been so. Men in advance of their generation have always
+  fared badly. Ages ago they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_723"
+  id="Page_723">[Pg 723]</a></span> were put to death cruelly and
+  violently. Now they are left to starve, and die. The creatures are
+  ignorant, but they are worse than that; they are selfish and jealous,
+  and will rather sit in gloom, than owe light, and confess they owe
+  it, to a fellow mortal and a superior spirit.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I am afraid, Mr Planner, after such an observation, that you
+  will hardly give me credit for the feeling which has induced me to
+  visit you this morning.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You are a good fellow, Michael. You were always a
+  generous-hearted lad&#8212;an exception to the general rule. When you
+  were five years old, you used to share your biscuits with me. It was
+  a fine trait in your character. Proceed.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You are aware, Mr Planner, that through my father&#39;s
+  death increased responsibilities have come upon me.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You may say that. He never would take my advice about the
+  bank-notes. Stop&#8212;remind me before you go, of the few hints to
+  bankers, which I drew up. You will do well to look at them.
+  You&#39;ll see the advantages of my system of paper issues. Your
+  father, sir, was stone-blind to his own interests&#8212;&#8212; but I
+  am interrupting you.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I have for some time past determined to associate with me in
+  the bank, two gentlemen of noble fortunes and the first
+  respectability. I would not willingly carry on the concern alone, and
+  the accession of two such gentlemen as I describe, cannot but be in
+  every way desirable.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Humph&#8212;go on.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Now Mr Planner, you are a very, very old friend of my
+  father&#39;s, and I know he valued your advice as it deserved to
+  be.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;The old gentleman was good in the main, Michael.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Had he been aware of my position, he would have recommended
+  the step which I am about to adopt. Mr Planner, I am young, and
+  therefore inexperienced. These gentlemen are very worthy persons no
+  doubt; indeed, I am assured they are; still, they are comparatively
+  strangers to me, and I am certain you would advise me to be most
+  cautious.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Proceed.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What I feel to want is the constant presence of a
+  friend&#8212;one who, from personal attachment, may have my welfare
+  and interest at heart, and form as it were a second self at all
+  times&#8212;let me be present or absent&#8212;and absent I must be
+  very often&#8212;you perceive?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Precisely.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;A sort of counterpoise to the opposite weight, in fact, if I
+  may be allowed to call it so. Now, I can sincerely affirm that I know
+  no person, Mr Planner, in whom I could rely so entirely and
+  unreservedly as yourself; and nothing would give me greater pleasure
+  than to serve a man so highly gifted, so long connected with our
+  family by the closest friendship. If you think the occupation of a
+  banker suitable to your present tastes, I believe that I can offer
+  you an appointment worthy your serious consideration.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Mr Planner rose in his bed, and grasped firmly the hand of Mr
+  Michael Allcraft. The latter sat at the bedside until past three
+  o&#39;clock, and then retired, leaving his friend in a state of great
+  mental excitement. When Michael, upon taking his departure, reached
+  the street door, he stopped short, and retraced his steps. Entering
+  the apartment for a second time, he discovered Mr Planner in his
+  night clothes, standing before a looking glass, and repeating one of
+  his own compositions in a voice of thunder, and with the most
+  vehement gesticulation.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I beg your pardon. You told me to remind you, Planner, of
+  your hints to bankers. Have you the book handy?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It is here, Michael. Read it attentively, my boy&#8212;trust
+  to me. I&#39;ll make the house&#39;s name ring throughout the
+  country. Don&#39;t forget what I have said. We must have a new façade
+  to the old building after a while. I have such a plan for
+  it!&quot;</p>
+
+  <h3><a name="THE_BANKING-HOUSE_CHAP_II" id=
+  "THE_BANKING-HOUSE_CHAP_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+
+  <h3>A LULL.</h3>
+
+  <p><i>Allcraft, Bellamy, Brammel, and Planner</i>. It was a goodly
+  ship that bore the name, and fair she looked at the launching; her
+  sails well set, her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_724" id=
+  "Page_724">[Pg 724]</a></span> streamers flying, and the music of
+  men&#39;s voices cheering her on her career. Happy and prosperous be
+  her course! We think not of winter&#39;s cold in the fervent summer
+  time, and wreck and ruin seem impossible on the smooth surface of the
+  laughing sea; yet cold and winter come, and the smiling,
+  sweet-tempered ripple can awaken from slumber, and battle and storm
+  with the heavens. Never had bark left haven with finer promises of
+  success. We will follow her from the port, and keep watchfully in the
+  good ship&#39;s wake.</p>
+
+  <p>Michael formed a just conclusion when he reckoned upon increase of
+  business. His own marriage, and the immense wealth of his lady, had
+  inspired the world with unbounded confidence. The names of two of his
+  partners were household words in the county, and stood high amongst
+  the best. A convulsion of nature may destroy the world in half an
+  hour, as love, it is said, <i>may</i> transform a man into an oyster;
+  but either of these contingencies was as remote as the possibility of
+  Allcraft&#39;s failure. Silently and successfully the house went on.
+  For a quarter of a year the sun shone brightly, and profit, and
+  advantage, and honour, looked Michael in the face. Thriving abroad,
+  happy at home, what did he need more? His spirit became
+  buoyant&#8212;his heart carefree and light. He congratulated himself
+  upon the prudence and success of his measures, and looked for his
+  reward in the brilliant future which he had created for himself and
+  earned. His soul was calmed; and so are the elements, fearfully and
+  oppressively, sometimes an hour before the tempest and the storm.</p>
+
+  <p>At the end of three months, Michael deemed it necessary to go
+  abroad. The heaviest of his father&#39;s debts had been contracted
+  with a house in Lyons, and notices as to payment had been conveyed to
+  him&#8212;notices as full of politeness as they were of meaning. The
+  difficulties in which he had found himself at the death of his
+  parent&#8212;the seriousness of his engagements&#8212;and the
+  wariness which he had been compelled to exercise&#8212;had gone far
+  to sober down the impetuous youth, and to endue him with the airs and
+  habits of a man of business. He had attended to his duties at the
+  banking-house faithfully and punctually. He had entered into its
+  affairs with the energy and resolution of a practical and working
+  mind. He had given his heart to the work, and had put his shoulder to
+  the wheel, honestly and earnestly. Whatsoever may have been his
+  faults previously to his connexion with his partners, it is due to
+  him to say that he was no sluggard afterwards, and that he grudged
+  neither time nor labour that could be in any way productive to the
+  house&#8212;could add a shilling to its profits, or a breath of
+  reputation to its name. To pay his father&#39;s debts from the
+  earnings of the bank&#8212;to keep those debts a secret&#8212;and to
+  leave the fortune of his wife untouched, were the objects for which
+  he lived, and soon began to slave. Believing that a favourable
+  arrangement could be effected with his father&#39;s creditors, he
+  determined to visit them in person. He had not been absent from the
+  bank even for a day; and now, before he could quit it with comfort,
+  he deemed it necessary to have a few parting words with his right
+  hand and factotum, Planner.</p>
+
+  <p>Planner was the only member of the firm who lived in the
+  establishment. His specimens, his bottles, his maps, and drawings,
+  had been removed to a spacious apartment over the place of business,
+  and he rejoiced in the possession of an entire first floor. His
+  bed-room had now a distinct existence. He had not enjoyed it for a
+  week, before the water with which he performed his daily ablutions
+  was insinuated by a cunning contrivance through the ceiling, and
+  dismissed afterwards, as cleverly, through the floor. Hot water came
+  through the wall at any hour of the day, and a constant artificial
+  ventilation was maintained around his bed by night and day. There was
+  no end to the artifices which the chamber exhibited. Michael,
+  although he lived at a considerable distance from the bank, was
+  always the first at his post, after Planner himself. He arrived
+  unusually early on the day fixed for his visit to the Continent.
+  Planner and he sat for an hour together, and in the course of their
+  conversation, words to the following effect escaped them:&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You will be careful and attentive, Planner. Let me hear from
+  you by every post. Do not spare ink and paper.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Trust me. I shall not forget it. But don&#39;t you miss the
+  opportunity, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_725" id=
+  "Page_725">[Pg 725]</a></span> Allcraft, of doing something with
+  those mines. Your father wouldn&#39;t touch them&#8212;but he
+  repented it. I tell you, Michael, if we bought them, and worked them
+  ourselves, we might coin money! I&#39;d go abroad and see the shafts
+  sunk. I could save a fortune in merely setting them to
+  rights.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It is rather strange, Planner, that Brammel is so long
+  absent. He should come home, and settle down to work. It isn&#39;t
+  well to be away. It hasn&#39;t a fair appearance to the world. You
+  saw his father yesterday. What said he?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh, that young Brammel had a good many things to arrange in
+  Oxford and in the neighbourhood, and would soon be back now. But
+  never mind him, Allcraft. Between ourselves, he is better where he
+  is; he is a horrible ass.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Hush. So he is, Planner, but he must not run wild. We must
+  keep him at home. He has been a rackety one, and I fear he is not
+  much better now. I question whether I should have received him here,
+  if I had known as much of him at first as I have heard lately. But
+  his father deceived me.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Queer old man that, Michael! How he takes the boy&#39;s part
+  always, and how frightened he seems lest you should think too badly
+  of him. Young Brammel will have every farthing of the old man&#39;s
+  money at his death. A pretty sum, too. A hundred thousand pounds,
+  isn&#39;t it?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Well, Planner, let me know when he returns. That was a
+  curious report about his marriage. Can it be true?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;His father denies it, but you mustn&#39;t trust the old
+  sinner when he talks about his son. He&#39;ll lie through thick and
+  thin for him. They do say he lived with the girl at the time he was
+  at college, and married her at last because her brother threatened to
+  kick him.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Nonsense, Planner.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Why nonsense? More than half the marriages you hear of are
+  scarcely a whit better. What are the rules for a correct match? Who
+  obeys them? Where do you ever hear, now-a-days, of a proper marriage?
+  People are inconsistent in this respect as in other things. A beauty
+  marries a beast. A philosopher weds a fool. They can&#39;t tell you
+  why, but they do it. It&#39;s the perversity of human
+  nature.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I shall look sharp after Brammel.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Take my advice, Michael, and look after the mines. Brammel
+  can take care of himself, or his wife and brother-in-law can do it.
+  The timber on the property will realize the purchase money.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Well, we shall see; but here is Mr Bellamy. Mind you write
+  to me, and be explicit and particular.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I shall do it, Michael.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And mark, Planner; prudence&#8212;prudence.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>And so saying, Michael advanced to Bellamy with a smiling
+  countenance. An hour afterwards, both he and his lovely bride were
+  comfortably seated in a post-chaise and four, admiring the
+  garden-land of Kent, and speeding to Dover fast as their horses could
+  carry them.</p>
+
+  <h3><a name="THE_BANKING-HOUSE_CHAP_III" id=
+  "THE_BANKING-HOUSE_CHAP_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+
+  <h3>A SWEET COUPLE.</h3>
+
+  <p>The very emphatic and somewhat vulgar expression of Mr Planner,
+  was by no means ill-chosen to express the character of Augustus
+  Theodore Brammel. He had been lovingly spoiled from his
+  cradle&#8212;humoured and ruined with the most praiseworthy care and
+  perseverance. His affectionate parents had studiously neglected the
+  few goodly shoots which the youth had brought into the world with
+  him, and had embarked all their energies in the cultivation of the
+  weeds that grew noxious and numerous around the unhappy boy&#39;s
+  heart. His mother lived to see her darling expelled from
+  Eton&#8212;the father to see much worse, and yet not the worst that
+  the hopeful one was doomed to undergo. Gross vices, if not redeemed,
+  are rendered less hideous by intellectual power and brilliancy.
+  Associated with impotency and ignorance, they are disgusting beyond
+  expression. Augustus Brammel was the most sensual and self-engrossed
+  of men&#8212; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_726" id=
+  "Page_726">[Pg 726]</a></span> the most idle and dissipated; and, as
+  if these were not enough to render him an object of the deepest
+  aversion, he was as self-willed, thick-headed, overbearing a dunce as
+  ever moved a man to that contempt &quot;which wisdom holds unlawful
+  ever;&quot; and Brammel was not only a fool, but a conceited,
+  upstart, irritating fool. He considered himself the shrewdest of
+  mortals, and presumed to dictate, to be impertinent, to carry matters
+  with a high hand and a flourish. As for modesty, the word was not in
+  his dictionary. He had never known its meaning; and therefore,
+  perhaps, in justice is not to be blamed for the want of it. Augustus,
+  being a great blusterer, was of course a low coward. He bullied,
+  oppressed, and crushed the helpless and the weak, who were avenged as
+  often as he cowered and sneaked beneath the look of the strong and
+  the brave. The companions and friends of such creatures as Brammel,
+  are generally selected from the lower grades of life. The tone of
+  feeling found amongst the worst members of these classes, harmonizes
+  with their own. They think the like thoughts, talk the same language.
+  They are led to them by the true Satanic impulse, for it is their
+  triumph to reign in hell&#8212;their misery to serve in heaven.
+  Flattered by the dregs and refuse of society, they endeavour to
+  forget that they are avoided, spurned, trodden on, by any thing
+  higher. Just when it was too late to profit by the discovery, old
+  Brammel found out his mistake; and then he sagaciously vowed, that if
+  his time were to come over again, he would educate his boy in a very
+  different manner. His first attempt had certainly been a failure.
+  Augustus had been rusticated at the university; he had run away from
+  his home; he had committed all kinds of enormity. He had passed weeks
+  in the sinks of London, and had been discovered at last by his
+  heartbroken parent amongst the stews of Shadwell, in a fearful state
+  of disease and destitution. Years were passed in proceedings of this
+  nature, and every attempt at recovery proved abortive and useless.
+  His debts had been discharged a dozen times, and on every occasion
+  under a solemn engagement that it should be the last. When Brammel
+  senior signed the deed of partnership on behalf of his son, the
+  latter, as I have already said, was in Oxford, having returned to the
+  university only a month before, at the termination of his period of
+  banishment. Whilst the father was engaged in publishing the imaginary
+  virtues of his son to most admiring listeners, the promising youth
+  himself was passing his days in the very agreeable society of Miss
+  Mary Anne Waters, the eldest daughter of the cook of his
+  college&#8212;a young lady with some pretension to beauty, but none
+  whatever to morality, being neither more nor less than Mr Augustus
+  Brammel&#39;s very particular and <i>chère amie</i>. The letter which
+  arrived with the unwelcome intelligence of the arrangement, found the
+  charming pair together. A specimen of their discourse at the time,
+  will show the temper with which the communication was received.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I sha&#39;n&#39;t go,&quot; ejaculated the youth. &quot;I
+  can&#39;t be nailed down to a desk. What business had the old man to
+  do any thing without me? Why can&#39;t he mind his own affairs?
+  He&#39;s old and ugly enough. It&#39;s cursed impudence in him, and
+  that&#39;s a fact.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh ducky!&quot; interposed Miss Mary Anne, with a rueful
+  face, &quot;I know how it will be. You&#39;ll have to go home for
+  good, and you won&#39;t think of me no more.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Don&#39;t you bother yourself. I sha&#39;n&#39;t do any
+  thing of the kind. If I go home, Molly, you go with me.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Do you mean it, dear bless-ed?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Don&#39;t I? that&#39;s all. I say it is blasted impertinent
+  in the old man, and I shall tell him so. I shall have blunt enough
+  when his toes are up. What is the good of working for more?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh dear me, bless-ed!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What is the matter, old girl?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;If you should ever forget me!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Don&#39;t you fear.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I should hang myself up to the bedpost with my garters. I
+  know I should. Don&#39;t leave me, there&#39;s a dear
+  ducky.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Well, haven&#39;t I said I won&#39;t?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah, you think you won&#39;t, dear bless-ed!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I tell you I won&#39;t.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yes, but when they get you up, they&#39;ll just be trying to
+  marry you to some fine rich woman; and I am sure she won&#39;t know
+  how to take care of you as I do. They ain&#39;t brought up to air and
+  mend linen, to darn stockings, <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_727" id="Page_727">[Pg 727]</a></span> and to tack on
+  shirt-buttons. They&#39;ll never suit you, ducky.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Catch me marrying a fine woman, Moll!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ha, won&#39;t you though, bless-ed? Oh, dear me!&quot; Mary
+  Anne burst into tears.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What&#39;s the matter, Moll, now?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh, dear ducky! I wish I was an honest woman. I might go
+  every where with you, and not be ashamed of it either; and I do love
+  you so. I shall die if you leave me&#8212;I know I shall!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;But I won&#39;t leave you.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh, there&#39;s a ducks! But you know what you promised me,
+  Tiddy dear?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yes, I know, Molly, and I&#39;ll keep my word with you. If
+  father makes a partner of me, he shall make partners of both of
+  us.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No, do you mean it though?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Haven&#39;t I said it, you stupid?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yes, you dear ducks of diamonds! You do look so handsome
+  this morning! And when shall it be? If you are to go to this
+  business, the sooner the better, you know, darling. Oh, I shall be so
+  happy!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Happy or not, the lady was at least successful. In the course of a
+  week Mary Anne Waters became extinct, and from her ashes rose the
+  surprizingly fine, and surpassingly vulgar, Mrs Augustus Brammel.
+  Augustus, notwithstanding his vapoury insubjection, visited his
+  father and the partners in the bank, leaving his bride in snug
+  lodgings at a respectable distance from all. He remained a few days
+  at the banking-house, and then absented himself on the plea of
+  finally arranging his incompleted affairs in Oxford and elsewhere. He
+  had engaged to return to business at the end of a month. Nearly three
+  had passed away, and no tidings whatever had been heard of him.
+  Allcraft, as it has been seen, grew anxious&#8212;less perhaps for
+  his partner&#39;s safety, than for the good name and credit of the
+  firm. He had heard of his precious doings, and reports of his
+  inauspicious marriage were already abroad. No wonder that the
+  cautious and apprehensive Michael trembled somewhat in his state of
+  uncertainty. As for Mr Augustus Brammel himself, the object of his
+  fears, he, in conformity with general custom, and especially in
+  compliance with the wishes of his wife, had quitted England on a
+  wedding tour. With five hundred pounds in his purse&#8212;a sum
+  advanced by his father to liquidate his present outstanding
+  liabilities&#8212;he steamed from Dover on the very day that he was
+  supposed to have reached Oxford for his final arrangements. From
+  Boulogne, he, his wife, and suite, proceeded to Paris; and there they
+  were, up to their eyes in the dissipation of that fascinating city,
+  when Allcraft started on their track, followed them, unwittingly
+  enough, from town to town, and came upon them at length in the great
+  city itself, and in the very hotel in which they lodged. It was at
+  night that Michael first caught sight of the runaway. And where? In a
+  gaming-house, the most fashionable of the many legalized haunts of
+  devils in which, not many years since, Paris abounded. Allcraft had
+  entered upon the scene of iniquity as into a theatre, to behold a
+  sight&#8212;the sight of human nature in its lowest, most pitiable,
+  and melancholy garb; in its hour of degradation, craziness, and
+  desperation. He had his recreation in such a spectacle, as men can
+  find their pleasure in the death-struggle of a malefacter on the
+  gibbet. He came, not to join the miserable throng that crowded round
+  the tables, exhibiting every variety of low, unhealthy feeling; nor
+  did he come, in truth, prepared to meet with one in whose affairs and
+  conduct he had so deep an interest. It was with inexpressible
+  astonishment and horror that he beheld his colleague, busy and active
+  amongst the busiest of the crew, venturing rouleau after rouleau,
+  losing stake upon stake, and growing more reckless and madder with
+  every new defeat. For a time Michael would not, could not, believe
+  his own eyes. It was one of the curious resemblances which we meet
+  every now and then in life: it was any thing but what he dreaded it
+  to be&#8212;the actual presence of Augustus Brammel. Michael
+  retreated to a distant part of the room, and watched his man. The
+  latter spoke. He used a disgusting English oath, and flung his last
+  rouleau across the table like a drunken fiend. The heart of Allcraft
+  grew sick, but still he kept his eye upon the gamester. Losing his
+  stake, Brammel quitted the apartment, and retired to a spacious
+  saloon, splendidly furnished. He called for <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_728" id="Page_728">[Pg 728]</a></span>
+  champagne&#8212;drank greedily&#8212;finished the
+  bottle&#8212;returned to the gaming-room flushed and
+  feverish&#8212;looked at the players savagely, but sottishly, for a
+  few moments, and then left the house altogether. Michael was on his
+  heels. The worthy Brammel stopped at many small public-houses on his
+  road, in each drank off a glass of brandy, and so went on. Michael
+  had patience, and kept to his partner like a leech. It was midnight
+  when he found himself once more before his hotel.</p>
+
+  <p>Brammel had rung at the porter&#39;s bell, and gained admittance.
+  A quarter of an hour afterwards Allcraft followed his example. Before
+  he retired to rest he learnt that Brammel and himself were inmates of
+  the same house. About eleven o&#39;clock on the following morning,
+  Augustus quitted his dressing-room. Michael had been waiting some
+  hours for this operation. A few minutes afterwards Mr Brammel&#39;s
+  servant announced a visitor. Great was the consternation of Augustus
+  Brammel when Mr Michael Allcraft looked him in the face. First the
+  delinquent turned very white, like a guilty man&#8212;then his colour
+  returned to him, and he tried to laugh like an innocent and careless
+  one; but he was not so happy in the second instance. As a third
+  experiment, he smoothed his hair with his fingers&#8212;pointed to a
+  chair&#8212;and held out his hand. Mrs Brammel was at the breakfast
+  table, reading an English newspaper.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah! Mr Allcraft&#8212;glad to see you&#8212;glad to see you.
+  Out on the same business, eh? Nothing like it&#8212;first weeks of
+  marriage are delightful&#8212;there&#39;s nothing like a honey-moon
+  on the Continent to my thinking. Mrs Brammel, my wife&#8212;Mr
+  Allcraft, my partner, my dear.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs Brammel looked up from her newspaper and giggled.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I cannot tell you, Mr Brammel,&quot; said Allcraft in a
+  serious tone, &quot;how surprised I am to find you here. Are you
+  aware, sir, that neither your father, nor any one of your partners,
+  have the least knowledge of your movements. You were supposed to be
+  in England. You gave your word to return to business within a month
+  of your departure. You have not written or given the slightest
+  account of yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Come, that&#39;s very good, Mister. Given an account of
+  myself, indeed! Pray, whom am I accountable to?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;To those, sir,&quot; replied Allcraft, quickly and angrily,
+  &quot;with whom you are associated in business, and who have an
+  interest in your good conduct&#8212;who suffer by your acts, and will
+  be blamed for your folly and indiscretion.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Come, I say, that&#39;s all very fine in you, Mr Allcraft;
+  but what brings you here, I should like to know? Haven&#39;t I as
+  much right to bring my wife to Paris as you have? Give and take, if
+  you please&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No, bless-ed,&quot; sagely and sarcastically interposed Mrs
+  Brammel, &quot;I ain&#39;t so rich as Mrs Allcraft; I can&#39;t dress
+  so fine; we ain&#39;t sich gentle-folks&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Mr Brammel, pray let us have no more recrimination. I have
+  met you here by the merest chance. It is my duty to speak to you at
+  once, and very seriously, on your position. You are mistaken if you
+  suppose that my own pleasure has brought me here;
+  business&#8212;important, weighty business&#8212;is the sole cause, I
+  can assure you.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;<i>Ally&#8212;ally</i>,&quot; answered Brammel with a
+  knowing leer, attempting a little <i>facetiæ</i> in French.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I tell you the truth, sir,&quot; continued Michael,
+  reddening with anger, &quot;and I warn you in good time to look to
+  yourself, and to your course of conduct. You may bring infamy upon
+  yourself, as you have brought sorrow and anguish upon the head of
+  your aged father; but you shall not with impunity involve and
+  disgrace others who are strangers to you, although unfortunately
+  connected with you by their occupation. Depend upon it, you shall
+  not.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;My aged father, as you call him, didn&#39;t stump up all
+  that money, I&#39;m thinking, Mr Allcraft, to bind me apprentice.
+  Perhaps you&#39;d like to kick me next. I am as much a partner in
+  that concern as you are; and if I think proper to take my lady
+  abroad, I am at liberty to do it as well as you. You ain&#39;t the
+  first man because you married a rich widow, and because your name
+  begins with A. Certainly not, monsweer.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;In course not, bless-ed. Besides, ducky, your name begins
+  with B&#8212;and that&#39;s A&#39;s next door neighbour.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You shall take your own course, sir,&quot; <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_729" id="Page_729">[Pg 729]</a></span>
+  proceeded Michael; &quot;but it shall be at your own peril, and with
+  your eyes opened. It is my part to give you good counsel. I shall do
+  so. You may act as you then think fit.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I haven&#39;t done any thing to disgrace you, as you call
+  it. It is cursed impudent in you to say so.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You have. You disgraced yourself and me, and every one
+  associated with you, only last night, when you were pleased to
+  exhibit to the world as a public gamester. (Augustus Theodore changed
+  colour.) You see that your actions are observed; they will become
+  more so. The house shall not lose its good name through your
+  misconduct, sir. Assure yourself of that. There are means to rid
+  ourselves of a nuisance, and to punish severely, if we choose to use
+  them.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What do you mean by punish?&quot; asked Augustus,
+  unfeignedly alarmed by his partner&#39;s threat, and yet not liking
+  to be bullied. &quot;Don&#39;t you insult me, sir, in my own room;
+  better not, I can tell you.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Pshaw, you are an idiot;&quot; exclaimed Michael most
+  contemptuously.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I&#39;ll just thank you to go, sir, and not call my husband
+  names,&quot; said Mrs Brammel, rising from her chair. &quot;You are a
+  nasty ill-bred fellow, I&#39;m sure. Talk of high people! I never see
+  sich airs in all my life. If your wife ain&#39;t no better behaved,
+  there&#39;s a nice pair of you, I don&#39;t think. Never mind him,
+  ducky dear&#8212;don&#39;t you fret. We are as good as them any day.
+  Let&#39;s go up stairs, there&#39;s a bless-ed. Call the
+  <i>garsoon</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Poor Michael knew not what step to take, what language to employ,
+  in order to effect his purpose. He could not think of quitting Paris,
+  leaving his partner behind him, open to the seductions of the city,
+  and eager to avail himself of every license and indulgence. He had
+  hoped to frighten him into better behaviour, and perhaps he would
+  have succeeded but for the presence of the lady, whose appearance and
+  demeanour, more than any thing else, confounded and annoyed him. He
+  remained silent for a few seconds, and then, in a quieter tone, he
+  asked Brammel when he really thought of getting back to business.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Why, very soon,&quot; replied the youth, himself reduced to
+  civility by Michael&#39;s more peaceful aspect; &quot;and I should
+  have been back before now, if I hadn&#39;t been bothered about a lot
+  of things. If you hadn&#39;t come in blustering, I should have told
+  you so. I shall be all right enough, don&#39;t you fear, when I get
+  home. I promised father I should settle, and so I mean&#8212;but a
+  wedding trip is a wedding trip, and ladies mustn&#39;t be
+  baulked.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Certainly not,&quot; answered Allcraft, grateful for as much
+  as this&#8212;&quot;then, when do you think of reaching
+  home?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh, before you, I&#39;ll wager! We haven&#39;t got much more
+  to see. We went to the Jordan de Plants yesterday. We are going to
+  the Pantheon to-morrow. We shall soon get done. Make your mind
+  easy.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;As soon as you have visited these places, I am to
+  understand, then, that you return to business?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Exactly so.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And may I venture to intreat you to abstain from visiting
+  the gambling-house again?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh, don&#39;t you worry yourself! If you had only spoken at
+  first like a gentleman, I should have promised you without being
+  asked.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Both you and Mrs Brammel must see, I am sure, the very great
+  propriety of avoiding all such scenes.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Mary Anne; and then repeating her
+  husband&#39;s words, &quot;but if you had only spoken at first like a
+  gentleman!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Perhaps I was too hasty, madam. It is a fault that I have.
+  We shall understand one another much better for the future. You will
+  be at home in about&#8212;ten days we&#39;ll say, from the present
+  time, at latest.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh, don&#39;t fix days, I never could bear it! We shall be
+  all right. Will you stay breakfast?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Michael excused himself, and, having done all that was permitted
+  him, departed. With a sad spirit he encountered his lady, and with
+  gloomy forebodings his mind was filled that day. Augustus Brammel was
+  destined to be his thorn, his trial, and his punishment. He could see
+  it already. His house, otherwise so stable, so promising, and so
+  prosperous, would receive a mortal blow from this one threatening
+  point. It must be warded off. The hurtful limb must by degrees be got
+  away. He must, from this time forward, engage himself in its removal.
+  It was, after all, a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_730" id=
+  "Page_730">[Pg 730]</a></span> consolation to have met the pair, and
+  to have succeeded so far in frightening them home again, as he fully
+  believed he had. For a time at least, he conceived that Brammel was
+  still safe. This conviction gave him courage, and carried him on his
+  road to Lyons, with a heart not altogether ill at ease, and without
+  good hope. In the meanwhile Mrs Brammel had inveighed, in the most
+  unmeasured terms, against the insolent behaviour of Mr Allcraft, the
+  pride and arrogance of his wife, whom she had never seen&#8212;the
+  marked, unpardonable insult she had offered her in not accompanying
+  Allcraft on his visit; and had succeeded, in short, in effectually
+  driving from her husband&#39;s mind the little good effect which had
+  been produced by the partner&#39;s just remonstrance. Ignorant and
+  vulgar as she was, the woman had unbounded influence and power. How
+  much, may be guessed from the fact, that before Michael Allcraft was
+  ten miles on his journey to Lyons, she had prevailed upon her husband
+  to draw his first cheque upon his house to the tune of £500, and to
+  prolong their holiday by visiting in succession the south of France,
+  Switzerland, and Italy. The fool, after an inane resistance,
+  consented; his cheque was converted to money&#8212;the horses were
+  ordered&#8212;and on they dashed.</p>
+
+  <h3><a name="THE_BANKING-HOUSE_CHAP_IV" id=
+  "THE_BANKING-HOUSE_CHAP_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+
+  <h3>A SPECULATION.</h3>
+
+  <p>&quot;When the cat is away, the mice begin to play.&quot; It is an
+  old and a true saying, and Michael, had he been an experienced
+  mouser, would have remembered it to his advantage, when he thought of
+  leaving the banking-house to the tender mercies of his colleagues.
+  His confidence in Planner was very great, and I will not say
+  undeserved; still some account should have been taken of his previous
+  habits, and the positive abiding infirmity of human nature. It was
+  surely dangerous to surround a man so fickle, and so easily led by
+  the delusions of his sanguine spirit, with every temptation to walk
+  astray, and to remove every check that had hitherto kept down the
+  capricious movements of his most unsteady will. The daily, almost
+  hourly presence of Allcraft, his vigorous and immediate
+  superintendence of affairs, had subdued the speculative soul of
+  Planner, and rendered him a useful man of business. He was, in truth,
+  a good accountant, ardent in his pursuits, a faithful friend, an
+  honest man. With the needful restraints upon him, he proved, as
+  Allcraft had believed he would, a warm and active partisan. Had those
+  restraints been continued for any time&#8212;had he been trained, and
+  so reconciled and accustomed to his yoke, all might have prospered
+  and been well with him. His own happiness might have been secured,
+  and the hopes of his friend and patron would not have been blasted.
+  It was the misfortune of Allcraft, with all his long-sightedness, not
+  to see far enough. He was to blame, deeply to blame, for the
+  desertion of a man whom he knew to be at the mercy of his own wayward
+  spirit, and utterly incapable of self-defence. Yet, called abroad,
+  what could he do? It is the fate of cunning, as it is of suspicion
+  and other mortal weaknesses, to fall into toils of its own weaving.
+  Michael too soon was called to pay the penalty. Allcraft had been in
+  France a fortnight, when Planner received a fatal visit at the bank
+  from a very old friend and stanch ally&#8212;a creature as excitable
+  and sanguine as himself, as full of projects, and as unsuccessful.
+  They had known each other in the early and distant days of their
+  prosperity&#8212;they had grown poor together&#8212;they were united
+  by the uniformity of their fortunes as by the similarity of their
+  natures. They had both for years regarded themselves as the
+  persecuted and injured of society&#8212;and both were satisfied of
+  their ability to achieve miracles, time and the occasion serving. It
+  is not for speculative spirits to be disheartened by failure, but
+  rather to be encouraged by ill success to fresh extravagance, else
+  had the poor result of all their schemes long since extinguished the
+  fire at work within them. Not one of their <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_731" id="Page_731">[Pg 731]</a></span>
+  innumerable plans had shown a gleam, a spark, of reality and life.
+  One morning, about five years before the present visit, Mr William
+  Wedge rose from bed with the pleasing notion that he would ruin all
+  the public gaming-houses in the world. He had suddenly discovered the
+  secret of their success&#8212;the cause of their enormous
+  gains&#8212;and had arranged, with minutest care and skill, a
+  systematic course of play to bring against them. It was with
+  difficulty that he contained himself until he mentioned his good
+  fortune to his friend. They met time after time in secret, grew
+  fearfully mysterious&#8212;closed their windows in the open
+  day&#8212;played cards from morning till night, and sometimes through
+  the night&#8212;with no other eye upon them than the very feeble,
+  faint-glimmering one of their farthing rushlight;&#8212;they carried
+  directions in their pocket&#8212;learnt them off&#8212;repeated them
+  until they grew familiar as their oaths, and more familiar than their
+  prayers. To realize between them a standing capital of five pounds, a
+  sum essential to their operations, they pawned all the available
+  clothing they possessed; and on the very night that they obtained the
+  cash, they sallied forth to carry devastation and affright throughout
+  the camps of innocent and unsuspecting blacklegs. As might be
+  expected, it took about as many minutes as they had pounds to effect
+  the ruin of the adventurers. Did they despond? Not they; a flaw
+  existed in their calculations. They looked for it with care, and were
+  torn from their employment only by the exigencies of the time, and
+  the pressing demands of nature for immediate bread. Mr Wedge had from
+  this period struggled on, living as he knew how, and nobody could
+  tell, until Planner&#39;s unexpected good fortune and ascent provided
+  him with an allowance and a quiet mind to follow out his views. Since
+  Planner&#39;s introduction into the bank, he had behaved faithfully
+  and well to his ancient crony; in addition to a pension, paid weekly
+  and in advance, he gave him a right of entrée to his rooms after the
+  hours of business, a certain supper three times a-week, and an
+  uncertain quantity of brandy and water on the same occasions. One
+  stipulation only he deemed necessary for his protection. He had given
+  his word to Allcraft to avoid all trading unconnected with the
+  bank&#8212;to abstain from speculation. Weak at the best of times, he
+  knew himself to be literally helpless with the <i>ignis fatuus</i> of
+  a hopeful project before his eyes; and he made a condition of
+  Wedge&#39;s visits&#8212;his silence upon matters of business,
+  private or public. It was a wise resolution, nobly formed, and for a
+  season well carried out. Wedge promised to be cautious, and did not
+  break his word. Peace of mind, a regular diet, and a full stomach,
+  were such extraordinary circumstances in the daily doings of the
+  latter, that the restraint upon his tongue was, in the first month or
+  two of the new excitement, scarcely felt as an inconvenience. Planner
+  himself, with the eye of Allcraft upon him, kept his natural
+  inclination safely in the rear of <i>his</i> promise, and so the days
+  and nights passed pleasantly. On the evening above alluded
+  to&#8212;that is to say, just a fortnight after Michael&#39;s
+  departure&#8212;Wedge came as usual for his supper, grog, and
+  conversation. The clock had just struck eleven&#8212;the friends were
+  sitting together, their feet upon the fender, their hands upon their
+  tumblers. As was usual with them, they discussed the doings of the
+  nation, and called in question the proceedings of the existing
+  government. One subject after another was dismissed&#8212;politics,
+  law, love, and religion&#8212;they abused every thing, and agreed
+  marvellously. It was getting very near midnight, the hour at which,
+  it is said, devils are let loose upon earth for mischief&#8212;when a
+  rascally little imp crawled up to Planner&#39;s ear, and put it into
+  his head to talk about the amusements of the poor, and their effects
+  upon the rising generation.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;They will be sorry for it, Wedge&#8212;mark my words. All
+  this stabbing and killing comes from too much work and no play.
+  Jack&#39;s at his tools for ever&#8212;gets a dull boy&#8212;and then
+  stabs and cuts about him for the sake of getting lively. Government
+  should have playgrounds in every parish. They would save the expense
+  in the rapid diminution of the standing army. I wrote a letter once
+  to the prime minister&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>Wedge sighed.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What do you mean by that, Wedge? Ah, quite right&#8212;I
+  see! You are a good fellow, Wedge. You have kept the compact. I
+  won&#39;t be the first to break it. Let us change the <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_732" id="Page_732">[Pg 732]</a></span>
+  subject. I burnt all my letters and papers the day I got here. What
+  was the good of keeping them? This is an ungrateful country,
+  Wedge!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Wedge sipped his grog, and sighed again.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What is the matter, boy?&quot; enquired his patron.
+  &quot;Speak your mind&#8212;relieve your heart.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No, I won&#39;t, Planner&#8212;I won&#39;t be the first. You
+  sha&#39;n&#39;t say it is me. I don&#39;t mean to be blamed,
+  that&#39;s a fact&#8212;but if I dared, oh, that&#39;s all!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Is it any thing very good?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Good! Good, did you say? Well, an agreement&#39;s an
+  agreement, Planner. It isn&#39;t for me to introduce the subject; but
+  I could tell you something, if we were differently situated, that
+  would be a fortune to you. Ah, Planner, I sha&#39;n&#39;t be a burden
+  upon you long! I have hit upon a thing at last&#8212;I am a made
+  man!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Now I tell you what, Wedge,&quot; said Planner, pulling out
+  his watch, and looking very serious, &quot;we&#39;ll have just five
+  minutes&#39; private conversation on this matter, and then have done
+  with it. Only five minutes, mind you, by the watch. If we mutually
+  agree to lay aside our compact for a minute or so, there&#39;s no
+  great harm done, provided it isn&#39;t made a precedent. I should
+  like to see you set a-going, Wedge. You may open your mind to me, and
+  be sure of good advice. It&#39;s now seven minutes to twelve. Till
+  twelve, Wedge, you are at liberty to talk on business.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What were you saying just now about amusements, Planner? Do
+  you recollect.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I do.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I have thought about it for the last six months. We have
+  formed a company.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;A company!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Wedge was as full of mystery as an Oxford tractman. He rose on
+  tiptoe from his chair, proceeded to the passage, listened on the
+  stairs, returned as carefully, closed the door, resumed his seat.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;A company!&quot; repeated Planner.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Such an undertaking!&quot; proceeded the ungagged and
+  self-deluded Wedge. &quot;It&#39;s the finest thing that has been
+  thought of for these hundred years. I <i>am</i> surprised it never
+  once occurred to you. Your mind, Planner, should have grasped
+  it.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What can it be?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;We mean to call it the <i>Pantamorphica</i>, because it
+  takes all shapes. We are in treaty now for a hundred acres of land
+  within three miles of London. We are to have a
+  race-course&#8212;public gardens with fountains and
+  promenades&#8212;a gymnasium for callisthenic and other
+  exercises&#8212;boating&#8212;a menagerie&#8212;a
+  library&#8212;lecture-rooms&#8212;conservatories&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;By Jove, I see!&quot; ejaculated Planner.
+  &quot;Capital!&#8212;a universal playground; trust me, I have thought
+  of it before. Go on.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;These are for the daylight. At night we have a
+  concert-room&#8212;a theatre&#8212;saloons for dancing&#8212;halls
+  for refreshment&#8212;museums for <i>converzatione</i>. In the centre
+  of the public walks we have a synagogue, a church, and chapel for
+  Sabbath visitors. Then we shall have
+  aviaries&#8212;apiaries&#8212;caves&#8212;alpine
+  scenery&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Upon my soul, Wedge, it&#39;s a grand conception!&quot;
+  There was a large clock at the bottom of the stairs which struck
+  twelve, loud enough to awake the sleeping household; but, strange to
+  say, neither Planner nor his friend heard a single chime. &quot;Who
+  are your men?&quot; continued Planner.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh, first-rate men! Three of the first London bankers, two
+  of the chief architects, the richest capitalist in
+  England&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What, have you got them all?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No, but we mean to ask them to take shares, and to take part
+  in the direction. They&#39;ll jump, sir, at the offer.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah, that they will! What&#39;s your capital?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Half a million&#8212;five thousand shares of a hundred each.
+  It&#39;s nothing at all!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No, nothing really. What is your appointment?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I am secretary; and I am to have a bonus of five thousand
+  pounds when the thing is fairly started.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You well deserve it, Wedge. Ah, sir, I have dreamt of this
+  before!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No&#8212;have you?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It must do, Wedge. It can&#39;t help itself. People will be
+  amused&#8212;people will pay for it. Amuse them from morning till
+  night&#8212;change the scene every hour of the day&#8212;vary the
+  pleasures. Wedge, you are a national benefactor.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It is past twelve,&quot; said Wedge hesitatingly, looking at
+  the watch.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No&#8212;is it?&quot; asked Planner, looking at it likewise.
+  &quot;There must be some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_733" id=
+  "Page_733">[Pg 733]</a></span> mistake. Have you heard the clock
+  strike?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Nor I; my watch is out of order&#8212;too fast a great deal.
+  Let us go by the big clock. Now, when that strikes twelve, Wedge, you
+  shall go home, and I&#39;ll to bed&#8212;an understanding is an
+  understanding, Wedge.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And so you like it, Planner&#8212;eh?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Like it, sir&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>It was exactly a quarter to four o&#39;clock when Planner put out
+  his bedroom candle, and Wedge tucked himself up as well as he could
+  on the hard horsehair sofa in Planner&#39;s sitting-room. Having
+  enlarged upon the <i>Pantamorphica</i> speculation until the above
+  unreasonable hour, it was not deemed respectable for Mr Wedge to quit
+  the banking-house on the dark side of sunrise. The latter gentleman
+  had worked himself up to such a pitch of excitement in blowing out
+  his bubble, that it was very nearly six o&#39;clock before he could
+  be pronounced in a condition to say his prayers like a rational
+  being, and go to sleep. As for Planner, he had heard too much to be
+  quiet. He tossed his head on his pillow&#8212;turned from side to
+  side&#8212;sat up and lay down again at intervals, until the break of
+  day. He had resolved to take an active interest in this glorious
+  undertaking. Nothing should hinder him. Its returns must necessarily
+  be immense. He had promised Allcraft to enter into no business
+  foreign to the banking-house. But what of that? He should be without
+  an excuse for his blindness if he closed his eyes to the advantages
+  which stared him in the face. He would not be selfish. Allcraft
+  should share in the reward. He, who had acted so friendly a part to
+  him, should be repaid for his noble conduct. &quot;Share and share
+  alike,&quot; should be his motto. And he would not hesitate or
+  postpone his intentions. He would look thoroughly into the affair at
+  once, and go boldly forward. It should be his pleasure and his pride
+  to greet and surprise his partner with the unexpected news the
+  instant he returned. Sweet are the visions of life, sleeping or
+  waking. It is the substance and the truth that pass like iron to the
+  soul, and kill it. Poor Planner!</p>
+
+  <h3><a name="THE_BANKING-HOUSE_CHAP_V" id=
+  "THE_BANKING-HOUSE_CHAP_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+
+  <h3>A LANDED PROPRIETOR.</h3>
+
+  <p>After Michael had spent a month in France, he discovered that he
+  must still travel on, and still sacrifice time and exertion, if he
+  hoped to bring his unfortunate parent&#39;s affairs to a satisfactory
+  issue. Many things had happened since his arrival to give him great
+  pain and annoyance. In the first place, he had learned, with a
+  sickening heart, that the private debts of his father considerably
+  exceeded in amount those which had appeared in the testamentary
+  memorandum. He had seen with his own eyes his father&#39;s
+  acknowledgment of liabilities, the existence of which was thus
+  revealed to him for the first time. In his immediate and violent
+  disgust, he burned to expose his parent&#39;s cupidity and
+  dishonesty, and to rid himself of the burden which he had voluntarily
+  taken as his own; but pride, shame, and other low incentives, came
+  between him and the fulfilment of a rash resolution, and he had
+  nothing to do but to look his difficulty fully and bravely in the
+  face. In addition to this trial, he found it necessary to proceed
+  without delay as far eastward as Vienna; for thither his chief
+  creditor had taken himself on urgent business, which threatened to
+  detain him on the spot until the following year. Nor was this all; a
+  Lyonese merchant, who held old Allcraft&#39;s note of hand for a
+  considerable sum, advanced under assurances of early payment, had
+  grown obstinate and restive with disappointment and anxiety. He
+  insisted upon the instant discharge of his claim, and refused to give
+  another hour&#39;s grace. To rid himself of this plague, Michael had
+  not hesitated to draw upon his house for a sum somewhat greater than
+  five thousand pounds. The act had not been committed without some
+  distress of mind&#8212;some murmurings of conscience; but the
+  necessity was great&#8212;the compulsion not to be avoided. To put an
+  end to all further and importunate demands, he posted into Austria
+  fast as he could be conveyed. <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_734" id="Page_734">[Pg 734]</a></span> The chief creditor was
+  destined to be Michael&#39;s chief misery. He was an obdurate,
+  unyielding man, and, after days of negotiation, would finally listen
+  to nothing but the chink of the gold that was due to him. And how
+  much that was, Michael dared not trust himself to think. Now, what
+  was to be done? To draw again upon the bank&#8212;to become himself,
+  to his partners, an example of recklessness and extravagance, was out
+  of the question. He had but one course before him, and it was one
+  which he had solemnly vowed never to adopt. To beg a loan from his
+  wife so early in the morning of their union, seemed a thing
+  impossible&#8212;at least it seemed so in the outset, when the
+  thought first blushed upon him, and there remained a chance, a hope,
+  of escaping from the miserable alternative. But as the creditor got
+  clamorous, and every prospect of satisfying his demand&#8212;every
+  means save one&#8212;grew dim, and shadowy, and blank, the
+  wrongfulness, the impropriety of making an appeal to her, whose heart
+  was willing as her hand was able to release him from despair, became
+  less evident, and by degrees not evident at all. It would have been
+  well for Allcraft, and for Margaret too, had the latter resisted his
+  demand, or opposed it with one kind word of remonstrance. Michael was
+  prepared for this, and the gentlest opposition would have saved them
+  both. But what did Margaret possess, which she wished not to share
+  with him who was her idol&#8212;dearer to her than her life&#8212;the
+  joy and light of life! He hinted his request; she hardly suffered him
+  to hint it. She placed her substance at his command, and bade him use
+  it. Like a guilty man&#8212;one guilty of his first but heavy
+  fault&#8212;blushing and faltering, Allcraft thanked his Margaret for
+  the loan, promised speedy payment, and vowed that he would beg no
+  more. Fond Margaret! she kissed the vow away, and bade him clear his
+  brow, smile, and be happy. It was a woman&#39;s part, who loves not
+  wisely, but too well. The day that gave him the means of satisfying
+  the claims of one great creditor, bound Allcraft more seriously to
+  another; but he rejoiced at his success, which brought him temporary
+  ease, and he congratulated himself upon his deliverance from failure
+  and exposure. There was little to do. The lady&#39;s broker was
+  written to; the legal adviser of the gentleman, at Michael&#39;s own
+  request, prepared an instrument to secure repayment of the loan; the
+  money came&#8212;the debts of Allcraft senior to the last farthing
+  were discharged, and scarcely discharged before Michael, eager and
+  anxious to be at home, quitted Vienna, ready to travel by night and
+  day, and longing to feel his footing safely in the banking-house
+  again.</p>
+
+  <p>It is now proper to state, that on the very day that Michael&#39;s
+  draft of five thousand pounds applied for honourable reception at the
+  counter of his most respectable establishment, by a curious
+  coincidence another demand for double that amount appeared there
+  likewise; not in the shape of cheque or written order, but in that of
+  a request, personal and oral, proceeding from the proud and high-born
+  lips of Walter Bellamy, Esquire, lord of the manor&#8212;gentleman
+  and banker. Mr Bellamy was not the first man, by a great number, who
+  has attempted to clothe and conceal real poverty in the stately
+  apparel of arrogance and offensive self-sufficiency. He, man of the
+  world, knew well enough, that, thus disguised, <i>necessity</i> need
+  never fear discovery&#8212;might look and laugh in secret at
+  mankind&#8212;might feed and thrive upon its faults and weaknesses.
+  How comparatively easy it is to avoid the shoals and rocks of
+  life&#8212;to sail smoothly and pleasantly on its waters, when we
+  take for our rudder and our guide the world&#39;s great axiom,
+  &quot;<span class='smcap'>riches are
+  virture</span>&#8212;<span class='smcap'>poverty is
+  vice</span>.&quot; &quot;Assume the <i>virtue</i>, if you have it
+  not;&quot; assume its shows and appearances, its tricks, its
+  offences, and its crimes, rather than confess your nakedness. Be
+  liberal and prodigal, if it must be, with the crown you need to pay
+  your necessary lodging; adorn with velvet and with silk the body that
+  grows sick for lack of wholesome food; bribe, beyond their
+  expectation, the pampered things in livery that stand between you and
+  the glory you aspire to&#8212;bribe them, though to part with money
+  is to lose your meal. Upon this broad principle it was, that Walter
+  Bellamy existed&#8212;in virtue of it he held lands, and by its means
+  he had become a partner in the bank, an active one, as very soon he
+  proved himself to be. His property was estimated by shrewd
+  calculators at a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_735" id=
+  "Page_735">[Pg 735]</a></span> hundred thousand pounds&#8212;that, at
+  the very least. And Bellamy chuckled at his fireside&#8212;no one
+  being by&#8212;at the universal gullibility of man. A hundred
+  thousand pounds! Why, he could not&#8212;at any one period during the
+  last twenty years, command as many farthings. What right had
+  strangers to calculate for him? What right had Allcraft to depend
+  upon such calculations? We may well ask the question, since Mr
+  Bellamy did so, when he endeavoured, as the worst of us will do, to
+  justify bad conduct to an unfaithful conscience. Why, what was he? a
+  simple <i>locum tenens</i> of a dozen mortgagees, who had advanced
+  upon the estate a great deal more money than it would ever realize,
+  if forced to sale&#8212;a haughty, overbearing man, (though very
+  benevolent to postboys and other serving men,) a magistrate, and a
+  great disciplinarian. This was the amount of his pretensions, and yet
+  men worshipped him. It was surely not the fault of Mr Bellamy, but
+  rather his good fortune; and if he chose to make the most of it, he
+  was a wise and prudent personage. When it is borne in mind that the
+  possessions of Mr Bellamy were involved beyond their actual
+  worth&#8212;that for some time he had lived in a perpetual dread of
+  exposure and utter ruin&#8212;that for years he had looked abroad for
+  some kind friend, who, if not altogether willing, might still be
+  prevailed upon to release him from his difficulties&#8212;it will be
+  easy to understand his very great desire to confer on Michael
+  Allcraft all the advantages of his own position and high
+  character.</p>
+
+  <p>The part which Bellamy had taken in the business of the house, was
+  very inconsiderable until Michael&#39;s departure. Up to that time,
+  he came to the bank in his carriage with much ceremony&#8212;spoke to
+  the dependents there with becoming <i>hauteur</i>, and took his
+  leave, on all occasions, as a rich man should, with abundant fuss,
+  scarcely troubling himself with the proceedings of the day. &quot;He
+  had,&quot; he was always repeating the words, &quot;he had the
+  greatest confidence in Allcraft. It was unbounded. He felt that he
+  could trust to him entirely and unreservedly.&quot; Gratefully did
+  such expressions fall upon the flattered ear of Michael, applauding
+  himself ever upon his victory&#8212;upon the acquisition of such a
+  man. Of what service he would be to him in his well-laid plans! Of
+  what use was his name already&#8212;and how much more serviceable
+  than all would be the noble sum of money which he had <i>promised</i>
+  to bring into the bank at the close of the year! Michael, in his
+  moments of chivalry, standing in the presence of Bellamy, looked upon
+  him almost with an eye of pity and self-reproach. Whilst he himself
+  could only plead guilty to a most refined and cunning policy, his
+  innocent partner was but too full of trust; too simple and too
+  unsuspecting. Somebody remarks, that God reserves unto himself that
+  horrid sight&#8212;a naked, human heart. Had Allcraft and Bellamy,
+  during one of their early interviews, suddenly stripped, and favoured
+  each other with reciprocal glances&#8212;one or both would have been
+  slightly startled by the unexpected exhibition. Planner had always
+  looked upon Mr Bellamy as a very great man indeed&#8212;had
+  contemplated him with that exact admixture of awe and admiration,
+  that was pleasing and acceptable to the subject of it. Mr Bellamy, in
+  his turn, conducted himself towards the schemer with much cordiality
+  and kindness. Proud men never unbend until their supremacy is
+  acknowledged through your servility. Your submission turns their gall
+  to honey&#8212;converts their vinegar to milk&#8212;to the very cream
+  of human complaisance. Mr Bellamy acted his part in this respect, as
+  in every other&#8212;well; a tiger to such as would not cringe, he
+  could become a playful lamb to all who were content to fawn. Planner
+  and he were on the best possible terms. Looking into what is called
+  the nature of things, we shall think it very natural on the part of
+  Mr Bellamy, when he found himself so agreeably situated in regard to
+  the circulating medium, if he took an early opportunity to help
+  himself of the abundance by which he was surrounded. The truth is,
+  that some time before the visit of Allcraft to the Continent, he had
+  entertained a very serious intention of drawing out of the concern
+  the anticipatory profits of a few years, in order to relieve himself
+  and fine estate from certain engagements which pressed inconveniently
+  on both&#8212;but his object had not, for many reasons, been carried
+  into effect. In the first place, a moderate <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_736" id="Page_736">[Pg 736]</a></span> degree
+  of actual shame withheld him&#8212;and again, he had begged for time
+  from his creditor, and obtained it. Allcraft absent, the sense of
+  shame diminished; before he could return to England, the grateful
+  respite was at an end. It was a fine bright morning when Mr
+  Bellamy&#39;s grand carriage drew up in state before the
+  banking-house, and the highly respectable proprietor descended from
+  it with his accustomed style and dignity. Mr Planner was, at the
+  moment, at his desk, very busy with the prospectus of the
+  <i>Pantamorphica</i> Association, in which he had just completed some
+  very striking additions&#8212;but perceiving his respected colleague,
+  he jumped from his seat, and hastened to give him greeting.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Don&#39;t let me disturb you, my dear friend,&quot; said the
+  gracious Mr Bellamy. &quot;I beg you&#39;ll prosecute your
+  labours.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Don&#39;t mention it, I pray&#8212;so like you, Mr
+  Bellamy&#8212;always considerate and kind.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Busy, Mr Planner&#8212;eh?&#8212;a deal to do now in the
+  absence of our good friend?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Enough, enough sir, I assure you&#8212;but business, sir, is
+  pleasure to the active mind.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Very true&#8212;we feel your worth, sir&#8212;the house
+  acknowledges your ability, Mr Planner.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Dear Mr Bellamy&#8212;you are very flattering.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No&#8212;not at all. Have you any engagement, Mr Planner,
+  for this evening? Can you find time to dine with us at the Hall? I am
+  positively angry with you for your repeated excuses.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I shall be too proud, sir&#8212;business
+  hitherto&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ay&#8212;ay&#8212;but, my good sir, we must not sacrifice
+  ourselves to business. A little recreation is absolutely
+  necessary.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;So it is, sir&#8212;so it is&#8212;and you, sir, with your
+  splendid fortune and superior taste&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah, ah&#8212;<i>apropos</i>! have you heard from Mr Allcraft
+  lately?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;This morning, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;When does he return, pray?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;In about a week from this. He writes he leaves Vienna this
+  very day.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Dear me, how very inconvenient, how very vexing!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What is it, may I ask, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh, a trifle, Mr Planner. Dear me&#8212;dear me&#8212;it is
+  annoying too!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Is it nothing that we can do, sir? Any thing the bank can
+  offer?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Why&#8212;my dear sir&#8212;it is rather awkward, certainly.
+  I have engaged to complete a purchase, and it must be done to-morrow.
+  What cash have we in the house? There can be no impropriety in
+  withdrawing a few thousand pounds for a short time. What do you
+  think&#8212;Mr Allcraft being away?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Now, Planner himself, during the last few days, had been very busy
+  with the cash-box, in order to meet the expenses of certain
+  preliminaries essential to the success of the infant
+  <i>Pantamorphica</i>&#8212;into which speculation, by the way, he had
+  entered heart and soul&#8212;and it was quite a relief and a joy to
+  him to find his partner turning his attention to the same quarter; so
+  true it is, that no pleasure is so sweet to a sinner, as the
+  wickedness and companionship of a brother criminal.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Impropriety, sir!&quot; exclaimed the schemer.
+  &quot;Certainly not. Draw your cheque, sir. If we have not the money
+  here, we have a heavy purse in London&#8212;and I beg you will
+  command it.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You think, then, that until our friend&#39;s
+  return&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I am perfectly satisfied, Mr Bellamy,&quot; said Planner,
+  with an emphasis on every word, as men will sometimes use, feeling
+  and believing all that they assert. &quot;I am thoroughly convinced
+  that nothing would give Mr Allcraft greater pain than to know you had
+  needed a temporary loan, and had not availed yourself of every
+  opportunity that the bank affords you. I entreat you not to hesitate
+  one instant. How much may you require?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Well, my dear sir&#8212;you will dine with us this evening.
+  We will talk the matter over. Don&#39;t be late. Upon consideration,
+  it may be quite as well, perhaps, to draw upon the bank.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Much better, sir, I am sure, in every way. Will you walk
+  into the private room? You&#39;ll find pen, ink, and paper there. We
+  can accommodate you, sir&#8212;no doubt.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Thank you, Mr Planner, thank you.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>How very few of the numerous clients of Messrs Allcraft, Bellamy,
+  Brammel, and Planner, in their worst dreams that night, dreamt of the
+  havoc which was making with their beloved and hard-earned cash!</p>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_737" id="Page_737">[Pg
+  737]</a></span></p>
+
+  <h2><a name="COLLEGE_THEATRICALS" id=
+  "COLLEGE_THEATRICALS"></a>COLLEGE THEATRICALS.</h2>
+
+  <p>It wanted but two or three weeks to the Christmas vacation, and
+  we&#8212;the worshipful society of under-graduates of &#8212;&#8212;
+  College, Oxford&#8212;were beginning to get tired of the eternal
+  round of supper parties which usually marked the close of our
+  winter&#39;s campaign, and ready to hail with delight any proposition
+  that had the charm of novelty. A three weeks&#39; frost had
+  effectually stopped the hunting; all the best tandem leaders were
+  completely screwed; the freshmen had been &quot;larked&quot; till
+  they were grown as cunning as magpies; and the Dean had set up a
+  divinity lecture at two o&#39;clock, and published a stringent
+  proclamation against rows in the Quad. It was, in short, in a
+  particularly uninteresting state of things, with the snow falling
+  lazily upon the grey roofs and silent quadrangle, that some half
+  dozen of us had congregated in Bob Thornhill&#39;s rooms, to get over
+  the time between lunch and dinner with as little trouble to our
+  mental and corporal faculties as possible. Those among us who had
+  been for the last three months promising to themselves to begin to
+  read &quot;next week,&quot; had now put off that too easy creditor,
+  conscience, till &quot;next term.&quot; One alone had settled his
+  engagements of that nature, or, in the language of his
+  &quot;<i>Testamur</i>&quot;&#8212;the prettiest bit of Latin, he
+  declared, that he ever saw&#8212;&quot;<i>satisfecit
+  examinatoribus</i>.&quot; Unquestionably, in his case, the examiners
+  must have had the rare virtue of being very easily satisfied. In
+  fact, Mr Savile&#39;s discharge of his educational engagements was
+  rather a sort of &quot;whitewashing&quot; than a payment in full. His
+  passing was what is technically called a &quot;shave,&quot; a
+  metaphor alluding to that intellectual density which finds it
+  difficult to squeeze through the narrow portal which admits to the
+  privileges of a Bachelor of Arts. As Mr S. himself, being a sporting
+  man, described it, it was &quot;a very close run indeed;&quot; not
+  that he considered that circumstance to derogate, in any way, from
+  his victory; he was rather inclined to consider, that, having shown
+  the field of examiners capital sport, and fairly got away from them
+  in the end without the loss of his brush, his examination had been
+  one of the very best runs of the season. In virtue whereof he was now
+  mounted on the arm of an easy-chair, with a long <i>chibouque</i>,
+  which became the gravity of an incipient bachelor better than a
+  cigar, and took upon himself to give Thornhill (who was really a
+  clever fellow, and professing to be reading for a first) some advice
+  as to his conducting himself when his examination should arrive.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I&#39;ll tell you what, Thornhill, old boy, I&#39;ll give
+  you a wrinkle; it doesn&#39;t always answer to let out all you know
+  at an examination. That sly old varmint, West of Magdalen, asked me
+  who Hannibal was. &#39;Aha!&#39;&#8212;said I to
+  myself&#8212;&#39;that&#39;s your line of country, is it? You want to
+  walk me straight into those botheration Punic Wars, it&#39;s no go,
+  though; I sha&#39;n&#39;t break cover in that direction.&#39; So I
+  was mute. &#39;Can&#39;t you tell me something about Hannibal?&#39;
+  says old West again. &#39;I can,&#39; thinks I, &#39;but I
+  won&#39;t.&#39; He was regularly flabbergasted; I spoilt his beat
+  entirely, don&#39;t you see? so he looked as black as thunder, and
+  tried it on in a fresh place. If I had been fool enough to let him
+  dodge me in those Punic Wars, I could have been run into in no time.
+  Depend upon it, there&#39;s nothing like a judicious ignorance
+  occasionally.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Why,&quot; said Thornhill, &quot;&#39;when ignorance is
+  bliss,&#39; (<i>i. e.</i> when it gets through the schools,) &#39;tis
+  folly to be wise.&#39;&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah! that&#39;s Shakspeare says that, isn&#39;t it? I wish
+  one could take up Shakspeare for a class! I&#39;m devilish fond of
+  Shakspeare. We used to act Shakspeare at a private school I was
+  at.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;By Jove!&quot; said somebody from behind a cloud of
+  smoke&#8212;whose the brilliant idea was, was afterwards matter of
+  dispute&#8212;&quot;why couldn&#39;t we get up a play?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah! why not? why not? Capital!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It&#39;s such a horrid bore learning one&#39;s part,&quot;
+  lisped the elegant Horace Leicester, half awake on the sofa.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh, stuff!&quot; said Savile, &quot;it&#39;s the
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_738" id="Page_738">[Pg
+  738]</a></span> very thing to keep us alive! We could make a capital
+  theatre out of the hall; don&#39;t you think the little vice
+  principal would give us leave?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You had better ask for the chapel at once. Why, don&#39;t
+  you know, my dear fellow, the college hall, in the opinion of the
+  dean and the vice, is held rather more sacred of the two? Newcome,
+  poor devil, attempted to cut a joke at the high table one of the
+  times he dined there after he was elected, and he told me that they
+  all stared at him as if he had insulted them; and the vice (in
+  confidence) explained to him that such &#39;levity&#39; was treason
+  against the &#39;<i>reverentia loci</i>!&#39;&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ay, I remember when that old villain Solomon, the porter,
+  fined me ten shillings for walking in there with spurs one day when I
+  was late for dinner; he said the dean always took off his cap when he
+  went in there by himself, and threatened to turn off old Higgs, when
+  he had been scout forty years, because he heard him whistling one day
+  while he was sweeping it out! Well,&quot; continued Savile, &quot;you
+  shall have my rooms; I sha&#39;n&#39;t trouble them much now. I am
+  going to pack all my books down to old Wise&#39;s next week, to turn
+  them into ready <i>tin</i>; so you may turn the study into a
+  carpenter&#39;s shop, if you like. Oh, it can be managed
+  famously!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>So, after a few <i>pros</i> and <i>cons</i>, it was finally
+  settled that Mr Savile&#39;s rooms should become the Theatre Royal,
+  &#8212;&#8212; College; and I was honoured with the responsible
+  office of stage-manager. What the play was to be was a more difficult
+  point to settle. Savile proposed <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, and
+  volunteered for the hero; but it passed the united strength of the
+  company to get up a decent <i>Juliet</i>. <i>Richard the Third</i>
+  was suggested; we had &quot;six <i>Richards</i> in the field&quot; at
+  once. We soon gave up the heroics, and decided on comedy; for, since
+  our audience would be sure to laugh, we should at least have a chance
+  of getting the laugh in the right place. So, after long discussion,
+  we fixed on <i>She Stoops to Conquer</i>. There were a good many
+  reasons for this selection. First, it was a piece possessing that
+  grand desideratum in all amateur performances, that there were
+  several parts in it of equal calibre, and none which implied decided
+  superiority of talent in its representative. Secondly, there was not
+  much <i>love</i> in it; a material point where, as an Irishman might
+  say, all the ladies were gentlemen. Thirdly, the scenery, dresses,
+  properties, and decorations, were of the very simplest description:
+  it was easily &quot;put upon the stage.&quot; We found little
+  difficulty in casting the male characters; old Mrs Hardcastle, not
+  requiring any great share of personal attractions, and being
+  considered a part that would tell, soon found a representative; but
+  when we came to the &quot;donnas&quot;&#8212;<i>prima</i> and
+  <i>secunda</i>&#8212;then it was that the manager&#39;s troubles
+  began. It was really necessary, to ensure the most moderate degree of
+  success to the comedy, that Miss Hardcastle should have at least a
+  lady-like deportment. The public voice, first in whispers, then
+  audibly, at last vociferously, called upon Leicester. Slightly
+  formed, handsome, clever and accomplished, with naturally graceful
+  manners, and a fair share of vanity and affectation, there was no
+  doubt of his making a respectable heroine if he would consent to be
+  made love to. In vain did he protest against the petticoats, and urge
+  with affecting earnestness the claims of the whiskers which for the
+  last six months he had so diligently been cultivating; the chorus of
+  entreaty and expostulation had its effect, aided by a well-timed
+  compliment to the aristocratically small hand and foot, of which
+  Horace was pardonably vain. Shaving was pronounced indispensable to
+  the due growth of the whiskers; and the importance of the character,
+  and the point of the situations, so strongly dwelt upon, that he
+  became gradually reconciled to his fate, and began seriously to
+  discuss the question whether Miss Hardcastle should wear her hair in
+  curls or bands. A freshman of seventeen, who had no pretensions in
+  the way of whiskers, and who was too happy to be admitted on any
+  terms to a share in such a &quot;fast idea&quot; as the getting up a
+  play, was to be the Miss Neville; and before the hall bell rang for
+  dinner, an order had been despatched for a dozen acting copies of
+  &quot;She Stoops to Conquer.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Times have materially changed since Queen Elizabeth&#39;s visit to
+  Christ-Church; the University, one of the earliest nurses of the
+  infant drama, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_739" id=
+  "Page_739">[Pg 739]</a></span> has long since turned it out of doors
+  for a naughty child; and forbid it, under pain of worse than
+  whipping, to come any nearer than Abingdon or Bicester. Taking into
+  consideration the style of some of the performances, in which
+  under-graduates of some three hundred years ago were the actors, the
+  &quot;Oxford Theatre&quot; of those days, if it had more wit in it
+  than the present, had somewhat less decency: the ancient
+  &quot;moralities&quot; were not over moral, and the
+  &quot;mysteries&quot; rather Babylonish. So far we have had no great
+  loss. Whether the judicious getting up of a tragedy of Sophocles or
+  Æschylus, or even a comedy of Terence&#8212;classically
+  managed&#8212;as it could be done in Oxford&#8212;and well acted,
+  would be more unbecoming the gravity of our collected wisdom, or more
+  derogatory to the dignity of our noble &quot;theatre,&quot; than the
+  squalling of Italian singers, masculine, feminine, and
+  neuter&#8212;is a question which, when I take my M.A., I shall
+  certainly propose in convocation. Thus much I am sure of, if a
+  classical play-bill were duly announced for the next grand
+  commemoration, it would &quot;draw&quot; almost as well as the Duke;
+  the dresses might be quite as showy, the action hardly less graceful,
+  than those of the odd-looking gentlemen who are dubbed doctors of
+  civil law on such occasions; and the speeches of Prometheus, Oedipus,
+  or Antigone, would be more intelligible to the learned, and more
+  amusing to the ladies, than those Latin essays or the Creweian
+  oration.</p>
+
+  <p>However, until I am vice-chancellor, the legitimate drama, Greek,
+  Roman, or English, seems little likely to revive in Oxford.
+  <i>Our</i> branch of that great family, I confess, bore the
+  bar-sinister. The offspring of our theatrical affections was
+  unrecognized by college authority. The fellows of &#8212;&#8212;
+  would have done any thing but &quot;smile upon its birth.&quot; The
+  dean especially would have burked it at once had he suspected its
+  existence. Nor was it fostered, like the former Oxford theatricals to
+  which we have alluded, by royal patronage; we could not, consistently
+  with decorum, request her Majesty to encourage an illegitimate.
+  Nevertheless&#8212;spite of its being thus born under the
+  rose&#8212;it grew and prospered. Our plan of rehearsal was original.
+  We used to adjourn from dinner to the rooms of one or other of the
+  company; and there, over our wine and dessert, instead of quizzing
+  freshmen and abusing tutors, open each our copy, and, with all due
+  emphasis and intonation, go regularly through the scenes of &quot;She
+  Stoops to Conquer.&quot; This was all the study we ever gave to our
+  parts: and even thus it was difficult to get a muster of all the
+  performers, and we had generally to play dummy for some one or more
+  of the characters, or &quot;double&quot; them, as the professionals
+  call it. The excuses for absenteeism were various. Mrs Hardcastle and
+  Tony were gone to Woodstock with a team, and were not to be waited
+  for; Diggory had a command to dine with the principal; and once an
+  interesting dialogue was cut short by the untoward event of Miss
+  Neville&#39;s being &quot;confined&quot;&#8212;in consequence of some
+  indiscretion or other&#8212;&quot;to chapel.&quot; It was necessary
+  in our management, as much as in Mr Bunn&#39;s or Mr Macready&#39;s,
+  to humour the caprices of the stars of the company: but the lesser
+  lights, if they became eccentric at all in their orbits, were
+  extinguished without mercy. Their place was easily supplied; for the
+  moment it became known that a play was in contemplation, there were
+  plenty of candidates for dramatic fame, especially among the
+  freshmen: and though we mortally offended one or two aspiring
+  geniuses by proffering them the vacant situations of Ralph, Roger,
+  and Co., in Mr Hardcastle&#39;s household, on condition of having
+  their respective blue dress coats turned up with yellow to represent
+  the family livery, there were others to whom the being admitted
+  behind the scenes, even in these humble characters, was a subject of
+  laudable ambition. Nay, unimportant as were some parts in themselves,
+  they were quite enough for the histrionic talent of some of our
+  friends. Till I became a manager myself, I always used to lose
+  patience at the wretched manner in which some of the underlings on
+  the stage went through the little they had to say and do: there
+  seemed no reason why the &quot;sticks&quot; should be so provokingly
+  sticky; and it surprised me that a man who could accost one fluently
+  enough at the stage door, should make such a bungle as some of them
+  did in a message of some half dozen words &quot;in character.&quot;
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_740" id="Page_740">[Pg
+  740]</a></span> But when I first became initiated into the mysteries
+  of amateur performances, and saw how entirely destitute some men were
+  of any notion of natural acting, and how they made a point of
+  repeating two lines of familiar dialogue with the tone and manner,
+  but without the correctness of a schoolboy going through a
+  task&#8212;then it ceased to be any matter of wonder that those to
+  whom acting was no joke, but an unhappily earnest mode of getting
+  bread, should so often make their performance appear the uneasy
+  effort which it is. There was one man in particular, a good-humoured,
+  gentlemanly fellow, a favourite with us all; not remarkable for
+  talent, but a pleasant companion enough, with plenty of common sense.
+  Well, &quot;he would be an actor&quot;&#8212;it was his own fancy to
+  have a part, and, as he was &quot;one of us,&quot; we could not well
+  refuse him. We gave him an easy one, for he was not vain of his own
+  powers, or ambitious of theatrical distinction; so he was to be
+  &quot;second fellow&quot;&#8212;one of Tony&#39;s pot-companions. He
+  had but two lines to speak; but, from the very first time I heard him
+  read them, I set him down as a hopeless case. He read them as if he
+  had just learned to spell the words; when he repeated them without
+  the book, it was like a clergyman giving out a text. And so it was
+  with a good many of the rank and file of the company; we had more
+  labour to drill them into something like a natural intonation than to
+  learn our own longest speeches twice over. So we made their
+  attendance at rehearsals a <i>sine qua non</i>. We dismissed a
+  promising &quot;Mat Muggins&quot; because he went to the
+  &quot;Union&quot; two nights successively, when he ought to have been
+  at &quot;The Three Pigeons.&quot; We superseded a very respectable
+  &quot;landlord&quot; (though he had actually been measured for a
+  corporation and a pair of calves) for inattention to business. The
+  only one of the supernumeraries whom it was at all necessary to
+  conciliate, was the gentleman who was to sing the comic song instead
+  of Tony, (Savile, the representative of the said Tony, not having
+  music in his soul beyond a view-holloa.) He was allowed to go and
+  come at our readings <i>ad libitum</i>, upon condition of being very
+  careful not to take cold.</p>
+
+  <p>When we had become tolerably perfect in the words of our parts, it
+  was deemed expedient to have a &quot;dress
+  rehearsal&quot;&#8212;especially for the ladies. It is not very easy
+  to move safely&#8212;let alone gracefully&#8212;in petticoats, for
+  those who are accustomed to move their legs somewhat more
+  independently. And it would not have been civil in Messrs Marlow and
+  Hastings to laugh outright at their lady-loves before company, as
+  they were sure to do upon their first appearance. A dress rehearsal,
+  therefore, was a very necessary precaution. But if it was difficult
+  to get the company together at six o&#39;clock under the friendly
+  disguise of a wine-party, doubly difficult was it to expect them to
+  muster at eleven in the morning. The first day that we fixed for it,
+  there came a not very lady-like note, evidently written in bed, from
+  Miss Hardcastle, stating, that having been at a supper-party the
+  night before, and there partaken of brandy-punch to an extent to
+  which she was wholly unaccustomed, it was quite impossible, in the
+  present state of her nervous system, for her to make her appearance
+  in character at any price. There was no alternative but to put off
+  the rehearsal; and that very week occurred a circumstance which was
+  very near being the cause of its adjournment <i>sine die</i>.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Mr Hawthorne,&quot; said the dean to me one morning, when I
+  was leaving his rooms, rejoicing in the termination of lecture,
+  &quot;I wish to speak with you, if you please.&quot; The dean&#39;s
+  communications were seldom of a very pleasing kind, and on this
+  particular morning his countenance gave token that he had hit upon
+  something more than usually <i>piquant</i>. The rest of the men filed
+  out of the door as slowly as they conveniently could, in the hope, I
+  suppose, of hearing the dean&#39;s fire open upon me, but he waited
+  patiently till my particular friend, Bob Thornhill, had picked up
+  carefully, one by one, his miscellaneous collection of note-book,
+  pencil, penknife, and other small wares, and had been obliged at
+  length to make an unwilling exit; when, seeing the door finally
+  closed, he commenced with his usual&#8212;&quot;Have the goodness to
+  sit down, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Experience had taught me, that it was as well to make
+  one&#39;s-self as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_741" id=
+  "Page_741">[Pg 741]</a></span> comfortable as might be upon these
+  occasions; so I took the easy-chair, and tried to look as if I
+  thought the dean merely wanted to have a pleasant half-hour&#39;s
+  chat. He marched into a little back-room that he called his study,
+  and I began to speculate upon the probable subject of our conference.
+  Strange! that week had been a more than usually quiet one. No late
+  knocking in; no cutting lectures at chapel; positively I began to
+  think that, for once, the dean had gone on a wrong scent, and that I
+  should repel his accusations with all the dignity of injured
+  innocence; or had he sent for me to offer his congratulations on my
+  having commenced in the &quot;steady&quot; line, and to ask me to
+  breakfast? I was not long to indulge such delusive hopes. Re-enter
+  the dean, O. P., as our stage directions would have had it,
+  with&#8212;a pair of stays!</p>
+
+  <p>By what confounded ill-luck they had got into his possession I
+  could not imagine; but there they were. The dean touched them as if
+  he felt their very touch an abomination, threw them on the table, and
+  briefly said&#8212;&quot;These, sir, were found in your rooms this
+  morning. Can you explain how they came there?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>True enough, Leicester had been trying on the abominable articles
+  in my bedroom, and I had stuffed them into a drawer till wanted. What
+  to say was indeed a puzzle. To tell the whole truth would, no doubt,
+  have ended the matter at once, and a hearty laugh should I have had
+  at the dean&#39;s expense; but it would have put the stopper on
+  &quot;She Stoops to Conquer.&quot; It was too ridiculous to look
+  grave about; and blacker grew the countenance before me, as, with a
+  vain attempt to conceal a smile, I echoed his words, and stammered
+  out&#8212;&quot;In my rooms, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yes, sir, in your bed-room.&quot; He rang the bell.
+  &quot;Your servant, Simmons, most properly brought them to
+  me.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The little rascal! I had been afraid to let him know any thing
+  about the theatricals; for I knew perfectly well the dean would hear
+  of it in half an hour, for he served him in the double capacity of
+  scout and spy. Before the bell had stopped, Dick Simmons made his
+  appearance, having evidently been kept at hand. He did look rather
+  ashamed of himself, when I asked him, what business he had to search
+  my wardrobe?</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh dear, sir! I never did no sich a thing; I was a-making of
+  your bed, sir, when I sees the tag of a stay-lace hanging out of your
+  topmost drawer, sir&#8212;(&quot;I am a married man, sir,&quot; to
+  the dean apologetically, &quot;and I know the tag of a stay-lace,
+  sir&quot;)&#8212;and so I took it out, sir; and knowing my duty to
+  the college, sir, though I should be very sorry to bring you into
+  trouble, Mr Hawthorne, sir&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yes, yes, Simmons, you did quite right,&quot; said the dean.
+  &quot;You are bound to give notice to the college authorities of all
+  irregularities, and your situation requires that you should be
+  conscientious.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I hope I am, sir,&quot; said the little rascal; &quot;but
+  indeed I am very sorry, Mr Hawthorne, sir&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh! never mind,&quot; said I; &quot;you did right, no doubt.
+  I can only say those things are not mine, sir; they belong to a
+  friend of mine.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I don&#39;t ask who they belong to, sir,&quot; said the dean
+  indignantly; &quot;I ask, sir, how came they in your rooms?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I believe, sir, my friend (he was in my rooms yesterday)
+  left them there. Some men wear stays, sir,&quot; continued I, boldly;
+  &quot;it&#39;s very much the fashion, I&#39;m told.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Eh! hum!&quot; said the dean, eyeing the brown jean
+  doubtingly. &quot;I have heard of such things. Horrid puppies men are
+  now. Never dreamt of such things in my younger days; but then, sir,
+  <i>we</i> were not allowed to wear white trousers, and waistcoats of
+  I don&#39;t know what colours; we were made to attend to the
+  statutes, sir. &#39;<i>Nigri aut suspici</i>,&#39; sir, Ah! times are
+  changed&#8212;times are changed, indeed! And do you mean to say, sir,
+  you have a friend, a member of this university, who wears such things
+  as these?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I might have got clear off, if it had not been for that rascal
+  Simmons. I saw him give the dean a look, and an almost imperceptible
+  shake of the head.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;But I don&#39;t think, sir,&quot; resumed he, &quot;these
+  can be a man&#39;s stays&#8212;eh, Simmons?&quot; Simmons looked
+  diligently at his toes. &quot;No,&quot; said the dean, investigating
+  the unhappy garment more closely&#8212;&quot;no, I fear, Simmons,
+  these are female stays!&quot;</p><span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_742" id="Page_742">[Pg 742]</a></span>
+
+  <p>The conscientious Simmons made no sign.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I don&#39;t know, sir,&quot; said I, as he looked from
+  Simmons to me. &quot;I don&#39;t wear stays, and I know nothing about
+  them. If Simmons were to fetch a pair of Mrs Simmons&#39;s,
+  sir,&quot; resumed I, &quot;you could compare them.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Mrs Simmons&#39;s figure resembled a sack of flour, with a string
+  round it; and, if she did wear the articles in question, they must
+  have been of a pattern almost unique&#8212;made to order.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Sir,&quot; said the dean, &quot;your flippancy is
+  unbecoming. I shall not pursue this investigation any further; but I
+  am bound to tell you, sir, this circumstance is suspicious&#8212;very
+  suspicious.&quot; I could not resist a smile for the life of me.
+  &quot;And doubly suspicious, sir, in your case. The eyes of the
+  college are upon you, sir.&quot; He was evidently losing his temper,
+  so I bowed profoundly, and he grew more irate. &quot;Ever since, sir,
+  that atrocious business of the frogs, though the college authorities
+  failed in discovering the guilty parties, there are some individuals,
+  sir, whose conduct is watched attentively. Good-morning,
+  sir.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The &quot;business of the frogs,&quot; to which the dean so
+  rancorously alluded, had, indeed, caused some consternation to the
+  fellows of&#8212;&#8212;. There had been a marvellous story going the
+  round of the papers, of a shower of the inelegant reptiles in
+  question having fallen in some part of the kingdom. Old women were
+  muttering prophecies, and wise men acknowledged themselves puzzled.
+  The Ashmolean Society had sat in conclave upon it, and accounted so
+  satisfactorily for the occurrence, that the only wonder seemed to be
+  that we had not a shower of frogs, or some equally agreeable
+  visitors, every rainy morning. Now, every one who has strolled round
+  Christ-Church meadows on a warm evening, especially after rain, must
+  have been greeted at intervals by a whole gamut of croaks; and, if he
+  had the curiosity to peer into the green ditches as he passed along,
+  he might catch a glimpse of the heads of the performers. Well, the
+  joint reflections of myself and an ingenious friend, who were
+  studying this branch of zoology while waiting for the coming up of
+  the boats one night, tended to the conclusion, that a very successful
+  imitation of the late &quot;Extraordinary Phenomenon&quot; might be
+  got up for the edification of the scientific in our own college.
+  Animals of all kinds find dealers and purchasers in Oxford. Curs of
+  lowest degree have their prices. Rats, being necessary in the
+  education of terriers, come rather expensive. A pole-cat&#8212;even
+  with three legs only&#8212;will command a fancy price. Sparrows,
+  larks, and other small birds, are retailed by the dozen on Cowley
+  Marsh to gentlemen under-graduates who are aspiring to the
+  pigeon-trap. But as yet there had been no demand for frogs, and there
+  was quite a glut of them in the market. They were cheap accordingly;
+  for a shilling a hundred we found that we might inflict the second
+  plague of Egypt upon the whole university. The next evening, two
+  hampers, containing, as our purveyor assured us, &quot;very prime
+  &#39;uns,&quot; arrived at my rooms &quot;from Mr S&#8212;&#8212;,
+  the wine merchant;&quot; and, by daylight on the following morning,
+  were judiciously distributed throughout all the come-at-able premises
+  within the college walls. When I awoke the next morning, I heard
+  voices in earnest conversation under my window, and looked out with
+  no little curiosity. The frogs had evidently produced a sensation.
+  The bursar, disturbed apparently from his early breakfast, stood
+  robed in an ancient dressing-gown, with the <i>Times</i> in his hand,
+  on which he was balancing a frog as yellow as himself. The dean, in
+  cap and surplice, on his way from chapel, was eagerly listening to
+  the account which one of the scouts was giving him of the first
+  discovery of the intruders.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Me and my missis, sir,&quot; quoth John, &quot;was a-coming
+  into college when it was hardly to say daylight, when she, as I
+  reckon, sets foot upon one of &#39;em, and was like to have been
+  back&#39;ards with a set of breakfast chiney as she was a-bringing in
+  for one of the fresh gentlemen. She scritches out in course, and I
+  looks down, and then I sees two or three a&#39; &#39;oppin about; but
+  I didn&#39;t take much notice till I gets to the thoroughfare, when
+  there was a whole row on &#39;em a-trying to climb up the bottom
+  step; and then I calls Solomon the porter,
+  and&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_743" id="Page_743">[Pg
+  743]</a></span></p>
+
+  <p>Here I left my window, and, making a hasty toilet, joined a
+  group of under-graduates, who were now collecting round the dean and
+  bursar. I cast my eyes round the quadrangle, and was delighted with
+  the success of our labours. There had been a heavy shower in the
+  night, and the frogs were as lively as they could be on so ungenial a
+  location as a gravelled court. In every corner was a goodly cluster,
+  who were making ladders of each other&#39;s backs, as if determined
+  to scale the college walls. Some, of more retiring disposition, were
+  endeavouring to force themselves into crevices, and hiding their
+  heads behind projections to escape the gaze of academic eyes; while a
+  few active spirits seemed to be hopping a sweepstakes right for the
+  common-room door. Just as I made my appearance, the principal came
+  out of the door of his lodgings, with another of the fellows, having
+  evidently been summoned to assist at the consultation. Good old soul!
+  his study of zoology had been chiefly confined to the class edibles,
+  and a shower of frogs, authenticated upon the oaths of the whole
+  Convocation, would not have been half so interesting to him as an
+  importation of turtle. However, to do him justice, he put on his
+  spectacles, and looked as scientific as any body. After due
+  examination of the specimen of the genus <i>Zana</i> which the bursar
+  still held in captivity, and pronouncing an unanimous opinion, that,
+  come from where he would, he was a <i>bona fide</i> frog, with
+  nothing supernatural about him, the conclave proceeded round the
+  quadrangle, calculating the numbers, and conjecturing the probable
+  origin of these strange visitors. Equally curious, if not equally
+  scientific, were the under-graduates who followed them; for, having
+  strictly kept our own secret, my friend and myself were the only
+  parties who could solve the mystery; and though many suspected that
+  the frogs were unwilling emigrants, none knew to whom they were
+  indebted for their introduction to college. The collected wisdom of
+  the dons soon decided that a shower of full-grown frogs was a novelty
+  even in the extraordinary occurrences of newspapers; and as not even
+  a single individual croaker was to be discovered outside the walls of
+  &#8212;&#8212;, it became evident that the whole affair was, as the
+  dean described it, &quot;another of those outrages upon academic
+  discipline, which were as senseless as they were
+  disgraceful.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I daresay the dean&#39;s anathema was &quot;as sensible as it was
+  sincere;&quot; but it did not prevent our thoroughly enjoying the
+  success of the &quot;<i>outrage</i>&quot; at the time; nor does it,
+  unfortunately, suffice at this present moment to check something like
+  an inward chuckle, when I think of the trouble which it cost the
+  various retainers of the college to clear it effectually of its
+  strange visitors. Hopkins, the old butler, who was of rather an
+  imaginative temperament, and had a marvellous tale to tell any one
+  who would listen, of a departed bursar, who, having caught his death
+  of cold by superintending the laying down of three pipes of port,
+  might ever afterwards be heard, upon such interesting occasions,
+  walking about the damp cellars after nightfall in pattens. Hopkins,
+  the oracle of the college &quot;tap,&quot; maintained that the frogs
+  were something &quot;off the common;&quot; and strengthened his
+  opinion by reference to a specimen which he had selected&#8212;a
+  lank, black, skinny individual, which really looked ugly enough to
+  have come from any where. Scouts, wives, and children, (they always
+  make a point of having large families, in order to eat up the spare
+  commons,) all were busy, through that eventful day, in a novel
+  occupation, and by dinnertime not a frog was to be seen; but long,
+  long afterwards, on a moist evening, fugitives from the general
+  prescription might be seen making their silent way across the
+  quadrangle, and croakings were heard at night-time, which might (as
+  Homer relates of <i>his</i> frogs) have disturbed Minerva, only that
+  the goddess of wisdom, in chambers collegiate, sleeps usually pretty
+  sound.</p>
+
+  <p>The &quot;business of the stays,&quot; however, bid fair to
+  supersede the business of the frogs, in the dean&#39;s record of my
+  supposed crimes; and as I fully intended to clear myself, even to his
+  satisfaction, of any suspicion which might attach to me from the
+  possession of such questionable articles so soon as our theatre
+  closed for the season, I resolved that my successful defence from
+  this last imputation would be an admirable ground on which to assume
+  the dignity of a martyr, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_744" id=
+  "Page_744">[Pg 744]</a></span> to appeal against all uncharitable
+  conclusions from insufficient premises, and come out as the
+  personification of injured innocence throughout my whole college
+  career.</p>
+
+  <p>When my interview with the dean was over, I ordered some luncheon
+  up to Leicester&#39;s rooms, where, as I expected, I found most of my
+  own &quot;set&quot; collected, in order to hear the result. A private
+  conference with the official aforesaid seldom boded good to the party
+  so favoured; the dean seldom made his communications so agreeable as
+  he might have done. In college, as in most other societies, La
+  Rochefoucauld&#39;s maxim holds good&#8212;that &quot;there is always
+  something pleasant in the misfortunes of one&#39;s friends;&quot;
+  and, whenever an unlucky wight did get into a row, he might pretty
+  confidently reckon upon being laughed at. In fact, under-graduates
+  considered themselves as engaged in a war of stratagem against an
+  unholy alliance of deans, tutors, and proctors; and in every
+  encounter the defeated party was looked upon as the deluded victim of
+  superior ingenuity&#8212;as having been &quot;done,&quot; in short.
+  So, if a lark succeeded, the authorities aforesaid were decidedly
+  done, and laughed at accordingly; if it failed, why the other party
+  were done, and there was still somebody to laugh at. No doubt, the
+  jest was richer in the first case supposed; but, in the second, there
+  was the additional gusto, so dear to human philanthropy, of having
+  the victim present, and enjoying his discomfiture, which, in the case
+  of the dons being the sufferers, was denied us. It may seem to argue
+  something of a want of sympathy to find amusement in misfortunes
+  which might any day be our own; but any one who ever witnessed the
+  air of ludicrous alarm with which an under-graduate prepares to obey
+  the summons, (capable of but one interpretation,)&#8212;&quot;The
+  dean wishes to see you, sir, at ten o&#39;clock&quot;&#8212;which so
+  often, in my time at least, was sent as a whet to some of the
+  assembled guests at a breakfast party; whoever has been applied to on
+  such occasions for the loan of a tolerable cap, (that of the
+  delinquent having its corners in such dilapidated condition as to
+  proclaim its owner a &quot;rowing man&quot; at once,) or has
+  responded to the pathetic appeal&#8212;&quot;Do I look <i>very</i>
+  seedy?&quot;&#8212;any one to whom such absurd recollections of early
+  days occur&#8212;and if you, good reader, are a university man, as,
+  being a gentleman, I am bound in charity to conclude you are, and yet
+  have no such reminiscences&#8212;allow me to suggest that you must
+  have been a very slow coach indeed;&#8212;any one, I say once more,
+  who knows the ridiculous figure which a man cuts when &quot;hauled
+  up&quot; before the college Minos, or Radamanthus, will easily
+  forgive his friends for being inclined to laugh at him.</p>
+
+  <p>However, in the present case, any anticipations of fun at my
+  expense, which the party in Leicester&#39;s rooms might charitably
+  entertain, were somewhat qualified by the fear, that the consequences
+  of any little private difference between the dean and myself might
+  affect the prosperity of our unlicensed theatre. And when they heard
+  how very nearly the discovery of the stays had been fatal to our
+  project, execrations against Simmons&#39;s espionage were mingled
+  with admiration of my escape from so critical a position.</p>
+
+  <p>The following is, I apprehend, an unique specimen of an Oxford
+  bill&#8212;and the only one, out of a tolerably large bundle which I
+  keep for the sake of the receipts attached, (a precaution by no means
+  uncalled for,) which I find any amusement in referring to.</p>
+
+  <table border="0" summary="Oxford bill specimen" cellpadding="0">
+    <tr>
+      <td>&#8212;&#8212; Hawthorne, Esq.,</td>
+
+      <td colspan="2"></td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td></td>
+
+      <td colspan="2">To M. Moore.</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td>2 pr. brown jean corsets,</td>
+
+      <td align="right">8</td>
+
+      <td align="right">0</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td>Padding for do., made to order,</td>
+
+      <td align="right">2</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td></td>
+
+      <td colspan="2">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td></td>
+
+      <td align="right">10</td>
+
+      <td align="right">6</td>
+    </tr>
+
+    <tr>
+      <td>Rec<sup>d</sup>. same day, M. M.</td>
+
+      <td></td>
+
+      <td></td>
+    </tr>
+  </table>
+
+  <p>(Savile, when I showed it to him, said the receipt was the only
+  one of the kind he had seen in the course of a long experience.) Very
+  much surprised was the old lady, of whom I made the purchase in my
+  capacity of stage-manager, at so uncommon a customer in her line of
+  business; and when, after enjoying her mystification for some time, I
+  let her into the secret, so delighted was she at the notion, that she
+  gave me sundry hints as to the management of the female toilet, and
+  offered to get made up for me any dresses that might be required. So
+  I introduced Leicester and his fellow-heroines to my friend Mrs
+  Moore, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_745" id="Page_745">[Pg
+  745]</a></span>and by the joint exertions of their own tastes and her
+  experience, they became possessed of some very tolerable costumes.
+  There was a good deal of fun going on, I fancy, in fitting and
+  measuring, in her back parlour; for there was a daughter, or a niece,
+  or something of the sort, who cut out the dresses with the prettiest
+  hands in the world, as Leicester declared; but I was too busy with
+  carpenters, painters, and other assistants, to pay more than a flying
+  visit to the ladies&#39; department.</p>
+
+  <p>At last the rehearsal did come on. As Hastings, I had not much in
+  the way of dress to alter; and, having some engagement in the early
+  part of the morning, I did not arrive at the theatre until the rest
+  of the characters were already dressed and ready to begin. Though I
+  had been consulted upon all manner of points, from the arranging of a
+  curl for Miss Neville to the colour of Diggory&#39;s stockings, and
+  knew the costume of every individual as well as my own, yet so
+  ludicrous was the effect of the whole when I entered the room, that I
+  threw myself into the nearest chair, and laughed myself nearly into
+  convulsions. The figure which first met my eyes was a little ruddy
+  freshman, who had the part of the landlord, and who, in his zeal to
+  do honour to our preference, had dressed the character most
+  elaborately. A pillow, which he could scarcely see over, puffed out
+  his red waistcoat; and his hair was cut short, and powdered with such
+  good-will, that for weeks afterwards, in spite of diligent brushing,
+  he looked as grey as the principal. There he stood&#8212;his legs
+  clothed in grey worsted, retreating far beyond his little white
+  apron, as if ashamed of their unusual appearance,</p>
+
+  <div>
+    <span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;The mother that him
+    bare,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">She had not known her
+    son.&quot;</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Every one, however, had not been so classical in their costume.
+  There was Sir Charles Marlow in what had been a judge&#39;s wig, and
+  Mr Hardcastle in a barrister&#39;s; both sufficiently unlike
+  themselves, at any rate, if not very correct copies of their
+  originals. Then the women! As for Mrs Hardcastle, she was perfection.
+  There never was, I believe, a better representation of the character.
+  It was well dressed, and turned out a first-rate bit of
+  acting&#8212;very far superior to any amateur performance I ever saw,
+  and, with practice, would have equalled that of any actress on the
+  stage. Her very curtsy was comedy itself. When I recovered my breath
+  a little, I was able to attend to the dialogue which was going on,
+  which was hardly less ridiculous than the strange disguises round me.
+  &quot;Now, Miss Hardcastle,&quot; (Marlow <i>loquitur</i>,) &quot;I
+  have no objection to your smoking cigars during rehearsal, of
+  course&#8212;because you won&#39;t do that on Monday night, I
+  suppose; but I must beg you to get out of the practice of standing or
+  sitting crosslegged, because it&#39;s not lady-like, or even
+  barmaid-like&#8212;and don&#39;t laugh when I make love to you; for
+  if you do, I shall break down to a certainty.&quot; &quot;Thornhill,
+  do you think my waist will do?&quot; said the anxious representative
+  of the fair Constance. &quot;I have worn these cursed stays for an
+  hour every evening for the last week, and drawn them an inch tighter
+  every time; but I don&#39;t think I&#39;m a very good figure after
+  all&#8212;just try if they&#39;ll come any closer, will you?&quot;
+  &quot;Oh! Hawthorne, I&#39;m glad you are come,&quot; said Savile,
+  whom I hardly knew, in a red wig; &quot;now, isn&#39;t there to be a
+  bowl of real punch in the scene at the Three Pigeons&#8212;one
+  can&#39;t <i>pretend</i> to drink, you know, with any degree of
+  spirit?&quot; &quot;Oh! of course,&quot; said I; &quot;that&#39;s one
+  of the landlord&#39;s properties: Miller, you must provide that, you
+  know&#8212;send down for some cold tankards now; they will do very
+  well for rehearsal.&quot; At last we got to work, and proceeded, with
+  the prompter&#39;s assistance, pretty smoothly, and mutually
+  applauding each other&#39;s performance, going twice over some of the
+  more difficult scenes, and cutting out a good deal of love and
+  sentiment. The play was fixed for the next Monday night, playbills
+  ordered to be printed, and cards of invitation issued to all the
+  performers&#39; intimate friends. Every scout in the college, I
+  believe, except my rascal Simmons, was in the secret, and probably
+  some of the fellows had a shrewd guess at what was going on; but no
+  one interfered with us. We carried on all our operations as quietly
+  as possible; and the only circumstances likely to arouse suspicion in
+  the minds of the authorities, was the unusual absence of all
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_746" id="Page_746">[Pg
+  746]</a></span> disturbances of a minor nature within the walls, in
+  consequence of the one engrossing freak in which most of the more
+  turbulent spirits were engaged.</p>
+
+  <p>At length the grand night arrived. By nine o&#39;clock the theatre
+  in Savile&#39;s rooms was as full as it could be crammed with any
+  degree of comfort to actors and audience; and in the study and
+  bedroom, which, being on opposite sides, served admirably for
+  dressing-rooms behind the scenes, the usual bustle of preparation was
+  going on. As is common in such cases, some essential properties had
+  been forgotten until the last moment. No bonnet had been provided for
+  Mrs Hardcastle to take her walks abroad in; and when the little
+  hairdresser, who had been retained to give a finishing touch to some
+  of the coiffeurs, returned with one belonging to his
+  &quot;missis,&quot; which he had volunteered to lend, the roar of
+  uncontrollable merriment which this new embellishment of our
+  disguised friend called forth, made the audience clamorous for the
+  rising of the curtain&#8212;thinking, very excusably, that it was
+  quite unjustifiable to keep all the fun to ourselves.</p>
+
+  <p>After some little trial of our &quot;public&#39;s&quot; patience,
+  the play began in good earnest, and was most favourably received.
+  Indeed, as the only price of admission exacted was a promise of civil
+  behaviour, and there were two servants busily employed in handing
+  about punch and &quot;bishop,&quot; it would have been rather hard if
+  we did not succeed in propitiating their good-humour. With the
+  exception of two gentlemen who had been dining out, and were rather
+  noisy in consequence, and evinced a strong inclination occasionally
+  to take a part in the dialogue, all behaved wonderfully well,
+  greeting each performer, as he made his first entrance, with a due
+  amount of cheering; rapturously applauding all the best scenes;
+  laughing, (whether at the raciness of the acting or the grotesque
+  metamorphoses of the actors, made no great difference,) and filling
+  up any gap which occurred in the proceedings on the stage, in spite
+  of the prompter, with vociferous encouragement to the
+  &quot;sticket&quot; actor. With an audience so disposed, each
+  successive scene went off better and better. One deserves to be
+  particularized. It was the second in the first act of the comedy; the
+  stage directions for it are as follow:&#8212;&quot;Scene&#8212;An
+  ale-house room.&#8212;Several shabby fellows with punch and tobacco;
+  Tony at the head of the table, &amp;c., discovered.&quot; Never
+  perhaps, in any previous representation, was the <i>mise en scène</i>
+  so perfect. It drew three rounds of applause. A very equivocal
+  compliment to ourselves it may be; but such jolly-looking
+  &quot;shabby fellows&quot; as sat round the table at which our Tony
+  presided, were never furnished by the supernumeraries of Drury or
+  Covent-garden. They were as classical, in their way, as
+  Macready&#39;s Roman mob. Then there was no make-believe puffing of
+  empty pipes, and fictitious drinking of small-beer for punch; every
+  nose among the audience could appreciate the genuineness of both
+  liquor and tobacco; and the hearty encore which the song, with its
+  stentorian chorus, was honoured with, gave all the parties engaged
+  time to enjoy their punch and their pipes to their satisfaction. It
+  was quite a pity, as was unanimously agreed, when the entrance of
+  Marlow and Hastings, as in duty bound, interrupted so jovial a
+  society. But &quot;all that&#39;s bright must fade&quot;&#8212;and so
+  the Three Pigeons&#39; scene, and the play, too, came to an end in
+  due course. The curtain fell amidst universal applause, modified only
+  by the urgent request, which, as manager, I had more than once to
+  repeat, that gentlemen would be kind enough to restrain their
+  feelings for fear of disturbing the dons. The house resolved itself
+  into its component elements&#8212;all went their ways&#8212;the
+  reading men probably to a Greek play, by way of
+  afterpiece&#8212;sleepy ones to bed, and idle ones to their various
+  inventions&#8212;and the actors, after the fatigues of the night, to
+  a supper, which was to be the &quot;finish.&quot; It was to take
+  place in one of the men&#39;s rooms which happened to be on the same
+  staircase, and had been committed to the charge of certain parties,
+  who understood our notions of an unexceptionable spread. And a right
+  merry party we were&#8212;all sitting down in character, Mrs
+  Hardcastle at the top of the table, her worthy partner at bottom,
+  with the &quot;young ladies&quot; on each side. It was the best
+  <i>tableau</i> of the evening; pity there was neither artist to
+  sketch, nor spectators to admire it! But, like <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_747" id="Page_747">[Pg 747]</a></span> many
+  other merry meetings, there are faithful portraits of it&#8212;proof
+  impressions&#8212;in the memories of many who were present; not yet
+  obliterated, hardly even dimmed, by time; laid by, like other
+  valuables, which, in the turmoil of life, we find no time to look at,
+  but not thrown aside or forgotten, and brought out sometimes, in
+  holidays and quiet hours, for us to look at once more, and enjoy
+  their beauty, and feel, after all, how much what we have changed is
+  &quot;<i>calum non animum</i>.&quot; I am now&#8212;no matter what.
+  Of my companions at that well-remembered supper, one is a staid and
+  orthodox divine; one a rising barrister; a third a respectable
+  country gentleman, justice of the peace, &quot;and quorum;&quot; a
+  fourth, they tell me, a semi Papist, but set us all down together in
+  that same room, draw the champagne corks, and let some Lethe (the
+  said champagne, if you please) wash out all that has passed over us
+  in the last five years, and my word on it, three out of four of us
+  are but boys still; and though much shaving, pearl powder, and
+  carmine, might fail to make of any of the party a heroine of any more
+  delicate class than Meg Merrilies, I have no doubt we could all of us
+  once more smoke a pipe in character at &quot;The Three
+  Pigeons.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Merrily the evening passed off, and merrily the little hours came
+  on, and song and laugh rather grew gayer than slackened. The strings
+  of the stays had long ago been cut, and the tresses, which were in
+  the way of the cigars, were thrown back in dishevelled elegance. The
+  landlord found his stuffing somewhat warm, and had laid aside half
+  his fleshy incumbrance. Every one was at his ease, and a most
+  uproarious chorus had just been sung by the whole strength of the
+  company, when we heard the ominous sound of a quiet double rap at the
+  outer door.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Who&#39;s there?&quot; said one of the most self-possessed
+  of the company.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I wish to speak to Mr Challoner,&quot; was the quiet
+  reply.</p>
+
+  <p>The owner of the rooms was luckily in no more <i>outré</i> costume
+  than that of Sir Charles Marlow; and having thrown off his wig, and
+  buttoned his coat over a deep-flapped waistcoat, looked tolerably
+  like himself as he proceeded to answer the summons. I confess I
+  rather hoped than otherwise, that the gentleman, whoever he was,
+  would walk in, when, if he intended to astonish us, he was very
+  likely to find the tables turned. However, even college dons
+  recognize the principle, that every man&#39;s house is his castle,
+  and never violate the sanctity of even an under-graduate&#39;s rooms.
+  The object of this present visit, however, was rather friendly than
+  otherwise; one of the fellows, deservedly popular, had been with the
+  dean, and had left him in a state of some excitement from the
+  increasing merriment which came somewhat too audibly across the
+  quadrangle from our party. He had called, therefore, to advise
+  Challoner, either to keep his friends quiet, or to get rid of them,
+  if he wished to keep out of the dean&#39;s jurisdiction. As it was
+  towards three in the morning, we thought it prudent to take this
+  advice as it was meant, and in a few minutes began to wend our
+  respective ways homewards. Leicester and myself, whose rooms lay in
+  the same direction, were steering along, very soberly, under a bright
+  moonlight, when something put it into the heads of some other
+  stragglers of the party to break out, at the top of their voices,
+  into a stanza of that immortal ditty&#8212;&quot;We won&#39;t go home
+  till morning.&quot; Instantly we could hear a window, which we well
+  knew to be the dean&#39;s, open above us, and as the unmelodious
+  chorus went on, his wrath found vent in the usual
+  strain&#8212;&quot;Who is making that disturbance?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>No one volunteering an explanation, he went on.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Who are those in the quadrangle?&quot; Leicester and I
+  walked somewhat faster. I am not sure that our dignity did not
+  condescend to run, as we heard steps coming down from No. 5, at a
+  pace that evidently portended a chase, and remembered for the first
+  time the remarkable costume, which, to common observers, would
+  indicate that there was a visitor of an unusual character enjoying
+  the moonlight in the quadrangle. When we reached the
+  &quot;thoroughfare,&quot; the passage from the inner to the outer
+  quadrangle, we fairly bolted; and as the steps came pretty fast after
+  us, and Leicester&#39;s rooms were the nearest, we both made good our
+  retreat thither, and sported oak.</p>
+
+  <p>The porter&#39;s lodge was in the next number; <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_748" id="Page_748">[Pg 748]</a></span> and
+  hearing a knocking in that quarter, Leicester gently opened the
+  window, and we could catch the following dialogue:&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Solomon! open this door directly&#8212;it is I&#8212;the
+  dean.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Good, dear sir!&quot; said Solomon, apparently asleep, and
+  fumbling for the keys of the college gates&#8212;&quot;let you out?
+  Oh yes! sir, directly.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Listen to me, Solomon: I am not going out. Did you let any
+  one out just now&#8212;just before I called you?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No, sir, nobody whatsomdever.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Solomon! I ask you, did you not, just now, let a
+  <i>woman</i> out?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Lawk! no, sir, Lord forbid!&quot; said Solomon, now
+  thoroughly wakened.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Now, Solomon, bring your light, and come with me, this must
+  be enquired into. I saw a woman run this way, and, if she is not gone
+  through the gate, she is gone into this next number. Whose rooms are
+  in No. 13?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;There&#39;s Mr Dyson&#39;s, sir, on the ground
+  floor.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Mr Dyson was the very fellow who had called at Challoner&#39;s
+  rooms.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Hah! well, I&#39;ll call Mr Dyson up. Whose
+  besides?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;There&#39;s Mr Leicester, sir, above his&#39;n.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Very well, Solomon; call up Mr Dyson, and say I wish to
+  speak with him particularly.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>And so saying, the dean proceeded up stairs.</p>
+
+  <p>The moment Leicester heard his name mentioned, he began to
+  anticipate a domiciliary visit. The thing was so ridiculous that we
+  hardly knew what to do.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Shall I get into bed, Hawthorne? I don&#39;t want to be
+  caught in this figure?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Why, I don&#39;t know that you will be safe there, in the
+  present state of the dean&#39;s suspicions. No; tuck up those
+  confounded petticoats, clap on your pea-jacket, twist those
+  love-locks up under your cap, light this cigar, and sit in your
+  easy-chair. The dean must be &#39;cuter than usual, if he finds you
+  out as the lady he is in search of.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Leicester had hardly time to take this advice, the best I could
+  hit upon at the moment, when the dean knocked at the door.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Who are you? Come in,&quot; said we both in a breath.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I beg your pardon, Mr Leicester,&quot; said the dean in his
+  most official tone; &quot;nothing but actually imperative duty
+  occasions my intrusion at this unseasonable hour, but a most
+  extraordinary circumstance must be my excuse. I say,
+  gentlemen&#8212;I saw with my own eyes,&quot; he continued, looking
+  blacker as he caught sight of me, and remembering, no doubt, the
+  little episode of the stays&#8212;&quot;I saw a female figure pass in
+  this direction but a few minutes ago. No such person has passed the
+  gate, for I have made enquiry; certainly I have no reason to suppose
+  any such person is concealed here, but I am bound to ask you, sir, on
+  your honour as a gentleman&#8212;for I have no wish to make a
+  search&#8212;is there any such person concealed in your
+  apartments?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;On my honour, sir, no one is, or has been lately here, but
+  myself and Mr Hawthorne.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Here Dyson came into the room, looking considerably mystified.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What&#39;s the matter, Mr Dean?&quot; said he, nodding
+  good-humouredly to us.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;A most unpleasant occurrence, my dear sir; I have seen a
+  woman in this direction not five minutes back. Unfortunately, I
+  cannot be mistaken. She either passed into the porter&#39;s lodge or
+  into this staircase.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;She is not in my rooms, I assure you,&quot; said he,
+  laughing; &quot;I should think you made a mistake: it must have been
+  some man in a white mackintosh.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I smiled, and Leicester laughed outright.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I am not mistaken, sir,&quot; said the dean warmly. &quot;I
+  shall take your word, Mr Leicester; but allow me to tell you, that
+  your conduct in lolling in that chair as if in perfect contempt, and
+  neither rising, nor removing your cap, when Mr Dyson and myself are
+  in your rooms, is neither consistent with the respect due from an
+  under-graduate, or the behaviour I should expect from a
+  gentleman.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Poor Leicester coloured, and unwittingly removed his cap. The
+  chestnut curls, some natural and some artificial, which had been so
+  studiously arranged for Miss Hardcastle&#39;s head-dress, fell in
+  dishevelled luxuriance round his face, and as he half <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_749" id="Page_749">[Pg 749]</a></span> rose
+  from his previous position in the chair, a pink silk dress began to
+  descend from under the pea-jacket. Concealment was at an end; the
+  dean looked bewildered at first, and then savage; but a hearty laugh
+  from Dyson settled the business.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What, Leicester! you&#39;re the lady the dean has been
+  hunting about college! Upon my word, this is the most absurd piece of
+  masquerading!&#8212;what on earth is it all about?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I pitied Leicester, he looked such an extraordinary figure in his
+  ambiguous dress, and seemed so thoroughly ashamed of himself; so
+  displaying the tops and cords in which I had enacted Hastings, I
+  acknowledged my share in the business, and gave a brief history of
+  the drama during my management. The dean endeavoured to look grave:
+  Dyson gave way to undisguised amusement, and repeatedly exclaimed,
+  &quot;Oh! why did you not send me a ticket? When do you perform
+  again?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Alas! never. Brief, as bright, was our theatrical career. But the
+  memory of it lives in the college still: of the comedy, and the
+  supper, and the curious mistake which followed it: and the dean has
+  not to this hour lost the credit which he then gained, of having a
+  remarkably keen eye for a petticoat.</p>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_749b" id=
+  "Page_749b"></a></span></p>
+
+  <h2><a name="LINES_WRITTEN_IN_THE_ISLE_OF_BUTE" id=
+  "LINES_WRITTEN_IN_THE_ISLE_OF_BUTE"></a>LINES WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF
+  BUTE.</h2>
+
+  <h3>BY DELTA.</h3>
+
+  <h5>I.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i6">Ere yet dim twilight brighten&#39;d into
+      day,</span> <span class="i6">Or waned the silver morning-star
+      away,</span> <span class="i6">Shedding its last, lone, melancholy
+      smile,</span> <span class="i6">Above the mountain-tops of far
+      Argyle;</span> <span class="i6">Ere yet the solan&#39;s wing had
+      brush&#39;d the sea,</span> <span class="i6">Or issued from its
+      cell the mountain bee;</span> <span class="i6">As dawn beyond the
+      orient Cumbraes shone,</span> <span class="i6">Thy northern
+      slope, Byrone,</span> <span class="i6">From Ascog&#39;s rocks,
+      o&#39;erflung with woodland bowers,</span> <span class="i6">With
+      scarlet fuschias, and faint myrtle flowers,</span> <span class=
+      "i6">My steps essay&#39;d; brushing the diamond dew</span>
+      <span class="i6">From the soft moss, lithe grass, and harebell
+      blue.</span> <span class="i6">Up from the heath aslant the linnet
+      flew</span> <span class="i6">Startled, and rose the lark on
+      twinkling wing,</span> <span class="i6">And soar&#39;d away, to
+      sing</span> <span class="i6">A farewell to the severing shades of
+      night,</span> <span class="i6">A welcome to the morning&#39;s
+      aureate light.</span> <span class="i6">Thy summit gain&#39;d, how
+      tranquilly serene,</span> <span class="i6">Beneath, outspread
+      that panoramic scene</span> <span class="i6">Of continent and
+      isle, and lake and sea,</span> <span class="i6">And tower and
+      town, hill, vale, and spreading tree,</span> <span class="i6">And
+      rock and ruin tinged with amethyst,</span> <span class=
+      "i6">Half-seen, half-hidden by the lazy mist,</span> <span class=
+      "i6">Volume on volume, which had vaguely wound</span>
+      <span class="i6">The far off hills around,</span> <span class=
+      "i6">And now roll&#39;d downwards; till on high were seen,</span>
+      <span class="i6">Begirt with sombre larch, their foreheads
+      green.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>II.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i6">There, save when all, except the lark, was
+      mute,</span> <span class="i6">Oh, beauty-breathing Bute</span>
+      <span class="i6">On thee entranced I gazed; each moment
+      brought</span> <span class="i6">A new creation to the eye of
+      thought:</span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_750" id=
+      "Page_750">[Pg 750]</a></span> <span class="i6">The orient clouds
+      all Iris&#39; hues assumed,</span> <span class="i6">From the pale
+      lily to the rose that bloom&#39;d,</span> <span class="i6">And
+      hung above the pathway of the sun,</span> <span class="i6">As if
+      to harbinger his course begun;</span> <span class="i6">When, lo!
+      his disk burst forth&#8212;his beams of gold</span> <span class=
+      "i6">Seem&#39;d earth as with a garment to enfold,</span>
+      <span class="i6">And from his piercing eye the loose mists
+      flew,</span> <span class="i6">And heaven with arch of deep
+      autumnal blue</span> <span class="i6">Glow&#39;d overhead; while
+      ocean, like a lake,</span> <span class="i6">Seeming delight to
+      take</span> <span class="i6">In its own halcyon-calm, resplendent
+      lay,</span> <span class="i6">From Western Kames to far Kilchattan
+      bay.</span> <span class="i6">Old Largs look&#39;d out amid the
+      orient light,</span> <span class="i6">With its grey dwellings,
+      and, in greenery bright,</span> <span class="i6">Lay Coila&#39;s
+      classic shores reveal&#39;d to sight;</span> <span class="i6">And
+      like a Vallombrosa, veil&#39;d in blue,</span> <span class=
+      "i6">Arose Mount Stuart&#39;s woodlands on the view;</span>
+      <span class="i6">Kerry and Cowall their bold hill-tops
+      show&#39;d,</span> <span class="i6">And Arran, and Kintire; like
+      rubies glow&#39;d</span> <span class="i6">The jagged clefts of
+      Goatfell; and below,</span> <span class="i6">As on a chart,
+      delightful Rothesay lay,</span> <span class="i6">Whence sprang of
+      human life the awakening sound,</span> <span class="i6">With all
+      its happy dwellings, stretching round</span> <span class="i6">The
+      semicircle of its sunbright bay.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>III.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i6">Byrone, a type of peace thou seemest now,</span>
+      <span class="i6">Yielding thy ridges to the rustic plough,</span>
+      <span class="i6">With corn-fields at thy feet, and many a
+      grove</span> <span class="i6">Whose songs are but of love;</span>
+      <span class="i6">But different was the aspect of that
+      hour,</span> <span class="i6">Which brought, of eld, the Norsemen
+      o&#39;er the deep,</span> <span class="i6">To wrest yon
+      castle&#39;s walls from Scotland&#39;s power,</span> <span class=
+      "i6">And leave her brave to bleed, her fair to weep;</span>
+      <span class="i6">When Husbac fierce, and Olave, Mona&#39;s
+      king,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href=
+      "#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></span> <span class=
+      "i6">Confederate chiefs, with shout and triumphing,</span>
+      <span class="i6">Bade o&#39;er its towers the Scaldic raven
+      fly,</span> <span class="i6">And mock each storm-tost sea-king
+      toiling by!&#8212;</span> <span class="i6">Far different were the
+      days,</span> <span class="i6">When flew the fiery cross, with
+      summoning blaze,</span> <span class="i6">O&#39;er Blane&#39;s
+      hill, and o&#39;er Catan, and o&#39;er Kames,</span> <span class=
+      "i6">And round thy peak the phalanx&#39;d Butesmen stood,<a name=
+      "FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6"
+      class="fnanchor">[6]</a></span> <span class="i6">As Bruce&#39;s
+      followers shed the Baliol&#39;s blood,</span> <span class=
+      "i6">Yea! gave each Saxon homestead to the flames!</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>IV.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i6">Proud palace-home of kings! what art thou
+      now?</span> <span class="i6">Worn are the traceries of thy lofty
+      brow!</span> <span class="i6">Yet once in beauteous strength like
+      thee were none,</span> <span class="i6">When Rothesay&#39;s Duke
+      was heir to Scotland&#39;s throne;<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id=
+      "FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class=
+      "fnanchor">[7]</a></span> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_751"
+      id="Page_751">[Pg 751]</a></span> <span class="i6">Ere Falkland
+      rose, or Holyrood, in thee</span> <span class="i6">The barons to
+      their sovereign bow&#39;d the knee:</span> <span class="i6">Now,
+      as to mock thy pride</span> <span class="i6">The very waters of
+      thy moat are dried;</span> <span class="i6">Through fractured
+      arch and doorway freely pass</span> <span class="i6">The
+      sunbeams, into halls o&#39;ergrown with grass;</span>
+      <span class="i6">Thy floors, unroof&#39;d, are open to the
+      sky,</span> <span class="i6">And the snows lodge there when the
+      storm sweeps by;</span> <span class="i6">O&#39;er thy grim
+      battlements, where bent the bow</span> <span class="i6">Thine
+      archers keen, now hops the chattering crow;</span> <span class=
+      "i6">And where the beauteous and the brave were guests,</span>
+      <span class="i6">Now breed the bats&#8212;the swallows build
+      their nests!</span> <span class="i6">Lost even the legend of the
+      bloody stair,</span> <span class="i6">Whose steps wend downward
+      to the house of prayer;</span> <span class="i6">Gone is the
+      priest, and they who worshipp&#39;d seem</span> <span class=
+      "i6">Phantoms to us&#8212;a dream within a dream;</span>
+      <span class="i6">Earth hath o&#39;ermantled each memorial
+      stone,</span> <span class="i6">And from their tombs the very dust
+      is gone;</span> <span class="i6">All perish&#39;d, all forgotten,
+      like the ray</span> <span class="i6">Which gilt yon orient
+      hill-tops yesterday;</span> <span class="i6">All nameless, save
+      mayhap one stalwart knight,</span> <span class="i6">Who fell with
+      Græme in Falkirk&#39;s bloody fight&#8212;</span> <span class=
+      "i6">Bonkill&#39;s stout Stewart,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id=
+      "FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class=
+      "fnanchor">[8]</a> whose heroic tale</span> <span class="i6">Oft
+      circles yet the peasant&#39;s evening fire,</span> <span class=
+      "i6">And how he scorn&#39;d to fly, and how he bled&#8212;</span>
+      <span class="i6">He, whose effigies in St Mary&#39;s
+      choir,</span> <span class="i6">With planted heel upon the
+      lion&#39;s head,</span> <span class="i6">Now rests in marble
+      mail.</span> <span class="i6">Yet still remains the small dark
+      narrow room,</span> <span class="i6">Where the third Robert,
+      yielding to the gloom</span> <span class="i6">Of his despair,
+      heart-broken, laid him down,</span> <span class="i6">Refusing
+      food, to die; and to the wall</span>
+	  <span class="i6">Turn&#39;d his determined face, unheeding all,</span>
+
+	  <span class="i6">And to his captive boy-prince left his crown.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a>
+	  <a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></span>
+
+	  <span class="i6">Alas! thy solitary
+      hawthorn-tree,</span> <span class="i6">Four-centuried, and
+      o&#39;erthrown, is but of thee</span> <span class=
+      'pagenum'><a name="Page_752" id="Page_752">[Pg 752]</a></span>
+      <span class="i6">A type, majestic ruin: there it lies,</span>
+      <span class="i6">And annually puts on its May-flower
+      bloom,</span> <span class="i6">To fill thy lonely courts with
+      bland perfume,</span>
+
+	  <span class="i6">Yet lifts no more its green head to the skies;<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a>
+	  <a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></span>
+
+	  <span class="i6">The last lone living thing around that knew</span> <span class="i6">Thy glory, when
+      the dizziness and din</span> <span class="i6">Of thronging life
+      o&#39;erflow&#39;d thy halls within,</span> <span class="i6">And
+      o&#39;er thy top St Andrew&#39;s banner flew.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <h5>V.</h5>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i6">Farewell! Elysian island of the west,</span>
+      <span class="i6">Still be thy gardens brighten&#39;d by the
+      rose</span> <span class="i6">Of a perennial spring, and
+      winter&#39;s snows</span> <span class="i6">Ne&#39;er chill the
+      warmth of thy maternal breast!</span> <span class="i6">May calms
+      for ever sleep around thy coast,</span> <span class="i6">And
+      desolating storms roll far away,</span> <span class="i6">While
+      art with nature vies to form thy bay,</span> <span class=
+      "i6">Fairer than that which Naples makes her boast!</span>
+      <span class="i6">Green link between the High-lands and the
+      Low&#8212;</span> <span class="i6">Thou gem, half claim&#39;d by
+      earth, and half by sea&#8212;</span> <span class="i6">May
+      blessings, like a flood, thy homes o&#39;erflow,</span>
+      <span class="i6">And health&#8212;though elsewhere lost&#8212;be
+      found in thee!</span> <span class="i6">May thy bland zephyrs to
+      the pallid cheek</span> <span class="i6">Of sickness ever roseate
+      hues restore,</span> <span class="i6">And they who shun the
+      rabble and the roar</span> <span class="i6">Of the wild world, on
+      thy delightful shore</span> <span class="i6">Obtain that soft
+      seclusion which they seek!</span> <span class="i6">Be this a
+      stranger&#39;s farewell, green Byrone,</span> <span class=
+      "i6">Who ne&#39;er hath trod thy heathery heights before,</span>
+      <span class="i6">And ne&#39;er may see thee more</span>
+      <span class="i6">After yon autumn sun hath westering gone;</span>
+      <span class="i6">Though oft, in pensive mood, when far
+      away,</span> <span class="i6">&#39;Mid city multitudes, his
+      thoughts will stray</span> <span class="i6">To Ascog&#39;s lake,
+      blue-sleeping in the morn,</span> <span class="i6">And to the
+      happy homesteads that adorn</span> <span class="i6">Thy
+      Rothesay&#39;s lovely bay.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div>
+    <span style="margin-left: 14em;">ASCOG LODGE, EAST BAY,
+    ROTHESAY,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 18em;">September 1843.</span><br />
+    <br />
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="footnotes">
+    <h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Rothesay
+      Castle is first mentioned in history in connexion with its siege
+      by Husbac the Norwegian, and Olave king of Man, in 1228. Among
+      other means of defence, it is said that the Scots poured down
+      boiling pitch and lead on the heads of their enemies; but it was,
+      however, at length taken, after the Norwegians had lost three
+      hundred men. In 1263, it was retaken by the Scots after the
+      decisive battle of Largs.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> This bid was
+      the scene of a conflict between the men of Bute and the troops of
+      Lisle, the English governor, in which that general was slain, and
+      his severed head, presented to the Lord High Steward, was
+      suspended from the battlements of the castle.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> In 1398,
+      Robert the Third constituted his eldest son Duke of Rothesay, a
+      title still held by every male heir-apparent to the British
+      crown. It was the first introduction of the ducal
+      dignity&#8212;originally a Norman one&#8212;into Scotland.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The walls
+      forming the choir of the very ancient church dedicated to the
+      Holy Virgin are still nearly entire, and stand close to the
+      present parish church of Rothesay. Within a traceried niche, on
+      one side, is the recumbent figure of a knight in complete armour,
+      apparently of the kind in use about the time of Robert the Second
+      or Third. His feet are upon a lion couchant, and his head upon a
+      faithful watch-dog, with a collar, in beautiful preservation,
+      encircling its neck. The coat-of-arms denotes the person
+      represented to have been of royal lineage. Popular tradition
+      individualizes him as the &quot;Stout Stewart of Bonkill&quot; of
+      Blind Harry the minstrel, who fell with Sir John the Grahame at
+      the battle of Falkirk&#8212;although that hero was buried near
+      the field of action, as his tombstone there in the old churchyard
+      still records.</p>
+
+      <p>Sir John Stewart of Bonkill was uncle and tutor to the then
+      Lord High Steward, at that time a minor.</p>
+
+      <p>A female figure and child recumbent, also elaborately
+      sculptured in black marble, adorn the opposite niche, and under
+      them, in alto-relievo, are several figures in religious habits.
+      Another effigies of a knight, but much defaced, lies on the
+      ground-floor of the choir&#8212;the whole of which was cleaned
+      out and put in order by the present Marquis of Bute in 1827.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> On the 4th of
+      April 1406, this unfortunate prince, overwhelmed with grief for
+      the death of his eldest son, David, Duke of Rothesay and Earl of
+      Carrick, who miserably perished of hunger in Falkland Castle; and
+      the capture, during a time of truce, of his younger son, Prince
+      James, by the English&#8212;died in the Castle of Rothesay of a
+      broken heart. The closet, fourteen feet by eight, in which he
+      breathed his last, is still pointed out, in the south-east corner
+      of the castle.</p>
+
+      <p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> In the
+      court of the castle is a remarkable thorn-tree, which for
+      centuries had waved above the chapel now in ruins; and which, at
+      the distance of a yard from the ground, measures six feet three
+      inches in circumference. In 1839, it fell from its own weight,
+      and now lies prostrate, with half its roots uncovered, but still
+      vigorous in growth.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_753" id="Page_753">[Pg
+  753]</a></span></p>
+
+  <h2><a name="TRAVELS_OF_KERIM_KHAN" id=
+  "TRAVELS_OF_KERIM_KHAN"></a>TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.</h2>
+
+  <h3>CONCLUSION.</h3>
+
+  <p>While tracing the progress of our friend the Khan through the
+  various scenes of amusement and festivity at which he assisted rather
+  as a spectator than an actor, we had omitted to notice in its proper
+  place an incident of some interest&#8212;his presence at the opening
+  of the Parliamentary session of 1841, on the 26th of January, by the
+  Queen in person. By the kindness of one of his friends, who was a
+  member of the royal household, he had succeeded in obtaining a ticket
+  of admission to the House of Lords, and was placed in a position
+  which afforded him an excellent view of the brilliant multitude
+  assembled to receive their sovereign. &quot;When I had sufficiently
+  recovered from the first impression of all the magnificence around
+  me, I could compare it only to the Garden of Trem<a name=
+  "FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11"
+  class="fnanchor">[11]</a>&#8212;nay, it appeared even more wonderful
+  than that marvellous place. At twelve o&#39;clock, twenty-one peals
+  of artillery announced the approach of the Queen, who shortly after
+  entered with Prince Albert, followed by her train-bearers, &amp;c.
+  All rose as she advanced; and when the Lords were again seated, the
+  <i>cadhi-ab-codhat</i> (Lord Chancellor) put a piece of paper in her
+  hands, and placed himself on the right of the throne, while the
+  grand-vizir stood on the left. Shortly after, the gentlemen of the
+  House of Commons entered, when the Queen read with a loud voice from
+  the paper to the following effect.&quot; We need not, however, follow
+  the Khan through the details of the royal speech, or the debate on
+  the address which succeeded, though, in the latter, he appears to
+  have been thunderstruck by the freedom of language indulged in by a
+  certain eccentric ex-chancellor, remarking, &quot;that under the
+  emperors of Delhi such latitude of speech, in reference to the
+  sovereign, would inevitably have cost the offender his head, or at
+  least have ensured his spending the remainder of his life in disgrace
+  and exile at Mekka.&quot; On the dignified bearing and
+  self-possession of our youthful sovereign, the Khan enlarges in the
+  strain of eulogy which might be expected from one to whom the sight
+  of the ensigns of sovereignty borne by a female hand was in itself an
+  almost inconceivable novelty, declaring, that &quot;the justice and
+  virtues of her Majesty have obliterated the name of Nushirvan from
+  the face of the earth!&quot; But the remarks of the simple-minded
+  Parsees on the same subject will be found, from their honest
+  sincerity, we suspect, more germane to the matter&#8212;&quot;We saw
+  in an instant that she was fitted by nature for, and intended to be,
+  a queen; we saw a native nobility about her, which induced us to
+  believe that she could, though meek and amiable, be firm and
+  decisive; ... that no man or set of men would be permitted by her to
+  dictate a line of conduct; and that, knowing and feeling that she
+  lived in the hearts and affections of her people, she would endeavour
+  to temper justice with mercy; and we thought that if no unforeseen
+  event (which God forbid) arose to dim the lustre of her reign, that
+  the period of her sway in Britain would be quoted as the golden
+  age.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>After this introduction, the Khan appears to have become an
+  occasional attendant in the gallery of the House of Commons, and was
+  present at a debate on the admission of foreign corn, in which Lord
+  Stanley, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord John Russell took
+  part&#8212;&quot;These three being the most eloquent of the speakers,
+  and the chiefs of their respective parties, though several other
+  members spoke at great length either for or against the motion,
+  according as each was attached to one or other of the great factions
+  which divide the House of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_754"
+  id="Page_754">[Pg 754]</a></span> Commons, and hold the destinies of
+  the people in their hands.&quot; Of the speeches of these three
+  leaders, and the arguments adduced by them, he accordingly attempts
+  to give an abstract; though as his information must have been
+  derived, we imagine, principally through the medium of an
+  interpreter, this first essay at Parliamentary reporting is not
+  particularly successful; and if we are to conclude, from his constant
+  use of the phrase <i>zemindars</i> to denote the landed interest,
+  that he considered the estates of the English proprietors to be held
+  by <i>zemindarry</i> tenures similar to those in Bengal, his notions
+  on the subject of the debate must have been considerably perplexed.
+  &quot;At length, however, as the debate had already been protracted
+  to a late hour, and there was no probability of a speedy termination
+  to this war of words, I left the House with no unfavourable
+  impression of what I had heard. This eternal wrangling between the
+  two factions is inherent, it appears, in the nature of the
+  constitution. With us, two wise men never dispute; yet every
+  individual member of the legislature is supposed to possess a certain
+  share of wisdom&#8212;so that here are a thousand wise men constantly
+  disputing. One would think no good could result from such endless
+  differences of opinion; but the fact is the reverse&#8212;for from
+  these debates result those measures which mark the character of the
+  English for energy and love of liberty.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>But though thus constantly alluding to the two great political
+  parties which divide the state, the Khan nowhere attempts to give his
+  readers a definition of the essential differences which separate
+  them; and, for a statement of the respective tenets of Whigs and
+  Tories, as represented to an oriental, we must once more have
+  recourse to the journal of Najaf Kooli, who has apparently taken
+  great pains to make himself acquainted with this abstruse subject.
+  &quot;The Tories,&quot; says the Persian prince, &quot;argue as
+  follows:&#8212;&#39;Three hundred years ago we were wild people, and
+  our kingdom ranked lower than any other. But, through our wisdom and
+  learning, we have brought it to its present height of honour, and, as
+  the empire was enlarged under our management, why should we now
+  <i>reform</i> and give up our policy which has done all this
+  good?&#39; To which the Whigs reply&#8212;&#39;It is more prudent to
+  go according to the changes of time and circumstances. Moreover, by
+  the old policy, only a few were benefited; and, as government is for
+  the general good, we must observe that which is best for the whole
+  nation, so that all should be profited.&#39;&quot; The
+  Shahzadeh&#39;s description of the ceremony of opening Parliament,
+  and his summary of the usual topics touched upon in the royal speech,
+  are marked by the same amusing <i>naïveté</i>&#8212;&quot;When all
+  are met, the king, arrayed in all his majestic splendour and state,
+  with the crown on his head, stands up with his face to the assembly,
+  and makes a speech with perfect eloquence as
+  follows:&#8212;&#39;Thank God that my kingdom is in perfect
+  happiness, and all the affairs, both at home and abroad, are in good
+  order. All the foreign badishahs (kings and emperors) have sent to me
+  ambassadors, assuring me of their friendship. The commerce of this
+  empire is enjoying the highest prosperity; and all these benefits are
+  through your wise ordination of affairs last session. This year also
+  I have to request you again to meet in your houses, and to take all
+  affairs into the consideration of your high skill and learning, and
+  settle them as you find best. Should there be any misunderstanding in
+  any part which may require either war or peace to be declared, you
+  will thereupon also take the proper measures for settling it
+  according to the welfare and interests of the kingdom.&#39; Then they
+  receive their instructions, the king leaves them, and they meet every
+  day, Sunday excepted, from one o&#39;clock in the afternoon till four
+  hours after sunset. They take all things into consideration, and
+  decide all questions; and when there is a difference of opinion there
+  will arise loud voices and vehement disputes.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>But we must now return to the movements of the Khan, after the
+  Lord Mayor&#39;s dinner, described in our last Number, in the world
+  of amusement which surrounded him in London. His next visit, when he
+  recovered from the fit of meditation into which he was thrown by the
+  sight of the marvellous banquet aforesaid, was to the Colosseum; but
+  his account of the wonders of this celebrated place of <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_755" id="Page_755">[Pg 755]</a></span>
+  resort, perhaps from his faculties still being in some measure
+  abstracted, is less full than might have been expected. The
+  ascending-room (which the Persian prince describes as &quot;rising
+  like an eagle with large wings into the atmosphere, till, after an
+  hour&#39;s time, it stopped in the sky, and opened its beak, so that
+  we came out&quot;) he merely alludes to as &quot;the talismanic
+  process by which I was carried to the upper regions;&quot; and though
+  the panoramic view of London is pronounced to be, &quot;of all the
+  wonders of the metropolis the most wonderful,&quot; it is dismissed
+  with the remark that &quot;it is useless to attempt to describe it in
+  detail. After this,&quot; continues the Khan, &quot;I passed under
+  ground among some artificial caves, which I at first took for the
+  dens of wild beasts; and that people should pay for seeing such
+  places as these, does seem a strange taste. By going a short distance
+  out of Delhi, a man may enter as many such places as he pleases,
+  bearing in mind, at the same time, that he runs the greatest chance
+  in the world of encountering a grinning hyæna, or some such beast;
+  and it was with some such feeling that I entered these grottoes, not
+  being exactly acquainted with their nature.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The Khan had now nearly exhausted the circle of places of public
+  entertainment; but one yet remained to be visited, and that, perhaps,
+  the most congenial of all to oriental tastes in the style of its
+  decorations, brilliant lights, and multifarious
+  displays&#8212;Vauxhall. &quot;A large garden! a
+  paradise!&quot;&#8212;such is the rapturous description of the
+  Persian princes&#8212;&quot;filled with roses of various hues, with
+  cool waters running in every direction on the beautiful green, and
+  pictures painted on every wall. There were burning about two millions
+  of lamps, each of a different colour; and we saw here such
+  fire-works, as made us forget all others we had already seen. Here
+  and there were young moon-faces selling refreshments; and in every
+  walk there were thousands of Frank <i>moons</i> (ladies) led by the
+  hand, while the roses grew pale with admiring their beautiful
+  cheeks.&quot; The Khan, though less ardent and enthusiastic than the
+  grandsons of Futteh Ali Shah, does ample justice to the splendour of
+  the illumination; &quot;thousands of lights distributed over the
+  gardens, suspended on the trees, and arranged in numberless fanciful
+  devices, so as to form flowers, names, &amp;c.; and when it became
+  dark, one blaze of bright light was presented, extending over a vast
+  space.&quot; He was fortunate, moreover, in making his visit to the
+  gardens on the evening of a balloon ascent, &quot;and thus I
+  witnessed the most wonderful sight I ever saw&#8212;a sight which a
+  hundred millions of people in India consider to be a <i>Feringhi</i>
+  fiction, an incredible fable; for though a Frenchman made an ascent
+  at Lucknow some years ago, nobody believes it who did not see it, and
+  many even who were present, believed that their senses had been
+  beguiled by magic.... A car in the shape of a <i>howdah</i> was swung
+  by ropes beneath the balloon, in which six individuals seated
+  themselves, besides the æronaut; and when it was filled with the gas
+  and ready to start, the latter tried to prevail on me to take a seat,
+  telling me he had performed nearly three hundred ærial voyages, and
+  that, if any accident should happen, he himself would be the first to
+  suffer. I certainly had a wish to satisfy my curiosity, by ascending
+  to the skies, but was dissuaded by the friends who accompanied me,
+  who said it was safer to remain on <i>terra firma</i>, and look on at
+  the voyagers; and accordingly I did so.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Though it would appear that the Khan had already paid more than
+  one visit to the treasures of art and nature collected within the
+  walls of the British Museum, his description of that institution,
+  &quot;one like which I had never before heard of,&quot; is reserved
+  almost to the last in the catalogue of the wonders of London; and his
+  remarks on the numberless novel objects which presented themselves at
+  every turn to his gaze, form one of the most curious and interesting
+  passages in his journal. The brilliant plumage of the birds in the
+  gallery of natural history, and particularly of the humming birds
+  &quot;from the far isles of the Western Sea,&quot; the splendour of
+  which outshone even the gorgeous feathered tribes of his native East,
+  excited his admiration to the highest degree&#8212;&quot;animals
+  likewise from every country of the earth were placed around, and
+  might have been mistaken for living beings, from the gloss of their
+  skins <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_756" id="Page_756">[Pg
+  756]</a></span> and the brightness of their eyes.&quot; The library,
+  &quot;containing, as I was told, 300,000 volumes, among which were
+  20,000 Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscripts,&quot; is briefly
+  noticed; and the sight of the mummies in the Egyptian collection sets
+  the Khan moralizing, not in the most novel strain, on these relics of
+  bygone mortality. The sculptures were less to his taste&#8212;the
+  Egyptian colossi are alluded to as &quot;the work in former days, I
+  suppose, of some of the mummies up stairs;&quot; and the Grecian
+  statues &quot;would appear, to an unbiassed stranger, a quantity of
+  useless, mutilated <i>idols</i>, representing both men and monsters;
+  but in the eyes of the English, it is a most valuable collection,
+  said to have cost seven <i>lakhs</i> of rupees, (£70,000,) and
+  venerated as containing some of the finest sculptures in the world. I
+  cannot understand how such importance can be attached in Europe to
+  this art, since the use of all images is as distinctly forbidden by
+  the <i>Tevr&#257;t</i>, (Bible,) as it is by our own law ... But the
+  strangest sight was in one of the upper rooms, which contains
+  specimens of extinct monsters, recently discovered in the bowels of
+  the earth in a fossil state, and supposed to be thousands of years
+  old. Many men of science pass their whole lives in inventing names
+  for these creatures, and studying the shape of a broken tooth
+  supposed to have belonged to them; the science to which this
+  appertains, being a branch of that relating to minerals, of which
+  there is in the next room a vast collection ranged in well-polished
+  cases, with the names written on them.... Among these, the most
+  extraordinary were some stones said to have fallen from the sky, one
+  of which was near 300 lbs. in weight, and with regard to the origin
+  of which their philosophers differ. The most generally received
+  opinion is, that they were thrown from volcanoes in the moon, thus
+  assuming, first, the existence of volcanoes there; secondly, their
+  possessing sufficient force to throw such masses to a distance,
+  according to their own theory, of between 200,000 and 300,000 miles;
+  and this through regions, the nature of which is wholly unknown. This
+  hypothesis cannot be maintained according to the Ptolemaic system;
+  indeed, it is in direct contravention to it.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The perverse abandonment by the Feringhis of the time-honoured
+  system of Ptolemy, in favour of the new-fangled theories of
+  Copernicus, by which the earth is degraded from its recognised and
+  respectable station in the centre of the universe, to a subordinate
+  grade in the solar system, seems to have been a source of great
+  scandal and perplexity to the Khan; &quot;since,&quot; as he remarks,
+  &quot;the former doctrine is supported by their own Bible, not less
+  than by our Koran.&quot; These sentiments are repeated whenever the
+  subject is referred to; and particularly on the occasion of a visit
+  to the Observatory at Greenwich, where he was shown all the
+  telescopes and astronomical apparatus, &quot;though, owing to the
+  state of the weather, I had not the opportunity of viewing the
+  heavens to satisfy myself of the correctness of the statements made
+  to me. I was told, however, that on looking through these instruments
+  at the moon, mountains, seas, and other signs of a world, are
+  distinctly visible.&quot; After satisfying his curiosity on these
+  points, the Khan proceeded to inspect the hospital, where he saw the
+  pensioners at dinner in the great hall; &quot;most of these had lost
+  their limbs, and those who were not maimed were very old, and nearly
+  all of them had been severely wounded; indeed, it was a very
+  interesting spectacle, and reflected great credit on the English
+  nation, which thus provides for the old age of those who have shed
+  their blood in her defence.&quot; To the charitable institutions of
+  the country, indeed, we find the Khan at all times fully disposed to
+  do justice; &quot;there is no better feature than this in the
+  national character, for there is scarcely a disease or deformity in
+  nature for which there is not some edifice, in which the afflicted
+  are lodged, fed, and kindly treated. Would that we had such
+  institutions in Hindustan!&quot; In pursuance of this feeling, we now
+  find him visiting the Blind Asylum and the Deaf and Dumb School; and
+  the circumstantial details into which he enters of the comforts
+  provided for the inmates of these establishments, and the proficiency
+  which many of them had attained in trades and accomplishments
+  apparently inconsistent with their privations, sufficiently evidences
+  the interest with which he regarded these <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_757" id="Page_757">[Pg 757]</a></span>
+  benevolent institutions. Another spectacle of the same character,
+  which he had an opportunity of witnessing about this period, was the
+  annual procession of the charity children to St
+  Paul&#39;s:&#8212;&quot;I obtained a seat near the officiating
+  <i>imam</i> or high priest, and saw near ten thousand children of
+  both sexes, belonging to the different eleemosynary establishments,
+  which are deservedly the pride of this country, all clothed in an
+  uniform dress, while every corner was filled with spectators. After
+  the <i>khotbah</i> (prayer) was read, they began to sing, not in the
+  ordinary manner, but, as I was given to understand, so as to involve
+  a form of prayer and thanksgiving. I was told that they belonged to
+  many schools,<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id=
+  "FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class=
+  "fnanchor">[12]</a> and are brought here once a year, that those who
+  contribute to their support may witness the progress they have made,
+  as well as their health and appearance.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The military college at Addiscombe, for the education of the
+  cadets of the East India Company&#39;s army, would naturally be to
+  the Khan an object of peculiar interest; and thither he accordingly
+  repaired, in company with several of his friends, apparently members
+  of the Indian direction, on the occasion of the examination of the
+  students by Colonel Pasley.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id=
+  "FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class=
+  "fnanchor">[13]</a> &quot;After partaking of a sumptuous luncheon, we
+  went to the students&#39; room, where they were examined in various
+  branches of the military science, as mathematics, fortification,
+  drawing, &amp;c., besides various languages, one of which was the
+  Oordoo.&quot;<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id=
+  "FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class=
+  "fnanchor">[14]</a> After the close of the examination, and the
+  distribution of prizes to the successful candidates,<a name=
+  "FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15"
+  class="fnanchor">[15]</a>the company repaired to the grounds, where
+  the Khan was astonished by the quickness and precision with which the
+  cadets took to pieces and reconstructed the pontoons, and went
+  through other operations of military engineering; and still more by a
+  subaqueous explosion of powder by the means of the voltaic
+  battery&#8212;&quot;a method by which Colonel Pasley was engaged near
+  Portsmouth in raising a vessel which had sunk there.&quot; It would
+  be hardly fair to surmise the probable tendency of the Khan&#39;s
+  secret thoughts on thus witnessing the care bestowed on the training
+  of those destined hereafter to maintain the Feringhi yoke on his
+  native country; but he expressed himself highly gratified by all that
+  he saw; and we find him, shortly after, in attendance at a spectacle
+  more calculated than any thing he had yet witnessed, to impress him
+  with an adequate idea of British power&#8212;the launch of a
+  first-rate man-of-war at Woolwich.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id=
+  "FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class=
+  "fnanchor">[16]</a> &quot;The sight was extremely exhilarating, from
+  the fineness of the day, and the immense crowds of people, of all
+  ages and both sexes, generally well dressed, who were congregated on
+  the land and the water, expecting the arrival of the Queen. Her
+  majesty appeared at one o&#39;clock, and proceeded to the front of
+  the great ship, where a place, covered with red cloth, was prepared
+  for her; I had a seat quite close, and saw it all very well.... The
+  ceremony of <i>christening</i> a ship is taken from that of
+  christening a child, which, as practised in the Nazarene churches,
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_758" id="Page_758">[Pg
+  758]</a></span> consists in throwing water in its face, and saying a
+  prayer; but here a bottle of wine hung before her majesty, and
+  opposite to it a piece of iron, against which she pushed the bottle
+  and broke it, and the wine was sprinkled over the ship, which then
+  received its name.... In a short time the slips were drawn, and she
+  glided nobly into the stream of the Thames amidst the shouts of the
+  spectators, and anchored at a short distance. I went on board this
+  immense floating castle, but observed that she was not ready for sea,
+  and I was told that she would require some time to be rigged,
+  provisioned, &amp;c. Our party then returned to Greenwich; and after
+  my friends had dined, with whom I partook of a delicate little fish
+  now in season, (whitebait,) drove back to town.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The Khan had no leisure, on this occasion, to inspect the wonders
+  of the <i>top-khana</i>, or arsenal; but he paid a second visit for
+  the purpose a few days later, duly armed with an order from the
+  Master-General of the Ordnance, which is indispensable for the
+  admission of a foreigner. His sensations, on entering this vast
+  repository of arms, were not unlike those attributed to a personage
+  whose fictitious adventures, though the production of a
+  <i>Feringhi</i> pen, present one of the most faithful pictures extant
+  of the genuine feelings of an oriental on Frank
+  matters:&#8212;&quot;When we came to the guns,&quot; says the
+  eximious Hajji Baba, &quot;by my beard, existence fled from our
+  heads! We saw cannons of all sizes and denominations, enough to have
+  paved the way, if placed side by side, from Tehran to Tabriz&#8212;if
+  placed lengthways, Allah only knows where they would have
+  reached&#8212;into the very grave of the father of all the Russians,
+  perhaps!&quot; &quot;The cannon distributed over the whole
+  place,&quot; says the graver narrative of the Khan, &quot;are said to
+  amount to 40,000! all ready for use in the army, navy, or fortresses;
+  and, as if these were not sufficient for the destruction of the human
+  race, other pieces are constantly casting by a process the reverse of
+  that in India, where the guns are cast in moulds&#8212;whereas here a
+  solid cylinder is cast, and afterwards bored, shaped, and finished by
+  steam power.... There are, moreover, a considerable number taken from
+  enemies in battle, two of which, taken from Tippoo Sultan at
+  Seringapatam, have their muzzles in the form of a lion&#39;s mouth,
+  and are very well cast and elaborately ornamented; having their date,
+  with the weight of powder and ball they carry, expressed in Persian
+  characters about the mouth. There are also three from Bhurtpore, and
+  three others from Aden, the inscriptions on which denote that they
+  were cast by order of the Turkish emperor, <i>Mahmood</i><a name=
+  "FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17"
+  class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Ibn Soliman.&quot; After leaving the
+  arsenal, the Khan proceeded to the dockyard, of which he merely
+  enumerates the various departments; but the proving of the anchors
+  and chain-cables by means of the hydraulic press, impressed him, as
+  it must do every one who has witnessed that astonishing process, with
+  the idea of almost illimitable power. &quot;On the ground lay a huge
+  anchor which had been broken a few days before in the presence of
+  Prince Albert, and when I was there four men were trying the strength
+  of a chain by turning a wheel, the force produced by which was more
+  than sufficient to break it; for just as I arrived it began to give
+  way, when they desisted. The force here produced by means of this
+  single wheel must have been equal to that of some 200,000 elephants,
+  which might perhaps have pulled till doomsday without effecting it.
+  Such is the wonderful effect of this agent (steam,) the results of
+  which I meet with in so many different places, and under so many
+  different circumstances!&quot; After visiting the convict-hulk, and
+  seeing the anchor-founderies in operation, the Khan crossed to
+  Blackwall, and returned to town by the railway, his first conveyance
+  when he landed in England. His increased experience in
+  steam-travelling had now, however, enabled him to detect the
+  difference between the mode of propulsion by engines on the other
+  railroads, and the &quot;immense cables made of iron wires&quot; by
+  which the vehicles are drawn on this line; the construction of which,
+  as well as the electro-telegraph, (&quot;a process for which we have
+  no phrase in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_759" id=
+  "Page_759">[Pg 759]</a></span> Oordoo,&quot;) by which communication is
+  effected between the two ends of the line, he soon after paid another
+  visit to inspect. &quot;This railway is carried partly over houses
+  and partly under ground; and as the price of the ground was unusually
+  high, I was told that it cost, though only three miles and a half in
+  length, the enormous sum of a crore of rupees,
+  (£1,000,000!&quot;)</p>
+
+  <p>With this notice of the Blackwall railway, the personal narrative
+  of the Khan&#39;s residence in England is brought to an abrupt
+  conclusion; leaving us in the dark as to the time and circumstances
+  of his return to his native land, which we believe took place soon
+  after this period. The remainder of his work is in the nature of an
+  appendix, consisting chiefly of dissertations on the manners,
+  institutions, &amp;c., of Great Britain, as compared with those of
+  Hindustan. He likewise gives an elaborate retrospect of English
+  history, from the Britons downwards; excepting, however, the four
+  centuries from the death of William the Conqueror to the accession of
+  Henry VIII.&#8212;an interval which he perhaps considers to have been
+  sufficiently filled up by his disquisitions on the struggles for
+  power between the crown and the barons, and the consequent origin and
+  final constitution of parliament, related in a previous part of his
+  work. His object in undertaking this compilation was, as he informs
+  us, &quot;for the benefit of those in Hindustan, who are to this day
+  entirely ignorant of English history, and indifferent as to acquiring
+  any knowledge whatever of a people whose sway has been extended over
+  so many millions of human beings, and whose influence is felt in the
+  remotest corners of the globe.&quot; The manner in which the Khan has
+  performed his self-imposed task, is highly creditable to his industry
+  and discrimination, and strongly contrasts, in the accuracy of the
+  facts and plain sense of the narration, with the wild extravagances
+  in which Asiatic historiographers are apt to indulge; the Anglo-Saxon
+  part of the history, on which especial pains appears to have been
+  bestowed, is particularly complete and well written&#8212;unless (as,
+  indeed, we are almost inclined to suspect) it be a translation <i>in
+  toto</i> from some popular historical treatise. The Khan&#39;s
+  acquired knowledge of English history, indeed, is sometimes more
+  accurate than his acquaintance with the annals of his own country; as
+  when, in comparing Queen Elizabeth with the famous Queen of Delhi,
+  Raziah Begum, he speaks of the latter princess as &quot;daughter of
+  Behlol Khan, the Pathan Emperor of Delhi;&quot; whereas a reference
+  to Ferishta, or any other native historian, will inform us that
+  Raziah died <span class='smcap'>a.d</span>. 1239, more than 200 years
+  before the accession of Behlol Lodi. No such errors as this, either
+  in fact or chronology, disfigure the Khan&#39;s sketch of English
+  history; but as it would scarcely present so much novelty to English
+  readers as it may possibly do to the Hindustani friends of the author
+  for whom it is intended, we shall give but a few brief notices of it.
+  His favourite hero, in the account of the Saxon period, is of course
+  Alfred, and he devotes to the events of his reign more than half the
+  space occupied by the history of the dynasty;<a name="FNanchor_18_18"
+  id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class=
+  "fnanchor">[18]</a> thus summing up his character:&#8212;&quot;To
+  describe all the excellent qualities, intellectual and moral,
+  attributed to this prince by English historians, would be to condense
+  in a single individual the highest perfections of which the human
+  species is capable. Qualities contradictory in their natures, and
+  which are possessed only by men of different characters, and scarcely
+  ever by one man, seem to have been united in this monarch; he was
+  humane, prudent, and peaceful, yet brave, just, and impartial;
+  affable, and capable of giving and receiving counsel. In short, he
+  was a man especially endowed by the Deity with virtue and
+  intelligence to benefit the human race!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The story of Edwy and Elgiva, and the barbarities which the
+  beautiful queen suffered at the hands of Dunstan, are related with
+  fitting abhorrence by the Khan, who seems to entertain, on all
+  occasions, a special aversion to the ascendancy of the Romish
+  priesthood. The loves of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_760" id=
+  "Page_760">[Pg 760]</a></span> Edgar and Elfrida, and the punishment
+  of the faithless courtier who deceived his sovereign by a false
+  report of the attractions of the lady, are also duly commemorated; as
+  well as the fall of the Saxon kingdom before the conquering swords of
+  the Danes, during the reign of Ethelred the Unready, the son of the
+  false and cruel Elfrida. But the intrusive monarch Canute &quot;was
+  looked upon, in those times of ignorance, as a very extraordinary
+  man, and supposed to be the greatest king of the world, the sovereign
+  of the seas and the land.&quot; The well-known story of his
+  pretending to command the waves, as related by the Khan, differs
+  considerably from the usually received version, and perhaps may be
+  better adapted to the notions prevalent in the East, where success by
+  stratagem is always considered preferable to a manly avowal of
+  incompetency. &quot;One day he was seated on the sea-shore, when the
+  waves reached his chair. Canute commanded them to retire; and as the
+  tide happened to be actually ebbing at the time, the waters retreated
+  to the ocean. Then turning to his courtiers, he exclaimed, that the
+  king whose mandates were obeyed by the billows of the sea, as well as
+  by the children of men, was truly the monarch of the earth. Ever
+  after this he was regarded by the ignorant multitude with a sort of
+  religious awe, and was called Canute <i>the Great</i>, as we should
+  say <i>Sahib-i-kir&#257;n</i>,&quot; (the Lord of the Conjunction,
+  implying a man born under a peculiar conjunction of planetary
+  influences which predestines him to distinguished fortunes.)</p>
+
+  <p>But of all the English monarchs whose reigns are noticed by the
+  Khan, the one who appears to stand highest, as a pious and patriotic
+  king, in his estimation&#8212;a distinction which he not improbably
+  owes to his zeal as an iconoclast, the use of images in worship being
+  abhorred by the Moslems&#8212;is no other than Henry VIII. No hint of
+  the &quot;gospel light that beamed from Boleyn&#39;s eyes,&quot; or
+  of the doom which overtook more than one of his consorts, is allowed
+  to interfere with the lustre of his achievements; such allusions,
+  indeed, would probably be regarded by the Khan as unwarrantable
+  violations of the privacy of the zenana. But in order to set in a
+  stronger light the difficulties which he had to encounter, we have a
+  circumstantial account of the rise of the Papal power, and the
+  exorbitant prerogatives assumed for some centuries previously, by the
+  Pope. &quot;This personage was the monarch of Christendom, something
+  analogous to our holy khalifs, who were the heads of Islam and the
+  Mohammedan world; and from him the princes of Christendom received
+  investiture, as did our Mohammedan sovereigns from the khalifs of
+  Bagdad. The ecclesiastics every where gave out that the pontiff was
+  the vicegerent of God, and that every one who died without his
+  blessing and forgiveness would suffer endless torments hereafter.
+  Moreover, if the king of any country did aught contravening the
+  Pope&#39;s pleasure, his people were excommunicated, and anathemas
+  published against them to the whole of Europe. Thus were the nations
+  led by the nose like a string of camels.&quot; He then proceeds to
+  state how Henry, by holding forth to his nobles the prospect of
+  participation in the rich possessions of the church, induced them to
+  join him in the enterprize of destroying the papal ascendency.
+  &quot;He then commanded the name of the Pope to be expunged from the
+  <i>khotbah</i>, and his own to be substituted as head of the church;
+  while the <i>idols</i> and pictures were removed from the churches,
+  and not allowed to be again used in worship; and the confiscated
+  property was divided into three parts, one of which he reserved for
+  himself, the second he gave to the nobles who had assisted him, and
+  distributed the third among the clergy of the new or reformed
+  religion.</p>
+
+  <div class="blockquot">
+    &quot;The Pope&#39;s wrath was kindled at these proceedings, and he
+    excommunicated the king, who trampled the edict under his feet. The
+    Pope then wrote to the princes of Christendom, exhorting them all
+    to undertake a <i>holy war</i> against Henry, who was not only a
+    heretic, but an infidel; adding, that if they did not, fire would
+    be rained on them from heaven as a punishment for their neglect.
+    Some of the Christian monarchs, as the King of Spain, declared war
+    accordingly against Henry, and sent ships to the coast of England;
+    but all their attempts failed; and the King of Denmark and other
+    potentates, perceiving that the Pope&#39;s threats were not
+    accomplished, and that no fire fell <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+    "Page_761" id="Page_761">[Pg 761]</a></span> from heaven, followed
+    Henry&#39;s example in expelling the Pope&#39;s clergy from their
+    dominions, and adopted measures of reform similar to his. From this
+    time the Pope&#39;s power began to decline in all the countries of
+    Europe, so that at the present day his name is read in the
+    <i>khotbah</i> only in the city of Rome and the small territory
+    which is yet left him in its neighbourhood; and the old practice of
+    excommunication seems to have entirely ceased; while the reformed
+    religion introduced by Henry, and which is so different from the
+    ancient faith, has existed in England ever since, a period of above
+    three hundred years.&quot;
+  </div>
+
+  <p>We need not pursue further our extracts from the Khan&#39;s
+  speculations on English history, of which the passages already given
+  afford a sufficient specimen; but we may notice that he mentions
+  James I. as the first English monarch who sent an ambassador (Sir
+  Thomas Roe) to the court of Delhi, and refers to the history of
+  Ferishta for an account of his reception by the Emperor Jehanghir. He
+  next proceeds to describe the climate, productions, and statistics of
+  the country, its division into <i>zillahs</i> or counties, the law of
+  primogeniture as regards succession to landed property, &amp;c.; and
+  enters into minute details on the laws regulating the succession to
+  the throne, the responsibility of ministers, the election of the
+  members of the House of Commons, and the mutual dependence of the
+  three branches of the legislature; but his remarks on these subjects,
+  though creditable from their general accuracy, possess little
+  originality; and may be left without comment for the edification of
+  his friends in Hindustan, for whose benefit it is to be presumed they
+  were intended. The doctrine of the responsibility of ministers,
+  (which the Khan in a former part of his narrative, as we had occasion
+  to remark, seemed either to have been unacquainted with, or to have
+  lost sight of,) is here stated with a full appreciation of its
+  practical bearings; and is pronounced to be &quot;the best law which
+  the English ever made for the government of the people, by imposing a
+  check on the absolute will of the sovereign; resembling the similar
+  restraint on the power of our monarchs which prevails in Islam,
+  though with us the check is still more powerful and effectual, as the
+  judge is empowered by the Koran to demand satisfaction from the
+  sovereign himself!&quot; The details of the British finances are
+  briefly touched upon, with a special denunciation of &quot;that most
+  extraordinary tax laid on the light of the sun when it comes through
+  a window:&quot;&#8212;but the Khan contents himself with stating the
+  amount of the national debt, and the interest annually paid to the
+  public creditors, without offering any scheme for its extinction,
+  like that of his countryman Mirza Abu-Taleb, who with perfect gravity
+  and good faith proposes that the fundholders should be summoned
+  before Parliament, and informed by the minister, that since the
+  pressure of the taxes necessary to meet the interest must inevitably,
+  erelong, produce a revolution, in which the whole debt would be
+  cancelled, it would be far better for them at once to relinquish with
+  a good grace great part of their claim, and accept payment of the
+  balance by instalments. Of the feasibility, as well as equity of this
+  plan, the Mirza does not appear to entertain the smallest
+  doubt:&#8212;&quot;and thus,&quot; he triumphantly concludes,
+  &quot;in twenty or thirty years, the whole of the debt would be
+  liquidated; some of the most oppressive taxes might be immediately
+  abolished, and others gradually relinquished; provisions would become
+  cheaper, and the people be rendered happy, and grateful to the
+  government.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;When in Hindustan,&quot; says the Khan, &quot;I had heard,
+  like millions of others, of something in connexion with the Feringhi
+  rulers, called <i>Company</i>; but no one knew whether this was a
+  man, or a medicine, or a weapon, or a horse, or a ship, or any thing
+  else. The most prevalent notion was, that it was an old woman; but as
+  the oldest among us, and their fathers before them, had always heard
+  it spoken of in exactly the same terms, they were further puzzled to
+  account for her preternatural longevity.&quot; A well-directed course
+  of enquiry in England, speedily enabled the Khan to unravel the
+  mystery; and he has enlightened his countrymen with full details on
+  the composition of the venerable Begum, with the Court of Directors,
+  the Board of Control, &amp;c.; but in the prosecution of these
+  researches, he was surprised by finding that <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_762" id="Page_762">[Pg 762]</a></span>
+  <i>Company</i> was so far from being one and indivisible, that
+  <i>Companies</i> &quot;exist by thousands for multifarious
+  objects&#8212;many even for speculation in human life. The most
+  recent is the Victoria, composed of twelve directors, and other
+  officers. A man puts a value on his life, and on this sum they put a
+  per centage, varying according to his age and state of health, which
+  he pays, and when he dies his heirs receive the money. People of the
+  middle classes generally resort to this method of providing, by small
+  annual contributions, for the support of their families after their
+  decease&#8212;and consequently the man&#39;s own relations often
+  rejoice when he dies, while strangers (the Insurance Company)
+  grieve.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>On the important subject of the domestic usages and manners of the
+  English, the Khan enters less at length than might have been
+  expected. Of country life, indeed, from which alone correct ideas on
+  such subjects can be derived, he saw absolutely nothing, his
+  knowledge of the country being apparently limited to the prospect
+  from the windows of a railway carriage; and his acquaintance with
+  London manners was drawn more from ballrooms and crowded soirées,
+  than from the private circles of family réunions. With these limited
+  opportunities of observation, his remarks on the mass of the people
+  are necessarily confined, in a great measure, to their outdoor
+  habits; in which nothing appears to have surprised him more than the
+  small number of horsemen (as he considers) to be seen in the streets
+  of London; &quot;the generality of these, too, are extremely bad
+  riders, though this, perhaps, may be owing to the uncouth and awkward
+  saddles they use:&quot; a libel on our national character for
+  horsemanship, into which we must charitably hope that the Cockney
+  cavaliers who crowd the Regent&#39;s Park on Sundays, are responsible
+  for having misled him. The important point of the comparative
+  deference paid to women, and the amount of liberty and privileges
+  enjoyed by them, in the social systems of Mohammedan and Christian
+  countries respectively, is taken up by the Khan in behalf of the
+  former, with as much warmth as in past years by his compatriot Mirza
+  Abu-Taleb,<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href=
+  "#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> and in much the same line
+  of argument&#8212;to the effect that the dowery which the eastern
+  husband is bound by law to pay over in money to his wife in the event
+  of a separation, is a far more effectual protection to the wife from
+  the fickleness and caprice of her partner, (&quot;whose
+  <i>interest</i> it thus becomes, setting affection wholly out of the
+  question, to remain on good terms with her,&quot;) than any remedy
+  afforded by the laws of England; where a wife, though bound by ties
+  less easily dissolved than under the Mohammedan system of divorces,
+  may still be driven, without misconduct on her part, from her
+  husband&#39;s house, and left to seek redress by the slow process of
+  litigation. The Khan assures us that several ladies with whom he
+  conversed on these interesting topics, and who had passed many years
+  of their lives in India, were utterly unacquainted with these
+  protective rights of Hindustani wives; and were obliged to confess,
+  that if they were correctly stated, &quot;the ladies in India are far
+  better off than ourselves. For (said they) the dowery we receive from
+  our fathers on our marriage goes to our husbands, who may squander it
+  in one day if they like; and even the dresses we wear are not our own
+  property, but are given us by our husbands.&quot; But if we allow the
+  Khan all due credit for the adroitness and success with which he
+  maintained on this occasion the cause of his fair countrywomen, we
+  can scarcely acquit him of something like disingenuousness in a
+  discussion with &quot;another lady,&quot; apparently one who had
+  <i>not</i> been in India, and who lamented the hard fate (as she
+  believed) of the Indian widows, who could not marry again after the
+  death of their first husband, and were at the mercy of the priests,
+  who filled their heads with terrors of a future state to prevent
+  their doing so. &quot;With regard to this last idea, it is so utterly
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_763" id="Page_763">[Pg
+  763]</a></span> groundless, that there is no word in our language
+  corresponding with &#39;priest;&#39; and of all religions in the
+  world, Islam is the least influenced by spiritual meddlers of any
+  sort. It is, besides, expressly enjoined in the Koran, that widows
+  should marry; they may do so as often as they like, if they survive
+  their husbands; and if they do not, it is their own choice.&quot;
+  Now, though this vehement denial of the Khan&#39;s is perfectly true
+  as regards <i>Moslem</i> law and <i>Moslem</i> widows, he must have
+  been well aware that the lady&#39;s error arose from her considering
+  as common to all the natives of India, Hindustanis as well as Hindus,
+  those customs and restrictions which are peculiar to the Hindus
+  alone. Among the latter, as is well known, both the priestcraft of
+  the Brahmins, and the impediments to the marriage of a widow,<a name=
+  "FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20"
+  class="fnanchor">[20]</a> exist in full force at this day; and it
+  would have been more candid on the part of the Khan, even at the
+  expense of a little of his Moslem pride, to have set his fair
+  opponent right on these points, than to have triumphed over her
+  ignorance, without showing her wherein lay her error.</p>
+
+  <p>But however deeply the Khan may have commiserated the unprotected
+  condition of English wives, as compared with the security of rights
+  enjoyed by the more fortunate dames of Hindustan, we find him at all
+  times disposed to do ample justice to the social qualifications and
+  accomplishments of our countrywomen, and the beneficial influence
+  exercised by them in smoothing the asperities of society. The
+  masculine portion of the community, indeed, find little favour in the
+  eyes of the Khan, who accuses them of being prone to indulge in
+  inveterate enmity and ill-feeling on slight grounds, while instances
+  of real friendship, on the contrary, are extremely rare: and he is
+  wearied and disgusted by the endless disputes which occur at all
+  times and all places, from the collision of individuals of adverse
+  political sentiments. &quot;They dispute in parliament, they dispute
+  in their social circles, they dispute in steam-boats, on railroads,
+  in eating and drinking; and I verily believe that, but for some
+  slight feeling of religion, they would dispute even in their
+  churches. But in the same proportion as the men were hostile to each
+  other, did the women seem united: the more there were of these fair
+  creatures, the pleasanter did they make the party by their smiles and
+  good-humour: with the men, the more there were collected together,
+  the more wrangling always ensued. In qualities of the mind and heart,
+  as well as in the social virtues, the women far surpass the
+  men&#8212;they are more susceptible of friendship, more hospitable to
+  strangers, less reserved, and, I must say, generally better informed.
+  Wherever I have been conversing with gentlemen in society, if a
+  difficulty occurred on any topic, the men would invariably turn to
+  their wives or sisters, and ask for an explanation, thus tacitly
+  admitting the superior attainments of the ladies: and I have always
+  found that I obtained from the latter a more satisfactory answer to
+  any of my enquiries on national customs and institutions. Nor must it
+  be supposed that this superiority was only apparent, and arose from
+  the desire the men might have to display the accomplishments of their
+  ladies by referring so constantly to them: it is the real state of
+  the case, as far as I can judge from the manners of the
+  people.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>We cannot better close our extracts from the Khan&#39;s remarks on
+  English manners and society, than with this spontaneous tribute to
+  the merits and attractions of our countrywomen, the value of which is
+  enhanced by its coming, as it does, from an acute observer of a
+  social system in which every thing was wholly at variance with his
+  preconceived habits and ideas, and from one, moreover, totally
+  unacquainted with that routine of compliment, <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_764" id="Page_764">[Pg 764]</a></span> which
+  serves gentlemen in the regions of Franguestan, to use the words of
+  Die Vernon, &quot;like the toys and beads which navigators carry with
+  them to propitiate the inhabitants of newly-discovered lands.&quot;
+  But the impression produced on the Khan by the contemplation of the
+  institutions and resources of England has yet to be viewed in another
+  light&#8212;in its relations to the government of India under
+  Feringhi rule, and the comparative benefits conferred on the people
+  at large, by the sway respectively of the English, and of their old
+  Mohammedan rulers. The Khan&#39;s opinions on these subjects will
+  doubtless be read with surprise by that numerous and respectable
+  class of the community, who hold as an article of faith, (to use the
+  words of our author,) that in Mohammedan countries &quot;every prince
+  is a tyrant; every court of justice full of corruption; and all the
+  people sunk in depravity, ignorance, and misery:&quot; and who cling
+  to the comfortable delusion that we have succeeded, by the equity of
+  our civil government, in attaching to our rule the population of
+  India. As a view of this important subject <i>from the other side of
+  the question</i>, taken by one, however, by no means indisposed to do
+  justice to what he considers as the meritorious features of the
+  English administration, the Khan&#39;s comparative summary, though
+  not wholly devoid of prejudice, possesses considerable interest: and
+  it must be admitted, that with respect to the internal improvement of
+  the country, his strictures have hitherto had but too much
+  foundation, though the schemes of the present governor-general, if
+  carried into effect, will go far to remove the stigma from the
+  Anglo-Indian rulers. After contrasting, in a conversation with an
+  English friend, the expedition of legal proceedings under the Moslem
+  rule, with the slow process of the English courts in India, to be
+  finally remedied only by the endless and generally ineffectual course
+  of appeal to the privy-council at home, (in which, according to the
+  Khan&#39;s statement, not a single individual of the number who have
+  undertaken the long voyage from India has ever succeeded,) he
+  proceeds&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Historical facts seem to be wholly lost sight of by those
+  who talk of the conduct of Mohammedan rulers in India, who, as I
+  could prove by many instances, were constantly solicitous of the
+  happiness of their subjects. Shah-Jehan constructed a road from Delhi
+  to Lahore, a distance of 500 miles, with guard-houses at intervals of
+  every three miles, and at every ten or twelve miles a caravanserai,
+  where all travellers were fed and lodged at the Emperor&#39;s
+  expense. Besides this, canals were dug, and public edifices built, at
+  the expense of millions, without taxing the people to pay for them as
+  here; and these edifices still stand, and will endure for many years,
+  as monuments of the munificence of the monarchs who erected them.
+  During the seventy years of the English dominion in India, what has
+  been done which would remind the people fifty years hence, if they
+  should retire from the country, that such a nation had ever held sway
+  there? The only memorials they would leave, would be the numerous
+  empty bottles scattered over the whole empire, to indicate what has
+  been done <i>in</i>, if not <i>for</i> India! In some cases also,
+  they have squandered millions without benefit either to the people or
+  themselves. The money spent in three years on the insane war in
+  Cabul, if expended on the construction of railroads or canals, or the
+  extension of steam navigation on our great rivers, would have
+  employed thousands of men for twenty years, returned an immense
+  profit to government, and have gained them a good name among the
+  people. But it is the misfortune of India, that notwithstanding the
+  high qualities of energy and enterprise, united with superior
+  education and intelligence, unquestionably possessed by its masters,
+  they display so lamentable and apathetic an indifference to the
+  amelioration of the country. Since I have had such opportunities of
+  observing the proofs of English art and skill which I see every where
+  and in every department, I cannot but the more deeply regret that
+  these wonderful discoveries, and strange and unheard-of inventions,
+  in every branch of science and art, are likely to remain unknown to
+  the people of India. If I were to relate on my return all the wonders
+  I have seen, no one would believe me: and to what could I appeal in
+  evidence of the truth of what I say? Are there any establishments
+  where these things can be shown to the people on <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_765" id="Page_765">[Pg 765]</a></span> any
+  thing like an adequate scale? If such institutions had been
+  established, the people would have some tangible proof of the real
+  intellectual superiority of their English rulers: but in the lapse of
+  seventy years, nothing has been done. Again, if seminaries had been
+  founded on the principle of those built and endowed by the emperors,
+  they might have produced men eminent in various faculties: but though
+  it is true that schools were built by the Company some fifteen years
+  since, in various parts of the empire, in which some thousands of
+  children, both Hindoo and Moslem, have received education, they have
+  never turned out a single man of superior attainments in any
+  department of literature there taught:&#8212;and it is remarkable
+  that not an instance exists, as far as I am aware, of a man thus
+  educated in the Company&#39;s own schools having been selected for
+  the high judicial offices of <i>Sadr-ameen</i>, and principal
+  <i>Sadr-ameen</i> (judges in the local courts;) but that these
+  functionaries have invariably been chosen from those educated in the
+  native method. Is not this strange, that Government should have
+  established schools professing to give superior instruction to the
+  people; and that not one so trained should have been found eligible
+  to fill any of the judicial or fiscal offices of their own
+  government? and how can it be accounted for, except by these
+  institutions having been conducted on an erroneous principle? When I
+  return to India, I must be like the free-masons, silent and reserved,
+  unless when I meet one who has been, like myself, in England, and
+  with whom I can converse on the wonders we have both witnessed in
+  that marvellous country, and which, if I venture to narrate them in
+  public, or even among my own immediate friends and relatives, would
+  draw on me such disbelief, that I would certainly die from grief of
+  heart.&quot;&#8212;Here leave we Kerim Khan; not without a hope, that
+  in spite of the apprehensions expressed in the passage just quoted,
+  of incurring the reproach to which &quot;travellers&#39; tales&quot;
+  are supposed to be sometimes obnoxious, he has not eventually
+  persisted in withholding from his countrymen a narrative which, both
+  from the opportunities of observation enjoyed by the writer, and the
+  ability and good judgement with which he has availed himself of these
+  advantages, is better calculated to dispel the incredulity which he
+  anticipates, than the Travels of Mirza Abu-Taleb, (the text of which
+  has been printed at Calcutta,) or indeed than any work with which we
+  are acquainted. Trusting, then, that the Khan&#39;s patriotic
+  aspirations for the welfare of his country may be realized by the
+  speedy introduction of all those Feringhi appendages to high
+  civilization, the want of which he so feelingly deplores, and that he
+  may live a thousand years in the full fruition of all the advantages
+  therefrom resulting, we now take leave of him.</p>
+
+  <div class="footnotes">
+    <h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> The palace
+      constructed, in the early ages of the world, by the giant-king
+      Sheddad, as a rival to the heavenly paradise, and supposed still
+      to exist, though invisible to mortal eyes, in the recesses of the
+      Desert&#8212;See <span class='smcap'>Lane&#39;s</span>
+      <i>Thousand and One Nights</i>, vol, ii. p. 342.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> The Persian
+      princes imagine these children to be collected from all parts of
+      the United Kingdom, for the purpose of this procession!</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> The Khan
+      never gives dates; but on investigation we find that this must
+      have been on the 11th of June 1841; as among the list of visitors
+      on that day occur the names of <i>Kurreen</i> Khan, Mohabet Khan,
+      and, singularly enough, the Parsee poet, Manackjee Cursetjee, who
+      will be well remembered as a lion of the London drawing-rooms
+      during that season.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> The
+      <i>polite</i> dialect of Hindustani, which differs considerably
+      from that in use among the lower orders. The phrase is derived
+      from <i>Oorda</i>, the court, or camp, of the
+      sovereign&#8212;whence our word <i>horde</i>.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> &quot;One
+      hundred and fifty-three of the students,&quot; he adds,
+      &quot;were fixed upon for commissions, who were to be sent out to
+      India;&quot; but the Khan must have been strangely misinformed
+      here, as the number actually selected was only thirty-one.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> This must
+      have been the Trafalgar of 120 guns, which was launched June 21,
+      1841; but the Khan is mistaken in supposing that the Queen
+      personally performed the ceremony of <i>christening</i> the ship,
+      since that duty devolved on Lady Bridport, the niece of Nelson,
+      who used on the occasion a bottle of wine which had been on board
+      the Victory when Nelson fell.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> This must
+      be a slip of the pen for <i>Selim</i>, or perhaps for Soliman Ibn
+      Selim, (Soliman the Magnificent.)</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> &quot;At
+      this epoch,&quot; adds the Khan in a note, &quot;reigned the
+      great Har&#363;n-al-Rashid, the khalif and supreme head of Islam;
+      and Charles the Great was Emperor of the Franks.&quot;</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> The Mirza
+      even went so far as to write during his stay in England a
+      treatise, entitled &quot;Vindication of the Liberties of the
+      Asiatic Women,&quot; which was translated by Captain Richardson,
+      and published first in the <i>Asiatic Annual Register</i> for
+      1801, and again as an Appendix to the Mirza&#39;s Travels. It is
+      a very curious pamphlet, and well worth perusal.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Great
+      efforts have of late been made, among the more enlightened
+      Hindus, to get rid of this prejudice. Baboo Motee Loll Seal, a
+      wealthy native of Calcutta, offered 20,000 rupees, a year or two
+      since, to the first Hindu who would marry a widow, and we believe
+      the prize has been since claimed:&#8212;and in the <i>Asiatic
+      Journal</i> (vol. xxxviii. p. 370,) we find the announcement of
+      the establishment, in 1842, of a &quot;Hindu widow re-marrying
+      club&quot; at Calcutta!</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_766" id="Page_766">[Pg
+  766]</a></span></p>
+
+  <h2><a name="NOTES_ON_A_TOUR_OF_THE_DISTURBED_DISTRICTS_IN_WALES" id=
+  "NOTES_ON_A_TOUR_OF_THE_DISTURBED_DISTRICTS_IN_WALES"></a>NOTES ON A
+  TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES.</h2>
+
+  <h3>BY JOSEPH DOWNES.</h3>
+
+  <h3>Author of &quot;The Mountain Decameron.&quot;</h3>
+
+  <h4>Llangaddock, Carmarthenshire, September 9.</h4>
+
+  <p>&quot;And this is the &#39;<i>disturbed
+  district!</i>&#39;&#8212;this is the seat of war!&#8212;the
+  &#39;<i>Agrarian civil war!</i>&#39;&#8212;the headquarters of the
+  &#39;<i>Rebecca rebels!</i>&quot; I soliloquized, about the hour of
+  one A.M. on the night of September 9, 1843&#8212;a night of more than
+  summer beauty, sultry and light as day&#8212;while thrusting my head
+  from the window of &quot;mine inn&quot; the Castle, in this pretty
+  picturesque little village-town, to coin a term. The shadows of the
+  rustic houses, and interspersed corn-stacks, trees, and orchards,
+  stretched across the irregular street, without a causeway, in
+  unbroken quiet; not a sound was heard but the voice of an owl from a
+  &quot;fold&quot; in the very heart of &quot;the town,&quot; and the
+  low murmur of the river chafing against the buttresses of an antique
+  bridge at the end of the said &quot;street;&quot; while an humble bow
+  window of a shop, where at nightfall I had observed some dozens of
+  watches (<i>silver</i>, too!) displayed, without a token of
+  &quot;Rebecca&quot; terrorism appearing, was seen jutting into the
+  road, only hidden, not defended, by such a weak apology for a
+  shutter, as would not have resisted a burglar of ten years&#39;
+  old.</p>
+
+  <p>It was now Sunday morning, and the clean-swept neatness of the
+  sleeping village, whose inhabitants we had seen busily engaged in
+  this pleasing preparation for the day of rest, as we strolled there
+  at twilight, confirmed the assurance of profound and fearless peace;
+  for only in that happy condition of society could the mind be
+  supposed disengaged enough to regard those minute decencies of rural
+  English life. With a smile of well-pleased wonder at the
+  exaggerations of the press, which were persuading the Londoners that
+  the &quot;dogs of war&quot; were really &quot;let slip&quot; among
+  these our green mountains and pastoral valleys, after enjoying this
+  prospect of a village by moonlight at the foot of the majestic
+  <i>Mynydd Du</i>, (black mountain,) whose range is seen by day,
+  towering at a few miles&#39; distance, and hugging myself in the
+  security of life and purse, which warriors (if they would
+  cross-question their own great hearts) do really prize as much as I
+  do, I returned to bed, (the heat of which had first driven me forth
+  to this air-bath of half an hour.) &quot;And <i>this</i> is the seat
+  of insurrection!&quot; I reiterated sarcastically against all English
+  and all Welsh purveyors of &quot;news&quot; for terror-loving
+  readers.</p>
+
+  <p>I have a huge deal of patriotism in my composition&#8212;also, a
+  great love of rural quiet, joined to some <i>trifling</i> degree of
+  cowardice, as my family pretend; but that I impute to my
+  over-familiarity with them. &quot;No man is great to his valet,&quot;
+  has been remarked. The domestics of Alexander wondered what the world
+  found to wonder at, in the little man their master. However this may
+  be, I confess it was very pleasant to me to find peace unbroken in
+  these my old haunts. Here I had many a summer night enacted, as
+  recorded in my &quot;Mountain Decameron,&quot; the amateur-gipsy,
+  &quot;a long while ago,&quot; <i>bivouacking</i> in their wildest
+  solitudes, between some wood and water, on moonlight greensward, or
+  reading at our tents&#39; mouth by a lamp, while two boys, my sons,
+  slept soundly within; and in the blindness of human nature, thus
+  sneering against the &quot;gentlemen of the press,&quot; sneered
+  myself to sleep, &quot;shut up in measureless content.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Most lame and impotent conclusion!&quot; The peace of nature
+  in that sweet night was weak assurance of any kindred feeling in the
+  bosom of man. It so happened (as I afterwards learned) that
+  felony&#8212;<i>bloody</i> felony&#8212;was at that very time busy,
+  at no great distance; that murder, that arson in its direst
+  character, were stamping their first damnable characters on a
+  province noted, through ages, for innocence and simple piety; that
+  the first victim to rebellion was, at that moment, bleeding to death
+  under the hands of those wearing the shapes of men; that victim
+  innocent, helpless, and&#8212;a woman!!</p>
+
+  <p>But of this in the course of my narrative. Sunday, September
+  10.</p>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_767" id="Page_767">[Pg
+  767]</a></span></p>
+
+  <p>As I proceeded from Llangaddock this afternoon, in company with my
+  son, we found no slackness in the attendance on the chapels, which
+  keep rising in all directions in the principality. The groups issuing
+  from them, survey us with surly eyes, as <i>Sabbath-breakers</i>, for
+  travelling on the &quot;Lord&#39;s day.&quot; It is curious to
+  reflect that these very persons who have just been listening to the
+  preachers of a gospel of peace, with white upturning eyes and inward
+  groans, who present countenances deeply marked, as it seems to us,
+  with the spirit of severe sanctity, betrayed by their sour looks at
+  us, and not rarely vested in two or three expressions <i>at</i> us
+  among themselves&#8212;I say, how curious a fact in the
+  <i>pathology</i> of minds does it present, that these very men will
+  (some of them) reappear in a few hours, or days, in the characters of
+  <i>felons</i>, midnight rebels to law and order, redressing minor
+  wrongs committed by a few against themselves, by a tenfold fouler
+  wrong against all men, against society itself. For a <i>system</i>
+  which consists in defying the laws, is a systematic waging of war
+  against the very element that binds men in society&#8212;it is a
+  casting off of civilization, a return to miserable dependence on
+  animal strength alone, on brutish cunning, or midnight hiding in the
+  dark, for all we enjoy. It seems well known that the farmers
+  themselves are the Rebeccaites, aided by their servants, and that
+  <i>the</i> Rebecca is no other than some forward booby, or worse
+  character, who ambitiously claims to <i>act</i> the leader, under the
+  unmanly disguise of a female, yielding his post in turn to other such
+  petticoat heros. The &quot;Rebecca&quot; seems no more than a living
+  figure to give <i>effect</i> to the drama, as boys dress up an effigy
+  and parade it as <i>the</i> Guy Fawkes.</p>
+
+  <p>It is curious to witness the chop-fallen aspect of the poor
+  toll-collectors. The &quot;looking for&quot; of a dark hour is
+  depicted on the <i>female</i> faces, at least, and a certain
+  constrained civility mixed with sullenness, marks the manners of the
+  male portion near large towns; for elsewhere, humble civility has
+  <i>always</i> met the traveller in this class of Welsh cottagers. The
+  frequent appearance of dragoons, the clatter of their dangling
+  accoutrements of war, and grotesque ferocity of hairy headgear, and
+  mock-heroic air of superiority to the more quietly grotesque groups
+  of grey-coated men, and muffled up Welsh women gives a new feature to
+  our tour in this hitherto tranquil region, where a soldier used to be
+  a monster that men, women, children, all alike, would run to the
+  cottage door to look at. A very different sort of look than that of
+  childish curiosity now greets these gallant warriors, at least from
+  the farmers. &quot;&#39;Becca&quot; is the beloved of their secret
+  hearts&#8212;&#39;Becca has already given them roads without paying
+  for them! &#39;Becca is longed for by every <i>honest</i> farmer of
+  them all, whenever he pays a toll-gate. And these fellows are come
+  sword in hand, to hunt down poor innocent &#39;Becca! Well may the
+  Welshman&#39;s eyes lower on them, whatever may be the looks of the
+  Welsh women.</p>
+
+  <p>We have now rode through several toll-gates, the ruins of the
+  toll-houses only remaining, and rode scatheless! No toll
+  asked&#8212;no darting forth of a grim figure from his little castle,
+  at the shake of the road by tramp of horses&#8212;like the spider
+  showing himself at his hole, on the trembling of his web to the
+  struggle of a luckless fly. Nothing appeared but a shell of a house,
+  with blackened remains of rafters, or a great heap of stones, not
+  even a wall left&#8212;and huge stumps of gate-posts, and not a hand
+  extended, or voice raised to demand payment for our use of a
+  road!&#8212;that payment which the laws of the land had formally
+  pronounced due! Had new laws been passed? Had a new mode arisen of
+  discharging the debt we had incurred by the purchase of the use of so
+  much road for two horses? Nothing of the kind! A mob at midnight had
+  thrown down the barrier law had built; and law dared not, or
+  neglected to&#8212;erect it again! &quot;Rebecca,&quot; like Jack
+  Cade, had pronounced <i>her</i> law&#8212;&quot;sic volo, sic
+  jubeo&quot;&#8212;and we rode through, by virtue of her most
+  graceless Majesty&#39;s absolute edict&#8212;cost free. It was really
+  a very singular feeling we experienced on the first of these
+  occasions. I assure thee, my reader; believe me, my pensive public! I
+  never was transported&#8212;never held up hand at the Old Bailey, or
+  elsewhere; am not conscious of any sinister sort of projections about
+  my skull that phrenologists <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_768"
+  id="Page_768">[Pg 768]</a></span> might draw ugly conclusions on; yet
+  I confess, that after an eloquent burst of Conservative wrath against
+  this strange triumph of anarchy&#8212;after looking down on these
+  works of mob law, unreversed, tamely endured&#8212;after fancying I
+  saw the prostrate genius of social order there lying
+  helpless&#8212;the dethroned majesty of British law there grovelling
+  among the black ruins, insulted, unrestored&#8212;left to be trampled
+  over with insolent laughter, by refractory boors, ignorant as savages
+  of that law&#39;s inestimable blessing&#8212;I say, after all these
+  hurried thoughts and feelings&#8212;let me whisper thee, my reader,
+  that a certain scandalous pleasure <i>did</i> creep up from these
+  finger-ends, instinctively groping the pocket for the pre-doomed
+  &quot;thrippence,&quot; yea, quite up to this lofty, reasoning, and
+  right loyal sensorium, on leaving the said sum in good and lawful
+  money, snug and safe in my own pocket, instead of handing it over to
+  a toll collector. Let us not expect too much from poor human nature!
+  I defy any man&#8212;Aristides Redivivus himself, to ride <i>toll
+  free</i> through, or rather over, a turnpike defunct in this manner,
+  and not feel a pernicious pleasure at his heart, a sort of slyly
+  triumphing satisfaction, spite of himself, as of a dog that gets his
+  adversary undermost; in short&#8212;without becoming for the moment,
+  under the Circean chink of the saved &quot;coppers,&quot; a rank
+  Rebeccaite! The Lord and the law forgive me, for I surely loved
+  &#39;Becca at <i>heart</i> at that moment!</p>
+
+  <p>My son being a young man about returning to college, it was highly
+  important to conceal this backsliding within; so I launched out the
+  more upon the monster character of this victory of brawny ignorance
+  and stupid rebellion over the spirit of laws&#8212;but it
+  wouldn&#39;t do. &quot;But you don&#39;t <i>look</i> altogether so
+  angry about it as you speak, father,&quot; said he, though what he
+  could see to betray any inward chuckling, I am not aware. If the
+  casual saving of a toll could thus operate upon ME, who should,
+  perhaps, never pass there again, can it be wondered at that farmers,
+  to whom this triumph must prove a great annual gain, are Rebeccaites
+  <i>to the backbone</i>, and to a man? I fear they must be more than
+  man, not to cry secretly to this levelling lady &quot;God
+  speed!&quot; And this leads me to more serious reflection on the
+  incomprehensible and fatal conduct of the local authorities <i>in the
+  first instance</i>, in not <i>instantly</i> re-erecting the
+  toll-gates, or fixing chains <i>pro tempore</i>, protecting at
+  whatever expense some persons to demand compliance with the laws,
+  that not for a week, a day, an hour, the disgraceful and dangerous
+  spectacle should be exhibited, of authority completely down-trodden,
+  law successfully defied. Surely the first step in vindication of the
+  dignity of legal supremacy could not be difficult. By day, at least,
+  surely a constabulary force might have compelled obedience. A few
+  military at <i>first</i>, stationed near the gates, would have awed
+  rustic rebels. It is the <i>impunity</i> which this unheard-of palsy
+  of the governing strong hand so long ensured to them, which has
+  fostered riot into rebellion, and rebellion into incendiarism and
+  murder. Is it possible for a thinking man to see these poor and
+  (truth to tell) most money-loving people, saving two or three
+  shillings every time they drive their team to market or lime, by the
+  prostration of a gate, and be at a loss to discover the secret of
+  this midnight work spreading like wildfire? Why, every transit which
+  a farmer makes cost free, is a spur to his avarice, a tribute of
+  submission to his lawless will, a temptation to his ignorant
+  impatience of <i>all</i> payments to try his hand against all. The
+  quiet acquiescence in refusal to pay&#8212;the vanishing of
+  toll-house and toll-takers without one magisterial edict&#8212;the
+  mere submission to the mob, seems to cry &quot;<i>peccavi</i>&quot;
+  too manifestly, and affords fresh colour to indiscriminate
+  condemnation of all. A <i>bonus</i> in the shape of a toll for horse
+  or team remitted, is thus actually presented, many times a-day, to
+  the rioter, the rebel, the midnight incendiary of toll-houses, for
+  this good work, by the supine, besotted, or fear-palsied local
+  authorities. Shall a man look on while a burglar enters his house,
+  ransacks his till, let him depart, and then, in despair, leave the
+  door he broke open, open still all night for his entrance, and then
+  wonder that burglary is vastly on the increase? The wonder, I think,
+  is that one gate remains; and that wonder will not exist long, if
+  government do not do something more than send down <i>a</i> gentleman
+  to ask the Welsh what they please to <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_769" id="Page_769">[Pg 769]</a></span> want? The temptation
+  forced upon the eyes and minds of a poverty-stricken and greedy
+  people, by this shocking spectacle of the mastery of anarchy over
+  order, in the annihilation of an impost by armed mountain peasants,
+  is in itself a great cruelty; for in all Agrarian risings the state
+  has triumphed at last, inasmuch as wealth and its resources are an
+  over-match for poverty, however furious or savage; hence blood will
+  flow under the sword of justice ultimately, which early vigilance on
+  her part might have wholly spared. &quot;Knock down that
+  toll-house&#8212;fire its contents&#8212;murder its tenant,&quot;
+  seems the voice of such sleepy justice to pronounce, &quot;and
+  neither I, nor my myrmidons will even <i>ask</i> you again for toll!
+  Do this, and you shall not pay!!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Such was the tacit invitation kindly presented by the <i>first</i>
+  torn down toll-gate that remained in ruins, to every Welsh farmer.
+  The farmer has accepted it, and &quot;justice&quot;&#8212;justice
+  keeps her promise religiously, for no toll is demanded. If the law
+  had been violated by trustees, we have a body called parliament
+  strong enough to reform, ay, and punish them, as they, some of them
+  perhaps, richly deserve; but was that a reason for the laws to be
+  annulled, and lawlessness made the order of the day, in so important
+  a matter as public roads, by the very men who are to profit by it,
+  self-erected into judges in their own cause?</p>
+
+  <h4>Llandilo Vaur. Evening, Sept. 10. Sunday.</h4>
+
+  <p>A scene to turn even a &quot;commercial traveller&quot;
+  (<i>vulgo</i> a bagman) into a &quot;sentimental&quot; one, if any
+  thing could! Clouds that had overcast our ride of the last few miles,
+  kindly &quot;flew diverse&quot; as we reached the bridge over the
+  Towey, that flows at the foot of the declivity on which this romantic
+  town stands. The sun broke forth, and all at once showed, and
+  burnished while it showed, one of the noblest landscapes in South
+  Wales&#8212;not the less attractive for being that which kindled the
+  muse of Dyer&#8212;on which the saintly eye of a far greater poet had
+  often reposed&#8212;the immortal <i>prose-poet</i> bishop, Jeremy
+  Taylor, a refugee here during the storm of the Civil Wars. Golden
+  Grove, his beautiful retreat, with its venerable trees, was in our
+  sight, the green mountain meadows between literally verifying its
+  name by the brilliance of their sunshiny rich grass, where &quot;God
+  had showered the landscape;&quot; to a fantastic fancy, giving the
+  idea of the quivering of the richest leaf gold on a ground of
+  emerald. The humbler Welsh Parnassus of the painter poet, Grongar
+  Hill, towered also in distance. We traced the pastoral yet noble
+  river, winding away in long meanders, up-flashing silver, through a
+  broad mountain valley, dotted with white farms, rich in various
+  foliage, marked as a map by lines, with well-marked hedge-rows;
+  harvest fields full of sheaves, yellowing all the lofty slopes that
+  presented these beautiful farms and folds full to the descending sun;
+  those slopes, surmounted by grand masses of darkness, solemnly
+  contrasted with the gay luxuriance all below; that darkness only the
+  shade of woods, nodding like the black plume over the golden armour
+  of some giant hero of fable, &quot;magna componere parvis.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Nearer, rose directly from the river a noble park, with all the
+  charm of the wild picturesque, from its antique look, its romantic
+  undulations and steepness, its woody mount and ivied ruin of a
+  castle, &quot;bosomed high in tufted trees,&quot; half-hidden, yet
+  visible and reflected in the now-placid mirror of a reach of the
+  river.</p>
+
+  <p>Being Sunday, a moral charm was added to those of this exquisite
+  natural panorama, from which the curtain of storm-cloud seemed just
+  then drawn up, as if to strike us the more with its flashing glory of
+  sunshine, water, and a whole sky become cerulean in a few minutes. No
+  Sabbath bells chimed, indeed; but the hushed town, and vacant groups
+  come abroad to enjoy the return of that Italian weather we had long
+  luxuriated in, impressed, equally with any music, the idea of Sabbath
+  on the mind. It was hard to believe, revolting to be forced to
+  believe, that this fine scene of perfect beauty and deep repose, as
+  presented to the eye, directed to nature only&#8212;to the mind&#39;s
+  eye rolling up to nature&#39;s God&#8212;was also the (newly
+  transfigured) theatre of man&#39;s worst and darkest passions; that
+  the <i>army</i>&#8212;that odious, hideous, necessary curse of
+  civilization, the severe and hateful guardian of liberty and peace,
+  (though uncongenial to both)&#8212;was at that moment <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_770" id="Page_770">[Pg 770]</a></span> evoked
+  by all the lovers of both for their salvation; was even then
+  violating the ideal harmony of the hour, by its foul yet saving
+  presence; was parading those green suburbs, and the sweet fields
+  under those mountain walls, with those clangours so discordant to the
+  holy influences of the hour and scene&#8212;emerging in their gay,
+  shocking costume, (the colour of blood, and devised for its
+  concealment,) from angles of rocks, and mouths of bowered avenues,
+  where the mild fugitive from civil war, and faithful devotee of his
+  throneless king, had often wandered, meditating on &quot;Holy
+  Dying&quot;&#8212;of &quot;Holy Living&quot; himself a beautiful
+  example&#8212;where even still, nothing gave outward and visible sign
+  of incendiarism and murder lurking among those hermitages of rustic
+  life; yet were both in active, secret operation!</p>
+
+  <p>In that very park of <i>Dynevor</i>, whose beauty we were admiring
+  from the bridge, a little walk would have led us to&#8212;a
+  <i>grave!</i>&#8212;no consecrated one, but one dug ready to receive
+  a corpse; <i>dug, in savage threatening of slaughter, for the
+  reception of one yet living</i>&#8212;the son of the noble owner of
+  that ancient domain&#8212;dug in sight of his father&#39;s house, in
+  his own park, by wretches who have warned him to prepare to fill that
+  grave in October! The gentleman so threatened, being void of all
+  offence save that of being a magistrate&#8212;a sworn preserver of
+  the public peace!</p>
+
+  <p>Equally abhorrent to rational piety, if less shocking, is that air
+  of sourest sanctity which the groups now passing us bring with them
+  out from the meeting-houses.</p>
+
+  <p>Ask a question, and a nasal noise between groan and snort seems to
+  signify that they ask to be asked again, a sort of
+  <i>ha&#8212;a&#8212;h?</i> &quot;long drawn out.&quot; The human face
+  and the face of nature, at that hour, were as an east of thunder
+  fronting a west of golden blue summer serenity. The Mawworms of
+  Calvinistic Methodism have made a sort of monkery of all Wales, as
+  regards externals at least. To think a twilight or noonday walk for
+  pleasure a sin, involves the absurdest principle of ascetic folly, as
+  truly as self-flagellation, or wearing horsehair shirts. Not that
+  these ministers set their flocks any example of self-mortification.
+  The greater number of preachers show excellent &quot;condition,&quot;
+  the poorest farmers&#39; wives vying with each other in purveying
+  &quot;creature comforts&quot; for these spiritual comforters.
+  Preparing hot dinners, it seems, is not working on the Lord&#39;s Day
+  when it is for the preacher; though to save a field of corn, which is
+  in danger of being spoiled if left out, as in some seasons, would be
+  a shocking desecration of that day. Yet, to observe the abstracted
+  unearthly carriage of these men, who seem &quot;conversing with the
+  skies&quot; while walking the streets, one wonders at the contrast of
+  such burly bodies and refined spirits.</p>
+
+  <p>To return to the flock from these burly shepherds of
+  souls&#8212;this outbreak of a devilish spirit&#8212;this crusade
+  against law and order, tolls and tithes, life and property, is a
+  damning evidence against these spiritual pastors and masters, for
+  such they are to the great body of the Welsh common people, in the
+  fullest sense. The <i>Times</i> newspaper has ruffled the whole
+  &quot;Volscian&quot; camp of Dissent, it appears, by thundering forth
+  against them a charge of inciting their congregations to midnight
+  crime. &quot;John Joneses, and David Reeses, and Ap Shenkinses, have
+  sprung up like the men from the dragon&#39;s teeth, to repel this
+  charge. It is probable that it was not well founded, for the simple
+  reason, that such daring subornation of crime would have brought
+  <i>themselves</i> into trouble. But what sort of defence is this,
+  even if substantiated? You did not <i>excite</i> your followers to
+  rebellion and arson! <i>You</i>, with your unlimited command of their
+  minds, and almost bodies, why did you not allay, resist, put down the
+  excitement, by whomever raised? That is the gravamen of the charge
+  against you! You who make then weep, make then tremble, puff them
+  with spiritual conceit, or depress them with terrors of damnation
+  just as you please, how comes it that you are powerless all at once
+  in deterring them from wild and bad actions&#8212;you, who are
+  all-powerful in inciting them to any thing, since to refrain from
+  violence is easier than to commit it?</p>
+
+  <p>The increase of these outrages proves, that not the power, but
+  will, is wanting on your part, to put down this spirit of revenge and
+  revolt. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_771" id="Page_771">[Pg
+  771]</a></span> You perceive the current of their ignorant minds
+  setting strongly in toward rapine and rebellion, (the <i>feeler</i>
+  put forth being the toll grievance,) and you basely, wickedly, pander
+  to their passions, by a discreet silence in your rostra, an
+  unchristian apathy; while deeds are being done under your very
+  eyes&#8212;in your daily path&#8212;which no good man can view
+  without horror; no bold good man in the position which you hold, of
+  public instructors in human duties, could see, without denouncing!
+  And as your boldness, at least, is pretty apparent, whatever your
+  goodness may be, other motives than fear must be sought for this
+  unaccountable suspension of your influence&#8212;and I find it in
+  <i>self-interest</i>&#8212;love of &quot;filthy lucre.&quot; You are
+  &quot;supported by voluntary contribution,&quot; and to thwart the
+  passions of your followers, and stem the tide of lawless violence,
+  though your most sacred spiritual duty, is not the way to
+  conciliate&#8212;is not compatible with that &quot;voluntary
+  principle&quot; on which your bread depends, and which too often
+  places your duty and your interest in direct opposition.&quot;</p>
+
+  <h4>Llanon, Carmarthenshire.</h4>
+
+  <p>The good woman of our inn in this village has just been
+  apologizing for the almost empty state of her house, the furniture
+  being chiefly sent away to Pembree, whither she and her family hoped
+  to follow in a few days. The cause of her removal was <i>fear of the
+  house being set fire to</i>, it being the property of Mr Chambers, a
+  magistrate of Llanelly, and the &quot;Rebecca&#39;s company&quot; had
+  warned all his tenants to be prepared for their fiery vengeance. His
+  heinous offence was heading the police in discharge of his duty, in a
+  conflict that has just occurred at Pontardulais gate, near this
+  place, in which some of the &#39;Beccaites were wounded. [Since this,
+  farm-houses and other property of this gentleman have been consumed,
+  his life has been threatened, and his family have prevailed on him to
+  abandon his home and native place.] The wounded men, now prisoners,
+  were of this village, the <i>focus</i> of this rebellion that dares
+  not face the day. It is here that the murderous midnight attack was
+  made on the house of a Mr Edwards, when the wretches fired volleys at
+  the windows, where his wife and daughter appeared <i>at their
+  command</i>. They escaped, miraculously it might be said,
+  notwithstanding. The poor old hostess complained, as well she might,
+  of the hardship of being thus put in peril, purely in hostility to
+  her landlord. We slept, however, soundly, and found ourselves alive
+  in the morning; whether through evangelical Rebecca&#39;s scruples
+  about burning us out (or <i>in</i>) on a &quot;Lord&#39;s Day&quot;
+  night, or her being engaged elsewhere, we knew not.</p>
+
+  <p>And here also we rode through a crowd, murmuring hymns, pouring
+  from the chapel, where, no doubt, they had heard some edifying
+  discourse about the &quot;sweet Jesus,&quot; and &quot;sweet
+  experiences,&quot; and &quot;new birth,&quot; the omnipotence of
+  faith to salvation, and all and every topic but a <i>man&#39;s</i>
+  just indignation, and a religious man&#39;s most solemn denunciation
+  against the bloody and felonious outrages just committed by those
+  very villagers&#8212;against the night-masked assassins, who had just
+  before wantonly pointed deadly weapons against unoffending
+  women&#8212;against the chamber of a sick man, a husband, and a
+  father!</p>
+
+  <h4>Llanelly, Sept. 11, Monday.</h4>
+
+  <p>The headquarters of vindictive rebellion, arson, and spiritual
+  oratory! An ugly populous town near the sea, now in a ferment of
+  mixed fear and fury, from recent savage acts of the Rebeccaites
+  against a most respectable magistrate, resident in the town, Mr W.
+  Chambers, jun., the denounced landlord of our old Welsh hostess at
+  Llanon. Two of his farm-houses have been burned to the ground, and
+  his life has been threatened. His grievous offence I stated before.
+  Soldiers are seen every where; and verily, the mixture of
+  brute-ignorance and brute-ferocity, depicted in the faces of the
+  great mass of &quot;operatives&quot; that we meet, seem to hint that
+  their presence is not prematurely invoked. Their begrimed features
+  and figures, caused by their various employments, give greater effect
+  to the wild character of the coatless groups, who, in their blue
+  check shirt-sleeves, congregate at every corner to <i>cabal</i>,
+  rather than to <i>dispute</i>, it seems; for, fond as they are of
+  dissent, (though not one in fifty could tell you <i>from</i> what
+  they dissent, or <i>to</i> what they cleave in doctrine,) there seems
+  no leaning to dissent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_772" id=
+  "Page_772">[Pg 772]</a></span> from the glorious new Rebecca law of
+  might (or midnight surprisals) against right.</p>
+
+  <p>In this neighbourhood, our Welsh annals will have to
+  record&#8212;<i>the first dwelling-house</i>, not being a toll-house,
+  <i>was laid in ashes; the first blood was shed</i> by
+  &quot;Rebecca&#39;s company,&quot; as they call the rioters here. And
+  <i>here</i> resides, rants, prays, and preaches, and scribbles
+  sedition, an illiterate fanatic, who is recognised as an organ of one
+  sect of Methodists, Whitfieldites publishing a monthly inflammatory
+  Magazine, called Y Diwygiwr, (the
+  &quot;<i>Reformer!</i>&quot;)&#8212;God bless the mark!</p>
+
+  <p>This little pope, within his little circle of the &quot;great
+  unwashed,&quot; is very oracular, and his infallibility a dogma with
+  his followers and readers. How much he himself and his vulgar trash
+  of prose run mad, stand in need of that wholesome reform which some
+  of his English brother-firebrands have been taught in Coldbathfields
+  and Newgate, let my reader judge from the following extract. The
+  <i>Times</i> newspaper did good service in <i>gibbeting</i> this
+  precious morceau, supplied by its indefatigable reporter, in its
+  broad sheet. How great was the neglect of <i>Welsh</i> society, and
+  every thing Welsh, when this sort of war-cry of treason could be
+  raised, this trump of rebellion sounded, and, as it were, from the
+  pulpit &quot;Evangelical,&quot; with perfect impunity to the
+  demagogue, thus prostituting religion itself to the cause of
+  anarchical crime!&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;We cannot regard these tumults, with their like in other
+  parts, but as the effects of Tory oppression. Our wish is to see
+  <i>Rebecca and her children arrayed by thousands, for the suppression
+  of Toryism</i>. These are the only means to remove the burden from
+  the back of the country.... Resolve to see the sword of reason
+  plunged in oppression&#39;s heart.&quot; He goes on to say,
+  &quot;<i>there must be a hard-blowing storm</i> before the high
+  places in State and Church can be levelled,&quot; &amp;c. &amp;c.
+  There is the usual twaddle about &quot;<i>moral</i> force,&quot;
+  forsooth, under which saving periphrasis, now-a-days, every rebel
+  ranter in field, or tub, or conventicle, insinuates lawless violence
+  without naming it. Jack Cade would have made it the rallying cry of
+  his raggamuffins, so would Wat Tyler, had it been hit upon in his
+  day. The <i>array</i> of <i>thousands</i> is intelligible &quot;to
+  the meanest capacity.&quot; The dullest Welsh &quot;copper-man,&quot;
+  or collier, or wild farm cultivator, could not miss the meaning. But
+  as to this magical weapon, &quot;moral force,&quot; which they are to
+  handle when so arrayed&#8212;the brightest capacity must be at a loss
+  to know what it means. How absurd (if he pretends such a thing) to
+  expect that enlightened statesmen will stand reformed, restrained,
+  stricken through, with a new light in politics by the exhibition of
+  these smutty patriots&#39; <i>minds</i> alone!&#8212;by the force of
+  conviction, wrought by ascertaining <i>their</i> convictions, (the
+  <i>illuminati</i> of Llanelly coal-works, of Swansea copper-works, of
+  Carmarthen farm-yards,) will instantly <i>tack</i>&#8212;put the
+  vessel of State right about, and bring her triumphant into the placid
+  haven of Radicalism! And why <i>physical</i> &quot;array&quot; to
+  wield such shadowy arms as &quot;<i>moral</i>&quot; force? This
+  favourite stalking-horse of incendiary politics is but the secret
+  hiding-place of retreat from the &quot;force of government.&quot; The
+  peace, the forbearance it breathes, is like the brief silence
+  maintained&#8212;the holding of the breath&#8212;by those snugly
+  ensconced within that other horse of famous memory, the
+  <i>Trojan</i>, which served admirably to lay vigilance asleep, and
+  evade the defensive <i>force</i> of the garrison, till the hour came
+  to leap from its protection, and fire the citadel. This &quot;moral
+  force&quot; covert of revolt, is every whit as hollow, as
+  treacherous, as fatal, if trusted to. Inflame, enrage, and then
+  gather together &quot;thousands&quot; of the most ignorant of
+  mankind, pointing to a body, or a class, or a government, as the sole
+  cause of whatever they suffer or dislike, and then&#8212;<i>tell</i>
+  them to be moral! peaceable! not to use those tens of thousands of
+  brawny arms, inured to the sledge-hammer; oh, no! tell them that
+  <i>force</i> means to stand still&#8212;or disperse&#8212;or
+  gabble&#8212;any thing but to&#8212;<i>fight!</i> And such vile
+  &quot;juggling with us in a double sense&quot; as this, is
+  evangelical morality!</p>
+
+  <p>In justice to the Liberal party, I shall add that it does not
+  sanction the ravings of this hypocrite, but laughs at his illiterate
+  pretensions to the character of a public writer. As evidence of this,
+  the editor of the <i>Welshman</i>, a Liberal journal, published at
+  Carmarthen, has ably castigated this <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_773" id="Page_773">[Pg 773]</a></span> sedition-monger, who has
+  exposed his own ignorance in venting his wrath at the infliction.</p>
+
+  <h4>Pontardulais. Monday Evening.</h4>
+
+  <p>It was pleasant to emerge from that dingy seat of fanaticism and
+  fury, pseudo religion and moral violation of religion&#39;s broad
+  principles. Its aspect almost recalled the description of one of
+  Rome&#39;s imperial monsters, equally in physionomy and
+  nature&#8212;&quot;a mixture of dirt and blood.&quot; The day was
+  superb, and the adjacent country, though rather tame <i>for
+  Wales</i>, improved in rural beauty as we approached a crossway very
+  near to this village, Pontardulais. Two cottages appeared in a green,
+  quiet, dingle we were descending to, watered by a small river, and
+  surrounded by sloping meadows, now yellowed by the evening sun, and
+  well inhabited by their proper population, sheep and cows, now
+  beginning their homeward course at the call of the milkmaid; the only
+  other motion in this simply beautiful landscape, being a scattered
+  gleaner or two, with her load, and the rather thick volume of blue
+  smoke curling up from one of those cots, which, standing so close,
+  without any other near, prompted the idea of some rustic old couple
+  in conjugal quietude, smiling out life&#39;s evening, by themselves,
+  apart from all the world. Such was the perfect calm of scene, and the
+  day in which summer heat was joined to the golden serenity of
+  autumn.</p>
+
+  <p>We were beginning to dismiss ugly Rebeccaism from our thoughts,
+  meditating where we should find one of those Isaac Waltonian
+  hostelries, with a sign swinging from an old tree, which we delight
+  to make our evening quarters; for Pontardulais, we knew, was too
+  lately a little battle-field to afford hope of this tranquil bliss,
+  for here had occurred the first conflict, in which men had been
+  wounded and prisoners made. The advance of evening, with its halcyon
+  attributes of all kinds, had the effect of a lullaby on the mind,
+  disturbed at every stage by some hurrying dragoon, some eager
+  gossiping group, or fresh &quot;news&quot; of some farm &quot;burned
+  last night,&quot; or rumours of &quot;martial law&quot; being
+  actually impending over us poor rebels of South Wales.</p>
+
+  <p>Reaching the little houses in their lonely crossway, we were
+  startled by the appearance of a gutted house; the walls alone having
+  remained to present to us, on the higher ground, the semblance of a
+  white cottage. The old thatch, fallen in, and timber, were still
+  smouldering visibly, though the house was fired about one A.M.
+  yesterday morning.</p>
+
+  <p>Before the near adjoining cottage a quiet crowd of some twenty
+  persons appeared, and a few rustic articles of furniture on the
+  roadside. Where was their owner? Dismounting, we entered this
+  cottage, that had looked all peaceful security so lately to our eyes.
+  It had not been injured, but was all dismantled and in confusion; and
+  stretched on some low sort of bench or seat, lay the murdered owner
+  of that smoking ruin&#8212;the Hendy toll-house. Her coffin had been
+  already made, (the coffin-plate giving her age, 75,) and stood
+  leaning against the wall, but the body was preserved just as it fell,
+  for the inspection of the jury. (The jury! a British jury! Is there a
+  British <i>man</i>, incapable of perjury, of parricide, of bloody and
+  blackest felony, <i>himself</i>, who will ever forget, who will ever
+  cease to spurn, spit upon in thought, execrate in words, that
+  degraded, wretched, most wicked knot of murder-screeners&#8212;<i>the
+  Hendy Gate jury?</i>)</p>
+
+  <p>There was nothing in this dismal spectacle for a poet to find
+  there food for fancy. All was naked, ugly horror. An old rug just
+  veiled the corpse, which, being turned down, revealed the orifice,
+  just by the nipple, of a shot or slug wound, and her linen was stiff
+  and saturated with the blood which had flowed. Another wound on the
+  temple had caused a torrent of blood, which remained glued over the
+  whole cheek. The retracted lips of this poor suffering creature, gave
+  a dreadful grin to the aged countenance, expressing the strong agony
+  she must have endured, no doubt from the filling up of the breast
+  with those three pints of blood found there by the surgeons. The
+  details of this savage murder have been too fully given in all the
+  papers to need repetition here. Suffice it to say, that to any one
+  <i>viewing</i> the body as we thus happened to do, the atrocity of
+  this heartless treason against society and the injured dead becomes
+  yet more striking; it seeming wonderful that the piteousness of the
+  sight&#8212;the mute pleading <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_774" id="Page_774">[Pg 774]</a></span> of that mouth full of
+  cloated blood&#8212;the arousing ocular evidence of the unprovoked
+  assassin&#39;s cruelty&#8212;the helplessness of the aged
+  woman&#8212;her innocence&#8212;all should not have kindled humanity
+  in their hearts, (if all principle was dead in their dark minds,)
+  just enough to dare to call a foul murder &quot;murder&quot;&#8212;to
+  turn those twelve Rebecca-ridden, crouching slaves into <i>men</i>!
+  Some of them, probably, had old helpless mothers at home; did no
+  flying vision of her white hairs all blooded, and the breast, where
+  they had lain and fed, full of blood also, cross the conscience of
+  one of them, when, by their conspiracy, protection for life was to be
+  denied to her, to all, by their unheard-of abuse of the only known
+  British protective power&#8212;trial by jury? It is almost an apology
+  for them to imagine, that one or more of them were actually part of
+  the gang. Self-preservation, under <i>instant</i> danger, (involved
+  in a just verdict,) is less revolting than the less urgent degree of
+  the same natural impulse, implied in the hypothesis of pure selfish
+  and most dastardly dread of some remoter evil to self from the
+  ill-will of those impugned by a righteous verdict.</p>
+
+  <p>The verdict, it will be remembered, was, that Sarah Williams died
+  from effusion of blood, <i>but from what cause is to this jury
+  unknown!!!</i> The designed <i>trick</i>&#8212;the sly juggle
+  concocted by these men, sworn before Almighty God to tell truth
+  respecting the cry of blood then rising to his throne, evidently was
+  to leave a loop-hole for a doubt whereby justice might be
+  defeated&#8212;a possibility, so they flattered themselves, that,
+  just in the nick of time, a bloodvessel burst, or fright destroyed
+  her, or any thing but the bloody hand of &quot;Rebecca.&quot; Though,
+  as the slugs were actually found <i>in</i> the lungs, the hope they
+  &quot;dressed themselves in&quot; was as &quot;drunk,&quot; as
+  swinishly stupid, as their design was unmanly, inhuman, and
+  devilish&#8212;to wink at this horror! to huddle up this murder, and
+  hurry into the earth a murdered woman, as if she had lived out her
+  term!</p>
+
+  <p>Whatever was the prompting feeling of this monster-jury, let us
+  hope that the arm of the law will reach them yet, for this double
+  crime against bleeding innocence and against their country. It would
+  be a fitting punishment to them, to pronounce every individual an
+  outlaw&#8212;to deny him all benefit of those laws he has done his
+  best to defeat, and leave the craven traitor to his kind&#8212;to
+  adopt his beloved &quot;&#39;Becca&#39;s&quot; disguise for ever,
+  skulk about the land that disowns him in petticoats, and blush out
+  his life (if shame be left him;) and let his name be fixed up, as a
+  scarecrow to deter such evil doers, on the wall of every court of
+  justice:&#8212;&quot;To the infamous memory of A. B., one of the
+  perjured protectors of murder&#8212;The Hendy Gate Jury!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Most revolting was the <i>betrayed</i> bias of almost all we spoke
+  with, toward palliation of this dark act. &quot;<i>Didn&#39;t she die
+  in a fit; or of fright; or something?</i>&quot; was a frequent
+  question, even from those near the scene of this tragedy.
+  &quot;<i>What did ail the old creture to go near &#39;em? Name of
+  goodness! didn&#39;t they order her not?</i>&quot; Even from her own
+  sex, a disgusting lack of warm-hearted pity and indignation was most
+  palpable. Truly, morality and the meeting-house have a deep gulf
+  between them, if these are the morals of the people. The regular
+  church is really so little prized here, that we can only turn to the
+  <i>dissenting</i> ministers of religious instruction, for the lower
+  orders. And seeing these doings and sentiments in the flocks, one
+  turns with astonishment to those professing <i>teachers</i> of the
+  Welsh, and is ready to exclaim&#8212;&quot;What is it that you
+  <i>do</i> teach?&quot; Only the <i>mechanical</i> part of religion,
+  only the necessary outer <i>mummery</i>, I shall venture to say,
+  which, perhaps, all revealed religions require, to maintain a hold on
+  the reverence of the common people. It seems impossible that the
+  voice of <i>true</i> religion can have reached hearts that a slight
+  pecuniary interest, the abatement of a turnpike toll, or the like,
+  can sear against the death-shriek of murdered woman; the cry of blood
+  out of the earth; the fear of God&#39;s judgement against perjury,
+  and connivance at murder!</p>
+
+  <h4>Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, Sept. 12.</h4>
+
+  <p>Riding from Llanelly to this place, by a road skirting the coast,
+  we, for the first time, heard the horn of Rebecca sounded, and
+  replied to from among the darkling hills, the night being one of
+  dusky moonlight. We <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_775" id=
+  "Page_775">[Pg 775]</a></span> at first believed it the signal of
+  some persons in the collieries, but learned that
+  &quot;&#39;Becca&#39;s company&quot; had been out round Kidwelly that
+  night, and an incendiary fire was the &quot;good work&quot;
+  accomplished. It being near ten o&#39;clock at night, and our road
+  wild and solitary, we felt rather pleased to gain the covert of this
+  usually most quiet little town, with its air of antiquity and dead
+  repose, as agreeable to a sentimental traveller, as unwelcome to its
+  few traders and dwellers.</p>
+
+  <p>The innkeepers and shopkeepers, <i>being much injured in their
+  trades by</i> the terrifying effect of Rebeccaism on strangers, who
+  have kept aloof all the summer, lift up the voice (but cautiously)
+  against this terrible lady. Hardly an expression of regret for the
+  poor victim at Hendy Gate reaches our ears; but rather, they seem to
+  visit on her the anticipated severity of future dealing with the
+  rioters, which they foresee.</p>
+
+  <p>We see already posted placards, offering £500 for the discovery of
+  the actual perpetrator of the murder of the poor toll-collector. It
+  is headed &quot;Murder,&quot; in the teeth of the audacious, solemn
+  declaration by the jury, of their ignorance of the cause of death.
+  <i>Query</i>, Was a coroner warranted in receiving such a verdict?
+  Was he not empowered&#8212;required&#8212;to send the jury back to
+  learn common sense?</p>
+
+  <h4>Inn between Carmarthen and Llandilo.</h4>
+
+  <p>Just as we were sauntering in the rural road, admiring the
+  placidity of the night, about ten o&#39;clock, and the twilight
+  landscape of the banks of the Towey, a sudden light opened up to us
+  the whole night prospect, where the farther side of this broad vale
+  rises finely covered with woods, round Middleton Hall, and soon
+  learned the nature of this sudden illumination and pyramidal fire,
+  being the conflagration of extensive property belonging to its owner,
+  Mr Adams, close to the mansion.</p>
+
+  <p>The terror of the female inhabitants may be imagined, there being,
+  I believe, not any male inmates but servants at home, and the
+  incendiaries doing their work at that early hour in the most daring
+  manner, firing guns, blowing horns, &amp;c. Mr Adams drove in just as
+  the fire was at its height, (having, indeed, believed the house to be
+  in flames while he approached,) and found the goods and moveables all
+  brought out in fear of its catching fire; but it escaped&#8212;so did
+  the Rebeccaites, of course.</p>
+
+  <p>Not to extend too far these hasty Notes, I shall throw together
+  the heads of a few made on the spot. Our &quot;sentimental
+  journey&quot; occupied about three weeks, and brought us to almost
+  every part infested by the disturbers. Having put up at an inn in the
+  outskirts of a town in Cardiganshire for the night, leaving the
+  horses, we walked to the town. As we returned, the night being rather
+  dark, I was not conscious of any one being on the same road behind,
+  and was talking to my son, rather earnestly, of the iniquitous
+  verdict of the Hendy Gate assassin jury, when a voice behind asked in
+  English, saucily, if <i>I</i> was going to attend the future trial of
+  the &quot;Hugheses, and them of the Llanon village, then in Swansea
+  jail?&quot; The tone clearly indicated how alien to the
+  Welshman&#39;s feelings were those I was expressing, though but those
+  of common humanity. Giving the voice in the dark such short answer,
+  refusing to satisfy him, as the question deserved, and with
+  responsive bluffness, we left the man behind, who, it proved, was
+  bound to our inn. We found our parlour filled with farmers, who
+  instantly became <i>mum</i> as we entered, but their eyes
+  suspiciously surveyed us. It was near eleven o&#39;clock, so we
+  retired to our double-bedded chamber, which happened to be situated
+  over the parlour. The inn (whose owners were <i>ultra</i>
+  &quot;Welshly,&quot; speaking English very badly,) was well situated
+  for holding a midnight council of (Rebecca) war, being lonely, at the
+  confluence of two roads, and this proved to be the nature of this
+  late assemblage. We were just in bed, (having <i>secured the door as
+  well as we could</i>,) when we heard through the imperfect flooring a
+  very animated <i>mêlée</i> of Welsh tongues all astir at once, and I
+  fancied I recognized the voice of the pious Christian in the dark,
+  who had been moved by the spirit (of religion of course) to hint or
+  betray his dissent from the Saxon &quot;stranger&#39;s&quot; rebuke
+  of perjury and murder-screening. A few minutes after, several hurried
+  out, and three or four discharges of guns followed in front of the
+  house, but nothing more. I was pleased to think that the said house
+  and windows were &quot;mine host&#39;s,&quot; and not mine, otherwise
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_776" id="Page_776">[Pg
+  776]</a></span> a little hail of shot might have followed the
+  &quot;short thunder;&quot; but as it was, nothing more than this
+  warning bravado (as I imagine it to have been) occurred.</p>
+
+  <p>A great deal of <i>solo</i> spouting, by orators in orderly
+  succession, went on till near two in the morning&#8212;<i>Sunday</i>.
+  At least, falling asleep, I left this little patriot parliament
+  sitting, and found it in full tongue on awaking at that hour. I
+  suppose this sitting in judgment on toll-houses (and possibly
+  <i>other</i> houses) of these anti-landlord committees, are
+  <i>not</i> breaches of the observance of the Sabbath.</p>
+
+  <p>On the whole, we may remark, that neither Poor-Law, nor Tory, nor
+  Whig, nor right rule, nor misrule, nor politics, nor party, had the
+  slightest influence in this astounding moral revolution among an
+  agricultural people. Utterly false is almost all that the London
+  Press broached and broaches, implicating ministers in the provocation
+  of this outbreak. Twenty years of residence, and leisure for
+  observation among them, allows me to positively deny that any feeling
+  of discontent, any sense of oppression, any knowledge of
+  &quot;Grievances,&quot; now so pompously heading columns of
+  twaddle&#8212;ever existed before the <i>one</i> daily, weekly spur
+  in their side, goaded this simple people to a foolish mode of
+  resistance to it.</p>
+
+  <p>Why, not one in ten of the farmers has yet heard of Sir Robert
+  Peel&#39;s accession to office! and I doubt if one in twenty knows
+  whether they live under a Whig or Tory administration. Nor does one
+  in a hundred <i>care</i> which, or form one guess about their
+  comparative merits.</p>
+
+  <p>The only idea they have of Chartists, is a vague identification of
+  them with &quot;<i>rebels</i>,&quot; as they <i>used</i> to call
+  <i>all</i> sorts of rioters, not dreaming of their forming any party
+  with definite views, unless that of seizing the good things of the
+  earth, and postponing, <i>sine die</i>, the day of payment.</p>
+
+  <p>Judge what chance the brawling apostles of Chartism would have
+  here among them, especially under the difficulty of haranguing them
+  through interpreters!</p>
+
+  <p>The Poor-Law they certainly hate, but from no pity for paupers.
+  The dislike arises from a wide spread belief, that the host of
+  &quot;officers&quot; attached to it swallows up great part of what
+  they pay for the poor. They grudged the poor-rate before, even when
+  their own overseer paid it away to poor old lame Davy or blind
+  Gwinny; but now that it reaches them by a more circuitous route, and
+  in the altered form of loaves or workhouse support, they seem to lose
+  sight of it, and fancy that it stops <i>by the way</i>, in the
+  pockets of these &quot;strange&quot; new middlemen, as we may call
+  them, thrust in between the farmers and their poor and worn-out
+  labourers.</p>
+
+  <p>The prevalence of the Welsh language perpetuates the ignorance
+  which is at the root of the mischief. Of their <i>native</i> writers,
+  I have given a specimen from the monthly magazine published at
+  Llanelly, and the evil of these is uncorrected by English
+  information.</p>
+
+  <p>The work of mounting heavenward was, we are told, defeated by a
+  confusion of tongues&#8212;the advance of civilization (which we may
+  designate a progress toward a divine goal, that of soul-exalting and
+  soul-saving wisdom) is as utterly prevented by this non-intercourse
+  system between the civilized and the <i>half</i> civilized; which,
+  with all deference to the ancient Britons, I must venture to consider
+  them. Camden, the antiquary, has preserved a tradition, that
+  &quot;certain Brittaines&quot; (Britons) going over into Armorica,
+  and taking wives from among the people of Normandy, &quot;<i>did cut
+  out their tongues</i>,&quot; through fear that, when they should
+  become mothers, they might corrupt the Welsh tongue of the children,
+  by teaching them that foreign language! The love of their own tongue
+  thus appears to be of very old standing, if we are to believe this
+  agreeable proof of it. I believe the extirpation of Welsh, as a
+  spoken language, would pioneer the way to knowledge, civilization,
+  and <i>religion</i> here, of which last blessing there is a grievous
+  lack, judging from the morals of the people.</p>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_777" id="Page_777">[Pg
+  777]</a></span>
+
+  <h2><a name="ADVENTURES_IN_TEXAS" id=
+  "ADVENTURES_IN_TEXAS"></a>ADVENTURES IN TEXAS.</h2>
+
+  <h3>NO. II.</h3>
+
+  <h3>A TRIAL BY JURY.</h3>
+
+  <p>When I recovered from my state of insensibility, and once more
+  opened my eyes, I was lying on the bank of a small but deep river. My
+  horse was grazing quietly a few yards off, and beside me stood a man
+  with folded arms, holding a wicker-covered flask in his hand. This
+  was all I was able to observe; for my state of weakness prevented me
+  from getting up and looking around me.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Where am I?&quot; I gasped.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Where are you, stranger? By the Jacinto; and that you are
+  <i>by</i> it, and not <i>in</i> it, is no fault of your&#39;n, I
+  reckon.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>There was something harsh and repulsive in the tone and manner in
+  which these words were spoken, and in the grating scornful laugh that
+  accompanied them, that jarred upon my nerves, and inspired me with a
+  feeling of aversion towards the speaker. I knew that he was my
+  deliverer; that he had saved my life, when my mustang, raging with
+  thirst, had sprung head-foremost into the water; that, without him, I
+  must inevitably have been drowned, even had the river been less deep
+  than it was; and that it was by his care, and the whisky he had made
+  me swallow, and of which I still felt the flavour on my tongue, that
+  I had been recovered from the death-like swoon into which I had
+  fallen. But had he done ten times as much for me, I could not have
+  repressed the feeling of repugnance, the inexplicable dislike, with
+  which the mere tones of his voice filled me. I turned my head away in
+  order not to see him. There was a silence of some moments&#39;
+  duration.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Don&#39;t seem as if my company was over and above
+  agreeable,&quot; said the man at last.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Your company not agreeable? This is the fourth day since I
+  saw the face of a human being. During that time not a bit nor a drop
+  has passed my tongue.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Hallo! That&#39;s a lie,&quot; shouted the man with another
+  strange wild laugh. &quot;You&#39;ve taken a mouthful out of my
+  flask; not <i>taken</i> it, certainly, but it went over your tongue
+  all the same. Where do you come from? The beast ain&#39;t
+  your&#39;n.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Mr Neal&#39;s,&quot; answered I.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;See it is by the brand. But what brings you here from Mr
+  Neal&#39;s? It&#39;s a good seventy mile to his plantation, right
+  across the prairie. Ain&#39;t stole the horse, have you?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Lost my way&#8212;four days&#8212;eaten nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>These words were all I could articulate. I was too weak to
+  talk.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Four days without eatin&#39;,&quot; cried the man, with a
+  laugh like the sharpening of a saw, &quot;and that in a Texas
+  prairie, and with islands on all sides of you! Ha! I see how it is.
+  You&#39;re a gentleman&#8212;that&#39;s plain enough. I was a sort of
+  one myself once. You thought our Texas prairies was like the prairies
+  in the States. Ha, ha! And so you didn&#39;t know how to help
+  yourself. Did you see no bees in the air, no strawberries on the
+  earth?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Bees? Strawberries?&quot; repeated I.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yes, bees, which live in the hollow trees. Out of twenty
+  trees there&#39;s sure to be one full of honey. So you saw no bees,
+  eh? Perhaps you don&#39;t know the creturs when you see &#39;em.
+  Ain&#39;t altogether so big as wild-geese or turkeys. But you must
+  know what strawberries are, and that <i>they</i> don&#39;t grow upon
+  the trees.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>All this was spoken in the same sneering savage manner as before,
+  with the speaker&#39;s head half turned over his shoulder, while his
+  features were distorted into a contemptuous grin.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And if I had seen the bees, how was I to get at the honey
+  without an axe?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;How did you lose yourself?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;My mustang&#8212;ran away&quot;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I see. And you after him. You&#39;d have done better to let
+  him run. But what d&#39;ye mean to do now?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I am weak&#8212;sick to death. I wish to get to the nearest
+  house&#8212;an inn&#8212;anywhere where men are.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Where men are,&quot; repeated the <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_778" id="Page_778">[Pg 778]</a></span>
+  stranger, with his scornful smile. &quot;Where men are,&quot; he
+  muttered again, taking a few steps on one side.</p>
+
+  <p>I was hardly able to turn my head, but there was something strange
+  in the man&#39;s movement that alarmed me; and, making a violent
+  effort, I changed my position sufficiently to get him in sight again.
+  He had drawn a long knife from his girdle, which he clutched in one
+  hand, while he ran the fore finger of the other along its edge. I now
+  for the first time got a full view of his face, and the impression it
+  made upon me was any thing but favourable. His countenance was the
+  wildest I had ever seen; his bloodshot eyes rolled like balls of fire
+  in their sockets; while his movements and manner were indicative of a
+  violent inward struggle. He did not stand still for three seconds
+  together, but paced backwards and forwards with hurried irregular
+  steps, casting wild glances over his shoulder, his fingers playing
+  all the while with the knife, with the rapid and objectless movements
+  of a maniac.</p>
+
+  <p>I felt convinced that I was the cause of the struggle visibly
+  going on within him, that my life or death was what he was deciding
+  upon. But in the state I then was, death had no terror for me. The
+  image of my mother, sisters, and father, passed before my eyes. I
+  gave one thought to my peaceful happy home, and then looked upwards
+  and prayed.</p>
+
+  <p>The man had walked off to some distance. I turned myself a little
+  more round, and, as I did so, I caught sight of the sane magnificent
+  phenomenon which I had met with on the second day of my wanderings.
+  The colossal live oak rose in all its silvery splendour, at the
+  distance of a couple of miles. Whilst I was gazing at it, and
+  reflecting on the strange ill luck that had made me pass within so
+  short a distance of the river without finding it, I saw my new
+  acquaintance approach a neighbouring cluster of trees, amongst which
+  he disappeared.</p>
+
+  <p>After a short time I again perceived him coming towards me with a
+  slow and staggering step. As he drew near, I had an opportunity of
+  examining his whole appearance. He was very tall and lean, but
+  large-boned, and apparently of great strength. His face, which had
+  not been shaved for several weeks, was so tanned by sun and weather,
+  that he might have been taken for an Indian, had not the beard proved
+  his claim to white blood. But his eyes were what most struck me.
+  There was something so frightfully wild in their expression, a look
+  of terror and desperation, like that of a man whom all the furies of
+  hell were hunting and persecuting. His hair hung in long ragged locks
+  over his forehead, cheeks, and neck, and round his head was bound a
+  handkerchief, on which were several stains of a brownish black
+  colour. Spots of the same kind were visible upon his leathern jacket,
+  breeches, and mocassins; they were evidently blood stains. His
+  hunting knife, which was nearly two feet long, with a rude wooden
+  handle, was now replaced in his girdle, but in its stead he held a
+  Kentucky rifle in his hand.</p>
+
+  <p>Although I did my utmost to assume an indifferent countenance, my
+  features doubtless expressed something of the repugnance and horror
+  with which the man inspired me. He looked loweringly at me for a
+  moment from under his shaggy eyebrows.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You don&#39;t seem to like the company you&#39;ve got
+  into,&quot; said he. &quot;Do I look so very desperate, then? Is it
+  written so plainly on my face?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What should there be written upon your face?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What? What? Fools and children ask them questions.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I will ask you none; but as a Christian, as my countryman, I
+  beseech you&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Christian!&quot; interrupted he, with a hollow laugh.
+  &quot;Countryman!&quot; He struck the but of his rifle hard upon the
+  ground. &quot;That is my countryman&#8212;my only friend!&quot; he
+  continued, as he examined the flint and lock of his weapon.
+  &quot;That releases from all troubles; that&#39;s a true friend.
+  Pooh! perhaps it&#39;ll release you too&#8212;put you to
+  rest.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>These last words were uttered aside, and musingly.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Put him to rest, as well as&#8212;&#8212; Pooh! One more or
+  less&#8212;Perhaps it would drive away that cursed spectre.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>All this seemed to be spoken to his rifle.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Will you swear not to betray me?&quot; cried he to me.
+  &quot;Else, one touch&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>As he spoke, he brought the gun to his shoulder, the muzzle
+  pointed full at my breast.</p>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_779" id="Page_779">[Pg
+  779]</a></span></p>
+
+  <p>I felt no fear. I am sure my pulse did not give a throb the more
+  for this menace. So deadly weak and helpless as I lay, it was
+  unnecessary to shoot me. The slightest blow from the but of the rifle
+  would have driven the last faint spark of life out of my exhausted
+  body. I looked calmly, indifferently even, into the muzzle of the
+  piece.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;If you can answer it to your God, to your and my judge and
+  creator, do your will.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>My words, which from faintness I could scarcely render audible,
+  had, nevertheless, a sudden and startling effect upon the man. He
+  trembled from head to foot, let the but of his gun fall heavily to
+  the ground, and gazed at me with open mouth and staring eyes.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;This one, too, comes with his God!&quot; muttered he.
+  &quot;God! and your and my creator&#8212;and&#8212;judge.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>He seemed hardly able to articulate these words, which were
+  uttered by gasps and efforts, as though something had been choking
+  him.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;His and my&#8212;judge&quot;&#8212;groaned he again.
+  &quot;Can there be a God, a creator and judge?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>As he stood thus muttering to himself, his eyes suddenly became
+  fixed, and his features horribly distorted.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Do it not!&quot; cried he, in a shrill tone of horror, that
+  rang through my head. &quot;It will bring no blessin&#39; with it. I
+  am a dead man! God be merciful to me! My poor wife, my poor
+  children!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The rifle fell from his hands, and he smote his breast and
+  forehead in a paroxysm of the wildest fury. It was frightful to
+  behold the conscience-stricken wretch, stamping madly about, and
+  casting glances of terror behind him, as though demons had been
+  hunting him down. The foam flew from his mouth, and I expected each
+  moment to see him fall to the ground in a fit of epilepsy. Gradually,
+  however, he became more tranquil.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;D&#39;ye see nothin&#39; in my face?&quot; said he in a
+  hoarse whisper, suddenly pausing close to where I lay.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What should I see?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>He came yet nearer.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Look well at me&#8212;<i>through</i> me, if you can.
+  D&#39;ye see nothin&#39; now?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I see nothing,&quot; replied I.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah! I understand, you can see nothin&#39;. Ain&#39;t in a
+  spyin&#39; humour, I calkilate. No, no, that you ain&#39;t. After
+  four days and nights fastin&#39;, one loses the fancy for many
+  things. I&#39;ve tried it for two days myself. So, you are weak and
+  faint, eh? But I needn&#39;t ask that, I reckon. You look bad enough.
+  Take another drop of whisky; it&#39;ll strengthen you. But wait till
+  I mix it.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>As he spoke, he stepped down to the edge of the river, and
+  scooping up the water in the hollow of his hand, filled his flask
+  with it. Then returning to me, he poured a little into my mouth.</p>
+
+  <p>Even the bloodthirsty Indian appears less of a savage when engaged
+  in a compassionate act, and the wild desperado I had fallen in with,
+  seemed softened and humanized by the service he was rendering me. His
+  voice sounded less harsh; his manner was calmer and milder.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You wish to go to an inn?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;For Heaven&#39;s sake, yes. These four days I have tasted
+  nothing but a bit of tobacco.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Can you spare a bit of that?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;All I have.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I handed him my cigar case, and the roll of <i>dulcissimus</i>. He
+  snatched the latter from me, and bit into it with the furious
+  eagerness of a wolf.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah, the right sort this!&quot; muttered he to himself.
+  &quot;Ah, young man, or old man&#8212;you&#39;re an old man,
+  ain&#39;t you? How old are you?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Two-and-twenty.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>He shook his head doubtingly.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Can hardly believe that. But four days in the prairie, and
+  nothin&#39; to eat. Well, it may be so. But, stranger, if I had had
+  this bit of tobacco only ten days ago&#8212;A bit of tobacco is worth
+  a deal sometimes. It might have saved a man&#39;s life!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Again he groaned, and his accents became wild and unnatural.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I say, stranger!&quot; cried he in a threatening tone.
+  &quot;I say! D&#39;ye see yonder live oak? D&#39;ye see it? It&#39;s
+  the Patriarch, and a finer and mightier one you won&#39;t find in the
+  prairies, I reckon. D&#39;ye see it?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I do see it.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah! you see it,&quot; cried he fiercely. &quot;And what is
+  it to you? What have you to do with the Patriarch, or with what lies
+  under it? I reckon you had best not be too curious that way. If you
+  dare take a step under that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_780"
+  id="Page_780">[Pg 780]</a></span> tree.&quot;&#8212;He swore an oath
+  too horrible to be repeated.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;There&#39;s a spectre there,&quot; cried he; &quot;a spectre
+  that would fright you to death. Better keep away.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I will keep away,&quot; replied I. &quot;I never thought of
+  going near it. All I want is to get to the nearest plantation or
+  inn.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah! true, man&#8212;the next inn. I&#39;ll show you the way
+  to it. I will.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You will save my life by so doing,&quot; said I, &quot;and I
+  shall be ever grateful to you as my deliverer.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Deliverer!&quot; repeated he, with a wild laugh. &quot;Pooh!
+  If you knew what sort of a deliverer&#8212;Pooh! What&#39;s the use
+  of savin&#39; a life, when&#8212;yet I will&#8212;I will save yours,
+  perhaps the cursed spectre will leave me then. Will you not? Will you
+  not?&quot; cried he, suddenly changing his scornful mocking tones to
+  those of entreaty and supplication, and turning his face in the
+  direction of the live oak. Again his wildness of manner returned, and
+  his eyes became fixed, as he gazed for some moments at the gigantic
+  tree. Then darting away, he disappeared among the trees, whence he
+  had fetched his rifle, and presently emerged again, leading a ready
+  saddled horse with him. He called to me to mount mine, but seeing
+  that I was unable even to rise from the ground, he stepped up to me,
+  and with the greatest ease lifted me into the saddle with one hand,
+  so light had I become during my long fast. Then taking the end of my
+  lasso, he got upon his own horse and set off, leading my mustang
+  after him.</p>
+
+  <p>We rode on for some time without exchanging a word. My guide kept
+  up a sort of muttered soliloquy; but as I was full ten paces in his
+  rear, I could distinguish nothing of what he said. At times he would
+  raise his rifle to his shoulder then lower it again, and speak to it,
+  sometimes caressingly, sometimes in anger. More than once he turned
+  his head, and cast keen searching glances at me, as though to see
+  whether I were watching him or not.</p>
+
+  <p>We had ridden more than an hour, and the strength which the whisky
+  had given me was fast failing, so that I expected each moment to fall
+  from my horse, when suddenly I caught sight of a kind of rude hedge,
+  and almost immediately afterwards the wall of a small blockhouse
+  became visible. A faint cry of joy escaped me, and I endeavoured, but
+  in vain, to give my horse the spur. My guide turned round, fixed his
+  wild eyes upon me, and spoke in a threatening tone.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You are impatient, man! impatient, I see. You think now,
+  perhaps&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I am dying,&quot; was all I could utter. In fact, my senses
+  were leaving me from exhaustion, and I really thought my last hour
+  was come.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Pooh! dyin&#39;! One don&#39;t die so easy. And
+  yet&#8212;d&#8212;&#8212;n!&#8212;it might be true.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>He sprang off his horse, and was just in time to catch me in his
+  arms as I fell from the saddle. A few drops of whisky, however,
+  restored me to consciousness. My guide replaced me upon my mustang,
+  and after passing through a potato ground, a field of Indian corn,
+  and a small grove of peach-trees, we found ourselves at the door of
+  the blockhouse.</p>
+
+  <p>I was so utterly helpless, that my strange companion was obliged
+  to lift me off my horse, and carry me into the dwelling. He sat me
+  down upon a bench, passive and powerless as an infant. Strange to
+  say, however, I was never better able to observe all that passed
+  around me, than during the few hours of bodily debility that
+  succeeded my immersion in the Jacinto. A blow with a reed would have
+  knocked me off my seat, but my mental faculties, instead of
+  participating in this weakness, seemed sharpened to an unusual degree
+  of acuteness.</p>
+
+  <p>The blockhouse in which we now were, was of the poorest possible
+  description; a mere log hut, consisting of one room, that served as
+  kitchen, sitting-room, and bedchamber. The door of rough planks swung
+  heavily upon two hooks that fitted into iron rings, and formed a
+  clumsy substitute for hinges; a wooden latch and heavy bar served to
+  secure it; windows, properly speaking, there were none, but in their
+  stead a few holes covered with dirty oiled paper; the floor was of
+  clay, stamped hard and dry in the middle of the hut, but out of
+  which, at the sides of the room, a crop of rank grass was growing, a
+  foot or more high. In one corner stood a clumsy bedstead, in another
+  a sort of table or counter, on which were half a dozen drinking
+  glasses of various <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_781" id=
+  "Page_781">[Pg 781]</a></span> sizes and patterns. The table
+  consisted of four thick posts, firmly planted in the ground, and on
+  which were nailed three boards that had apparently belonged to some
+  chest or case, for they were partly painted, and there was a date,
+  and the three first letters of a word upon one of them. A shelf fixed
+  against the side of the hut supported an earthen pot or two, and
+  three or four bottles, uncorked, and apparently empty; and from some
+  wooden pegs wedged in between the logs, hung suspended a few articles
+  of wearing apparel of no very cleanly aspect.</p>
+
+  <p>Pacing up and down the hut with a kind of stealthy cat-like pace,
+  was an individual, whose unprepossessing exterior was in good keeping
+  with the wretched appearance of this Texian shebeen house. He was an
+  undersized, stooping figure, red-haired, large mouthed, and possessed
+  of small, reddish, pig&#39;s eyes, which he seemed totally unable to
+  raise from the ground, and the lowering, hang-dog expression of
+  which, corresponded fully with the treacherous, panther-like
+  stealthiness of his step and movements. Without greeting us either by
+  word or look, this personage dived into a dark corner of his
+  tenement, brought out a full bottle, and placing it on the table
+  beside the glasses, resumed the monotonous sort of exercise in which
+  he had been indulging on our entrance.</p>
+
+  <p>My guide and deliverer said nothing while the tavern-keeper was
+  getting out the bottle, although he seemed to watch all his movements
+  with a keen and suspicious eye. He now filled a large glass of
+  spirits, and tossed it off at a single draught. When he had done
+  this, he spoke for the first time.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Johnny!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Johnny made no answer.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;This gentleman has eaten nothing for four days.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Indeed,&quot; replied Johnny, without looking up, or
+  intermitting his sneaking, restless walk from one corner of the room
+  to the other.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I said four days, d&#39;ye hear? Four days. Bring him tea
+  immediately, strong tea, and then make some good beef soup. The tea
+  must be ready directly, the soup in an hour at farthest, d&#39;ye
+  understand? And then I want some whisky for myself, and a beefsteak
+  and potatoes. Now, tell all that to your Sambo.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Johnny did not seem to hear, but continued his walk, creeping
+  along with noiseless step, and each time that he turned, giving a
+  sort of spring like a cat or a panther.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I&#39;ve money, Johnny,&quot; said my guide. &quot;Money,
+  man, d&#39;ye hear?&quot; And so saying, he produced a tolerably full
+  purse.</p>
+
+  <p>For the first time Johnny raised his head, gave an indefinable
+  sort of glance at the purse, and then springing forward, fixed his
+  small, cunning eyes upon those of my guide, while a smile of strange
+  meaning spread over his repulsive features.</p>
+
+  <p>The two men stood for the space of a minute, staring at each
+  other, without uttering a word. An infernal grin distended
+  Johnny&#39;s coarse mouth from ear to ear. My guide seemed to gasp
+  for breath.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I&#39;ve money,&quot; cried he at last, striking the but of
+  his rifle violently on the ground. &quot;D&#39;ye understand, Johnny?
+  Money; and a rifle too, if needs be.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>He stepped to the table and filled another glass of raw spirits,
+  which disappeared like the preceding one. While he drank, Johnny
+  stole out of the room so softly that my companion was only made aware
+  of his departure by the noise of the wooden latch. He then came up to
+  me, took me in his arms without saying a word, and, carrying me to
+  the bed, laid me gently down upon it.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You make yourself at home,&quot; snarled Johnny, who just
+  then came in again.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Always do that, I reckon, when I&#39;m in a tavern,&quot;
+  answered my guide, quietly pouring out and swallowing another
+  glassful. &quot;The gentleman shall have your bed to-day. You and
+  Sambo may sleep in the pigsty. You have none though, I
+  believe?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Bob!&quot; screamed Johnny furiously.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;That&#39;s my name&#8212;Bob Rock.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;For the present,&quot; hissed Johnny, with a sneer.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;The same as yours is Johnny Down,&quot; replied Bob in the
+  same tone. &quot;Pooh! Johnny, guess we know one another?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Rayther calkilate we do,&quot; replied Johnny through his
+  teeth.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And have done many a day,&quot; laughed Bob. <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_782" id="Page_782">[Pg 782]</a></span>
+  &quot;You&#39;re the famous Bob from Sodoma in Georgia?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Sodoma in Alabama, Johnny. Sodoma lies in Alabama,&quot;
+  said Bob, filling another glass. &quot;Don&#39;t you know that yet,
+  you who were above a year in Columbus, doin&#39; all sorts of dirty
+  work?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Better hold your tongue, Bob,&quot; said Johnny, with a
+  dangerous look at me.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Pooh! Don&#39;t mind him, he won&#39;t talk, I&#39;ll answer
+  for it. He&#39;s lost the taste for chatterin&#39; in the Jacinto
+  prairie. But Sodoma,&quot; continued Bob, &quot;is in Alabama, man!
+  Columbus in Georgia! They are parted by the Chatahoochie. Ah! that
+  was a jolly life we led on the Chatahoochie. But nothin&#39; lasts in
+  this world, as my old schoolmaster used to say. Pooh! They&#39;ve
+  druv the Injuns a step further over the Mississippi now. But it was a
+  glorious life&#8212;warn&#39;t it?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Again he filled his glass and drank.</p>
+
+  <p>The information I gathered from this conversation as to the
+  previous life and habits of these two men, had nothing in it very
+  satisfactory or reassuring for me. In the whole of the south-western
+  states there was no place that could boast of being the resort of so
+  many outlaws and bad characters as the town of Sodoma. It is
+  situated, or was situated, at least, a few years previously to the
+  time I speak of, in Alabama, on Indian ground, and was the harbour of
+  refuge for all the murderers and outcasts from the western and
+  south-western parts of the Union. Here, under Indian government, they
+  found shelter and security; and frightful were the crimes and
+  cruelties perpetrated at this place. Scarcely a day passed without an
+  assassination, not secretly committed but in broad sunlight. Bands of
+  these wretches, armed with knives and rifles, used to cross the
+  Chatahoochie, and make inroads into Columbus; break into houses, rob,
+  murder, ill-treat women, and then return in triumph to their dens,
+  laden with booty, and laughing at the laws. It was useless to think
+  of pursuing them, or of obtaining justice, for they were on Indian
+  territory; and many of the chiefs were in league with them. At length
+  General Jackson and the government took it up. The Indians were
+  driven over the Mississippi, the outlaws and murderers fled, Sodoma
+  itself disappeared; and, released from its troublesome neighbours,
+  Columbus is now as flourishing a state as any in the west.</p>
+
+  <p>The recollections of their former life and exploits seemed highly
+  interesting to the two comrades; and their communications became more
+  and more confidential. Johnny filled himself a glass, and the
+  conversation soon increased in animation. I could understand little
+  of what they said, for they spoke a sort of thieves&#39; jargon.
+  After a time, their voices sounded as a confused hum in my ears, the
+  objects in the room became gradually less distinct, and I fell
+  asleep.</p>
+
+  <p>I was roused, not very gently, by a mulatto woman, who poured a
+  spoonful of tea into my mouth before I had well opened my eyes. She
+  at first did not appear to be attending to me with any great degree
+  of good-will; but by the time she had given me half a dozen spoonsful
+  her womanly sympathies began to be awakened, and her manner became
+  kinder. The tea did me an infinite deal of good, and seemed to infuse
+  new life into my veins. I finished the cup, and the mulatto laid me
+  down again on my pillow with far more gentleness than she had lifted
+  me up.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Gor! Gor!&quot; cried she, &quot;what poor young man! Berry
+  weak. Him soon better. One hour, massa, good soup.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Soup! What do you want with soup?&quot; grumbled Johnny.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Him take soup. I cook it,&quot; screamed the woman.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Worse for you if she don&#39;t, Johnny,&quot; said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>Johnny muttered something in reply, but I did not distinguish what
+  it was, for my eyes closed, and I again fell asleep.</p>
+
+  <p>It seemed to me as if I had not been five minutes slumbering when
+  the mulatto returned with the soup. The tea had revived me, but this
+  gave me strength; and when I had taken it I was able to sit up in my
+  bed.</p>
+
+  <p>While the woman was feeding me, Bob was eating his beefsteak. It
+  was a piece of meat that might have sufficed for six persons, but the
+  man seemed as hungry as if he had eaten nothing for three days. He
+  cut off wedges half as big as his fist, swallowed them with ravenous
+  eagerness, and, instead of bread, bit into some unpeeled potatoes.
+  All this was washed down with glass after glass of raw <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_783" id="Page_783">[Pg 783]</a></span>
+  spirits, which had the effect of wakening him up, and infusing a
+  certain degree of cheerfulness into his strange humour. He still
+  spoke more to himself than to Johnny, but his recollections seemed
+  agreeable; he nodded self-approvingly, and sometimes laughed aloud.
+  At last he began to abuse Johnny for being, as he said, such a
+  sneaking, cowardly fellow&#8212;such a treacherous, false-hearted
+  gallows-bird.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It&#39;s true,&quot; said he, &quot;I am gallows-bird enough
+  myself, but then I&#39;m open, and no man can say I&#39;m
+  a-fear&#39;d; but Johnny, Johnny, who&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>I do not know what he was about to say, for Johnny sprang towards
+  him, and placed both hands over his mouth, receiving in return a blow
+  that knocked him as far as the door, through which he retreated,
+  cursing and grumbling.</p>
+
+  <p>I soon fell asleep again, and whilst in that state I had a
+  confused sort of consciousness of various noises in the room, loud
+  words, blows, and shouting. Wearied as I was, however, I believe no
+  noise would have fully roused me, although hunger at last did.</p>
+
+  <p>When I opened my eyes I saw the mulatto woman sitting by my bed,
+  and keeping off the mosquitoes. She brought me the remainder of the
+  soup, and promised, if I would sleep a couple of hours more, to bring
+  me a beefsteak. Before the two hours had elapsed I awoke, hungrier
+  than ever. After I had eaten all the beefsteak the woman would allow
+  me, which was a very moderate quantity, she brought me a beer-glass
+  full of the most delicious punch I ever tasted. I asked her where she
+  had got the rum and lemons, and she told me that it was she who had
+  bought them, as well as a stock of coffee and tea; that Johnny was
+  her partner, but that he had done nothing but build the house, and
+  badly built it was. She then began to abuse Johnny, and said he was a
+  gambler; and, worse still, that he had had plenty of money once, but
+  had lost it all; that she had first known him in Lower Natchez, but
+  he had been obliged to run away from there in the night to save his
+  neck. Bob was no better, she said; on the contrary&#8212;and here she
+  made the gesture of cutting a man&#39;s throat&#8212;he was a very
+  bad fellow, she added. He had got drunk after his dinner, knocked
+  Johnny down, and broken every thing. He was now lying asleep outside
+  the door; and Johnny had hidden himself somewhere.</p>
+
+  <p>How long she continued speaking I know not, for I again fell into
+  a deep sleep, which this time lasted six or seven hours.</p>
+
+  <p>I was awakened by a strong grasp laid upon my arm, which made me
+  cry out, more, however, from surprise than pain. Bob stood by my
+  bedside; the traces of the preceding night&#39;s debauch plainly
+  written on his haggard countenance. His bloodshot eyes were inflamed
+  and swollen, and rolled with even more than their usual wildness; his
+  mouth was open, and the jaws stiff and fixed; he looked as if he had
+  just come from committing some frightful deed. I could fancy the
+  first murderer to have worn such an aspect when gazing on the body of
+  his slaughtered brother. I shrank back, horror-struck at his
+  appearance.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;In God&#39;s name, man, what do you want?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>He made no answer.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You are in a fever. You&#39;ve the ague!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ay, a fever,&quot; groaned he, shivering as he spoke;
+  &quot;a fever, but not the one you mean; a fever, young man, such as
+  God keep you from ever having.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>His whole frame shuddered while he uttered these words. There was
+  a short pause.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Curious that,&quot; continued he; &quot;I&#39;ve served more
+  than one in the same way, but never thought of it
+  afterwards&#8212;was forgotten in less than no time. Got to pay the
+  whole score at once, I suppose. Can&#39;t rest a minute. In the open
+  prairie it&#39;s the worst; there stands the old man, so plain, with
+  his silver beard, and the spectre just behind him.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>His eyes rolled, he clenched his fists, and, striking his forehead
+  furiously, rushed out of the hut.</p>
+
+  <p>In a few minutes he returned, apparently more composed, and walked
+  straight up to my bed.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Stranger, you must do me a service,&quot; said he
+  abruptly.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ten rather than one,&quot; replied I; &quot;any thing that
+  is in my power. Do I not owe you my life?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You&#39;re a gentleman, I see, and a Christian. You must
+  come with me to the squire&#8212;the Alcalde.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_784" id="Page_784">[Pg
+  784]</a></span></p>
+
+  <p>&quot;To the Alcalde, man! What must I go there for?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You&#39;ll see and hear when you get there; I&#39;ve
+  something to tell him&#8212;something for his own ear.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>He drew a deep breath, and remained silent for a short time,
+  gazing anxiously on all sides of him.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Something,&quot; whispered he, &quot;that nobody else must
+  hear.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;But there&#39;s Johnny there. Why not take him?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Johnny!&quot; cried he, with a scornful laugh; &quot;Johnny!
+  who&#39;s ten times worse than I am, bad as I be; and bad I am to be
+  sure, but yet open and above board, always, till this time; but
+  Johnny! he&#39;d sell his own mother. He&#39;s a cowardly,
+  sneakin&#39;, treacherous hound, is Johnny.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>It was unnecessary to tell me this, for Johnny&#39;s character was
+  written plainly enough upon his countenance.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;But why do you want me to go to the Alcalde?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Why does one want people before the judge? He&#39;s a judge,
+  man; a Mexican one certainly, but chosen by us Americans; and an
+  American himself, as you and I are.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And how soon must I go?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Directly. I can&#39;t bear it any longer. It leaves me no
+  peace. Not an hour&#39;s rest have I had for the last eight days.
+  When I go out into the prairie, the spectre stands before me and
+  beckons me on, and if I try to go another way, he comes behind me and
+  drives me before him under the Patriarch. I see him just as plainly
+  as when he was alive, only paler and sadder. It seems as if I could
+  touch him with my hand. Even the bottle is no use now; neither rum,
+  nor whisky, nor brandy, rid me of him; it don&#39;t, by the
+  &#39;tarnel.&#8212;Curious that! I got drunk yesterday&#8212;thought
+  to get rid of him; but he came in the night and drove me out. I was
+  obliged to go. Wouldn&#39;t let me sleep; was forced to go under the
+  Patriarch.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Under the Patriarch? the live oak?&quot; cried I, in
+  astonishment.&#8212;&quot;Were you there in the night?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ay, that was I,&quot; replied he, in the same horribly
+  confidential tone; &quot;and the spirit threatened me, and said I
+  will leave you no peace, Bob, till you go to the Alcalde and tell
+  him&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Then I will go with you to the Alcalde, and that
+  immediately,&quot; said I, raising myself up in bed. I could not help
+  pitying the poor fellow from my very soul.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Where are you going?&quot; croaked Johnny, who at this
+  moment glided into the room. &quot;Not a step shall you stir till
+  you&#39;ve paid.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Johnny,&quot; said Bob, seizing his less powerful companion
+  by the shoulders, lifting him up like a child, and then setting him
+  down again with such force, that his knees cracked and bent under
+  him;&#8212;&quot;Johnny, this gentlemen is my guest, d&#39;ye
+  understand? And here is the reckonin&#39;, and mind yourself,
+  Johnny&#8212;mind yourself, that&#39;s all.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Johnny crept into a corner like a flogged hound; the mulatto
+  woman, however, did not seem disposed to be so easily intimidated.
+  Sticking her arms in her sides, she waddled boldly forward.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You not take him &#39;way, Massa Bob?&quot;, screamed she.
+  &quot;Him stop here. Him berry weak&#8212;not able for ride&#8212;not
+  able for stand on him foot.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>This was true enough. Strong as I had felt in bed, I could hardly
+  stand upright when I got out of it.</p>
+
+  <p>For a moment Bob seemed undecided, but only for one moment; then,
+  stepping up to the mulatto, he lifted her, fat and heavy as she was,
+  in the same manner as he had done her partner, at least a foot from
+  the ground, and carried her screaming and struggling to the door,
+  which he kicked open. Then setting her down outside,
+  &quot;Silence!&quot; roared he, &quot;and some good strong tea
+  instead of your cursed chatter, and a fresh beefsteak instead of your
+  stinking carcass. That will strengthen the gentleman; so be quick
+  about it, you old brown-skinned beast, you!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I had slept in my clothes, and my toilet was consequently soon
+  made, by the help of a bowl of water and towel, which Bob made Johnny
+  bring, and then ordered him to go and get our horses ready.</p>
+
+  <p>A hearty breakfast of tea, butter, Indian corn bread, and steaks,
+  increased my strength so much, that I was able to mount my mustang. I
+  had still pains in all my limbs, but we rode slowly; the morning was
+  bright, the air fresh and elastic, and I felt myself getting
+  gradually better. Our path led through the prairie; the river
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_785" id="Page_785">[Pg
+  785]</a></span> fringed with wood, on the one hand; the vast ocean of
+  grass, sprinkled with innumerable islands of trees, on the other. We
+  saw abundance of game, which sprang up under the very feet of our
+  horses; but although Bob had his rifle, he made no use of it. He
+  muttered continually to himself, and seemed to be arranging what he
+  should say to the judge; for I heard him talking of things which I
+  would just as soon not have listened to, if I could have helped it. I
+  was heartily glad when we at length reached the plantation of the
+  Alcalde.</p>
+
+  <p>It seemed a very considerable one, and the size and appearance of
+  the framework house bespoke comfort and every luxury. The building
+  was surrounded by a group of China trees, which I should have thought
+  about ten years of age, but which I afterwards learned had not been
+  planted half that time, although they were already large enough to
+  afford a very agreeable shade. Right in front of the house rose a
+  live oak, inferior in size to the one in the prairie, but still of
+  immense age and great beauty. To the left was some two hundred acres
+  of cotton fields, extending to the bank of the Jacinto, which at this
+  spot made a sharp turn, and winding round the plantation, enclosed it
+  on three sides. Before the house lay the prairie, with its
+  archipelago of islands, and herds of grazing cattle and mustangs; to
+  the right, more cotton fields; and in rear of the dwelling, the negro
+  cottages and out-buildings. There was a Sabbath-like stillness
+  pervading the whole scene, which seemed to strike even Bob. He paused
+  as though in deep thought, and allowed his hand to rest for a moment
+  on the handle of the lattice door. Then with a sudden and resolute
+  jerk, bespeaking an equally sudden resolution, he pushed open the
+  gate, and we entered a garden planted with orange, banana, and citron
+  trees, the path through which was enclosed between palisades, and led
+  to a sort of front court, with another lattice-work door, beside
+  which hung a bell. Upon ringing this, a negro appeared.</p>
+
+  <p>The black seemed to know Bob very well, for he nodded to him as to
+  an old acquaintance, and said the squire wanted him, and had asked
+  after him several times. He then led the way to a large parlour, very
+  handsomely furnished for Texas, and in which we found the squire, or
+  more properly speaking, the Alcalde, sitting smoking his cigar. He
+  had just breakfasted, and the plates and dishes were still upon the
+  table. He did not appear to be much given to compliments or ceremony,
+  or to partake at all of the Yankee failing of curiosity, for he
+  answered our salutation with a laconic &quot;good-morning,&quot; and
+  scarcely even looked at us. At the very first glance, it was easy to
+  see that he came from Tennessee or Virginia, the only provinces in
+  which one finds men of his gigantic mould. Even sitting, his head
+  rose above those of the negro servants in waiting. Nor was his height
+  alone remarkable; he had the true West-Virginian build; the enormous
+  chest and shoulders, and herculean limbs, the massive features and
+  sharp grey eyes; altogether an exterior well calculated to impose on
+  the rough backwoodsmen with whom he had to deal.</p>
+
+  <p>I was tired with my ride, and took a chair. The squire apparently
+  did not deem me worthy of notice, or else he reserved me for a later
+  scrutiny; but he fixed a long, searching look upon Bob, who remained
+  standing, with his head sunk on his breast.</p>
+
+  <p>The judge at last broke silence.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;So here you are again, Bob. It&#39;s long since we&#39;ve
+  seen you, and I thought you had clean forgotten us. Well, Bob, we
+  shouldn&#39;t have broke our hearts, I reckon; for I hate
+  gamblers&#8212;ay, that I do&#8212;worse than skunks. It&#39;s a vile
+  thing is play, and has ruined many a man in this world, and the next.
+  It&#39;s ruined you too, Bob.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob said nothing.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You&#39;d have been mighty useful here last week; there was
+  plenty for you to do. My step-daughter arrived; but as you
+  weren&#39;t to be found, we had to send to Joel to shoot us a buck
+  and a couple of dozen snipes. Ah, Bob! one might still make a good
+  citizen of you, if you&#39;d only leave off that cursed
+  play!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob still remained silent.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Now go into the kitchen and get some breakfast.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob neither answered nor moved.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;D&#39;ye hear? Go into the kitchen and get something to eat.
+  And, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_786" id="Page_786">[Pg
+  786]</a></span> Ptoly&quot;&#8212;added he to the
+  negro&#8212;&quot;tell Veny to give him a pint of rum.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Don&#39;t want yer rum&#8212;ain&#39;t
+  thirsty&quot;&#8212;growled Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Very like, very like,&quot; said the judge sharply.
+  &quot;Reckon you&#39;ve taken too much already. Look as if you could
+  swallow a wild cat, claws and all. And you,&quot; added he, turning
+  to me&#8212;&quot;What the devil are you at, Ptoly? Don&#39;t you see
+  the man wants his breakfast? Where&#39;s the coffee? Or would you
+  rather have tea?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Thank you, Alcalde, I have breakfasted already.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Don&#39;t look as if. Ain&#39;t sick, are you? Where do you
+  come from? What&#39;s happened to you? What are you doing with
+  Bob?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>He looked keenly and searchingly at me, and then again at Bob. My
+  appearance was certainly not very prepossessing, unshaven as I was,
+  and with my clothes and linen soiled and torn. He was evidently
+  considering what could be the motive of our visit, and what had
+  brought me into Bob&#39;s society. The result of his physiognomical
+  observations did not appear very favourable either to me or my
+  companion. I hastened to explain.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You shall hear how it was, judge. I am indebted to Bob for
+  my life.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Your life! Indebted to Bob for your life!&quot; repeated the
+  judge, shaking his head incredulously.</p>
+
+  <p>I related how I had lost my way in the prairie; been carried into
+  the Jacinto by my horse; and how I should inevitably have been
+  drowned but for Bob&#39;s aid.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Indeed!&quot; said the judge, when I had done speaking.
+  &quot;So, Bob saved your life! Well, I am glad of it, Bob, very glad
+  of it. Ah! if you could only keep away from that Johnny. I tell you,
+  Bob, Johnny will be the ruin of you. Better keep out of his
+  way.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It&#39;s too late,&quot; answered Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Don&#39;t know why it should be. Never too late to leave a
+  debauched, sinful life; never, man!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Calkilate it is, though,&quot; replied Bob sullenly.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You calculate it is?&quot; said the judge, fixing his eyes
+  on him. &quot;And why do you calculate that? Take a
+  glass&#8212;Ptoly, a glass&#8212;and tell me, man, why should it be
+  too late?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I ain&#39;t thirsty, squire,&quot; said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Don&#39;t talk to me of your thirst; rum&#39;s not for
+  thirst, but to strengthen the heart and nerves, to drive away the
+  blue devils. And a good thing it is, taken in moderation.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>As he spoke he filled himself a glass, and drank half of it off.
+  Bob shook his head.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No rum for me, squire. I take no pleasure in it. I&#39;ve
+  something on my mind too heavy for rum to wash away.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And what is that, Bob? Come, let&#39;s hear what you&#39;ve
+  got to say. Or perhaps, you&#39;d rather speak to me alone. It&#39;s
+  Sunday to-day, and no business ought to be done; but for once, and
+  for you, we&#39;ll make an exception.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I brought the gentleman with me on purpose to witness what I
+  had to say,&quot; answered Bob, taking a cigar out of a box that
+  stood on the table, and lighting it. He smoked a whiff or two, looked
+  thoughtfully at the judge, and then threw the cigar through the open
+  window.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It don&#39;t relish, squire; nothin&#39; does now.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah, Bob! if you&#39;d leave off play and drink! They&#39;re
+  your ruin; worse than ague or fever.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It&#39;s no use,&quot; continued Bob, as if he did not hear
+  the judge&#39;s remark; &quot;it must out. I fo&#39;t agin it, and
+  thought to drive it away, but it can&#39;t be done. I&#39;ve put a
+  bit of lead into several before now, but this
+  one&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What&#39;s that?&quot; cried the judge, chucking his cigar
+  away, and looking sternly at Bob. &quot;What&#39;s up now? What are
+  you saying about a bit of lead? None of your Sodoma and Lower Natchez
+  tricks, I hope? They won&#39;t do here. Don&#39;t understand such
+  jokes.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Pooh! they don&#39;t understand them a bit more in Natchez.
+  If they did, I shouldn&#39;t be in Texas.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;The less said of that the better, Bob. You promised to lead
+  a new life here; so we won&#39;t rake up old stories.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I did, I did!&quot; groaned Bob; &quot;but it&#39;s all no
+  use. I shall never be better till I&#39;m hung.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I stared at the man in astonishment. The judge, however, took
+  another cigar, lighted it, and, after puffing out a cloud of smoke,
+  said, very unconcernedly&quot;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_787" id="Page_787">[Pg
+  787]</a></span></p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Not better till you&#39;re hung! What do you want to be hung
+  for? To be sure, you should have been long ago, if the Georgia and
+  Alabama papers don&#39;t lie. But we are not in the States here, but
+  in Texas, under Mexican laws. It&#39;s nothing to us what you&#39;ve
+  done yonder. Where there is no accuser there can be no
+  judge.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Send away the nigger, squire,&quot; said Bob. &quot;What a
+  free white man has to say, shouldn&#39;t be heard by black
+  ears.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Go away, Ptoly,&quot; said the judge. &quot;Now, then,&quot;
+  added he, turning to Bob, &quot;say what you have to say; but mind,
+  nobody forces you to do it, and it&#39;s only out of good will that I
+  listen to you, for to-day&#39;s Sunday.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I know that,&quot; muttered Bob; &quot;I know that, squire;
+  but it leaves me no peace, and it must out. I&#39;ve been to San
+  Felipe de Austin, to Anahuac, every where, but it&#39;s all no use.
+  Wherever I go, the spectre follows me, and drives me back under the
+  cursed Patriarch.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Under the Patriarch!&quot; exclaimed the judge.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ay, under the Patriarch!&quot; groaned Bob. &quot;Don&#39;t
+  you know the Patriarch; the old live oak near the ford, on the
+  Jacinto?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I know, I know!&quot; answered the Judge. &quot;And what
+  drives you under the Patriarch?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What drives me? What drives a man
+  who&#8212;who&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;A man who&quot;&#8212;&#8212; repeated the judge,
+  gently.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;A man,&quot; continued Bob, in the same low tone, &quot;who
+  has sent a rifle bullet into another&#39;s heart. He lies there,
+  under the Patriarch, whom I&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Whom you?&quot; asked the judge.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;<i>Whom I killed!</i>&quot; said Bob, in a hollow
+  whisper.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Killed!&quot; exclaimed the judge. &quot;You killed him?
+  Whom?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah! whom? Why don&#39;t you let me speak? You always
+  interrupt me with your palaver,&quot; growled Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You are getting saucy, Bob,&quot; said the judge
+  impatiently. &quot;Go on, however. I reckon it&#39;s only one of your
+  usual tantrums.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob shook his head. The judge looked keenly at him for a moment,
+  and then resumed in a sort of confidential, encouraging tone.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Under the Patriarch; and how did he come under the
+  Patriarch?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I dragged him there, and buried him there,&quot; replied
+  Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Dragged him there! Why did you drag him there?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Because he couldn&#39;t go himself, with more than half an
+  ounce of lead in his body.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And <i>you</i> put the half ounce of lead into him, Bob?
+  Well, if it was Johnny, you&#39;ve done the country a service, and
+  saved it a rope.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob shook his head negatively.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It wasn&#39;t Johnny, although&#8212;&#8212; But you shall
+  hear all about it. It&#39;s just ten days since you paid me twenty
+  dollars fifty.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I did so, Bob; twenty dollars fifty cents, and I advised you
+  at the same time to let the money lie till you had a couple of
+  hundred dollars, or enough to buy a quarter or an eighth of Sitio
+  land; but advice is thrown away upon you.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;When I got the money, I thought I&#39;d go down to San
+  Felipe, to the Mexicans, and try my luck; and, at the same time, see
+  the doctor about my fever. As I was goin&#39; there, I passed near
+  Johnny&#39;s house, and fancied a glass, but determined not to get
+  off my horse. I rode up to the window, and looked in. There was a man
+  sittin&#39; at the table, havin&#39; a hearty good dinner of steaks
+  and potatoes, and washin&#39; it down with a stiff glass of grog. I
+  began to feel hungry myself, and while I was considerin&#39; whether
+  I should &#39;light or not, Johnny came sneakin&#39; out, and
+  whispered to me to come in, that there was a man inside with whom
+  somethin&#39; might be done if we went the right way to work; a man
+  who had a leather belt round his waist cram-full of hard Jackson; and
+  that, if we got out the cards and pretended to play a little
+  together, he would soon take the bait and join us.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I wasn&#39;t much inclined to do it,&quot; continued Bob;
+  &quot;but Johnny bothered me so to go in, that I got off my horse. As
+  I did so the dollars chinked in my pocket, and the sound gave me a
+  wish to play.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I went in; and Johnny fetched the whisky bottle. One glass
+  followed another. There were beefsteaks and potatoes too, but I only
+  eat a couple of mouthfuls. When I had <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_788" id="Page_788">[Pg 788]</a></span> drank two, three, ay,
+  four glasses, Johnny brought the cards and dice. &#39;Hallo,
+  Johnny!&#39; says I; &#39;cards and dice, Johnny! I&#39;ve twenty
+  dollars fifty in my pocket. Let&#39;s have a game! But no more drink
+  for me; for I know you, Johnny, I know you&#39;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Johnny larfed slyly, and rattled the dice, and we sat down
+  to play. I hadn&#39;t meant to drink any more, but play makes one
+  thirsty; and with every glass I got more eager, and my dollars got
+  fewer. I reckoned, however, that the stranger would join us, and that
+  I should be able to win back from him; but not a bit of it: he sat
+  quite quiet, and eat and drank as if he didn&#39;t see we were there.
+  I went on playin&#39; madder than ever, and before half an hour was
+  over, I was cleaned out; my twenty dollars fifty gone to the devil,
+  or what&#39;s the same thing, into Johnny&#39;s pocket.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;When I found myself without a cent, I <i>was</i> mad, I
+  reckon. It warn&#39;t the first time, nor the hundredth, that I had
+  lost money. Many bigger sums than that&#8212;ay, hundreds and
+  thousands of dollars had I played away&#8212;but they had none of
+  them cost me the hundredth or thousandth part of the trouble to get
+  that these twenty dollars fifty had; two full months had I been
+  slavin&#39; away in the woods and prairies to airn them, and I caught
+  the fever there. The fever I had still, but no money to cure it with.
+  Johnny only larfed in my face, and rattled my dollars. I made a hit
+  at him, which, if he hadn&#39;t jumped on one side, would have cured
+  him of larfin&#39; for a week or two.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Presently, however, he came sneakin&#39; up to me, and
+  winkin&#39; and whisperin&#39;; and, &#39;Bob!&#39; says he, &#39;is
+  it come to that with you? are you grown so chicken-hearted that you
+  don&#39;t see the beltful of money round his body?&#39; said he,
+  lookin&#39; at it. &#39;No end of hard coin, I guess; and all to be
+  had for little more than half an ounce of lead.&#39;&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Did he say that?&quot; asked the judge.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ay, that did he, but I wouldn&#39;t listen to him. I was mad
+  with him for winning my twenty dollars; and I told him that, if he
+  wanted the stranger&#39;s purse, he might take it himself, and be
+  d&#8212;&#8212;d; that I wasn&#39;t goin&#39; to pull the hot
+  chestnuts out of the fire for him. And I got on my horse, and rode
+  away like mad.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;My head spun round like a mill. I couldn&#39;t get over my
+  loss. I took the twenty dollars fifty more to heart than any money I
+  had ever gambled. I didn&#39;t know where to go. I didn&#39;t dare go
+  back to you, for I knew you&#39;d scold me.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I shouldn&#39;t have scolded you, Bob; or, if I had, it
+  would only have been for your good. I should have summoned Johnny
+  before me, called together a jury of twelve of the neighbours, got
+  you back your twenty dollars fifty, and sent Johnny out of the
+  country; or, better still, out of the world.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>These words were spoken with much phlegm, but yet with a degree of
+  feeling and sympathy, which greatly improved my opinion of the worthy
+  judge. Bob also seemed touched. He drew a deep sigh, and gazed at the
+  Alcalde with a melancholy look.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It&#39;s too late,&quot; muttered he; &quot;too late,
+  squire.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Perhaps not,&quot; replied the judge, &quot;but let&#39;s
+  hear the rest.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Well,&quot; continued Bob, &quot;I kept riding on at random,
+  and when evenin&#39; came I found myself near the palmetta field on
+  the bank of the Jacinto. As I was ridin&#39; past it, I heard all at
+  once the tramp of a horse. At that moment the queerest feelin&#39; I
+  ever had came over me; a sort of cold shiverin&#39; feel. I forgot
+  where I was; sight and hearin&#39; left me; I could only see two
+  things, my twenty dollars fifty, and the well-filled belt of the
+  stranger I had left at Johnny&#39;s. Just then a voice called to
+  me.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;Whence come, countryman, and whither going?&#39; it
+  said.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;Whence and whether,&#39; answered I, as surly as could
+  be; &#39;to the devil at a gallop, and you&#39;d better ride on and
+  tell him I&#39;m comin&#39;.&#39;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;You can do the errand yourself,&#39; answered the
+  stranger larfin&#39;; &#39;my road don&#39;t lie that way.&#39;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;As he spoke, I looked round, and saw, what I was pretty sure
+  of before, that it was the man with the belt full of money.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;Ain&#39;t you the stranger I see&#39;d in the inn
+  yonder?&#39; asked he.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;And if I am,&#39; says I; &#39;what&#39;s that to
+  you?&#39;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;Nothin&#39;,&#39; said he; &#39;nothin&#39;,
+  certainly.&#39;</p>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_789" id="Page_789">[Pg
+  789]</a></span></p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;Better ride on,&#39; says I; &#39;and leave me
+  quiet.&#39;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;Will so, stranger; but you needn&#39;t take it so
+  mighty onkind. A word ain&#39;t a tomahawk, I reckon,&#39; said he.
+  &#39;But I rayther expect your losin&#39;s at play ain&#39;t put you
+  in a very church-goin&#39; humour; and, if I was you, I&#39;d keep my
+  dollars in my pocket, and not set them on cards and dice.&#39;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;This put me in a rile to hear him cast my losin&#39;s in my
+  teeth that way.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;You&#39;re a nice feller,&#39; said I, &#39;to throw a
+  man&#39;s losses in his face. A pitiful chap <i>you</i> are,&#39;
+  says I.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I thought to provoke him, and that he&#39;d tackle me. But
+  he seemed to have no fancy for a fight, for he said quite humble
+  like&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;I throw nothin&#39; in your face; God forbid that I
+  should reproach you with your losses! I&#39;m sorry for you, on the
+  contrary. Don&#39;t look like a man who can afford to lose his
+  dollars. Seem to me one who airns his money by hard work.&#39;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;We were just then halted at the further end of the cane
+  brake, close to the trees that border the Jacinto. I had turned my
+  horse, and was frontin&#39; the stranger. And all the time the devil
+  was busy whisperin&#39; to me, and pointin&#39; to the belt round the
+  man&#39;s waist. I could see where it was, plain enough, though he
+  had buttoned his coat over it.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;Hard work, indeed,&#39; says I; &#39;and now I&#39;ve
+  lost every thing; not a cent left for a quid of baccy.&#39;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;If that&#39;s all,&#39; says he; &#39;there&#39;s help
+  for that. I don&#39;t chew myself, and I ain&#39;t a rich man;
+  I&#39;ve wife and children, and want every cent I&#39;ve got, but
+  it&#39;s one&#39;s duty to help a countryman. You shall have money
+  for tobacco and a dram.&#39;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And so sayin&#39;, he took a purse out of his pocket, in
+  which he carried his change. It was plenty full; there may have been
+  some twenty dollars in it; and as he drew the string, it was as if
+  the devil laughed and nodded to me out of the openin&#39; of the
+  purse.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;Halves!&#39; cried I.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;No, not that,&#39; says he; &#39;I&#39;ve wife and
+  child, and what I have belongs to them; but half a
+  dollar&#39;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;Halves!&#39; cried I again; &#39;or
+  else&#39;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;Or else?&#39; repeated he: and, as he spoke, he put the
+  purse back into his pocket, and laid hold of the rifle which was
+  slung on his shoulder.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;Don&#39;t force one to do you a mischief,&#39; said he.
+  &#39;Don&#39;t&#39; says he; &#39;we might both be sorry for it. What
+  you&#39;re thinkin&#39; of brings no blessin&#39;.&#39;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I was past seein&#39; or hearin&#39;. A thousand devils from
+  hell were possessin&#39; me.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;Halves!&#39; I yelled out; and, as I said the word, he
+  sprang out of the saddle, and fell back over his horse&#39;s crupper
+  to the ground.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;&#39;I&#39;m a dead man!&#39; cried he; as well as the
+  rattle in his throat would let him. &#39;God be merciful to me! My
+  poor wife, my poor children!&#39;&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob paused; he gasped for breath, and the sweat stood in large
+  drops upon his forehead. He gazed wildly round the room. The judge
+  himself looked very pale. I tried to rise, but sank back in my chair.
+  Without the table I believe I should have fallen to the ground.</p>
+
+  <p>There was a gloomy pause of some moments&#39; duration. At last
+  the judge broke silence.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;A hard, hard case!&quot; said he. &quot;Father, mother,
+  children, all at one blow. Bob, you are a bad fellow; a very bad
+  fellow; a great villain!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;A great villain,&quot; groaned Bob. &quot;The ball was gone
+  right through his breast.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Perhaps your gun went off by accident,&quot; said the judge
+  anxiously. &quot;Perhaps it was his own ball.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob shook his head.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I see him now, judge, as plain as can be, when he said,
+  &#39;Don&#39;t force me to do you a mischief. We might both be sorry
+  for it.&#39; But I pulled the trigger. His bullet is still in his
+  rifle.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;When I saw him lie dead before me, I can&#39;t tell you what
+  I felt. It warn&#39;t the first I had sent to his account; but yet I
+  would have given all the purses and money in the world to have had
+  him alive agin. I must have dragged him under the Patriarch, and dug
+  a grave with my huntin&#39; knife; for I found him there
+  afterwards.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You found him there?&quot; repeated the judge.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yes. I don&#39;t know how he came there. I must have brought
+  him, but I recollect nothin&#39; about it.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The judge had risen from his chair, <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_790" id="Page_790">[Pg 790]</a></span> and was walking up and
+  down the room, apparently in deep thought. Suddenly he stopped
+  short.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What have you done with his money?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I took his purse, but buried his belt with him, as well as a
+  flask of rum, and some bread and beef he had brought away from
+  Johnny&#39;s. I set out for San Felipe, and rode the whole day. In
+  the evenin&#39;, when I looked about me, expectin&#39; to see the
+  town, where do you think I was?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The judge and I stared at him.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Under the Patriarch. The ghost of the murdered man had
+  driven me there. I had no peace till I&#39;d dug him up and buried
+  him again. Next day I set off in another direction. I was out of
+  tobacco, and I started across the prairie to Anahuac. Lord, what a
+  day I passed! Wherever I went, <i>he</i> stood before me. If I
+  turned, <i>he</i> turned too. Sometimes he came behind me, and looked
+  over my shoulder. I spurred my mustang till the blood came,
+  hopin&#39; to get away from him, but it was all no use. I thought
+  when I got to Anahuac I should be quit of him, and I galloped on as
+  if for life or death. But in the evenin&#39;, instead of bein&#39;
+  close to the salt-works as I expected, there I was agin, under the
+  Patriarch. I dug him up a second time, and sat and stared at him, and
+  then buried him agin.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Queer that,&quot; observed the judge.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ay, very queer!&quot; said Bob mournfully. &quot;But
+  it&#39;s all no use. Nothin&#39; does me any good. I sha&#39;n&#39;t
+  be better&#8212;I shall never have peace till I&#39;m hung.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob evidently felt relieved now, he had in a manner passed
+  sentence on himself. Strange as it may appear, I had a similar
+  feeling, and could not help nodding my head approvingly. The judge
+  alone preserved an unmoved countenance.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Indeed!&quot; said he, &quot;indeed! You think you&#39;ll be
+  no better till you&#39;re hung.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yes,&quot; answered Bob, with eager haste. &quot;Hung on the
+  same tree under which <i>he</i> lies buried.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Well, if you will have it so, we&#39;ll see what can be done
+  for you. We&#39;ll call a jury of the neighbours together
+  to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Thank ye, squire,&quot; murmured Bob, visibly comforted by
+  this promise.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;We&#39;ll summon a jury,&quot; repeated the Alcalde,
+  &quot;and see what can be done for you. You&#39;ll perhaps have
+  changed your mind by that time.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I stared at him like one fallen from the clouds, but he did not
+  seem to notice my surprise.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;There is, perhaps, another way to get rid of your life, if
+  you are tired of it,&quot; he continued. &quot;We might, perhaps, hit
+  upon one that would satisfy your conscience.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob shook his head. I involuntarily made the same movement.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;At any rate, we&#39;ll hear what the neighbours say,&quot;
+  added the judge.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob stepped up to the judge, and held out his hand to bid him
+  farewell. The other did not take it, and turning to me,
+  said&#8212;&quot;<i>You</i> had better stop here, I think.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob turned round impetuously.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;The gentleman must come with me.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Why must he?&quot; said the judge.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ask himself.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I again explained the obligations I was under to Bob; how we had
+  fallen in with one another, and what care and attention he had shown
+  me at Johnny&#39;s.</p>
+
+  <p>The judge nodded approvingly.&quot;Nevertheless,&quot; said he,
+  &quot;you will remain here, and Bob will go alone. You are in a state
+  of mind, Bob, in which a man is better alone, d&#39;ye see; and so
+  leave the young man here. Another misfortune might happen; and, at
+  any rate, he&#39;s better here than at Johnny&#39;s. Come back
+  to-morrow, and we&#39;ll see what can be done for you.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>These words were spoken in a decided manner, which seemed to have
+  its effect upon Bob. He nodded assentingly, and left the room. I
+  remained staring at the judge, and lost in wonder at these strange
+  proceedings.</p>
+
+  <p>When Bob was gone, the Alcalde gave a blast on a shell, which
+  supplied the place of a bell. Then seizing the cigar box, he tried
+  one cigar after another, broke them peevishly up, and threw the
+  pieces out of the window. The negro whom the shell had summoned,
+  stood for some time waiting, while his master broke up the cigars,
+  and threw them away. At <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_791" id=
+  "Page_791">[Pg 791]</a></span> last the judge&#39;s patience seemed
+  quite to leave him.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Hark ye, Ptoly!&quot; growled he to the frightened black,
+  &quot;the next time you bring me cigars that neither draw nor smoke,
+  I&#39;ll make your back smoke for it. Mind that,
+  now;&#8212;there&#39;s not a single one of them worth a rotten maize
+  stalk. Tell that old coffee-coloured hag of Johnny&#39;s, that
+  I&#39;ll have no more of her cigars. Ride over to Mr Ducie&#39;s and
+  fetch a box. And, d&#39;ye hear? Tell him I want to speak a word with
+  him and the neighbours. Ask him to bring the neighbours with him
+  to-morrow morning. And mind you&#39;re home again by two o&#39;clock.
+  Take the mustang we caught last week. I want to see how he
+  goes.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The negro listened to these various commands with open mouth and
+  staring eyes, then giving a perplexed look at his master, shot out of
+  the room.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Where away, Ptoly?&quot; shouted the Alcalde after him.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;To Massa Ducie.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Without a pass, Ptoly? And what are you going to say to Mr
+  Ducie?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Him nebber send bad cigar again, him coffee-cullud hag.
+  Massa speak to Johnny and neighbours. Johnny bring neighbours
+  here.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I thought as much,&quot; said the judge with perfect
+  equanimity. &quot;Wait a minute, I&#39;ll write the pass, and a
+  couple of lines for Mr Ducie.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>This was soon done, and the negro dispatched on his errand. The
+  judge waited till he heard the sound of his horse&#39;s feet
+  galloping away, and then, laying hold of the box of despised cigars,
+  lit the first which came to hand. It smoked capitally, as did also
+  one that I took. They were Principes, and as good as I ever
+  tasted.</p>
+
+  <p>I passed the whole of that day <i>tête à tête</i> with the judge,
+  who, I soon found, knew various friends of mine in the States. I told
+  him the circumstances under which I had come to Texas, and the
+  intention I had of settling there, should I find the country to my
+  liking. During our long conversation, I was able to form a very
+  different, and much more favourable estimate of his character, than I
+  had done from his interview with Bob. He was the very man to be
+  useful to a new country; of great energy, sound judgment, enlarged
+  and liberal views. He gave me some curious information as to the
+  state of things in Texas; and did not think it necessary to conceal
+  from me, as an American, and one who intended settling in the
+  country, that there was a plan in agitation for throwing off the
+  Mexican yoke, and declaring Texas an independent republic. The
+  high-spirited, and, for the most part, intelligent emigrants from the
+  United States, who formed a very large majority of the population of
+  Texas, saw themselves, with no very patient feeling, under the rule
+  of a people both morally and physically inferior to themselves. They
+  looked with contempt, and justly so, on the bigoted, idle, and
+  ignorant Mexicans, while the difference of religion, and interference
+  of the priests, served to increase the dislike between the Spanish
+  and Anglo-American races.</p>
+
+  <p>Although the project was as yet not quite ripe for execution, it
+  was discussed freely and openly by the American settlers. &quot;It is
+  the interest of every man to keep it secret,&quot; said the judge;
+  &quot;and there can be nothing to induce even the worst amongst us to
+  betray a cause, by the success of which he is sure to profit. We have
+  many bad characters in Texas, the offscourings of the United States,
+  men like Bob, or far worse than him; but debauched, gambling, drunken
+  villains though they be, they are the men we want when it comes to a
+  struggle; and when that time arrives, they will all be found ready to
+  put their shoulders to the wheel, use knife and rifle, and shed the
+  last drop of their blood in defence of their fellow citizens, and of
+  the new and independent republic of Texas. At this moment, we must
+  wink at many things which would be severely punished in an older and
+  more settled country; each man&#39;s arm is of immense value to the
+  State; for, on the day of battle, we shall have, not two to one, but
+  twenty to one opposed to us.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I was awakened the following morning by the sound of a horse&#39;s
+  feet; and, looking out of the window, saw Bob dismounting from his
+  mustang. The last twenty-four hours had told fearfully upon him. His
+  limbs seemed powerless, and he reeled <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_792" id="Page_792">[Pg 792]</a></span> nd staggered in such a
+  manner, that I at first thought him intoxicated. But such was not the
+  case. His was the deadly weariness caused by mental anguish. He
+  looked like one just taken off the rack.</p>
+
+  <p>Hastily pulling on my clothes, I hurried down stairs, and opened
+  the house door. Bob stood with his head resting on his horse&#39;s
+  neck, and his hands crossed, shivering, and groaning. When I spoke to
+  him, he looked up, but did not seem to know me. I tied his horse to a
+  post, and taking his hand, led him into the house. He followed like a
+  child, apparently without the will or the power to resist; and when I
+  placed him in a chair, he fell into it with a weight that made it
+  crack under him, and shook the house. I could not get him to speak,
+  and was about to return to my room to complete my toilet, when I
+  again heard the tramp of mustangs. This was a party of half a dozen
+  horsemen, all dressed in hunting shirts over buckskin breeches and
+  jackets, and armed with rifles and bowie-knives; stout, daring
+  looking fellows, evidently from the south-western states, with the
+  true Kentucky half horse half alligator profile, and the usual
+  allowance of thunder, lightning, and earthquake. It struck me when I
+  saw them, that two or three thousand such men would have small
+  difficulty in dealing with a whole army of Mexicans, if the latter
+  were all of the pigmy, spindle-shanked breed I had seen on first
+  landing. These giants could easily have walked away with a Mexican in
+  each hand.</p>
+
+  <p>They jumped off their horses, and threw the bridles to the negroes
+  in the usual Kentuckian devil-may-care style, and then walked into
+  the house with the air of people who make themselves at home every
+  where, and who knew themselves to be more masters in Texas than the
+  Mexicans themselves. On entering the parlour, they nodded a
+  &quot;good-morning&quot; to me, rather coldly to be sure, for they
+  had seen me talking with Bob, which probably did not much recommend
+  me. Presently, four more horsemen rode up, and then a third party, so
+  that there were now fourteen of them assembled, all decided-looking
+  men, in the prime of life and strength. The judge, who slept in an
+  adjoining room, had been awakened by the noise. I heard him jump out
+  of bed, and not three minutes elapsed before he entered the
+  parlour.</p>
+
+  <p>After he had shaken hands with all his visitors, he presented me
+  to them, and I found that I was in the presence of no less important
+  persons than the Ayuntamiento of San Felipe de Austin; and that two
+  of my worthy countrymen were corregidors, one a procurador, and the
+  others <i>buenos hombres</i>, or freeholders. They did not seem,
+  however, to prize their titles much, for they addressed one another
+  by their surnames only.</p>
+
+  <p>The negro brought a light, opened the cigar box, and arranged the
+  chairs; the judge pointed to the sideboard, and to the cigars, and
+  then sat down. Some took a dram, others lit a cigar.</p>
+
+  <p>Several minutes elapsed, during which the men sat in perfect
+  silence, as if they were collecting their thoughts, or, as though it
+  were undignified to show any haste or impatience to speak. This grave
+  sort of deliberation which is met with among certain classes, and in
+  certain provinces of the Union, has often struck me as a curious
+  feature of our national character. It partakes of the stoical dignity
+  of the Indian at his council fire, and of the stern, religious
+  gravity of the early puritan settlers in America.</p>
+
+  <p>During this pause Bob was writhing on his chair like a worm, his
+  face concealed by his hands, his elbows on his knees. At last, when
+  all had drank and smoked, the judge laid down his cigar.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Men!&quot; said he.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Squire!&quot; answered they.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;We&#39;ve a business before us, which I calculate will be
+  best explained by him whom it concerns.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The men looked at the squire, then at Bob, then at me.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Bob Rock! or whatever your name may be, if you have aught to
+  say, say it!&quot; continued the judge.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Said it all yesterday,&quot; muttered Bob, his face still
+  covered by his hands.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yes, but you must say it again to-day. Yesterday was Sunday,
+  and Sunday is a day of rest, and not of business. I will neither
+  judge you, nor allow you to be judged, by what you said yesterday.
+  Besides, it was all between ourselves, for I don&#39;t reckon Mr
+  Rivers as any thing; I count him still as a stranger.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_793" id="Page_793">[Pg
+  793]</a></span></p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What&#39;s the use of so much palaver, when the thing&#39;s
+  plain enough?&quot; said Bob peevishly, raising his head as he
+  spoke.</p>
+
+  <p>The men stared at him in grave astonishment. He was really
+  frightful to behold, his face of a sort of blue tint; his cheeks
+  hollow, his beard wild and ragged; his blood-shot eyes rolling, and
+  deep sunk in their sockets. His appearance was scarcely human.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I tell you, again,&quot; said the judge, &quot;I will
+  condemn no man upon his own word alone; much less you, who have been
+  in my service, and eaten of my bread. You accused yourself yesterday,
+  but you were delirious at the time&#8212;you had the fever upon
+  you.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It&#39;s no use, squire,&quot; said Bob, apparently touched
+  by the kindness of the judge, &quot;You mean well, I see; butt though
+  you might deliver me out of men&#39;s hands, you couldn&#39;t rescue
+  me from myself. It&#39;s no use&#8212;I must be hung&#8212;hung on
+  the same tree under which the man I killed lies buried.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The men, or the jurors, as I may call them, looked at one another,
+  but said nothing.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It&#39;s no use,&quot; again cried Bob, in a shrill,
+  agonized tone. &quot;If he had attacked me, or only threatened me;
+  but no, he didn&#39;t do it. I hear his words still, when he said,
+  &#39;Do it not, man! I&#39;ve wife and child. What you intend, brings
+  no blessin&#39; on the doer.&#39; But I heard nothin&#39; then except
+  the voice of the devil; I brought the rifle
+  down&#8212;levelled&#8212;fired.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The man&#39;s agony was so intense, that even the iron featured
+  jury seemed moved by it. They cast sharp, but stolen glances at Bob.
+  There was a short silence.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;So you have killed a man?&quot; said a deep bass voice at
+  last.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ay, that have I!&quot; gasped Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And how came that?&quot; continued his questioner.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;How it came? You must ask the devil, or Johnny. No, not
+  Johnny, he can tell you nothing; he was not there. No one can tell
+  you but me; and I hardly know how it was. The man was at
+  Johnny&#39;s, and Johnny showed me his belt full of money.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Johnny!&quot; exclaimed several of the jury.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ay, Johnny! He reckoned on winning it from him, but the man
+  was too cautious for that; and when Johnny had plucked all my
+  feathers, won my twenty dollars fifty&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Twenty dollars fifty cents,&quot; interposed the judge,
+  &quot;which I paid him for catching mustangs and shooting
+  game.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The men nodded.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And then because he wouldn&#39;t play, you shot him?&quot;
+  asked the same deep-toned voice as before.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No&#8212;some hours after&#8212;by the Jacinto, near the
+  Patriarch&#8212;met him down there and killed him.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Thought there was something out o&#39; the common
+  thereaway,&quot; said one of the jury; &quot;for as we rode by the
+  tree a whole nation of kites and turkey buzzards flew out. Didn&#39;t
+  they, Mr Heart?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Mr Heart nodded.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Met him by the river, and cried, halves of his money,&quot;
+  continued Bob mechanically. &quot;He said he&#39;d give me something
+  to buy a quid, and more than enough for that, but not halves
+  &#39;I&#39;ve wife and child,&#39; said he&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And you?&quot; asked the juror with the deep voice, which
+  this time, however, had a hollow sound in it.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Shot him down,&quot; said Bob, with a wild hoarse laugh.</p>
+
+  <p>For some time no word was spoken.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And who was the man?&quot; said a juror at last.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Didn&#39;t ask him; and it warn&#39;t written on his face.
+  He was from the States; but whether a hosier, or a buckeye, or a
+  mudhead, is more than I can say.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;The thing must be investigated, Alcalde,&quot; said another
+  of the jury after a second pause.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It must so,&quot; answered the Alcalde.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What&#39;s the good of so much investigation?&quot; grumbled
+  Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What good?&quot; repeated the Alcalde. &quot;Because we owe
+  it to ourselves, to the dead man, and to you, not to sentence you
+  without having held an inquest on the body. There&#39;s another thing
+  which I must call your attention to,&quot; continued he, turning to
+  the jury; &quot;the man is half out of his mind&#8212;not <i>compos
+  mentis</i>, as they say. He&#39;s got the fever, and had it when he
+  did the deed; he was urged on by Johnny, and maddened by his losses
+  at play. In spite of his wild excitement, however, he saved that
+  gentleman&#39;s life yonder, Mr Edward Nathanael Rivers.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Did he so?&quot; said one of the jury.</p>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_794" id="Page_794">[Pg
+  794]</a></span></p>
+
+  <p>&quot;That did he,&quot; replied I, &quot;not only by saving me
+  from drowning when my horse dragged me, half dead and helpless, into
+  the river, but also by the care and attention he forced Johnny and
+  his mulatto to bestow upon me. Without him I should not be alive at
+  this moment.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob gave me a look which went to my heart. The tears were standing
+  in his eyes. The jury heard me in deep silence.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It seems that Johnny led you on and excited you to
+  this?&quot; said one of the jurors.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I didn&#39;t say that. I only said that he pointed to the
+  man&#39;s money bag, and said&#8212;&#8212; But what is it to you
+  what Johnny said? I&#39;m the man who did it. I speak for myself, and
+  I&#39;ll be hanged for myself.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;All very good, Bob,&quot; interposed the Alcalde; &quot;but
+  we can&#39;t hang you without being sure you deserve it. What do you
+  say to it, Mr Whyte? You&#39;re the procurador&#8212;and you, Mr
+  Heart and Mr Stone? Help yourselves to rum or brandy; and, Mr Bright
+  and Irwin, take another cigar. They&#39;re considerable tolerable the
+  cigars&#8212;ain&#39;t they? That&#39;s brandy, Mr Whyte, in the
+  diamond bottle.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Mr Whyte had got up to give his opinion, as I thought, but I was
+  mistaken. He stepped to the sideboard, took up a bottle in one hand
+  and a glass in the other, every movement being performed with the
+  greatest deliberation.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Well, squire,&quot; said he, &quot;or rather
+  <i>Alcalde</i>&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>After the word <i>Alcalde</i>, he filled the glass half full of
+  rum.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;If it&#39;s as we&#39;ve heard,&quot; added he, pouring
+  about a spoonful of water on the rum, &quot;and Bob has killed the
+  man&quot;&#8212;he continued, throwing in some lumps of
+  sugar&#8212;&quot;murdered him&quot;&#8212;he went on, crushing the
+  sugar with a wooden stamp&#8212;&quot;I rather
+  calkilate&quot;&#8212;here he raised the glass&#8212;&quot;Bob ought
+  to be hung,&quot; he concluded, putting the tumbler to his mouth and
+  emptying it.</p>
+
+  <p>The jurors nodded in silence. Bob drew a deep breath, as if a load
+  were taken off his breast.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Well,&quot; said the judge, who did not look over well
+  pleased; &quot;if you all think so, and Bob is agreed, I calculate we
+  must do as he wishes. I tell you, though, I don&#39;t do it
+  willingly. At any rate we must find the dead man first, and examine
+  Johnny. We owe that to ourselves and to Bob.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Certainly,&quot; said the jury with one voice.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You are a dreadful murderer, Bob a very considerable
+  one,&quot; continued the judge; &quot;but I tell you to your face,
+  and not to flatter you, there is more good in your little finger than
+  in Johnny&#39;s whole hide. And I&#39;m sorry for you, because, at
+  the bottom, you are not a bad man, though you&#39;ve been led away by
+  bad company and example. I calculate you might still be reformed, and
+  made very useful&#8212;more so, perhaps, than you think. Your
+  rifle&#39;s a capital good one.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>At these last words the men all looked up, and threw a keen
+  enquiring glance at Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You might be of great service,&quot; continued the judge
+  encouragingly, &quot;to the country and to your fellow-citizens.
+  You&#39;re worth a dozen Mexicans any day.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>While the judge was speaking, Bob let his head fall on his breast,
+  and seemed reflecting. He now looked up.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I understand, squire; I see what you&#39;re drivin&#39; at.
+  But I can&#39;t do it&#8212;I can&#39;t wait so long. My life&#39;s a
+  burthen and a sufferin&#39; to me. Wherever I go, by day or by night,
+  he&#39;s always there, standin&#39; before me, and drivin&#39; me
+  under the Patriarch.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>There was a pause of some duration. The Judge resumed.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;So be it, then,&quot; said he with a sort of suppressed
+  sigh. &quot;We&#39;ll see the body to-day, Bob, and you may come
+  to-morrow at ten o&#39;clock.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Couldn&#39;t it be sooner?&quot; asked Bob impatiently.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Why sooner? Are you in such a hurry?&quot; asked Mr
+  Heart.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What&#39;s the use of palaverin&#39;?&quot; said Bob
+  sulkily. &quot;I told you already I&#39;m sick of my life. If you
+  don&#39;t come till ten o&#39;clock, by the time you&#39;ve had your
+  talk out and ridden to the Patriarch, the fever&#39;ll be upon
+  me.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;But we can&#39;t be flying about like a parcel of wild
+  geese, because of your fever,&quot; said the procurador.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Certainly not,&quot; said Bob humbly.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It&#39;s an ugly customer the fever, though, Mr Whyte,&quot;
+  observed Mr Trace; &quot;and I calculate we ought to do him that
+  pleasure. What do you think, squire?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I reckon he&#39;s rather indiscreet in his
+  askin&#39;s,&quot; said the judge, in a tone of <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_795" id="Page_795">[Pg 795]</a></span>
+  vexation. &quot;However, as he wishes it, and if it is agreeable to
+  you,&quot; added he, turning to the Ayuntamiento; &quot;and as
+  it&#39;s you, Bob, I calculate we must do what you ask.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Thankee,&quot; said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Nothing to thank for,&quot; growled the judge. &quot;And now
+  go into the kitchen and get a good meal of roast beef, d&#39;ye
+  hear?&quot; He knocked upon the table. &quot;Some good roast beef for
+  Bob,&quot; said he to a negress who entered; &quot;and see that he
+  eats it. And get your self dressed more decently, Bob&#8212;like a
+  white man and a Christian, not like a wild redskin.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The negress and Bob left the room. The conversation now turned
+  upon Johnny, who appeared, from all accounts, to be a very bad and
+  dangerous fellow; and after a short discussion, they agreed to lynch
+  him, in backwoodsman&#39;s phrase, just as cooly as if they had been
+  talking of catching a mustang. When the men had come to this
+  satisfactory conclusion, they got up, drank the judge&#39;s health
+  and mine, shook us by the hand, and left the house.</p>
+
+  <p>The day passed more heavily than the preceding one. I was too much
+  engrossed with the strange scene I had witnessed to talk much. The
+  judge, too, was in a very bad humour. He was vexed that a man should
+  be hung who might render the country much and good service if he
+  remained alive. That Johnny, the miserable, cowardly, treacherous
+  Johnny, should be sent out of the world as quickly as possible, was
+  perfectly correct, but with Bob it was very different. In vain did I
+  remind him of the crime of which Bob had been guilty&#8212;of the
+  outraged laws of God and man&#8212;and of the atonement due. It was
+  of no use. If Bob had sinned against society, he could repair his
+  fault much better by remaining alive than by being hung; and, for
+  anything else, God would avenge it in his own good time. We parted
+  for the night, neither of us convinced by the other&#39;s
+  arguments.</p>
+
+  <p>We were sitting at breakfast the next morning, when a man, dressed
+  in black, rode up to the door. It was Bob, but so metamorphosed that
+  I scarcely knew him. Instead of the torn and bloodstained
+  handkerchief round his head, he wore a hat; instead of the leathern
+  jacket, a decent cloth coat. He had shaved off his beard too, and
+  looked quite another man. His manner had altered with his dress; he
+  seemed tranquil and resigned. With a mild and submissive look, he
+  held out his hand to the judge, who took it and shook it
+  heartily.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah, Bob!&quot; said he, &quot;if you had only listened to
+  what I so often told you! I had those clothes brought on purpose from
+  New Orleans, in order that, on Sundays at least, you might look like
+  a decent and respectable man. How often have I asked you to put them
+  on, and come with us to meeting, to hear Mr Bliss preach? There is
+  same truth in the saying, the coat makes the man. With his Sunday
+  coat, a man often puts on other and better thoughts. If that had been
+  your case only fifty-two times in the year, you&#39;d have learned to
+  avoid Johnny before now.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob said nothing.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Well, well! I&#39;ve done all I could to make a better men
+  of you. All that was in my power.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;That you have,&quot; answered Bob, much moved. &quot;God
+  reward you for it!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I could not help holding out my hand to the worthy judge; and as I
+  did so I thought I saw a moistness in his eye, which he suppressed,
+  however, and, turning to his breakfast table, bade us sit down. Bob
+  thanked him humbly, but declined, saying that he wished to appear
+  fasting before his offended Creator. The judge insisted, and reasoned
+  with him, and at last he took a chair.</p>
+
+  <p>Before we had done breakfast our friends of the preceding day
+  began to drop in, and some of them joined at the meal. When they had
+  all taken what they chose, the judge ordered the negroes to clear
+  away, and leave the room. This done, he seated himself at the upper
+  end of the table, with the Ayuntamiento on either side, and Bob
+  facing him.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Mr Whyte,&quot; said the Alcade, &quot;have you, as
+  procurador, any thing to state?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yes, Alcalde,&quot; replied the procurador. &quot;In virtue
+  of my office, I made a search in the place mentioned by Bob Rock, and
+  there found the body of a man who had met his death by a gunshot
+  wound. I also found a belt full of money, and several letters of
+  recommendation to different planters, <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_796" id="Page_796">[Pg 796]</a></span> from which it appears
+  that the man was on his way from Illinois to San Felipe, in order to
+  buy land of Colonel Austin, and to settle in Texas.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The procurador then produced a pair of saddle-bags, out of which
+  he took a leathern belt stuffed with money, which he laid on the
+  table, together with the letters. The judge opened the belt, and
+  counted the money. It amounted to upwards of five hundred dollars, in
+  gold and silver. The procurador then read the letters.</p>
+
+  <p>One of the corregidors now announced that Johnny and his mulatto
+  had left their house and fled. He, the corregidor, had sent people in
+  pursuit of them; but as yet there were no tidings of their capture.
+  This piece of intelligence seemed to vex the judge greatly, but he
+  made no remark on it at the time.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Bob Rock!&quot; cried he.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob stepped forward.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Bob Rock, or by whatever other name you may be known, are
+  you guilty or not guilty of this man&#39;s death?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Guilty!&quot; replied Bob, in a low tone.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Gentlemen of the jury, will you be pleased to give your
+  verdict?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The jury left the room. In ten minutes they returned.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Guilty!&quot; said the foreman.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Bob Rock,&quot; said the judge solemnly, &quot;your
+  fellow-citizens have found you guilty; and I pronounce the
+  sentence&#8212;that you be hung by the neck until you are dead. The
+  Lord be merciful to your soul!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Amen!&quot; said all present.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Thank ye,&quot; murmured Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;We will seal up the property of the deceased,&quot; said the
+  judge, &quot;and then proceed to our painful duty.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>He called for a light, and he and the procurador and corregidors
+  sealed up the papers and money.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Has any one aught to allege why the sentence should not be
+  put in execution?&quot; said the Alcalde, with a glance at me.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;He saved my life, judge and fellow-citizens,&quot; cried I,
+  deeply moved.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob shook his head mournfully.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Let us go, then, in God&#39;s name,&quot; said the
+  judge.</p>
+
+  <p>Without another word being spoken, we left the house and mounted
+  our horses. The judge had brought a Bible with him; and he rode on, a
+  little in front, with Bob, doing his best to prepare him for the
+  eternity to which he was hastening. Bob listened attentively for some
+  time; but at last he seemed to get impatient and pushed his mustang
+  into so fast a trot, that for a moment we suspected him of wishing to
+  escape the doom he had so eagerly sought. But it was only that he
+  feared the fever might return before the expiration of the short time
+  he yet had to live.</p>
+
+  <p>After an hour&#39;s ride, we came to the enormous live oak
+  distinguished as <i>the Patriarch</i>. Two or three of the men
+  dismounted, and held aside the heavy moss-covered branches which
+  swept the ground, and formed a complete curtain round the tree. The
+  party rode through the opening thus made, and drew up in a circle
+  beneath the huge leafy dome. In the centre of this ring stood Bob,
+  trembling like an aspen-leaf, and with his eyes fixed on a small
+  mound of fresh earth, partly concealed by the branches, and which had
+  escaped my notice on my former visit to the tree. It was the grave of
+  the murdered man.</p>
+
+  <p>A magnificent burial-place was that: no poet could have dreamt or
+  desired a better. Above, the huge vault, with its natural frettings
+  and arches; below, the greenest, freshest grass; around, an eternal
+  half light, streaked and varied, and radiant as a rainbow. It was
+  imposingly beautiful.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob, the judge, and the corregidors, remained sitting on their
+  horses, but several of the other men dismounted. One of the latter
+  cut the lasso from Bob&#39;s saddle, and threw an end of it over one
+  of the lowermost branches; then uniting the two ends, formed them
+  into a strong noose, which he left dangling from the bough. This
+  simple preparation completed, the Alcalde took off his hat and folded
+  his hands. The others followed his example.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Bob!&quot; said the judge to the unfortunate criminal, whose
+  head was bowed on his horse&#39;s mane; &quot;Bob! we will pray for
+  your poor soul, which is about to part from your sinful
+  body.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob raised his head. &quot;I had something to say,&quot; exclaimed
+  he, in a wondering and husky tone. &quot;Something I wanted to
+  say.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What have you to say?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>Bob stared around him; his lips <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_797" id="Page_797">[Pg 797]</a></span> moved, but no word
+  escaped him. His spirit was evidently no longer with things of this
+  earth.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Bob!&quot; said the judge again, &quot;we will pray for your
+  soul.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Pray! pray!&quot; groaned he. &quot;I shall need
+  it.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>In slow and solemn accents, and with great feeling, the judge
+  uttered the Lord&#39;s Prayer. Bob repeated every word after him.
+  When it was ended&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;God be merciful to your soul!&quot; exclaimed the judge.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Amen!&quot; said all present.</p>
+
+  <p>One of the corregidors now passed the noose of the lasso round
+  Bob&#39;s neck, another bound his eyes, a third person drew his feet
+  out of the stirrups, while a fourth stepped behind his horse with a
+  heavy riding-whip. All was done in the deepest silence; not a word
+  was breathed; not a footfall heard on the soft yielding turf. There
+  was something awful and oppressive in the profound stillness that
+  reigned in the vast enclosure.</p>
+
+  <p>The whip fell. The horse gave a spring forwards. At the same
+  moment Bob made a desperate clutch at the bridle, and a loud
+  &quot;Hold!&quot; burst in thrilling tones from the lips of the
+  judge.</p>
+
+  <p>It was too late, Bob was already hanging. The judge pushed
+  forward, nearly riding down the man who held the whip, and seizing
+  Bob in his arms, raised him on his own horse, supporting him with one
+  hand, while with the other he strove to unfasten the noose. His whole
+  gigantic frame trembled with eagerness and exertion. The procurador,
+  corregidors, all, in short, stood in open-mouthed wonder at this
+  strange proceeding.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Whisky! whisky! has nobody any whisky?&quot; shouted the
+  judge.</p>
+
+  <p>One of the men sprang forward with a whisky-flask, another
+  supported the body, and a third the feet, of the half-hanged man,
+  while the judge poured a few drops of spirits into his mouth. The
+  cravat, which had not been taken off, had hindered the breaking of
+  the neck. Bob at last opened his eyes, and gazed vacantly around
+  him.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Bob,&quot; said the judge, &quot;you had something to say,
+  hadn&#39;t you, about Johnny?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Johnny,&quot; gasped Bob; &quot;Johnny.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What&#39;s become of him?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;He&#39;s gone to San Antonio, Johnny.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;To San Antonio!&quot; repeated the judge, with an expression
+  of great alarm overspreading his features.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;To San Antonio&#8212;to Padre José,&quot; continued Bob;
+  &quot;a Catholic. Beware!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;A traitor, then!&quot; muttered several.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Catholic!&quot; exclaimed the judge. The words he had heard
+  seemed to deprive him of all strength. His arms fell slowly and
+  gradually by his side, and Bob was again hanging from the lasso.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;A Catholic! a traitor!&quot; repeated several of the men;
+  &quot;a citizen and a traitor!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;So it is, men!&quot; exclaimed the judge. &quot;We&#39;ve no
+  time to lose,&quot; continued he, in a harsh, hurried voice; &quot;no
+  time to lose; we must catch him.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;That must we,&quot; said several voices, &quot;or our plans
+  are betrayed to the Mexicans.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;After him immediately to San Antonio!&quot; cried the judge
+  with the same desperately hurried manner.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;To San Antonio!&quot; repeated the men, pushing their way
+  through the curtain of moss and branches. As soon as they were
+  outside, those who were dismounted sprang into the saddle, and,
+  without another word, the whole party galloped away in the direction
+  of San Antonio.</p>
+
+  <p>The judge alone remained, seemingly lost in thought; his
+  countenance pale and anxious, and his eyes following the riders. His
+  reverie, however, had lasted but a very few seconds, when he seized
+  my arm.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Hasten to my house,&quot; cried he; &quot;lose no time,
+  don&#39;t spare horse-flesh. Take Ptoly and a fresh beast; hurry over
+  to San Felipe, and tell Stephen Austin what has happened, and what
+  you have seen and heard.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;But, judge&quot;&#8212;&#8212;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Off with you at once, if you would do Texas a service. Bring
+  my wife and daughter back.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>And so saying, he literally drove me from under the tree, pushing
+  me out with hands and feet. I was so startled at the expression of
+  violent impatience and anxiety which his features assumed, that,
+  without venturing to make further objection, I struck the spurs into
+  my mustang and galloped off.</p>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_798" id="Page_798">[Pg
+  798]</a></span></p>
+
+  <p>Before I had got fifty yards from the tree, I looked round. The
+  judge had disappeared.</p>
+
+  <p>I rode full speed to the judge&#39;s house, and thence on a fresh
+  horse to San Felipe, where I found Colonel Austin, who seemed much
+  alarmed by the news I brought him, had horses saddled, and sent round
+  to all the neighbours. Before the wife and step-daughter of the judge
+  had made their preparations to accompany me home, he started with
+  fifty armed men in the direction of San Antonio.</p>
+
+  <p>I escorted the ladies to their house, but scarcely had we arrived
+  there, when I was seized with a fever, the result of my recent
+  fatigues and sufferings. For some days my life was in danger, but at
+  last a good constitution, and the kindest and most watchful nursing,
+  triumphed over the disease. As soon as I was able to mount a horse, I
+  set out for Mr Neal&#39;s plantation, in company with his huntsman
+  Anthony, who, after spending many days, and riding over hundreds of
+  miles of ground in quest of me, had at last found me out.</p>
+
+  <p>Our way led up past the Patriarch, and, as we approached it, we
+  saw innumerable birds of prey, and carrion crows circling round it,
+  croaking and screaming. I turned my eyes in another direction; but,
+  nevertheless, I felt a strange sort of longing to revisit the tree.
+  Anthony had ridden on, and was already hidden from view behind its
+  branches. Presently I heard him give a loud shout of exultation. I
+  jumped off my horse, and led it through a small opening in the
+  leafage.</p>
+
+  <p>Some forty paces from me the body of a man was hanging by a lasso
+  from the very same branch on which Bob had been hung. It was not Bob,
+  however, for the corpse was much too short and small for him.</p>
+
+  <p>I drew nearer. &quot;Johnny!&quot; I exclaimed &quot;That&#39;s
+  Johnny!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;It <i>was</i>,&quot; answered Anthony. &quot;Thank Heaven,
+  there&#39;s an end of him!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I shuddered. &quot;But where is Bob?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Bob?&quot; cried Anthony. &quot;Bob!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>He glanced towards the grave. The mound of earth seemed to me
+  larger and higher than when I had last seen it. Doubtless the
+  murderer lay beside his victim.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Shall we not render the last service to this wretch,
+  Anthony?&quot; asked I.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;The scoundrel!&quot; answered the huntsman. &quot;I
+  won&#39;t dirty my hands with him. Let him poison the kites and the
+  crows!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>We rode on.</p>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_798b" id=
+  "Page_798b"></a></span></p>
+
+  <h2><a name="DEATH_FROM_THE_STING_OF_A_SERPENT" id=
+  "DEATH_FROM_THE_STING_OF_A_SERPENT"></a>DEATH FROM THE STING OF A
+  SERPENT.</h2>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i6">As when a monstrous snake, with flaming
+      crest,</span> <span class="i6">Some wretch within its glittering
+      folds has press&#39;d&#8212;</span> <span class="i6">He vainly
+      struggles to escape its fangs,</span> <span class="i6">The
+      reptile triumphs, and the victim hangs</span> <span class=
+      "i6">His head in agony, and bending low,</span> <span class=
+      "i6">Feels the cursed venom through his life-blood flow.</span>
+      <span class="i6">On through his veins the burning poison
+      speeds,</span> <span class="i6">Drinks up his spirit&#8212;on his
+      vitals feeds,</span> <span class="i6">Till, tortured life
+      extinct, the senseless clay</span> <span class="i6">In hideous
+      dissolution melts away.</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div>
+    <span style="margin-left: 42em;">M. J.</span>
+  </div>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_799" id="Page_799">[Pg
+  799]</a></span></p>
+
+  <h2><a name="GIFTS_OF_TEREK" id="GIFTS_OF_TEREK"></a>GIFTS OF
+  TÉREK.</h2>
+
+  <h3>TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF LERMONTOFF. BY T. B. SHAW.</h3>
+
+  <div>
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Térek<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id=
+    "FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class=
+    "fnanchor">[21]</a> bellows, wildly sweeping</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Past the cliffs, so swift and
+    strong;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Like a tempest is his
+    weeping,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Flies his spray like tears
+    along.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">O&#39;er the steppe now slowly
+    veering&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Calm but faithless looketh
+    he&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">With a voice of love
+    endearing</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Murmurs to the Caspian
+    sea:</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">&quot;Give me way, old sea! I
+    greet thee;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Give me refuge in thy
+    breast;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Far and fast I&#39;ve rush&#39;d
+    to meet thee&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">It is tine for me to
+    rest.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Cradled in Kazbék, and
+    cherish&#39;d</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">From the bosom of the
+    cloud,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Strong am I, and all have
+    perish&#39;d</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Who would stop my current
+    proud.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">For thy sons&#39; delight, O
+    Ocean!</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">I&#39;ve crush&#39;d the crags of
+    Dariál,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Onward my resistless
+    motion,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Like a flock, hath swept them
+    all.&quot;</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Still on his smooth shore
+    reclining,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Lay the Caspian as in
+    sleep;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">While the Térek, softly
+    shining,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">To the old sea murmur&#39;d
+    deep:&#8212;</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">&quot;Lo! a gift upon my
+    water&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Lo! no common
+    offering&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Floating from the field of
+    slaughter,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">A Kabárdinetz<a name=
+    "FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22"
+    class="fnanchor">[22]</a> I bring.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">All in shining mail he&#39;s
+    shrouded&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Plates of steel his arms
+    enfold;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Blood the Koran verse hath
+    clouded,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">That thereon is writ in
+    gold:</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">His pale brow is sternly
+    bended&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Gory stains his wreathed lip
+    dye&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Valiant blood, and
+    far-descended&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">&#39;Tis the hue of
+    victory!</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Wild his eyes, yet nought he
+    noteth;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">With an ancient hate they
+    glare:</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Backward on the billow
+    floateth,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">All disorderly, his
+    hair.&quot;</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Still the Caspian, calm
+    reclining,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Seems to slumber on his
+    shore;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">And impetuous Térek,
+    shining,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Murmurs in his ear once
+    more:&#8212;</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">&quot;Father, hark! a priceless
+    treasure&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Other gifts are poor to
+    this&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_800" id="Page_800">[Pg
+    800]</a></span> <span style="margin-left: 20em;">I have hid, to do
+    thee pleasure&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">I have hid in my
+    abyss!</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Lo! a corse my wave doth
+    pillow&#8212;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">A Kazáichka<a name=
+    "FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23"
+    class="fnanchor">[23]</a> young and fair.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Darkly pale upon the
+    billow</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Gleams her breast and golden
+    hair;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Very sad her pale brow
+    gleameth,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">And her eyes are closed in
+    sleep;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">From her bosom ever
+    seemeth</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">A thin purple stream to
+    creep.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">By my water, calm and
+    lonely,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">For the maid that comes not
+    back,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Of the whole Stanilza,<a name=
+    "FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24"
+    class="fnanchor">[24]</a> only</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Mourns a Grébenskoi
+    Kazák.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">&quot;Swift on his black steed he
+    hieth;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">To the mountains he is
+    sped.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">&#39;Neath Tchetchén&#39;s
+    kinjál<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href=
+    "#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> now lieth,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Low in dust, that youthful
+    head.&quot;</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Silent then was that wild
+    river;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">And afar, as white as
+    snow,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">A fair head was seen to
+    quiver</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">In the ripple, to and
+    fro.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">In his might the ancient
+    ocean,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Like a tempest, &#39;gan
+    arise;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">And the light of soft
+    emotion</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Glimmer&#39;d in his dark-blue
+    eyes;</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">And he play&#39;d, with rapture
+    flushing,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">And in his embraces
+    bright,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">Clasp&#39;d the stream, to meet
+    him rushing</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 20em;">With a murmur of
+    delight.</span><br />
+    <br />
+  </div>
+
+  <div class="footnotes">
+    <h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> A river
+      which, rising on the eastern side of the ridge of the Caucasus,
+      falls, after a rapid and impetuous course, into the Caspian, near
+      Anápa.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a>A
+      mountaineer of the tribe of Kabárda.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a>A Kazák
+      girl.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a>Village of
+      Kazáks.</p>
+    </div>
+
+    <div class="footnote">
+      <p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href=
+      "#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Kinjál, a
+      large dagger, the favourite weapon of the mountain tribes of the
+      Caucasus, among which the Tchetchénetzes are distinguished for
+      bravery.</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_801" id="Page_801">[Pg
+  801]</a></span></p>
+
+  <h2><a name="MARSTON_OR_THE_MEMOIRS_OF_A_STATESMAN" id=
+  "MARSTON_OR_THE_MEMOIRS_OF_A_STATESMAN"></a>MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS
+  OF A STATESMAN.</h2>
+
+  <h3>PART VI.</h3>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <span class="i0">&quot;Have I not in my time heard lions
+      roar?</span> <span class="i0">Have I not heard the sea, puft up
+      with wind,</span> <span class="i0">Rage like an angry boar chafed
+      with sweat?</span> <span class="i0">Have I not heard great
+      ordnance in the field,</span> <span class="i0">And heaven&#39;s
+      artillery thunder in the skies?</span> <span class="i0">Have I
+      not in the pitched battle heard</span> <span class="i0">Loud
+      &#39;larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?&quot;</span>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+
+  <div>
+    <span style="margin-left: 32em;"><span class=
+    'smcap'>Shakspeare</span>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>My first questions to Lafontaine, when I had his wound looked to,
+  were of course for those whom he had left in England.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah, ha!&quot; said he with a laugh, which showed the
+  inextinguishable Frenchman, &quot;are you constant still? Well, then,
+  Madame la Comtesse is constant too; but it is to her boudoir, or the
+  gaieties of Devonshire House, or perhaps to her abhorrence of
+  Monsieur le Mari.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Le Mari!&quot; I repeated the words with an involuntary
+  start.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Bah! &#39;tis all the same. She is affianced, and among us
+  that tie is quite as legitimate as marriage, and, our libellers say,
+  a little stronger. But they certainly are <i>not</i> married yet, for
+  Mademoiselle Clotilde either is, or affects, the invalid; and
+  considering the probability that she abhors the man and the match, I
+  think, on the whole, that she acts diplomatically in informing the
+  vainest colonel, in or out of France, that she is sick of any thing
+  rather than of him.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;But your Mariamne&#8212;how go on your interests
+  there?&quot; The question brought a smile and a sigh together, before
+  he could find an answer.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;How she is, what she is doing, or intends to do, or even
+  what she is, are matters that I can no more answer than I can why the
+  wind blows. She torments me, and takes a delight in tormenting me. I
+  have been on the point of throwing up my commission a hundred times
+  since I saw you, and flying to America, or the world&#39;s end. She
+  controls me in every thing, insists on knowing all my movements from
+  hour to hour, finds them out when I attempt to conceal them as matter
+  of duty, tortures me for the concealment, and then laughs at me for
+  the confession. She is intolerable.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;And yet you have obtained a lengthening of your chain, or
+  how come here? How long have you been in Paris?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Just two days; and busy ones, or I should have found you out
+  before. Yes, I had Mariamne&#39;s full permission to come; though to
+  this moment I cannot account for the change. I had received a sudden
+  order from Montrecour, who is deep in the emigrant affairs, to set
+  out with letters which could not be sent by the courier. But I dared
+  not leave London without asking <i>her</i> permission; and I
+  acknowledge asking her at the same time to run away with me, and give
+  herself a lawful title to be my tyrant for life. Applying to Mordecai
+  was out of the question. Her answer was immediate; contemptuous in
+  the extreme as to my proposal, yet almost urgent on me to accept the
+  mission, and lose no time between London and Paris. Her postscript
+  was the oddest part of all. It was a grave recommendation to discover
+  <i>you</i>, in whatever height or depth of the capital you might
+  exist; whether you figured in the court or the cloister; were the
+  idol of the maids of honour, or the model of the monks of La Trappe;
+  to remind you that you had forgotten every body on the other side of
+  the Channel who was worth remembering, including herself; and
+  commending <i>me</i>, as a truant and a trifler, to your especial,
+  grave, and experienced protection. Apropos! She sent me a letter, to
+  be delivered to you with my own hands. But for yourself it had nearly
+  failed in the delivery.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>He gave me the letter. It was, like the writer, a pretty
+  <i>melange</i>; trifles gracefully expressed; strong sense expressed
+  like trifles; feeling carried off with a laugh; and palpable and fond
+  anxiety for Lafontaine couched in the most merciless badinage. While
+  I gave this missive a second, and even <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_802" id="Page_802">[Pg 802]</a></span> a third
+  perusal&#8212;for it finished with some gentle mention of the being
+  whose name was a charm to my wearied spirit&#8212;my eyes
+  accidentally fell on Lafontaine. His were fixed on me with an
+  expression of inconceivable distress. At length his generous nature
+  broke forth.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Marston, if I were capable of jealousy, I should be jealous
+  of <i>you</i> and of Mariamne. What <i>can</i> be the caprice which
+  dictated that letter? what <i>can</i> be the interest which you
+  evidently take in it? I wish that the bullet which laid me at your
+  door this evening had finished its work, and put an end to an
+  existence which has been a perpetual fever. I shall not ask
+  <i>what</i> Mariamne has said to you&#8212;but <i>I</i> am
+  miserable.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yes, but you <i>shall</i> ask, and shall have all you
+  ask,&quot; said I, giving him the letter. &quot;It is the language of
+  the heart, and of a heart strongly attached to <i>you</i>. I can see
+  affection in every line of it. Of course she mingles a little
+  coquetry with her sentiment; but was there ever a pretty woman, who
+  was not more or less a coquette? She is a gem: never think it the
+  less pure because it sparkles. Rely upon your little
+  Mariamne.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Then <i>you</i> have no sincere regard for her&#8212;no wish
+  to interfere with my claims?&quot; said my pallid friend, dubiously
+  extending his hand towards me.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Lafontaine, listen to me, and for the last time on the
+  subject. I have a very sincere regard for her.&quot; (My sensitive
+  auditor started.) &quot;But, I have also a perfect respect for your
+  claims. It is impossible not to acknowledge the animated graces of
+  the lady on whom you have fixed your affections. But mine are fixed
+  where I have neither hope to sustain them, nor power to
+  change.&#8212;Those matters have nothing to do with choice. They are
+  effects without a cause, judgments without a reason, influences
+  without an impulse&#8212;the problems of our nature, without a
+  solution since the beginning of the world.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;But, Marston, you will only laugh at me for all my
+  troubles.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Lafontaine, I shall do no such thing. Those pains and
+  penalties have been the lot of some of the noblest hearts and most
+  powerful minds that the earth has ever seen; and have been most
+  keenly felt by the noblest and the most powerful. The poet only tells
+  the truth more gracefully when he says&#8212;</p>
+
+  <div>
+    <span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&quot;&#39;The spell of all
+    spells that enamours the heart,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">To few is imparted, to millions
+    denied;</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">&#39;Tis the brain of the victim
+    that poisons the dart,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">And fools jest at that by which
+    sages have died.&#39;</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>&quot;But now, my friend, let us talk of other things. We must not
+  sink into a pair of sentimentalists; these are terrible times. And
+  now, tell me what brought you out of quiet England among our madmen
+  here?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I may now tell all the world,&quot; was the reply, &quot;for
+  the evil is done beyond remedy. I was sent by our friends in London,
+  to carry the last warning to the royal family of all that has
+  happened this day. My papers contained the most exact details, the
+  names of the leaders, their objects, their points of assembling, and
+  even their points of attack. Those were furnished, as you may
+  conceive, by one of the principal conspirators; a fellow whom I
+  afterwards saw on horseback in front of the Tuileries, and whom, I
+  think, I had the satisfaction of dismounting by a shot from my
+  carbine.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I mentioned the fruitlessness of my own efforts to awake the
+  ministry.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Ah,&quot; said he, with a melancholy smile, &quot;my friend,
+  if you had been admitted into the palace, or into the council-chamber
+  itself, you would have had precisely the same tale to tell. All was
+  infatuation. I was ushered into the highest presence last midnight.
+  My despatches were read. I was complimented on my zeal, and then was
+  told that every thing was provided for. I was even closeted for two
+  hours with the two individuals who, of all France, or of all mankind,
+  had the largest stake in the crisis, and was again told that there
+  was no crisis to be feared. I even offered to take a squadron of
+  dragoons, and arrest the conspirators at the moment with my own hand.
+  I saw the eyes of the noblest of women fill with tears of grief and
+  indignation at the hopelessness of <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_803" id="Page_803">[Pg 803]</a></span> my appeal, and the
+  answer, &#39;that though Frenchmen might hate the ministers, they
+  always loved their king.&#39; I saw that all was over.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Still,&quot; said I, &quot;I cannot comprehend how the mere
+  mob of Paris could have succeeded against the defenders of the
+  palace.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;If you had seen it as I did, the only wonder is, how the
+  Tuileries held out so long. After passing a night on guard at the
+  Pavilon de Flore, I was summoned at daybreak to attend his majesty.
+  What a staff for a reviewing monarch! The queen endeavouring to
+  support the appearance of calmness; Madame Elizabeth, that human
+  angel, following her, dissolved in tears; the two royal children,
+  weeping and frightened, making their way through the crowd of nobles,
+  guardsmen, domestics who had gathered promiscuously in the chambers
+  and corridors, armed with whatever weapons they could find, and all
+  in confusion. From the windows there was another scene; and the only
+  time when I saw the queen shudder, was when she cast her eye across
+  the Place du Carrousel, and saw it covered with the dense masses of
+  the multitude drawn up in battle-array. A more gloomy sight never met
+  the eye. From time to time the distant discharge of cannon was heard,
+  giving us the idea that some treachery was transacting in the remoter
+  parts of the city, every discharge answered by a roar
+  of&#8212;&#39;Down with the King&#39;&#8212;&#39;Death to Marie
+  Antoinette&#39;&#8212;&#39;The lamp-iron to all traitors.&#39; While,
+  as I glanced on those around me, I saw despair in every countenance;
+  the resolution perhaps to die, but the evident belief that their
+  death must be in vain. You now know all.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I still expressed my strong anxiety to know what had been the
+  events within the palace.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Marston, I cannot think of them. I cannot speak of them. I
+  see nothing but a vision of blood, shame, folly, wretchedness. There
+  never was a cause more fatally abandoned. Every thing that could be
+  done to ruin a monarchy was done. I was standing beside the royal
+  group, when a deputation from the National Assembly made its
+  appearance. At its head was a meagre villain, whom one might have
+  taken for the public executioner. He came up, cringing and bowing, to
+  the unfortunate king; but with a look which visibly said&#8212;We
+  have you in our power. I could have plunged my sword in the
+  triumphant villain&#39;s heart. I had even instinctively half drawn
+  it, when I felt the gentle pressure of a hand on mine. It was the
+  queen&#39;s. &#39;Remember the king&#39;s presence. We must owe
+  nothing to violence,&#39; were her words. And at this instant she
+  looked so heart-broken, yet so noble, that I could have worshipped
+  her. The deputation pressed the necessity of &#39;taking
+  shelter,&#39; as they phrased it, &#39;in the bosom of the faithful
+  Assembly.&#39; The words, &#39;assembly of traitors,&#39; burst from
+  my lips. A shout of approbation arose on all sides. But I was more
+  rewarded by a sorrowing smile from the queen. She was indignant at
+  the proposal. &#39;No; never shall I leave this spot but by the
+  king&#39;s command!&#39; she exclaimed. &#39;I would rather be
+  chained to the walls.&#39; As the guard pressed round her at the
+  words, she suddenly stopped, took a pistol from one of the Garde du
+  Corps, and forcing it on the king&#8212;&#39;Now,&#39; said the
+  heroine&#8212;&#39;now is the time to show yourself a king of
+  France!&#39; An universal cry of enthusiasm arose, and hundreds of
+  swords were brandished in the air. The deputation, evidently
+  expecting to be massacred, made an effort to reach the door, and the
+  monarchy was on the point of being saved; when the leader of the
+  party glanced back at the royal circle. There stood unfortunate
+  Louis, hesitating, with the pistol in his hand. On such moments all
+  depends. The villain crept up to the king, and whispered in his
+  ear&#8212;&#39;Would you have all your family put to death? In the
+  Assembly all are safe.&#39;&#8212;&#39;Well, then, we shall go,&#39;
+  was the simple answer. He might have added&#8212;&#39;To the
+  scaffold.&#39; The queen pressed her hands on her eyes, and wept
+  bitterly. All were silent. In a few minutes more our sad procession
+  was crossing the garden to the door of the Assembly, amid a roar,
+  which could not have been fiercer or more triumphant had we been
+  going to execution.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>It was already twilight; the fine summer&#39;s day, as if it had
+  been dimmed by the desperate scenes of which it was witness, set in
+  sudden clouds; and the distant shoutings of the populace <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_804" id="Page_804">[Pg 804]</a></span> seemed
+  to be answered by the voice of a storm. Lafontaine&#39;s wound began
+  to bleed afresh by the agitation of his story, and to find medical
+  assistance, was my first object. Having seen him conveyed to my bed,
+  and leaving him in charge of my valet, I hastened towards the
+  residence of the physician to the embassy. In doing this, I had to
+  cross the Rue St Honoré. But there my course was stopped. I shrink
+  from alluding to those horrid scenes and times. The scene which there
+  met my eyes has scarcely left them since.</p>
+
+  <p>The populace were returning from the conquest and plunder of the
+  palace to the Palais Royale, the headquarters of all convulsion; and
+  they had arranged their ranks into something like a triumphal
+  procession on the stage. The dead bodies of the brave Swiss were
+  carried on boards or biers, preceded by banners of all kinds; the
+  plundered ornaments of the Tuileries were borne on the heads of men;
+  the horses from the royal stables, caparisoned for the occasion, drew
+  hearses, in which the bodies of the mob who had fallen were
+  deposited. Brief as the time for decoration had been, wreaths of
+  artificial flowers, taken from the shops of the <i>marchandes de
+  modes</i>, and theatrical shawls and mantles from the stores of the
+  <i>fripiers</i>, covered the biers; and the whole, surrounded and
+  followed by a forest of pikes and bayonets, plumes and flags, had no
+  other light than the lurid and shifting blaze of thousands of torches
+  tossing in the wild and howling wind.</p>
+
+  <p>The train seemed endless; shocked and sickened, I had made
+  repeated efforts to cross the column, but was repeatedly driven back.
+  If all the dead criminality of Paris had risen to join all the
+  living, it could scarcely have increased my astonishment at the
+  countless thousands which continued to pour on before me; nor
+  scarcely, if the procession had started from the grave, could it have
+  looked more strange, squalid, haggard, and woebegone. In the rear
+  came the cannon, which had achieved this melancholy victory. And
+  they, again, were sometimes converted into the carriage of the dead,
+  sometimes of the plunder, and, in every instance, were surmounted by
+  women, female furies, drinking, shouting, and uttering cries of
+  unspeakable savageness and blasphemy against priests, nobles, and
+  kings; and, mingled with all this, were choruses of bacchanal songs,
+  accompanied with shouts of laughter. It was now near midnight; and my
+  anxiety for the condition of my unfortunate friend at last urged me
+  to make a desperate attempt to force my way through the mass of pikes
+  and daggers. After being swept far along with the stream, I reached
+  the street in which the physician lived. He set out with me
+  immediately, and, by his superior knowledge of the route, we were
+  enabled to make our way unimpeded through streets, that looked like
+  dens of robbers, to my hotel.</p>
+
+  <p>But there a new and still more alarming disappointment awaited me.
+  I found the porter and all the attendants of the establishment
+  gathered on the stairs in terror. Lafontaine was gone! Whether,
+  frenzied by the insults and yells of the populace, who continued to
+  pass in troops from time to time, or anxious for my safety, he had
+  started from his bed, put on his sword, and rushed into the street;
+  without the possibility of being restrained, and without uttering a
+  word of explanation.</p>
+
+  <p>Exhausted as I was by fatigue, and still more by the sights and
+  scenes through which I had just passed, this intelligence was a
+  severe blow. The fate of a young enthusiast, and a foreigner, whom I
+  had known but so lately, and of whom I knew so little, might not have
+  justified much personal sacrifice. But the thought of the heart that
+  would be broken by his falling into the hands of the barbarians, who
+  were now masters of every thing, smote keenly upon me. Mariamne would
+  die; and though I was by no means a lover of Mariamne, yet, where I
+  had seen so much that was loveable, I might have a regard next in
+  degree. There may, and does often, exist the tenderness of love
+  without the flame. I could have looked on this pretty and animated
+  creature as the wife of Lafontaine, or of any other object of her
+  choice, without the slightest pang; but I could not have looked upon
+  her pining away in hopelessness, wasting in silent sorrow, or with
+  her gay and gentle existence clouded by a loss which nothing could
+  repair, without thinking every effort of mine to avert <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_805" id="Page_805">[Pg 805]</a></span> evil
+  from her, due on every principle of common feeling.</p>
+
+  <p>While I pondered, a note was brought to me, written by Lafontaine
+  before he had sallied from his chamber, and evidently written under
+  the wildest emotion. It told me, in a few scarcely legible words,
+  that he felt life a burden to him, and thanked Heaven for the
+  opportunity now offered of dying for his king and the glory of
+  France. That the monarchy had perished beyond redemption. But that,
+  though the royal family were surrounded by the poniards of assassins,
+  it was his determination to follow and find them, rescue them, or die
+  at their feet. This strange production closed with&#8212;&quot;You
+  shall hear of me within twenty four hours, living or dead. If I fall,
+  remember me to my affianced wife; and vindicate my character to the
+  world.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>This was so like insanity, that it perplexed me more and more;
+  but, on second thoughts, it appeared to offer some clue to his
+  pursuit.&#8212;He had gone to die in presence of the royal family. If
+  they were to be found by him at all, they must be found in the
+  Assembly. I immediately went to the garden of the Tuileries, where
+  they met until their new legislative palace should be erected. The
+  multitude had now partially retired, for it was midnight; and the
+  entrance was comparatively clear. A strong force of the National
+  Guard still kept the drunken rabble at a distance; and the five franc
+  piece, with which I tempted the incorruptibility of a peculiarly
+  ferocious-looking patriot, admitted me without delay.</p>
+
+  <p>What a scene there presented itself to my eyes! The
+  &quot;Salle&quot; was large and showy; and when I had attended it in
+  former debates, it exhibited the taste and skill which the French,
+  more than any other people on earth, exhibit in temporary things.
+  Nothing could exceed the elegance with which the Parisian decorators
+  had fitted up this silk and tinsel abode, which was to be superseded,
+  within a few months, by the solid majesty of marble. But, on this
+  memorable and melancholy night, the ornaments bore, to me, the look
+  of those sad frivolities with which France is fond of ornamenting her
+  tombs. The chandeliers burned dim; the busts and statues looked
+  ghostlike; the chief part of the members had thrown themselves
+  drowsily on the benches; and the debate had languished into the
+  murmurs of a speech, to which no one listened. If the loaded table,
+  with its pile of petitions and ordonnances, in the midst of the hall,
+  could have been imagined into a bier; the whole had the aspect of a
+  <i>chapelle ardente</i>; there, indeed, lay in state the monarchy of
+  France. My unlucky friend, of course, was not there; but I saw, in a
+  narrow box, on the right of the president, a group, from which, when
+  once seen, I found it impossible to withdraw my gaze&#8212;the first
+  and most exalted victims of the Revolution, the king and his family.
+  All but one were apparently overcome with fatigue; for they had sat
+  there fifteen hours. But that one sat with a steady eye and an erect
+  front, as if superior to all suffering. I had seen Marie Antoinette,
+  the most splendid figure, in all the splendours of her court. I had
+  seen her unshaken before vast popular assemblages, in which any rash
+  or ruffian hand might have taken her life at the instant; but she now
+  gave me an impression of a still higher order. Sitting in calm
+  resignation and unstained dignity, her stately form and countenance,
+  pale and pure as marble, looked like some noble statue on a tomb; or
+  rather, sitting in that chamber of death, like some pure spirit,
+  awaiting the summons to ascend from the relics of human guilt,
+  infirmity, and passion before her.</p>
+
+  <p>But the slumbers of the Assembly were soon to be broken. A tumult,
+  and the tramping of many feet, was heard at the door. It was followed
+  by the thunder of clubs and hammers breaking it in; the bars gave
+  way; the huissiers and other attendants rushed through the body of
+  the hall, and took refuge behind the chair of the president in
+  affright; the sleepers started from their seats; and, with a roar
+  which spoke the true supremacy of the new power in France, the mob
+  poured in. They announced themselves a deputation from the
+  Municipality, and instantly took possession of the benches. Men,
+  women, and even children, composed this barbarian invasion; like all
+  that I had seen, half intoxicated; but evidently trained by higher
+  hands for more determined evil. A chosen set of orators, in Roman
+  robes, probably plundered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_806"
+  id="Page_806">[Pg 806]</a></span> from some suburb theatre, moved
+  forward to the table, and took their seats round it in as much
+  solemnity as conscript fathers. The chief speaker then advanced from
+  the door, preceded by the head of one of the murdered Swiss on a
+  pike, a hideous spectacle, and, drawing from his belt a dagger,
+  commenced a furious harangue against every thing that bore the shape
+  of authority in the kingdom. The Assembly did not escape in the
+  general outpouring of its bitterness. They were charged with want of
+  zeal, with want of honesty, and, most formidable of all, want of
+  patriotism. I saw many a member cower at the word; for it was the
+  countersign of Jacobinism; and the man, on whom that charge was
+  personally fastened, was sure to fall by pistol or dagger. But the
+  rage of the harangue was levelled at the royal family. &quot;There
+  sits the tyrant!&quot; he exclaimed, pointing with his poniard to the
+  meekest of monarchs and of men. &quot;The vengeance of the people
+  calls for victims. How long shall it be insulted? If justice is
+  blind, tear the bandage from her eyes. How long shall the sword of
+  the people rust in its sheath! Liberty sitting on her altar demands
+  new sacrifices to feed the flame. The blood of tyrants is the only
+  incense worthy to be offered by a regenerated people!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>At every pause of those fierce interjections, the crowd burst into
+  yells of applause, drew knives and daggers from their bosoms,
+  flourished them in the air, and echoed the words. The Assembly were
+  evidently held in terror of their lives. The president made some
+  faint attempts to restore order. A few of the members made faint
+  attempts at speeches. But the mob were masters; and a night of such
+  horrors passed, as I had never dreamed of before. At daybreak the
+  orator demanded that a decree should be instantly passed, suspending
+  the king, the ministry, and even the Assembly, in the midst of which
+  he stood. Of all the extravagances ever conceived&#8212;of all the
+  insolences of power&#8212;of all the licenses of popular
+  licentiousness, this was the most daring, unrivalled, and unimagined;
+  and yet this was carried, with scarcely a voice raised against it.
+  The trembling president, with the dagger at his throat, put the
+  motion for extinguishing the throne, the cabinet, and calling a new
+  Assembly! From that hour the monarchy was no more.</p>
+
+  <p>During this tremendous discussion, I had not ventured to raise my
+  eyes towards the royal family; but, as all were now about to retire,
+  I dared a single glance. The king was slowly leaving the box, leading
+  the dauphin by the hand; the Princess Elizabeth was carrying the
+  sleeping dauphiness in her arms; the queen stayed behind, alone, for
+  a moment, sitting, as she had done for hours, with her eyes fixed on
+  vacancy, and her countenance calm, but corpselike. At length she
+  seemed to recollect that she was alone, and suddenly started up. Then
+  nature had its way; she tottered, and fainted. From that night forth,
+  that glorious creature never saw the light of day but through the
+  bars of a prison. From the Feuillans, the royal family were consigned
+  to the cells of the Temple, from which Louis and Marie Antoinette
+  never emerged but to the grave!</p>
+
+  <p>This night taught me a lesson, which neither time nor circumstance
+  has ever made me forget. It cured me of all my republican fantasies
+  at once, and for ever. I believe myself above the affectation of
+  romantic sensibility. But it would not be less affectation to deny
+  the feelings to which that awful scene of human guilt and human
+  suffering gave birth. If the memory of the popular atrocities made me
+  almost abhor human nature, the memory of that innocent and
+  illustrious woman restored my admiration of the noble qualities that
+  may still be found in human nature. &quot;If I forget thee even in my
+  mirth,&quot; the language of the Israelite to his beloved city, was
+  mine, in scarcely a less solemn or sacred spirit, in those hours of
+  early experience. Let the hearts and eyes of others refuse to
+  acknowledge such feelings. I am not ashamed to say, that I have shed
+  many a tear over the fate of the King and Queen of France. In the
+  finest fictions of genius, in the most high-wrought sorrows of the
+  stage, I have never been so deeply touched, I have never felt myself
+  penetrated with such true and irresistible emotion, as in reading,
+  many a year after, the simplest record of the unhappy Bourbons.
+  <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_807" id="Page_807">[Pg
+  807]</a></span> What must it be, to have witnessed the last agonies
+  of their hearts and throne!</p>
+
+  <p>On returning to my chamber, shuddering and wretched, I found a
+  despatch on my table. It was from Downing Street; an order, that
+  within twelve hours after its receipt, I should set out from Paris,
+  and make my way, with the utmost secrecy, to the headquarters of the
+  Austrian and Prussian army; where further orders would be waiting for
+  me.</p>
+
+  <p>This command threw me into new perplexity. It had been my purpose
+  to find my unfortunate friend, if he was not already in the bosom of
+  the Seine, or a victim to some of the popular violences. But my
+  orders were peremptory. I, however, did all that was in my power. I
+  spent the day in looking for him through all the hotels and
+  hospitals; and, after a hopeless search, gave my man of mystery,
+  Mendoza, a commission&#8212;paid for at a rate that made him open his
+  hollow eyes wide with incredulity on the coin&#8212;to discover and
+  protect him, wherever he was to be found.</p>
+
+  <p>But I had now another difficulty which threatened to nip my
+  diplomatic honours in the bud. The news had just arrived, that the
+  allied armies had passed the frontier, and were sweeping all before
+  them with fire and sword. A populace is always mad with courage, or
+  mad with cowardice; and the Parisians, who, but yesterday, were ready
+  to have made a march round the globe, now thought the wells and
+  cellars of the city not too deep, or too dark to hold them. They
+  would have formed a camp in the catacombs, if they could. All was
+  sudden terror. The barriers were shut. Guards were posted tenfold at
+  all the gates. Men were ranged on the heights round the city, to make
+  signals of the first approach of the Prussian hussars; and the
+  inhabitants spent half the day on every house top that commanded a
+  view of the country, waiting for the first glimpse of their
+  devourers. To escape from this city of terror now became next to
+  impossible. All my applications were powerless. The government were
+  themselves regarded as under lock and key; the populace, as if
+  determined that all should share a common massacre, were clustered at
+  the barriers, pike in hand, to put all &quot;emigrants&quot; to
+  death; the ambassador was, as ambassadors generally are in cases of
+  real difficulty, a cipher; and yet I <i>must</i> leave Paris within
+  twelve hours, or be cashiered.</p>
+
+  <p>It at length occurred to me to avail myself of my Jewish spy, and
+  I found him listening to a midnight harangue in the midst of a
+  Jacobin crowd, in the Palais Royal. He considered the matter for a
+  while; and I walked about, leaving him to his free invention, while I
+  contrasted the brilliant blaze of the gaming and dancing-rooms above
+  me with the assassin-like darkness of the galleries below. At length
+  he turned to me. &quot;There is but one way. Have you any objection
+  to be arrested?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;The greatest imaginable,&quot; was my answer.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Just as you please,&quot; he replied; &quot;but I have here
+  an order for the seizure of one of the emigrant agents, a Chevalier
+  Lafontaine, lately arrived in Paris. He has been seen in the palace,
+  but we have missed him for the last twelve hours. The order is for
+  Vincennes. Will you take his place?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I naturally looked all surprise, and peremptorily refused.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Do as you will,&quot; said my intractable adviser; &quot;but
+  there is no other way to pass the gates. I shall take you to
+  Vincennes as a state prisoner; I have influence there. In short, if
+  you trust me, you shall be safe, and on your road by daybreak. If you
+  do not, here your life is uncertain; you are known, watched, and the
+  first order that I receive to-morrow, may be one for your
+  apprehension.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>All this was likely enough; there was but a moment to deliberate,
+  and I got into the first cabriolet, and drove with him to the
+  barrier. The streets still exhibited scattered bands, who questioned
+  us from time to time, but the words, &quot;By order of the
+  Municipality,&quot; which were enough to terrify the stoutest hearts,
+  and the display of his badge, carried us through. We passed the guard
+  at the gate, after a slight examination of the order, and galloped to
+  Vincennes.</p>
+
+  <p>At the sight of the frowning fortress my blood chilled, and I
+  refused to go further. &quot;In that case,&quot; said my conductor,
+  &quot;<i>I</i> am compromised, and <i>you</i> are ruined; the first
+  patrol will seize you, while I shall be shot. I pledge myself, that
+  here you shall not remain; but I must be acquitted to the head of the
+  police. You shall <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_808" id=
+  "Page_808">[Pg 808]</a></span> be M. le Chevalier Lafontaine for the
+  night; and, if such a man exists, you will probably be the means of
+  saving his life. To-morrow I shall bring proofs of my mistake, and
+  then you will be outside the walls of Paris, and free to go where you
+  please.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The name of Lafontaine decided me. Even the risk seemed less
+  serious than before, and we drove over the drawbridge. The interior
+  of the fortress formed a striking contrast to the scenes which I had
+  just left behind me. All was still stern, and noiseless.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Give me your papers,&quot; said Mendoza; &quot;they will be
+  safer in my hands than in yours.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I had but time to give him my despatch, as we passed through the
+  court which led to the governor&#39;s apartments. I was searched in
+  the presence of that important functionary, a meagre old captain of
+  invalids, who had been roused from his bed, and was evidently half
+  asleep. I stoutly denied my being &quot;the criminal who had offended
+  the majesty of the people.&quot; But as the governor himself, on
+  gazing at me with his purblind eyes, was perfectly satisfied of my
+  identity, there was no use in contesting the point. A couple of
+  sentinels were placed at the door of my cell, and I was left, like
+  himself, to my slumbers. Before the door closed, I grasped my guide
+  by the throat. The thought that I had been entrapped, actually
+  agonized me.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Am I betrayed?&quot; I asked, in a whisper of fury.</p>
+
+  <p>The only answer was, &quot;Mordecai.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I felt security in the word, and, without a further pang, heard
+  his tread echoing along the distant corridor.</p>
+
+  <p>Time rolls on, whether we are happy or miserable. Morning came,
+  and found me feverish from a thousand dreams. Noon came, and my
+  impatience grew with the hour. Evening came, and yet no symptom of my
+  liberation. If, &quot;hope deferred maketh the heart sick,&quot;
+  confidence duped, and blindly, weakly, rashly duped, turns to
+  torture.</p>
+
+  <p>Why trust a known agent of the police? Why put my liberty into his
+  hands? Why, above all, make him master of my papers? I was
+  overwhelmed with shame. I writhed with remorse. As hour after hour
+  dragged into slow length along, I sank from dejection to dejection,
+  or burst from rage to rage. But at last, when the drums of the
+  garrison were making their final flourish for the night, the key
+  turned in the door of my cell, and the Jew entered. I almost sprang
+  upon him, and his life would have been worth little, but for the
+  words&#8212;&quot;You may now leave the fortress.&quot; He told me,
+  further, that my absence was fortunate, for a domiciliary visit had
+  been paid to my apartments by direction of the municipality; my
+  trunks examined, and my doors sealed. My absence was imputed to
+  flight; and, as jails were then the only safe residences in France, I
+  had escaped actual imprisonment simply by my volunteer detention; to
+  watch the event, had been the source of his delay. All was speedily
+  settled with the old commandant, who was now as perfectly
+  &quot;convinced, on his own knowledge,&quot; that I was not the
+  chevalier, as he had been convinced on the night before that I was.
+  Mendoza&#39;s proofs were registered in due form; and with
+  unspeakable delight I once again mounted his cabriolet, and heard the
+  chains of the drawbridge rattle behind me.</p>
+
+  <p>My Jew had been true to his pledge. I found horses provided for me
+  at a lonely cabaret, a league off. With the minute foresight which
+  men of his trade learn, he had provided for me a couple of
+  disguises&#8212;the garb of a peasant, which I was to use when I
+  passed among the soldiery; and the uniform of an aide-de-camp, with
+  which I was to keep down enquiries when I came among the peasantry.
+  But I was weary of disguise. It had never thriven with my
+  temperament. I was determined, at all events, now to trust to chance
+  and my proper person; and if I must fail, have the satisfaction of
+  failing after my own style. The only recompense which my magnanimous
+  police-officer would receive, was a promise that I should mention his
+  conduct to Mordecai; and, gathering up his rejected wardrobe, he
+  departed.</p>
+
+  <p>Fortunately I found disguises unnecessary, though at any other
+  time they might have been essential. The country was all in a state
+  of flight, and every man was too much employed in securing himself,
+  to think of laying hold of others. Thus galloped I through hill and
+  dale, through bush and brier, unquestioned and almost unseen; until,
+  on the evening of the fourth day, <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_809" id="Page_809">[Pg 809]</a></span> as I plunged into a
+  forest, which for the last half hour I had been imagining into a
+  scene of fairyland, a bower where a pilgrim might finish his journey
+  for life, or a man, &quot;crazed by care, or crossed in hopeless
+  love,&quot; might forget woman and woe together&#8212;I was awakened
+  to the realities of things by the whistle of a bullet, which struck
+  off a branch within an inch of my head, followed by a fierce howl for
+  the countersign. By all the laws of war, the howl should have come
+  first; but these were not times for ceremony. A troop of Hulans
+  rushed round me, sabre in hand. I stood like a stoic; and, of course,
+  attempted to tell who I was. But my German was unintelligible to my
+  captors, and my French, a suspicious language on a Prussian outpost,
+  only confirmed their opinion that I was born to be stripped.
+  Accordingly one demanded my watch, another my purse, and I was in a
+  fair way of entering the Prussian lines in a state of pauperism, or
+  of being &quot;left alone in my glory&quot; by shot or sabre, when an
+  officer rode up, whom I had casually known in some Parisian circle.
+  To him I could explain myself, and to him I exhibited the envelope of
+  my letter, inscribed with the words, &quot;Grand Quartier
+  General.&quot; My new friend bowed to this awful address like a Turk
+  to the firman of the padisha, poured out a volley of wrath on the
+  troop, ordered the instant and very reluctant restitution of my
+  property, and with a couple of the squadron at our heels, took me
+  under his escort, to deliver my papers in person.</p>
+
+  <p>After an hour&#39;s gallop through rocks, rivulets, and brambles,
+  which seemed without end, and totally uninhabited, except by an
+  occasional patrol of the irregulars of the Austrian and Prussian
+  forces&#8212;barbarians as savage-looking as ever were Goth or Hun,
+  and capital substitutes for the wolves and wild-boars which they had
+  ejected for the time&#8212;a sudden opening of the forest brought us
+  within view of the immense camp of the combined armies.</p>
+
+  <p>All the externals of war are splendid; it is the interior, the
+  consequences, the operation of that mighty trampler of man that are
+  startling. This was my first sight of that most magnificent of all
+  the atrocious inventions of human evil&#8212;an army. The forces of
+  the two most warlike monarchies of Europe were spread before me;
+  nearly a hundred and fifty thousand troops, with all the numberless
+  followers of a host in the field, covering a range of low hills which
+  circled the horizon. While we were still at a considerable distance,
+  a gun was fired from the central hill, answered by others from the
+  flanks. The rolling of drums set the vast line in motion, and just at
+  the moment when the sun was lying on the edge of the west, the
+  brigades, descending each from its height, halted on the slope. The
+  whole vast manoeuvre was executed with the exactness of a single
+  mind. The blaze of the sun on the arms, the standards, and the tents
+  crowning the brow of the hills, was magical. &quot;Are they marching
+  to battle?&quot; was my amazed question to my companion. His only
+  answer was to check his charger, take off his shako, and bend his
+  forehead to his saddle-bow. A burst of universal harmony, richer than
+  I had ever yet conceived, explained the mystery. It was the evening
+  prayer. The fine bands of the regiments joined the voices of the
+  soldiery, and I listened, in unbroken rapture and reverence, until
+  its close. In court or cathedral, in concert or shrine, I had never
+  before so much felt the power of sound. It finished in a solemn
+  chorus, and accumulation of music. I could have almost imagined it
+  ascending, embodied, to heaven.</p>
+
+  <p>The fire of cannon announced the conclusion of the service; we put
+  spurs to our horses, and soon entered the lines; and, on the strength
+  of my credentials, I had distinguished quarters assigned to me.</p>
+
+  <p>I now, for the first time since I left England, began to feel the
+  advantages of birth. In London every man is so submerged in the
+  multitude, that he who can hold his head high enough out of the
+  living surge to be known, must have something of remarkable buoyancy,
+  or peculiar villany, about him. Even Parliament, except to a few of
+  the leaders, is no distinction. The member for the shire is clipped
+  of all his plumage at the moment of his entering that colossal
+  poultry-yard, and must take his obscure pickings with other
+  unnoticeable fowl. In Paris, once the Mahometan paradise of stars and
+  garters, the central herald&#39;s office of the earth, the royal
+  region of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_810" id=
+  "Page_810">[Pg 810]</a></span> Parliament aristocracy, where the
+  beggar with a <i>cordon</i> on his breast outshone the banker with
+  millions in his pocket-book, the world was changed; and to be the son
+  or brother of a peer might have been only a speedier passport to the
+  lamp-post. But, in Germany, the land of pedigrees, to be an
+  &quot;honourable&quot; was to be one on whom the sun shone with
+  double beams; the sex, young and old, smiled with double softness and
+  the whole host of Serenities were doubly serene. In camp, nothing
+  could be more hospitable or distinguished than my reception; for the
+  soldier is always good-humoured under canvass, and the German is
+  good-humoured every where. Perhaps he has rather too high an opinion
+  of his descent from Goth and Vandal, but he makes allowance for the
+  more modern savagery of Europe; and although the stranger may neither
+  wear spectacles, nor smoke cigars, neither muzzle his visage with
+  mustaches, nor speak the most formidable tongue on earth, the German
+  will good-naturedly admit, that he may be a human being after
+  all.</p>
+
+  <p>But the man with whom my mission brought me most immediately into
+  contact, and to whom I was most indebted for courtesy, would have
+  been a remarkable personage in any country of Europe; that man was
+  the Duke of Brunswick.</p>
+
+  <p>On my arrival, I found two letters forwarded from London, and in
+  the hands of an aide-de-camp of the generalissimo. The first which I
+  opened was from the Foreign Office, a simple statement of the purpose
+  for which I was sent&#8212;namely, to stimulate the activity of the
+  Prussian councils, and to urge on the commander of the army an
+  immediate march on the French capital; with a postscript, directing
+  me, in case of tardiness being exhibited at headquarters, instantly
+  to transmit a despatch home, and return to my post in Paris. The
+  second letter&#8212;which I must, however undiplomatically, admit
+  that I opened with much stronger interest&#8212;was from Mordecai. I
+  glanced over it for some mention of the &quot;ane braw name,&quot;
+  and bitterly laughed at my own folly in expecting to find such
+  communications in the letter of the hard-headed and busy Jew. All was
+  brief and rapid.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;If this shall find you in the Prussian camp, you will have
+  no more time for me than I have for you. Let me not clip your
+  diplomatic hopes; but this I forewarn you, you will not obtain a
+  single object of your journey; except, perhaps, showing that you can
+  gallop a hundred miles in the four-and-twenty hours, and can make
+  your way through a country of lunatics without being piked or
+  sabred.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;The campaign is over already&#8212;over before it was begun.
+  The battle was fought in the council at Berlin, and the allies were
+  beaten. The duke, within the next fortnight, will be deciding on the
+  merits of the ballet in Brunswick, and the French will be madder than
+  ever with triumphs which they never won, preparing for conquests
+  which are already gained, and knocking down thrones, the owners
+  themselves supplying the pickaxes and hammers. You will see the two
+  best armies of the Continent running away from their own shadows; the
+  old councillors of Frederick and Maria Theresa baffled by cabinets of
+  cobblers and tinkers; grey-beard generals, covered with orders,
+  hunted over the frontier by boys, girls, and old women; and France,
+  like a <i>poissarde</i> in a passion, with her hair flying about her
+  ears, a knife in her hand, and her tongue in full swing, scampering
+  half naked over Europe, to the infinite wonder of the wearers of
+  velvet, Mechlin lace, and diadems,&#8212;ha, ha, ha!&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>While I was trying to decipher this riddle, which was rather too
+  contemptuous for my new views of things, but which I referred to the
+  habitual feelings of a strong-headed man in humble life, brought just
+  close enough to higher to feel his exclusion, an officer was
+  announced as Count Varnhorst, on the staff of the duke. His
+  countenance struck me at first sight, as one which I had seen before;
+  and I soon discovered, that when I was a boy at Eton, he had been on
+  a visit of a few days at Mortimer castle, in the suite of one of the
+  Prussian princes. We had been thus old friends, and we now became
+  young ones within the first quarter of an hour. His countenance was
+  that of a humourist, and his recollections of the Great Frederick
+  rendered him sarcastic on all things of the later generation.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;The duke has sent me for you,&quot; said he, <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_811" id="Page_811">[Pg 811]</a></span>
+  &quot;with his apology for keeping you out of bed; but he has
+  appointed midnight for the delivery of your despatches. The truth is,
+  that hitherto we have all slept so soundly, that we must make up for
+  lost time by turning night into day now, just as we have turned day
+  into night for the last twelvemonth.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;But what can you tell me of the duke?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Oh! a great deal; but you know that I am on his staff, and
+  therefore bound to keep his secrets.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Yet, count, remember that we have sworn an eternal
+  friendship within the last five minutes. What can he or I be the
+  worse for my knowing his great and good qualities?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;My dear young friend, when you are as old as I am, you will
+  see the improprieties of such questions.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Well, then, to come to the point; is he a great
+  general?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;He speaks French better than any other prince in
+  Germany.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Is he an able politician?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You must see him on horseback; he rides like a
+  centaur.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Well, then, in one sentence, will he fight the
+  French?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;That wholly depends on whether he turns his horse&#39;s head
+  towards Paris or Berlin.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Count, but one question more, which you may answer without a
+  riddle. Do you think that he will receive my mission
+  cordially?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;He speaks your language; he wears your broad cloth; he loves
+  your porter; and he has married one of your princesses.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;All my difficulties are answered. I am ready; but what shall
+  I find him doing at this extraordinary hour?&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;If asleep, dreaming of the opera at Brunswick; if awake,
+  dreaming of the opera at Paris.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>His diamond repeater, which he had laid on the table between us,
+  struck twelve as he spoke; and, wrapping ourselves in our cloaks, we
+  sallied forth into one of the most starry nights of autumn, and made
+  our way, through long ranges of patrols and videttes, to the quarters
+  of the generalissimo.</p>
+
+  <p>The mansion was an old chateau, evidently long abandoned to
+  loneliness and decay one of those huge edifices; whose building had
+  cost one fortune, and whose support had exhausted another. But the
+  struggle had been over for the last fifty years, and two or three
+  shrivelled domestics remained to keep out the invasion of the bats
+  and owls. But at this period the chateau exhibited, of course,
+  another scene; aides-de-camp, generals, orderlies, couriers&#8212;all
+  the clang and clamour of the staff of a great army&#8212;rang through
+  the wild old halls, and echoed up the long ghostly corridors. Every
+  apartment was a blaze of light, and filled with groups of officers of
+  the Prussian and Austrian guards; all was billiard-playing, talking,
+  singing in chorus, and carousing in all the noisy gaiety of the
+  soldier in good quarters.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;All this is tempting enough,&quot; said the old count, as we
+  hastened along a gallery that seemed endless, but on which the open
+  doors of the successive apartments threw broad illumination. &quot;I
+  dare say, Mr Marston, that you would prefer taking your seat among
+  those lively fellows, to the honour of a ducal conference; but my
+  orders are, that you must not be seen until the duke gives you
+  <i>carte blanche</i> to appear among human beings again.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The count now opened the door of an apartment, which appeared to
+  have been more lately tenanted than the rest, yet which exhibited
+  signs of the general desertion; a marble table, covered with a
+  decaying drapery, a Carrara alabaster of Niobe and her children on
+  the mantelpiece, a huge mirror, and a tapestry of one of the hunts of
+  Henri Quatre, showed that Time had been there, and that the Prussians
+  had not; but the indistinct light of the single chandelier left me
+  but little opportunity of indulging my speculations on the furniture.
+  The count had left me, to ascertain when the duke should be at
+  leisure to receive me; and my first process was, like a good soldier,
+  to reconnoitre the neighbouring territory. The first door which I
+  opened led into a conservatory, filled with the remnants of dead
+  foliage, opening on the gardens of the chateau, which, wild as they
+  now were, still sent up a fragrance doubly refreshing, after the
+  atmosphere of meershaums, hot brandy, and Rhine beer, which filled
+  the galleries. The casement distantly overlooked the esplanade in
+  front of the chateau; and the perpetual movements of the <span class=
+  'pagenum'><a name="Page_812" id="Page_812">[Pg 812]</a></span>
+  couriers and estafettes, arriving and departing every moment, the
+  galloping of cavalry, and the march of patrols, occupied me until a
+  valet of the duke came to acquaint me that supper was served, by his
+  highness&#39;s commands, in the apartment which I had lately quitted,
+  and that he would be present in a few minutes.</p>
+
+  <p>I returned of course; and found the chamber which I had left so
+  dark and dilapidated, changed, as if by a fairy wand, into pomp and
+  elegance. The duke was renowned for splendid extravagance, and the
+  table was covered with rich plate, the walls glittered with a
+  profusion of gilt lamps, and all round me had the look of regal
+  luxury. But one object suddenly caught my gaze, and left me no power
+  to glance at any other. In a recess, which had hitherto been obscure,
+  but over which now blazed a brilliant girandole, hung a full-length
+  portrait of a nun, which, but for the dress, I should have pronounced
+  to be Clotilde; the same Greek profile, the same deep yet vivid eye,
+  the same matchless sweetness of smile, and the same mixture of
+  melancholy and enthusiasm, which had made me think my idol fit to be
+  the worship of the world. I stood wrapped in astonishment, delight,
+  pain, a thousand undefined feelings, until I could have almost
+  imagined that the canvass before me lived. I saw its eye all but
+  glisten, its lips all but open to speak; the very marble of its cheek
+  begin to glow; when I was awakened by a lively voice, saying, in
+  French&#8212;&quot;Ah, Mr Marston, I perceive that you are a
+  connoisseur.&quot; I turned, and saw the speaker, a man somewhat
+  above the middle size; a remarkably noble-looking personage; in full
+  dress even at that hour, powdered and perfumed, and altogether a
+  court figure; his hands loaded with jewels, and a diamond star of the
+  order of the garter upon his breast. It required no introducer to
+  tell me that I was in the presence of the Duke of Brunswick.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;Come,&quot; said he, &quot;we have no time for etiquette,
+  nor indeed for any thing else to-night&#8212;we must sup first, and
+  then talk of your mission.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>We sat down; a double file of valets, in liveries, loaded with
+  embroidery, attended at the table; though the party consisted of but
+  four; Varnhorst, and a Colonel Guiseard, chief of the secret
+  diplomacy, a pale Spanish-featured officer&#8212;to whom his highness
+  did me the honour of introducing me, as the son of one of his old
+  friends.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;You remember Marston,&quot; said he, &quot;at Brunswick,
+  five-and-twenty years ago, in his envoyship&#8212;a capital horseman,
+  a brilliant dresser, and a very promising diplomatist. I augured well
+  of his future career, but&quot; &#8212;&#8212;the infinite elevation
+  of the ducal shoulders, and the infinite drooping of the ducal eyes,
+  completed the remainder of my unfortunate parent&#39;s history; but
+  whether in panegyric or censure, I was not sufficiently versed in the
+  science of saying nothing and implying all things, to tell. Guiseard
+  fixed his deep sallow eye on me, without a word: at that moment he
+  reminded me exactly of one of the Inquisitors&#8212;the deep,
+  dark-visaged men whom the matchless pencil of Velasquez has
+  immortalized.</p>
+
+  <p>Varnhorst burst out into a laugh.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;What, Guiseard,&quot; said he, &quot;are you reconnoitring
+  the ground before you make the attack? Your royal highness, I think
+  we ought to vindicate our country to this English gentleman, by
+  assuring him that the colonel is not a cardinal in
+  disguise.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The colonel merely smiled, which seemed an effort for his
+  cloistered physiognomy; the duke laughed, and began a general
+  conversation upon all possible topics&#8212;England forming the
+  chief; the royal family&#8212;the court&#8212;the
+  theatres&#8212;parliament&#8212;the people&#8212;all whirled over
+  with the ease and rapidity of one turning the leaves of an album;
+  here a verse and there a portrait&#8212;here a sketch of a temple,
+  and there an outline of a cottage&#8212;the whole pretty, and as
+  trifling as pretty, and cast aside at the first moment when any thing
+  better worth thinking of occurred.</p>
+
+  <p>In the midst of our gaiety, in which the duke had completely laid
+  down his sceptre, and taken his full share, the great clock of the
+  chateau tolled one. The table was instantly swept of supper&#8212;the
+  valets withdrew. I heard the tread of a sentinel at the door of the
+  apartment; and the duke, instantly changing from the man of fashion
+  to the statesman, began to enter into the questions then so deeply
+  disturbing all the cabinets of Europe.</p>
+
+  <p>I found the duke a very superior <span class='pagenum'><a name=
+  "Page_813" id="Page_813">[Pg 813]</a></span> man to what I had
+  conceived of him. He was frank and free, spoke of the intentions of
+  the Allies in the most open manner, and censured the errors which
+  they had already committed, with a plainness which I had not expected
+  to find out of London. He had evidently made himself master of a
+  great variety of knowledge, and with the happy but most unusual power
+  of rendering it all applicable to the point in question. My
+  impressions of him and his order, imbibed among the prejudices of
+  England and the libels of France, was that of frivolity and
+  flutter&#8212;an idle life and a stagnant understanding. I never was
+  more surprised at the contrast between this conception and the
+  animated and accomplished prince before me. He seemed to know not
+  merely the persons of all the leading men of Europe&#8212;which might
+  have naturally been the case with one who had visited every
+  capital&#8212;but to be acquainted with their characters, their
+  abilities, and even their modes of thinking. He seemed to me a man
+  born to rule. It was in later days that the habits of a voluptuary,
+  of which his peculiar love of dress might have been slightly
+  symptomatic, produced their effect, in enfeebling a mind made for
+  eminence. I saw him afterwards, broken with years and misfortune. But
+  on this night I could only see a man on whom the destinies of Europe
+  were rightly reposed. I pay this tribute of honour to his memory.</p>
+
+  <p>He spoke a great deal, in our conference, on the necessity of a
+  strong European combination against France, and flatteringly
+  addressed to me a strong panegyric on my country.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;If we can obtain,&quot; said he, &quot;the cordial
+  co-operation of the English people, I see no difficulty before us. We
+  already have the Ministry with us; but I know the Englishman&#39;s
+  hatred of a foreign war, his horror of public expenditure on
+  continental interests, and his general distrust of the policy of
+  foreign courts. And until we can give the people some evidence, not
+  only that our intentions are sincere, but that our cause is their
+  own, we shall never have the nation on our side.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>My remark was, &quot;that the chief difficulty with the nation
+  would be, to convince them that the Allied Powers were not influenced
+  by personal motives; I said that the seizure of territory, while the
+  French remained in their defenceless state, would probably excite
+  strong public displeasure in England; and plainly stated, that the
+  only thing which could engage the public spirit in the war, would be
+  a conviction of its absolute justice and stern necessity.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>The conversation was here interrupted by the arrival of a
+  staff-officer with despatches from Berlin. A number of papers were
+  laid on the table, and handed over to Varnhorst and Guiseard to read.
+  They proved chiefly notes and orders relative to the advance of the
+  army. One paper, however, the duke read with evident interest, and
+  marked with his pencil down the margin.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;I am delighted,&quot; said he, &quot;that this paper has
+  reached us at last. Mr Marston will now see what my real advice has
+  been from the beginning. The French journals have attacked me
+  furiously for the declaration issued at our entrance on the frontier.
+  The journals of England have partly echoed the French, and I am held
+  up to the world as the author of the <i>Declaration of Pilnitz</i>.
+  This paper, which Mr Marston will do me the honour to send at
+  daybreak to his court by a special messenger, will clear my character
+  with his countrymen at once&#8212;with the rest of Europe, I am
+  content to wait a little longer.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>He then read the paper in his hand; and it was a long and striking
+  protest against the idea of partitioning France, or having any other
+  intention in the movement of the troops than the security of the
+  French throne. This document had been sent to the Council at Berlin,
+  and been returned by them for revision by the duke, and the softening
+  of its rather uncourtly decisiveness of expression. It stated, that
+  even the conquest of France, if it could be effected, must be wholly
+  useless without the conciliation of the people: that it must be
+  insecure, that it never could be complete, and that even the attempt
+  might rouse this powerful people to feel its own force, and turn its
+  vast resources to war. The first measure ought, therefore, to be an
+  address to the nation, pronouncing, in the clearest language, an
+  utter abjuration of all local seizure.</p>
+
+  <p>The paper thus returned, and containing the observations of the
+  council, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_814" id="Page_814">[Pg
+  814]</a></span> was given to Varnhorst, to be copied. &quot;And
+  now,&quot; said the duke, &quot;gentlemen, I think we may retire for
+  the night; for we have but three hours until the march in the
+  morning.&quot;</p>
+
+  <p>I said some common-place thing, of the obligations which Europe
+  must owe to a sovereign prince, exposing himself to such labours,
+  honourable as they were.</p>
+
+  <p>&quot;No,&quot; he smilingly replied; &quot;they are part of our
+  office, the routine of the life of princes, the vocation of men born
+  for the public, and living for the public alone. The prince must be a
+  soldier, and the soldier must make the camp his home, and the palace
+  only his sojourn. It is his fortune, perhaps his misfortune, that but
+  one profession in life is left open to him, whether it be the bent of
+  his temperament or not&#8212;while other men may follow their tastes
+  in the choice, serve their fellows in a hundred different ways, and
+  raise a bloodless reputation among mankind. And now, good-night.
+  To-morrow at five the <i>advance</i> moves. At six I shall be on
+  horseback, and then&#8212;Well! what matter for the <i>then</i>? We
+  shall sleep at least to-night; and so, farewell.&quot;</p>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_815" id="Page_815">[Pg
+  815]</a></span></p>
+
+  <h2><a name="INDEX_TO_VOL_LIV" id="INDEX_TO_VOL_LIV"></a>INDEX TO
+  VOL. LIV.</h2>
+
+  <p>Aberdeen, Lord, remarks on his church bill, 545.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Adventures in Louisiana,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;No. I., The Prairie and the
+    Swamp, 43.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;No. II., The Blockhouse,
+    234.</span><br />
+    <br />
+  </div>
+
+  <div>
+    Adventures in Texas,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;No. I., A Scamper in the
+    Prairie of Jacinto, 551.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;No. II., A Trial by Jury,
+    <a href="#Page_777">777</a>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Ahmed-Kiuprili, career of, 175.</p>
+
+  <p>Anti-corn-law League, proceedings of the, 539.</p>
+
+  <p>Ancient Towns, a plea for, against railways, 398.</p>
+
+  <p>Aristocracy of England, the, 51.</p>
+
+  <p>Armada, the, from Schiller, 143.</p>
+
+  <p>Armansperg, Count, administration of, in Greece, 348.</p>
+
+  <p>Arne the composer, 26.</p>
+
+  <p>Art, British, present state of, 188.</p>
+
+  <p>Athens, population, institutions, &amp;c., of, 352.</p>
+
+  <p>Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, on the best means of establishing a
+  communication between the, 658.</p>
+
+  <p>Austria, commerce, &amp;c., of, 251.</p>
+
+  <p>Ballads of Schiller, the. <i>See</i> Schiller.</p>
+
+  <p>Balzac, M., Two Dreams, a sketch by, 672.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Banking-house, the, a history in three parts.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Part I.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. I., Prospective,
+    576.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. II., Retrospective,
+    578.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. III., The beginning of
+    the end, 582.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. IV., Miching mallecho,
+    it means mischief, 585.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. V., Matters of course,
+    588.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. VI., A discovery,
+    592.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. VII., The end of the
+    beginning, 594.</span><br />
+    <br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Part II.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212; Chap. I., A negotiation,
+    <a href="#Page_719">719</a>.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. II., A lull. <a href=
+    "#Page_723">723</a>.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. III., A sweet couple,
+    <a href="#Page_725">725</a>.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. IV., A speculation,
+    <a href="#Page_730">730</a>.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. V., A landed
+    proprietor, <a href="#Page_733">733</a>.</span><br />
+    <br />
+  </div>
+
+  <div>
+    Bankruptcy of the Greek kingdom, the, 345.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;means of averting it,
+    361.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Barrett, Elizabeth B., Cry of the Children, by, 260.</p>
+
+  <p>Bavarian government of Greece, effects of the, 345.</p>
+
+  <p>Bennett&#39;s Ceylon and its capabilities, review of, 622.</p>
+
+  <p>Blockhouse, the, an adventure in Louisiana, 234.</p>
+
+  <p>Bridge over the Thur, the, from the German of Gustav Schwab,
+  <a href="#Page_717">717</a>.</p>
+
+  <p>British institution, exhibition at the, 203.</p>
+
+  <p>Brownrigg, Sir Robert, conquest of Kandy, by, 632.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Bulwer, Sir Edward Lytton, Bart., translation of the poems and
+    ballads of Schiller, by.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part the last,
+    139.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Love and Death, by, <a href=
+    "#Page_717">717</a>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Bute, lines written in, by Delta, <a href="#Page_749">749</a>.</p>
+
+  <p>Byrd, the composer, 24.</p>
+
+  <p>Cabinet, the Greek, construction and powers of the, 350.</p>
+
+  <p>Canadian corn bill, the, 543.</p>
+
+  <p>Canal, proposed between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 658.</p>
+
+  <p>Carlyle&#39;s Past and Present, review of, with notices of his
+  other works, 121.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Ceylon and its capabilities, by Bennett,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;review of, 622.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;its climate,
+    626.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;sketch of its history,
+    627.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Chapters of Turkish History; No. X. The Second Siege of Vienna,
+  173.</p>
+
+  <p>Charles Edward at Versailles on the Anniversary of the Battle of
+  Culloden, a poem, 107.</p>
+
+  <p>Chronicles of Paris&#8212;the Rue St Denis, 524.</p>
+
+  <p>Cinghalese, character of the, 627.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Cobden, Mr,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;refutation of his statements
+    regarding the colonies, 407, 637</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;his misrepresentations on
+    the corn question, 539.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>College Theatricals, a tale, <a href="#Page_737">737</a>.</p>
+
+  <p>Colonies, the, examination of Cobden&#39;s statements regarding,
+  409, 637.</p>
+
+  <p>Commencement of the New Century, the, from the German of Schiller,
+  151.</p>
+
+  <p>Commercial Intercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, on
+  the best means of establishing, 658.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Commercial Policy,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Europe, 243.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;ships, colonies, and
+    commerce, 406.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the same continued,
+    637.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Comparison of the protective and free-trade systems, 243, 406,
+  637.</p>
+
+  <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_816" id="Page_816">[Pg
+  816]</a></span></p>
+
+  <p>Conflict, the, on the German of Schiller, 144.</p>
+
+  <p>Continental nobility, comparison of with the British, 56.</p>
+
+  <p>Corn-law Question, the, 539.</p>
+
+  <p>Council of State, the Greek, 350.</p>
+
+  <p>Creswick, Mr, remarks on the style of, 188.</p>
+
+  <p>Cry of the Children, the, 260.</p>
+
+  <p>Darien company, the, 661.</p>
+
+  <p>Davie, Major, conduct of, in Ceylon, 628.</p>
+
+  <p>Death from the Sting of a Serpent, lines on, <a href=
+  "#Page_798">798</a>.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    <p>Delta,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;a Vision of the World by,
+    343.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Lines written in the Isle of
+    Bute by, <a href="#Page_749">749</a>.</span><br /></p>
+  </div>
+
+  <div>
+    Devil&#39;s Frills, the, a Dutch illustration of the water
+    cure,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. I. 225.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. II. ib.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. III. 227.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. IV. 228.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. V. 230.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chap. VI. 232.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Disturbed Districts of Wales, notes on a tour in the, by Joseph
+  Downes, <a href="#Page_766">766</a>.</p>
+
+  <p>Downes, Joseph, tour in the disturbed districts of Wales by,
+  <a href="#Page_766">766</a>.</p>
+
+  <p>Dutch, landing of the, in Ceylon, 627.</p>
+
+  <p>Early English Musicians, notices of, 23.</p>
+
+  <p>Early Greek Romances, the Ethiopics of Heliodorus, 109.</p>
+
+  <p>Education, institutions for, in Greece, 357.</p>
+
+  <p>Education, the government scheme of, 548.</p>
+
+  <p>Emma, lines to, from the German of Schiller, 150.</p>
+
+  <p>England, the aristocracy of, 51.</p>
+
+  <p>English music and musicians, 23.</p>
+
+  <p>Epigram on Dr Toe, &amp;c., 263.</p>
+
+  <p>Erigena, letter from, to Christopher North, 263.</p>
+
+  <p>Ethiopics of Heliodorus, account of the, 109.</p>
+
+  <p>Europe, commercial policy of, 243.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Exhibitions, notices of<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the Royal Academy&#39;s,
+    188.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the Suffolk Street gallery,
+    199.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;paintings in water-colours,
+    201.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the British Institution,
+    203.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Factory bill, the, 548.</p>
+
+  <p>Fanariotes, character of the, 351.</p>
+
+  <p>Farewell to the Reader, from the German of Schiller, 152.</p>
+
+  <p>Fate of Polycrates, the, 483.</p>
+
+  <p>France, conduct of, towards Greece, 359.</p>
+
+  <p>Frederick Schlegel, review of the works and character of, 311.</p>
+
+  <p>Free-trade and protective systems, comparison of the, 248.</p>
+
+  <p>French academy, 519.</p>
+
+  <p>French and German works of fiction, comparison between, 672.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Fuseli&#39;s Lectures at the Royal Academy:<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;his introduction, <a href=
+    "#Page_691">691</a>.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Lecture I., <a href=
+    "#Page_694">694</a>.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;II., <a href=
+    "#Page_697">697</a>.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;III., <a href=
+    "#Page_703">703</a>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Game up with the repeal agitation, the, 679.</p>
+
+  <p>German and French literature, comparison between, 672.</p>
+
+  <p>Gibbons the composer, 24.</p>
+
+  <p>Gifts of Térek the, translated from the Russian of Lermontoff, by
+  J. B. Shaw, <a href="#Page_799">799.</a></p>
+
+  <p>Gods of Greece, the, from the German of Schiller, 146.</p>
+
+  <p>Goethe, remarks by, on the Schlegels, 311.</p>
+
+  <p>Great Britain, proceedings of, towards Greece, 359.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Greece,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;present state and prospects
+    of, 345.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;peculiarities of its
+    inhabitants, 350.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;its present revenues and
+    expenditure, 361.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Guizot, M., opinion of, on the union of the Atlantic and Pacific
+  oceans, 659.</p>
+
+  <p>Heliodorus, the Ethiopics of, 109.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Heber, Bishop, the Whippiad, a poem, by.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Canto I., 100.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Canto II., 102.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Canto III.,
+    104.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Hendia, the history of, 479.</p>
+
+  <p>Hullah&#39;s method of teaching, strictures on, 37.</p>
+
+  <p>Humboldt, M., on uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 659.</p>
+
+  <p>Hymn to Joy, from the German of Schiller, 142.</p>
+
+  <p>Inscription on the foundation stone of the new dining-hall,
+  &amp;c., 79.</p>
+
+  <p>Invincible Armada, the, from the German of Schiller, 143.</p>
+
+  <p>Irish arms bill, the, 549.</p>
+
+  <p>Jacinto, a scamper in the prairie of, 521.</p>
+
+  <p>Jack Stuart&#39;s bet on the Derby, and how he paid his losses,
+  67.</p>
+
+  <p>Jolly Father Joe, a tale from the Golden Legend, 255.</p>
+
+  <p>Joy, hymn to, from the German of Schiller, 142.</p>
+
+  <p>Jury trial in Texas, a, <a href="#Page_777">777</a>.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    <p>Kandy,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;description of the district
+    of, 627.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;its conquest by the British,
+    632.</span><br /></p>
+  </div>
+
+  <div>
+    Kerim Khan, travels of.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part I., 453.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part II., 564.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part III., <a href=
+    "#Page_753">753</a>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>King Arthur, Purcell&#39;s opera of, and its revival, 25.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Last Session of Parliament,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;review of the,
+    538.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the corn question,
+    539.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the Canadian corn bill,
+    543.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the Scotch church bill,
+    545.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the factory bill,
+    548.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the Irish arms bill,
+    549.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Letter to Christopher North, 263.</p>
+
+  <p>Lectures at the Royal Academy&#8212;Henry Fuseli, <a href=
+  "#Page_691">691</a>.</p>
+
+  <p>Lines written in the Isle of Bute, by Delta, <a href=
+  "#Page_749">749</a>.</p>
+
+  <p>Lloyd, Mr, report by, on uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans,
+  663.</p>
+
+  <p>Locke, Mathew, the composer, 25.</p>
+
+  <p>Logic, Mill&#39;s elements of, reviewed, 415.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Louisiana, adventures in;<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the Prairie and <span class=
+    'pagenum'><a name="Page_817" id="Page_817">[Pg 817]</a></span> the
+    Swamp, 43.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;No. II., the Blockhouse,
+    234.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Love and Death, by Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, <a href=
+  "#Page_717">717.</a></p>
+
+  <p>M&#39;Dowall, General, proceedings of, in Ceylon, 628.</p>
+
+  <p>Maclise, Mr, remarks on the style of, 188.</p>
+
+  <p>Mainzer and Hullah, comparison of the methods of, 37.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Marston; or, Memoirs of a Statesman.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part II., 1.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part III., 207.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part IV., 325.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part V., 608.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part VI., <a href=
+    "#Page_801">801</a>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Maurer, M., administration of, in Greece, 348.</p>
+
+  <p>Meeting, the, from the German of Schiller, 149.</p>
+
+  <p>Memoir on the best means of establishing a communication between
+  the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 658.</p>
+
+  <p>Mill&#39;s elements of logic, review of, 415.</p>
+
+  <p>Minstrels of Old, the, from the German of Schiller, 152.</p>
+
+  <p>Modern painters, their superiority in the art of landscape
+  painting to the old masters, review of, 485.</p>
+
+  <p>Municipal institutions of Greece, the, 352.</p>
+
+  <p>Music, something about, <a href="#Page_709">709</a>.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Music and musicians,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;English, 23.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;present state of, in
+    England, 33.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>My country neighbours, a tale, 431.</p>
+
+  <p>Napier&#39;s (Colonel) reminiscences of Syria, review of, 476.</p>
+
+  <p>Nobility of England, characteristics of the, 56.</p>
+
+  <p>Non-intrusionism, remarks on, and on the proceedings of the party,
+  545.</p>
+
+  <p>Notes on a tour in the disturbed districts in Wales, by Joseph
+  Downes, <a href="#Page_766">766</a>.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    <p>O&#39;Connell, Mr,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;present position of,
+    264.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;proceedings of the
+    government against, and their consequences, 685.</span><br /></p>
+  </div>
+
+  <div>
+    Otho, King,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;state of Greece on his
+    accession to the throne, 345.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;effects of his government,
+    348.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Over-production, effects of, 243.</p>
+
+  <p>Pacific and Atlantic oceans, proposed communication between the,
+  658.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Panama, the isthmus of,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;its advantages for a
+    communication between the two oceans, 658.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;description of the town,
+    665.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Paris, chronicles of&#8212;the Rue St Denis, 524.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Parliament, last session of,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;review of its measures,
+    538.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the corn-law question,
+    539.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Canadian corn-bill,
+    543.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Scotch church bill,
+    545.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Factory bill,
+    548.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the Irish arms bill,
+    549.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Past and Present, by Thomas Carlyle, review of, 121.</p>
+
+  <p>Patent law, effects of the, 519.</p>
+
+  <p>Peel, Sir Robert, review of his speech on the Irish question,
+  270.</p>
+
+  <p>Persian princes, notices of the narrative of the, 453.</p>
+
+  <p>Philhellenic drinking-song, by B. Simmons, 41.</p>
+
+  <p>Physical science in England, state and prospects of, 514.</p>
+
+  <p>Plea for ancient towns against railways, a, 398.</p>
+
+  <p>Poems and ballads of Schiller, the. <i>See</i> Schiller.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Poetry<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Philhellenic drinking-song,
+    by B. Simmons, 41.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;inscription on the
+    foundation stone of the new dining-hall, &amp;c., 79.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the Whippiad, a satirical
+    poem, by Bishop Heber,</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8212;Canto I., 100.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8212;Canto II., 102.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8212;Canto III.,
+    104.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Charles Edward at Versailles
+    on the anniversary of the battle of</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 3em;">Culloden, 107.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Poems and Ballads of
+    Schiller; Part the Last, 139.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Jolly Father Joe, a tale
+    from the Golden Legend, 255.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the Cry of the Children, by
+    Elizabeth B. Barrett, 260.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;a Vision of the World, by
+    Delta, 343.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the Fate of Polycrates,
+    483.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Lines written in the Isle of
+    Bute, by Delta, <a href="#Page_749">749</a>.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Death from the sting of a
+    serpent,<a href="#Page_798">798</a>.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the Purple Cloak, or the
+    return of Syloson to Samos, <a href=
+    "#Page_714">714</a>.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Love and Death, <a href=
+    "#Page_717">717</a>.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the Bridge over the Thur,
+    from the German, <a href="#Page_717">ib.</a></span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Gifts of Térek, the,
+    <a href="#Page_799">799</a>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Polycrates, the Fate of, a poem, 483.</p>
+
+  <p>Poole, Mr, critique on his painting, &quot;Solomon Eagle,&quot;
+  &amp;c., 189.</p>
+
+  <p>Portugal, the French invasion of, causes of its success, 53.</p>
+
+  <p>Prairie and the Swamp, the, an adventure in Louisiana, 43.</p>
+
+  <p>Protective and free-trade systems, comparison of the, 243, 406,
+  637.</p>
+
+  <p>Puppet-show of Life, the, from the German of Schiller, 150.</p>
+
+  <p>Purcell the composer, revival of his opera King Arthur, and
+  remarks on it, 25.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Purple Cloak, the, or the return of Syloson to Samos, <a href=
+    "#Page_714">714</a>.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part II., <a href=
+    "#Page_715">715</a>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Railroad, proposed, across the isthmus of Panama, 658.</p>
+
+  <p>Railways, a plea for ancient towns against, 398.</p>
+
+  <p>Reading party during the long vacation, a, 153.</p>
+
+  <p>Rebeccaites in Wales, the, <a href="#Page_766">766</a>.</p>
+
+  <p>Reminiscences of Syria, 476.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Repeal agitation, the, 264.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;game up with,
+    679.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Resignation, from the German of Schiller, 145.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Reviews.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Scrope&#39;s Days and nights
+    of salmon fishing, 80.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Carlyle&#39;s Past and
+    Present, 121.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the works of Frederick
+    Schlegel, 311.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Woman&#39;s rights and
+    duties, 373.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Mill&#39;s elements of
+    logic, 415.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Colonel Napier&#39;s
+    reminiscences of Syria, 476.</span><br />
+
+    <p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_818" id="Page_818">[Pg
+    818]</a></span></p><span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Modern
+    painters, their superiority in the art of landscape painting
+    to</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 2em;">the old masters, 485.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Bennett&#39;s Ceylon and its
+    capabilities, 622.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Roads, deficiency of, in Greece, 336.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Royal Academy,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;exhibition of the,
+    188.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Fuseli&#39;s Lectures at
+    the, <a href="#Page_691">691</a>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Royal salute, the, a tale, 504.</p>
+
+  <p>Royal Society of London, the, 518.</p>
+
+  <p>Rue St Denis, chronicles of the, 524.</p>
+
+  <p>Russia, conduct of, towards Greece, 359.</p>
+
+  <p>Salmon fishing, Scrope&#39;s days and nights of, reviewed, 80.</p>
+
+  <p>Scamper in the prairie of Jacinto, a, 521.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Schiller, the poems and ballads of, translated,<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part the Last, introduction,
+    139.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;remarks on those of the
+    second period, 140.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;hymn to joy,
+    142.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the invincible armada,
+    143.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the conflict,
+    144.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;resignation,
+    145.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the gods of Greece,
+    146.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the meeting,
+    149.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;to Emma, 150.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;to a young friend devoting
+    himself to philosophy, ib.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the puppet-show of life,
+    ib.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the commencement of the new
+    century, 151.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;the minstrels of old,
+    152.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;farewell to the reader,
+    ib.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Schlegel, Frederick, review of the works of, 311.</p>
+
+  <p>Schwab, Gustav, the Bridge over the Thur, by, translated, <a href=
+  "#Page_717">717</a>.</p>
+
+  <p>Scotch Church, remarks on the bill for the settlement of the,
+  544.</p>
+
+  <p>Scrope on salmon fishing, review of, 80.</p>
+
+  <p>Second siege of Vienna, the, a chapter of Turkish history,
+  173.</p>
+
+  <p>Senses, a speculation on the, 650.</p>
+
+  <p>Simmons, B., Philhellenic drinking-song, by, 41.</p>
+
+  <p>Singers, English, notices of, 31.</p>
+
+  <p>Singhalese, character of the, 627.</p>
+
+  <p>Sketch in the tropics, a, from a super-cargo&#39;s log, 362.</p>
+
+  <p>Sobieski, John, deliverance of Vienna, by, 184.</p>
+
+  <p>Society of British artists, exhibition of the, 199.</p>
+
+  <p>Something about Music, <a href="#Page_709">709.</a></p>
+
+  <p>Spain, effects of the want of an aristocracy in, 52.</p>
+
+  <p>Speculation on the senses, a, 650.</p>
+
+  <p>Stahrenberg, Count, defence of Vienna by, 181.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Statesman, memoirs of a.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part II., 1.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part III., 207.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part IV., 325.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part V., 608.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part VI., <a href=
+    "#Page_691">801</a>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Suffolk street gallery, exhibition at the, 199.</p>
+
+  <p>Supercargo&#39;s log, sketch from a, 362.</p>
+
+  <p>Switzerland, commercial policy, &amp;c., of, 248.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Syloson&#39;s return to Samos, <a href="#Page_714">714</a>.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part II., <a href=
+    "#Page_715">715</a>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Syria, Colonel Napier&#39;s reminiscences of, 476.</p>
+
+  <p>Tallis, the English musician, notices of, 23-24.</p>
+
+  <p>Taprobane of the Romans, the, 623.</p>
+
+  <p>Taxation, pressure of, in Greece, 358.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Texas, adventures in.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;No. I., a scamper in the
+    prairie of Jacinto, 551.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;No. II., a trial by jury,
+    <a href="#Page_777">777</a>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Thirteenth, the, a tale of doom, 465.</p>
+
+  <p>To a young friend devoting himself to philosophy, from the German
+  of Schiller, 150.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Travels of Kerim Khan.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part I., 453.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Part II., 564.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;conclusion, <a href=
+    "#Page_691">753</a>.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Trial by jury, a; an adventure in Texas, <a href=
+  "#Page_777">777</a>.</p>
+
+  <p>Tropics, a sketch in the, from a super-cargo&#39;s log, 362.</p>
+
+  <p>Turkish history, chapters of. No. X., the second siege of Vienna,
+  173.</p>
+
+  <p>Turner, J. W., strictures on the works of, 497.</p>
+
+  <p>Two dreams, from the French of Balzac, 672.</p>
+
+  <p>University of Athens, the, 358.</p>
+
+  <p>Vienna, the second siege of, a chapter of Turkish history,
+  173.</p>
+
+  <p>Vision of the world, a, by Delta, 343.</p>
+
+  <p>Wales, notes on a tour in the disturbed districts of, <a href=
+  "#Page_766">766</a>.</p>
+
+  <p>Water-colour paintings, exhibitions of, 201.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    &quot;We are all low people there,&quot; a tale of the
+    assizes.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chapter I.,
+    273.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Chapter II.,
+    288.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Whewell&#39;s philosophy of the inductive sciences, remarks on,
+  422.</p>
+
+  <div>
+    Whippiad, the, a satirical poem, by Bishop Heber.<br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Canto I., 100.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Canto II., 102.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Canto III.,
+    104.</span><br />
+    <span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8212;Letter relating to,
+    263.</span><br />
+  </div>
+
+  <p>Woman&#39;s rights and duties, review of, 373.</p>
+
+  <p>Women, the wrongs of, 597.</p>
+
+  <p>Wood-paving for locomotives, advantages of, 398.</p>
+
+  <p>World, a vision of the, by Delta, 343.</p>
+
+  <p>Wrongs of women, the, 597.</p>
+
+  <p>Young, A., on the habits of the Salmon, 82.</p>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+  <h4>END OF VOL. LIV.</h4>
+
+  <div class="center">
+    <i>Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul&#39;s
+    Work.</i>
+  </div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine -
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,10087 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54,
+No. 338, December 1843, by Various
+
+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: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: April 27, 2008 [EBook #25193]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Brendan OConnor, Patricia Bennett, Jonathan
+Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Library of Early
+Journals.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BLACKWOOD'S
+
+EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
+
+No. CCCXXXVIII. DECEMBER, 1843. VOL. LIV.
+
+Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved
+to the end of each article.
+
+
+
+                          CONTENTS.
+
+
+        LECTURES AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY.                         691
+        SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC.                                 709
+        THE PURPLE CLOAK; OR, THE RETURN OF SYLOSON TO SAMOS.  714
+        LOVE AND DEATH.                                        717
+        THE BRIDGE OVER THE THUR.                              717
+        THE BANKING-HOUSE. A HISTORY IN THREE PARTS. PART II.  719
+        COLLEGE THEATRICALS.                                   737
+        LINES WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF BUTE.                     749
+        TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN. CONCLUSION.                     753
+        NOTES ON A TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES.   766
+        ADVENTURES IN TEXAS. NO. II.                           777
+        DEATH FROM THE STING OF A SERPENT.                     798
+        GIFTS OF TEREK.                                        799
+        MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART VI.      801
+
+        INDEX TO VOL. LIV.                                     815
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+LECTURES AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
+
+HENRY FUSELI.
+
+
+At a time when the eye of the public is more remarkably, and we trust
+more kindly, directed to the Fine Arts, we may do some service to the
+good cause, by reverting to those lectures delivered in the Royal
+Academy, composed in a spirit of enthusiasm honourable to the
+professors, but which kindled little sympathy in an age strangely dead
+to the impulses of taste. The works, therefore, which set forth the
+principles of art, were not read extensively at the time, and had little
+influence beyond the walls within which they were delivered. Favourable
+circumstances, in conjunction with their real merit, have permanently
+added the discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds to the standard literature
+of our country. They have been transferred from the artist to the
+scholar; and so it has happened, that while few of any pretension to
+scholarship have not read the "The Discourses," they have not, as they
+should have, been continually in the hands of artists themselves. To
+awaken a feeling for this kind of professional reading--yet not so
+professional as not to be beneficial--reflectingly upon classical
+learning; indeed, we might say, education in general, and therefore more
+comprehensive in its scope--we commenced our remarks on the discourses
+of Sir Joshua Reynolds, which have appeared in the pages of Maga. There
+are now more than symptoms of the departure of that general apathy which
+prevailed, when most of the Academy lectures were delivered. It will be,
+therefore, a grateful, and may we hope a useful, task, by occasional
+notices to make them more generally known.
+
+The successors of Reynolds labour under a twofold disadvantage; they
+find that he has occupied the very ground they would have taken, and
+written so ably and fully upon all that is likely to obtain a general
+interest, as to leave a prejudice against further attempts. Of
+necessity, there must be, in every work treating of the same subject,
+much repetition; and it must require no little ingenuity to give a
+novelty and variety, that shall yet be safe, and within the bounds of
+the admitted principles of art. On this account, we have no reason to
+complain of the lectures of Fuseli, which we now purpose to notice. Bold
+and original as the writer is, we find him every where impressed with a
+respect for Reynolds, and with a conviction of the truth of the
+principles which he had collected and established. If there be any
+difference, it is occasionally on the more debatable ground--particular
+passages of criticism.
+
+In the "Introduction," the student is supplied with a list of the
+authorities he should consult for the "History and Progress of his Art."
+He avoids expatiating on the books purely elementary--"the van of which
+is led by Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Durer, and the rear by Gherard
+Lavresse--as the principles which they detail must be supposed to be
+already in the student's possession, or are occasionally interwoven with
+the topics of the lectures;" and proceeds "to the historically critical
+writers, who consist of all the ancients yet remaining, Pausanias
+excepted." Fortunately, there remain a sufficient number of the
+monuments of ancient art "to furnish us with their standard of style;"
+for the accounts are so contradictory, that we should have little to
+rely upon. The works of the ancient artists are all lost: we must be
+content with the "hasty compilations of a warrior," Pliny, or the
+"incidental remarks of an orator," (rhetorician,) Quintilian. The former
+chiefly valuable when he quotes--for then, as Reynolds observed, "he
+speaks the language of an artist:" as in his account of the glazing
+method of Apelles; the manner in which Protogenes embodied his colours;
+and the term of art _circumlitio_, by which Nicias gave "the line of
+correctness to the models of Praxiteles;" the foreshortening the bull by
+Pausias, and throwing his shade on the crowd--showing a forcible
+chiaroscuro. "Of Quintilian, whose information is all relative to style,
+the tenth chapter of the XII.th book, a passage on expression in the
+XI.th, and scattered fragments of observations analogous to the process
+of his own art, is all that we possess; but what he says, though
+comparatively small in bulk, with what we have of Pliny, leaves us to
+wish for more. His review of the revolutions of style in painting, from
+Polygnotus to Apelles, and in sculpture, from Phidias to Lysippus, is
+succinct and rapid; but though so rapid and succinct, every word is
+poised by characteristic precision, and can only be the result of long
+and judicious enquiry, and perhaps even minute examination." Still less
+have we scattered in the writings of Cicero, who, "though he seems to
+have had little native taste for painting and sculpture, and even less
+than he had taste for poetry, had a conception of nature; and with his
+usual acumen, comparing the principles of one art with those of another,
+frequently scattered useful hints, or made pertinent observations. For
+many of these he might probably be indebted to Hortensius, with whom,
+though his rival in eloquence, he lived on terms of familiarity, and who
+was a man of declared taste, and one of the first collectors of the
+time." He speaks somewhat too slightingly of Pausanias,[1] as "the
+indiscriminate chronicler of legitimate tradition and legendary trash,"
+considering that he praises "the scrupulous diligence with which he
+examined what fell under his own eye." He recommends to the epic or
+dramatic artist the study of the heroics of the elder, and the Eicones
+or Picture Galleries of the elder and younger Philostratus.
+
+"The innumerable hints, maxims, anecdotes, descriptions, scattered over
+Lucian, Oelian, Athenaeus, Achilles Tatius, Tatian Pollux, and many
+more, may be consulted to advantage by the man of taste and letters, and
+probably may be neglected without much loss by the student." "Of modern
+writers on art Vasari leads the van; theorist, artist, critic, and
+biographer, in one. The history of modern art owes, no doubt, much to
+Vasari; he leads us from its cradle to its maturity with the anxious
+diligence of a nurse; but he likewise has her derelictions: for more
+loquacious than ample, and less discriminating styles than eager to
+accumulate descriptions, he is at an early period exhausted by the
+superlatives lavished on inferior claims, and forced into frigid
+rhapsodies and astrologic nonsense to do justice to the greater. He
+swears by the divinity of M. Agnolo. He tells us that he copied every
+figure of the Capella Sistina and the stanze of Raffaelle, yet his
+memory was either so treacherous, or his rapidity in writing so
+inconsiderate, that his account of both is a mere heap of errors and
+unpardonable confusion, and one might almost fancy he had never entered
+the Vatican." He is less pleased with the "rubbish of his
+contemporaries, or followers, from Condior to Ridolfi, and on to
+Malvasia." All is little worth "till the appearance of Lanzi, who, in
+his 'Storia Pittorica della Italia,' has availed himself of all the
+information existing in his time, has corrected most of those who wrote
+before him, and, though perhaps not possessed of great discriminative
+powers, has accumulated more instructive anecdotes, rescued more
+deserving names from oblivion, and opened a wider prospect of art, than
+all his predecessors." But for the valuable notes of Reynolds, the idle
+pursuit of Du Fresnoy to clothe the precepts of art in Latin verse,
+would be useless. "The notes of Reynolds, treasures of practical
+observation, place him among those whom we may read with profit." De
+Piles and Felibien are spoken of next, as the teachers of "what may be
+learned from precept, founded on prescriptive authority more than on the
+verdicts of nature." Of the effects of the system pursued by the French
+Academy from such precepts, our author is, perhaps, not undeservedly
+severe.
+
+"About the middle of the last century the German critics, established at
+Rome, began to claim the exclusive privilege of teaching the art, and to
+form a complete system of antique style. The verdicts of Mengs and
+Winkelmann, become the oracles of antiquaries, dilettanti, and artists,
+from the Pyrenees to the utmost north of Europe, have been detailed, and
+are not without their influence here. Winkelmann was the parasite of the
+fragments that fell from the conversation or the tablets of Mengs--a
+deep scholar, and better fitted to comment on a classic than to give
+lessons on art and style, he reasoned himself into frigid reveries and
+Platonic dreams on beauty. As far as the taste or the instruction of his
+tutor directed, he is right when they are; and between his own learning
+and the tuition of the other, his history of art delivers a specious
+system, and a prodigious number of useful observations." "To him Germany
+owes the shackles of her artists, and the narrow limits of their aim."
+Had Fuseli lived to have witnessed the "revival" at Munich, he would
+have appreciated the efforts made, and still making, there. He speaks of
+the works of Mengs with respect. "The works of Mengs himself are, no
+doubt, full of the most useful information, deep observation, and often
+consummate criticism. He has traced and distinguished the principles of
+the moderns from those of the ancients; and in his comparative view of
+the design, colour, composition, and expression of Raffaelle, Correggio,
+and Tiziano, with luminous perspicuity and deep precision, pointed out
+the prerogative or inferiority of each. As an artist, he is an instance
+of what perseverance, study, experience, and encouragement can achieve
+to supply the place of genius." He then, passing by all English critics
+preceding Reynolds, with the petty remark, that "the last is undoubtedly
+the first," says--"To compare Reynolds with his predecessors, would
+equally disgrace our judgment, and impeach our gratitude. His volumes
+can never be consulted without profit, and should never be quitted by
+the student's hand but to embody, by exercise, the precepts he gives and
+the means he points out." It is useful thus to see together the
+authorities which a student should consult, and we have purposely
+characterized them as concisely as we could, in our extracts, which
+strongly show the peculiar style of Mr Fuseli. If this introduction was,
+however, intended for artists, it implies in them a more advanced
+education in Greek and Latin literature than they generally possess. Mr
+Fuseli was himself an accomplished scholar. How desirable is it that the
+arts and general scholarship should go together! The classics, fully to
+be enjoyed, require no small cultivation in art; and as the greater
+portion of ancient art is drawn from that source, Greek mythology, and
+classical history and literature, such an education would seem to be the
+very first step in the acquirements of an artist. We believe that in
+general they content themselves with Lempriere's Dictionary; and that
+rather for information on subjects they may see already painted, than
+for their own use; and thus, for lack of a feeling which only education
+can give, a large field of resources is cut off from them. If it be said
+that English literature--English classics, will supply the place, we
+deny it; for there is not an English classic of value to an artist, who
+was not, to his very heart's core, embued with a knowledge and love of
+the ancient literature. We might instance but two, Spenser and
+Milton--the statute-books of the better English art--authors whom, we do
+not hesitate to say, no one can thoroughly understand or enjoy, who has
+not far advanced in classical education. We shall never cease to throw
+out remarks of this kind, with the hope that our universities will yet
+find room to foster the art within them; satisfied as we are that the
+advantages would be immense, both to the art and to the universities.
+How many would then pursue pleasures and studies most congenial with
+their usual academical education, and, thus occupied, be rescued from
+pursuits that too often lead to profligacy and ruin; and sacrifice to
+pleasures that cannot last, those which, where once fostered, have ever
+been permanent!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The FIRST LECTURE is a summary of ancient art--one rather of research
+than interest--more calculated to excite the curiosity of the student
+than to offer him any profitable instruction. The general matter is well
+known to most, who have at all studied the subject. Nor have we
+sufficient confidence in any theory as to the rise and growth of art in
+Greece, to lay much stress upon those laid down in this lecture. We
+doubt if the religion of Greece ever had that hold upon the feelings of
+the people, artists, or their patrons, which is implied in the
+supposition, that it was an efficient cause. A people that could listen
+to the broad farce of Aristophanes, and witness every sort of contempt
+thrown upon the deities they professed to worship, were not likely to
+seek in religion the advancement of art; and their licentious
+liberty--if liberty it deserved to be called--was of too watchful a
+jealousy over greatness of every kind, to suffer genius to be free and
+without suspicion. We will not follow the lecturer through his
+conjectures on the mechanic processes. It is more curious than useful to
+trace back the more perfect art through its stages--the "Polychrom," the
+"Monochrom," the "Monogram," and "Skiagram"--nor from the pencil to the
+"cestrum." Polygnotus is said to be the first who introduced the
+"essential style;" which consisted in ascertaining the abstract, the
+general form, as it is technically termed the central form. Art under
+Polygnotus was, however, in a state of formal "parallelism;" certainly
+it could boast no variety of composition. Apollodorus "applied the
+essential principles of Polygnotus to the delineation of the species, by
+investigating the leading forms that discriminate the various classes of
+human qualities and passions." He saw that all men were connected
+together by one general form, yet were separated by some predominant
+power into classes; "thence he drew his line of imitation, and
+personified the central form of the class to which his object belonged,
+and to which the rest of its qualities administered, without being
+absorbed." Zeuxis, from the essential of Polygnotus and specific
+discrimination of Apollodorus, comparing one with the other, formed his
+ideal style. Thus are there the three styles--the essential, the
+characteristic, the ideal.
+
+Art was advanced and established under Parrhasius and Timanthes, and
+refined under Eupompus, Apelles, Aristides, and Euphranor. "The
+correctness of Parrhasius succeeded to the genius of Zeuxis. He
+circumscribed the ample style, and by subtle examination of outline,
+established that standard of divine and heroic form which raised him to
+the authority of a legislator, from whose decisions there was no appeal.
+He gave to the divine and heroic character in painting, what Polycletus
+had given to the human in sculpture by his Doryphorus, a canon of
+proportion. Phidias had discovered in the nod of the Homeric Jupiter the
+characteristic of majesty, _inclination of the head_. This hinted to him
+a higher elevation of the neck behind, a bolder protrusion of the front,
+and the increased perpendicular of the profile. To this conception
+Parrhasius fixed a maximum; that point from which descends the ultimate
+line of celestial beauty, the angle within which moves what is inferior,
+beyond which what is portentous. From the head conclude to the
+proportions of the neck, the limbs, the extremities; from the Father to
+the race of gods; all, the sons of one, Zeus; derived from one source of
+tradition, Homer; formed by one artist, Phidias; on him measured and
+decided by Parrhasius. In the simplicity of this principle, adhered to
+by the succeeding periods, lies the uninterrupted progress and the
+unattainable superiority of Grecian art."
+
+In speaking of Timanthes as the competitor with Parrhasius, as one who
+brought into the art more play of the mind and passions, the lecturer
+takes occasion to discuss the often discussed and disputed propriety of
+Timanthes, in covering the head of Agamemnon in his picture of the
+sacrifice of Iphigenia. He thinks it the more incumbent on him so to do,
+as the "late president" had passed a censure upon Timanthes. Sir Joshua
+expressed his _doubt_ only, not his censure absolutely, upon the
+delivery of the prize at the Academy for the best picture painted from
+this subject. He certainly dissents from bestowing the praise, upon the
+supposition of the intention being the avoiding a difficulty. And as to
+this point, the well-known authorities of Cicero, Quintilian, Valerius
+Maximus, and Pliny, seem to agree. And _if_, as the lecturer observes in
+a note, the painter is made to waste expression on inferior actors at
+the expense of a principal one, he is an improvident spendthrift, not a
+wise economist. The pertness of Falconet is unworthy grave criticism and
+the subject, though it is quoted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He assumes that
+Agamemnon is the principal figure. Undoubtedly Mr Fuseli is
+right--Iphigenia is the principal figure; and it may be fairly admitted,
+that the overpowering expression of the grief of the father would have
+divided the subject. It might be more properly a separate picture. Art
+is limited; nothing should detract from the principal figure, the
+principal action--passion. Our sympathy is not called for on behalf of
+the father here: the grief of the others in the picture is the grief in
+perfect sympathy with Iphigenia; the father would have been absorbed in
+his own grief, and his grief would have been an unsympathetic grief
+towards Iphigenia. It was his own case that he felt; and it does appear
+to us an aggravation of the suffering of Iphigenia, that, at the moment
+of her sacrifice, she saw indeed her father's person, but was never
+more--and knew she was never more--to behold his face again. This
+circumstance alone would justify Timanthes, but other concurrent reasons
+may be given. It was no want of power to express the father's grief, for
+it is in the province of art to express every such delineation; but
+there _is_ a point of grief that is ill expressed by the countenance at
+all; and there is a natural action in such cases for the sufferer
+himself to hide his face, as if conscious that it was not in agreement
+with his feelings. Such grief is astounding: we look for the expression
+of it, and find it not: it is better than receive this shock to hide the
+face. We do it naturally; so that here the art of the painter, that
+required that his picture should be a whole, and centre in Iphigenia,
+was mainly assisted by the proper adoption of this natural action of
+Agamemnon. Mr Fuseli, whose criticism is always acute, and generally
+just and true, has well discussed the subject, and properly commented
+upon the flippancy of Falconet. After showing the many ways in which the
+painter might have expressed the parent's grief, and that none of them
+would be _decere, pro dignitate, digne_, he adds--'But Timanthes had too
+true a sense of nature to expose a father's feelings, or to tear a
+passion to rags; nor had the Greeks yet learned of Rome to steel the
+face. If he made Agamemnon bear his calamity as a man, he made him also
+feel it as a man. It became the leader of Greece to sanction the
+ceremony with his presence: it did not become the father to see his
+daughter beneath the dagger's point: the same nature that threw a real
+mantle over the face of Timoleon, when he assisted at the punishment of
+his brother, taught Timanthes to throw an imaginary one over the face of
+Agamemnon; neither height nor depth, _propriety_ of expression was his
+aim.' It is a question whether Timanthes took the idea from the text of
+Euripides, or whether it is his invention, and was borrowed by the
+dramatist. The picture must have presented a contrast to that of his
+rival Parrhasius, which exhibited the fury of Ajax.
+
+Whether the invention was or was not the merit of Euripides, certainly
+this is not the only instance wherein he has turned it to dramatic
+advantage. No dramatist was so distinct a painter as Euripides; his mind
+was ever upon picture. He makes Hecuba, in the dialogue with Agamemnon,
+say, "Pity me, and, standing apart as would a painter, look at me, and
+see what evils I have,"
+
+     [Greek: Oichteiron hemas, os grapheus t apostatheis,
+     Ida me chanathreson, oi echo chacha.]
+
+And this Hecuba, when Talthybius comes to require her presence for the
+burial of Polyxena, is found lying on the ground, _her face covered_
+with her robe:--
+
+     [Greek: Aute pelas sou, not echous epi chthoni,
+     Talthubie, keitai, sugchechleismene peplois.]
+
+And in the same play, Polyxena bids Ulysses to cover her head with a
+robe, as he leads her away, that she might not see her mother's grief.
+
+     [Greek: Komiz, Odysseu, m'amphitheis peplois chara.]
+
+But in the instance in question, in the Iphigenia, there is one
+circumstance that seems to have been overlooked by the critics, which
+makes the action of Agamemnon the more expressive, and gives it a
+peculiar force: the dramatist takes care to exhibit the more than common
+parental and filial love; when asked by Clytemnestra what would be her
+last, her dying request, it is instantly, on her father's account, to
+avert every feeling of wrath against him:--
+
+     [Greek: Patera ge ton emon me stugei, posin te son.]
+
+And even when the father covers his face, she is close beside him,
+_tells him that she is beside him_, and her last words are to comfort
+him. Now, whether Timanthes took the scene from Euripides or Euripides
+from Timanthes, it could not be more powerfully, more naturally
+conceived; for this dramatic incident, the tender movement to his side,
+and speech of Iphigenia, could not have been imagined, or at least with
+little effect, had not the father first covered his face. Mr Fuseli has
+collected several instances of attempts something similar in pictures,
+particularly by Massaccio, and Raffaelle from him; and he well
+remarks--"We must conclude that Nature herself dictated to him this
+method, as superior to all he could express by features; and that he
+recognized the same dictate in Massaccio, who can no more be supposed to
+have been acquainted with the precedent of Timanthes than Shakspeare
+with that of Euripides, when he made Macduff draw his hat over his
+face." From Timanthes Mr Fuseli proceeds to eulogize Aristides; whom
+history records as, in a peculiar excellence, the painter of the
+passions of nature. "Such, history informs us, was the suppliant whose
+voice you seemed to hear, such his sick man's half-extinguished eye and
+labouring breast, such Byblis expiring in the pangs of love, and, above
+all, the half-slain mother shuddering lest the eager babe should suck
+the blood from her palsied nipple."--"Timanthes had marked the limits
+that discriminate terror from the excess of horror; Aristides drew the
+line that separates it from disgust." Then follows a very just criticism
+upon instances in which he considered that Raffaelle himself and Nicolo
+Poussin had overstepped the bounds of propriety, and averted the
+feelings from their object, by ideas of disgust. In the group of
+Raffaelle, a man is removing the child from the breast of the mother
+with one hand, while the other is applied to his nostrils. Poussin, in
+his plague of the Philistines, has copied the loathsome action--so,
+likewise, in another picture, said to be the plague of Athens, but
+without much reason so named, in the collection of J. P. Mills, Esq. Dr
+Waagen, in his admiration for the executive part of art, speaks of it as
+"a very rich masterpiece of Poussin, in which we are reconciled by his
+skill to the horrors of the subject."
+
+In the commencement of the lecture, there are offered some definitions
+of the terms of art, "nature, grace, taste, copy, imitation, genius,
+talent." In that of nature, he seems entirely to agree with Reynolds;
+that of beauty leaves us pretty much in the dark in our search for it,
+"as that harmonious whole of the human frame, that unison of parts to
+one end, which enchants us. The result of the standard set by the great
+masters of our art, the ancients, and confirmed by the submissive
+verdict of modern imitation." This is unphilosophical, unsatisfactory;
+nor is that of grace less so--"that artless balance of motion and
+repose, sprung from character, founded on propriety, which neither falls
+short of the demands, nor overleaps the modesty of nature. Applied to
+execution it means that dexterous power which hides the means by which
+it was attained, the difficulties it has conquered." We humbly suggest,
+that both parts of this definition may be found where there is little
+grace. It is evident that the lecturer did not subscribe to any theory
+of lines, as _per se_ beautiful or graceful, and altogether disregarded
+Hogarth's line of beauty. Had Mr Hay's very admirable short works--his
+"Theory of Form and Proportion"--appeared in Mr Fuseli's day, he would
+have taken a new view of beauty and grace. By taste, he means not only a
+knowledge of what is right in art, but a power to estimate degrees of
+excellence, "and by comparison proceeds from justness to refinement."
+This, too, we think inadequate to express what we mean by taste, which
+appears to us to have something of a sense, independent of knowledge.
+Using words in a technical sense, we may define them to mean what we
+please, but certainly the words themselves, "copy" and "imitation," do
+not mean very different things. He thinks "precision of eye, and
+obedience of hand, are the requisites for copy, without the least
+pretence to choice, what to select, what to reject; whilst choice,
+directed by judgment or taste, constitutes the essence of imitation, and
+alone can raise the most dexterous copyist to the noble rank of an
+artist." We do not exactly see how this judgment arises out of his
+definition of "taste." But it may be fair to follow him still closer on
+this point. "The imitation of the ancients was, _essential_,
+_characteristic_, _ideal_. The first cleared nature of accident, defect,
+excrescence, (which was in fact his definition of nature, as so
+cleared;) the second found the _stamen_ which connects character with
+the central form; the third raised the whole and the parts to the
+highest degree of unison." This is rather loose writing, and not very
+close reasoning. After all, it may be safer to take words in their
+common acceptation; for it is very difficult in a treatise of any
+length, to preserve in the mind or memory the precise ideas of given
+definitions. "Of genius, I shall speak with reserve; for no word has
+been more indiscriminately confounded. By genius, I mean that power
+which enlarges the circle of human knowledge, which discovers new
+materials of nature, or combines the known with novelty; whilst talent
+arranges, cultivates, polishes the discoveries of genius." Definitions,
+divisions, and subdivisions, though intended to make clear, too often
+entangle the ground unnecessarily, and keep the mind upon the stretch to
+remember, when it should only feel. We think this a fault with Mr
+Fuseli; it often renders him obscure, and involves his style of
+aphorisms in the mystery of a riddle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+SECOND LECTURE.--This lecture comprises a compendious history of modern
+art; commencing with Massaccio. If religion gave the impulse to both
+ancient and modern, so has it stamped each with the different characters
+itself assumed. The conceptions the ancients had of divinity, were the
+perfection of the human form; thus form and beauty became godlike. The
+Christian religion wore a more spiritual character. In ancient art,
+human form and beauty were triumphant; in modern art, the greater
+triumph was in humility, in suffering; the religious inspiration was to
+be shown in its influence in actions less calculated to display the
+powers, the energies of form, than those of mind. Mere external beauty
+had its accompanying vices; and it was compelled to lower its
+pretensions considerably, submit to correction, and take a more
+subordinate part. Thus, if art lost in form it gained in expression, and
+thus was really more divine. Art in its revival, passing through the
+barbarity of Gothic adventurers, not unencumbered with senseless
+superstitions, yet with wondrous rapidity, raised itself to the noblest
+conceptions of both purity and magnificence. Sculpture had, indeed,
+preceded painting in the works of Ghiberti Donato and Philippo
+Brunelleschi, when Massaccio appeared. "He first perceived that parts
+are to constitute a whole; that composition ought to have a centre;
+expression, truth; and execution, unity. His line deserves attention,
+though his subjects led him not to investigation of form, and the
+shortness of his life forbade his extending those elements, which
+Raffaelle, nearly a century afterwards, carried to perfection." That
+great master of expression did not disdain to borrow from him--as is
+seen in the figure of "St Paul preaching at Athens," and that of "Adam
+expelled from Paradise." Andrea Mantegna attempted to improve upon
+Massaccio, by adding form from study of the antique. Mr Fuseli considers
+his "taste too crude, his fancy too grotesque, and his comprehension too
+weak, to advert from the parts that remained to the whole that inspired
+them; hence, in his figures of dignity or beauty, we see not only the
+meagre forms of common models, but even their defects tacked to ideal
+torsos." We think, however, he is deserving of more praise than the
+lecturer was disposed to bestow upon him, and that his "triumphs," the
+processions, (at Hampton Court,) are not quite justly called "a copious
+inventory of classic lumber, swept together with more industry than
+taste, but full of valuable materials." Yet when it is said, that he was
+"not ignorant of expression," and that "his Burial of Christ furnished
+Raffaelle with composition, and even "some figures and attitudes," the
+severity of the opinion seems somewhat mitigated. Luca Signorelli, more
+indebted to nature than the study of the antique, "seems to have been
+the first who contemplated with a discriminating eye his object; saw
+what was accidental, and what essential; balanced light and shade, and
+decided the motion of his figures. He foreshortened with equal boldness
+and intelligence." It was thought by Vasari, that in his "Judgment,"
+Michael Angelo had imitated him. At this period of the "dawn of modern
+art, Leonardo da Vinci broke forth with a splendour which distanced
+former excellence; made up of all the elements that constitute the
+essence of genius; favoured by education and circumstances--all ear, all
+eye, all grasp; painter, poet, sculptor, anatomist, architect, engineer,
+chemist, machinist, musician, man of science, and sometimes empiric, he
+laid hold of every beauty in the enchanted circle, but without exclusive
+attachment to one, dismissed in her turn each." "We owe him chiaroscuro,
+with all its magic--we owe him caricature, with all its incongruities."
+His genius was shown in the design of the cartoon intended for the
+council-chamber at Florence, which he capriciously abandoned, wherein
+the group of horsemen might fairly rival the greatness of Michael Angelo
+himself; and in the well-known "Last Supper," in the refectory of the
+Dominicans at Milan, best known, however, from the copies which remain
+of it, and the studies which remain. Fra Bartolomeo, "the last master of
+this period, first gave gradation to colour, form and masses to drapery,
+and a grave dignity, till then unknown, to execution." His was the merit
+of having weaned Raffaelle "from the meanness of Pietro Perugino, and
+prepared for the mighty style of Michael Angelo Buonarotti." Mr Fuseli
+is inspired by his admiration of that wonderful man, as painter,
+sculptor, and architect.
+
+"Sublimity of conception, grandeur of form, and breadth of manner, are
+the elements of Michael Angelo's style. By these principles, he selected
+or rejected the objects of imitation. As painter, as sculptor, as
+architect, he attempted--and above any other man, succeeded--to unite
+magnificence of plan, and endless variety of subordinate parts, with the
+utmost simplicity and breadth. His line is uniformly grand. Character
+and beauty were admitted only as far as they could be made subservient
+to grandeur. The child, the female, meanness, deformity, were by him
+indiscriminately stamped with grandeur. A beggar rose from his hand the
+patriarch of poverty; the hump of his dwarf is impressed with dignity;
+his women are moulds of generation, his infants teem with man; his men
+are a race of giants. This is the 'terribile via' hinted at by Agostino
+Caracci; though, perhaps, as little understood by the Bolognese as by
+the blindest of his Tuscan adorers, with Vasari at their head. To give
+the appearance of perfect ease to the most perplexing difficulty, was
+the exclusive power of Michael Angelo. He is the inventor of epic in
+painting, in that sublime circle of the Sistine chapel which exhibits
+the origin, the progress, and the final dispensations of theocracy. He
+has personated motion in the groups of the cartoon of Pisa; embodied
+sentiment on the monuments of St Lorenzo; unraveled the features of
+meditation in the prophets and sibyls of the Sistine chapel; and in the
+'Last Judgment,' with every attitude that varies the human body, traced
+the master trait of every passion that sways the human heart. Though, as
+sculptor, he expressed the character of flesh more perfectly than all
+who went before or came after him, yet he never submitted to copy an
+individual--Julio the Second only excepted; and in him he represented
+the reigning passion rather than the man. In painting, he contented
+himself with a negative colour, and as the painter of mankind, rejected
+all meretricious ornament. The fabric of St Peter's scattered into
+infinity of jarring parts by Bramante and his successors, he
+concentrated; suspended the cupola, and to the most complex, gave the
+air of the most simple of edifices. Such, take him for all in all, was
+Michael Angelo, the salt of art; sometimes, no doubt, he had his moments
+of dereliction, deviated into manner, or perplexed the grandeur of his
+forms with futile and ostentatious anatomy; both met with armies of
+copyists, and it has been his fate to have been censured for their
+folly." This studied panegyric is nevertheless vigorous--emulous as that
+of Longinus, of showing the author to be--
+
+     "Himself, the great sublime he draws."
+
+It hurries away the mind of the reader till it kindles a congenial
+enthusiasm, we have the more readily given the quotation, as it is not
+an unfair specimen of Mr Fuseli's power, both of thought and language.
+Our author is scarcely less eloquent in his eulogy of Raffaelle which
+follows. He has seized on the points of character of that great painter
+very happily. "His composition always hastens to the most necessary
+point as its centre, and from that disseminates, to that leads back, as
+rays, all secondary ones. Group, form, and contrast are subordinate to
+the event, and common-place ever excluded. His expression, in strict
+unison with, and inspired by character; whether calm, agitated,
+convulsed, or absorbed by the inspiring passion, unmixed and pure, never
+contradicts its cause, equally remote from tameness and grimace: the
+moment of his choice never suffers the action to stagnate or expire; it
+is the moment of transition, the crisis, big with the past, and pregnant
+with the future."
+
+It is certainly true--the moment generally chosen by Raffaelle, is not
+of the action completed, the end--but that in which it is doing. You
+instantly acknowledge the power, while your curiosity is not quenched.
+For instance, in the cartoon of the "Beautiful Gate," you see the action
+at the word is just breaking into the miracle--the cripple is yet in his
+distorted infirmity--but you see near him grace and activity of limb
+beautifully displayed, in that mother and running child; and you look to
+the perfection which, you feel sure, the miracle will complete. This is
+by no means the best instance--it is the case in all his compositions
+where a story is to be told. It is this action which, united with most
+perfect character and expression, makes the life of Raffaelle's
+pictures. We think, however, that even in so summary a history of art as
+this, the object of which seems to be to mark the steps to its
+perfection, the influence of Pietro Perugino should not have been
+omitted. He is often very pure in sentiment, often more than bordering
+on grace, and in colour perhaps superior to Raffaelle. Notwithstanding
+Mr Fuseli's eulogy of Raffaelle, we doubt if he fully entered into his
+highest sentiment. This we may show when we comment on another lecture.
+While Rome and Tuscany were thus fostering the higher principles of art,
+the fascination of colour was spreading a new charm to every eye at
+Venice, from the pencils of Giorgione, and of Titian. Had not Titian
+been a colourist, his genius was not unequal to the great style; perhaps
+he has admitted of that style as much as would suit the predominant
+character of his colouring. He worked less with chiaroscuro than colour,
+which he endowed with all the sentiment of his subject. Mr Fuseli
+considers landscape to have originated with Titian.
+
+"Landscape, whether it be considered as the transcript of a spot, or the
+rich combination of congenial objects, or as the scene of a phenomenon,
+dates its origin from him:" so of portrait, he says--"He is the father
+of portrait painting, of resemblance with form, character with dignity,
+and costume with subordination." The yet wanting charm of art--perfect
+harmony, was reserved for Correggio. "The harmony and grace of Correggio
+are proverbial; the medium which, by breadth of gradation, unites two
+opposite principles, the coalition of light and darkness, by
+imperceptible transition, are the element of his style." "This unison of
+a whole predominates in all that remains of him, from the vastness of
+his cupolas to the smallest of his oil pictures. The harmony of
+Correggio, though assisted by exquisite hues, was entirely independent
+of colour; his great organ was chiaroscuro in its most extensive
+sense--compared with the expanse in which he floats, the effects of
+Leonardi da Vinci are little more than the dying ray of evening, and the
+concentrated flash of Giorgione discordant abruptness. The bland,
+central light of a globe, imperceptibly gliding through lucid demi-tints
+into rich reflected shades, composes the spell of Correggio, and affects
+us with the soft emotions of a delicious dream." Here terminates the
+great, the primal era. Such were the patriarchs of modern art. Here, it
+may be said, terminated the great discoverers. Mr Fuseli pauses here to
+observe, that we should consider the characteristic of each of these
+painters, not their occasional deviations; for not unfrequently did
+Titian rise to the loftiness of conception of Michael Angelo, and
+Correggio occasionally "exceeded all competition in expression in the
+divine features of his _Ecce Homo_." If Mr Fuseli alludes to the _Ecce
+Homo_ now in our National Gallery, we cannot go along with him in this
+praise--but in that picture, the expression of the true "Mater dolorosa"
+was never equaled. Art now proceeds to its period of "Refinement." The
+great schools--the Tuscan, the Roman, the Venetian, and the
+Lombard--from whatever cause, separated. Michael Angelo lived to see his
+great style polluted by Tuscan and Venetian, "as the ostentatious
+vehicle of puny conceits and emblematic quibbles, or the palliative of
+empty pomp and degraded luxuriance of colour." He considers Andrea del
+Sarto to have been his copyer, not his imitator. Tibaldi seems to have
+caught somewhat of his mind. As did Sir Joshua, so does Mr Fuseli
+mention his Polypheme groping at the mouth of his cave for Ulysses. He
+expresses his surprise that Michael Angelo was unacquainted with the
+great talent of Tibaldi, but lavished his assistance on inferior men,
+Sebastian del Piombo and Daniel of Volterra. We think he does not do
+fair justice to the merits of these undoubtedly great men. We shall have
+occasion hereafter to notice his criticism on the great work of
+Sebastian, in our National Gallery. We are surprised that he should
+consider Sebastian del Piombo deficient in ideal colour, and that the
+lines of Daniel of Volterra are meagre and sterile of idea--his
+celebrated Descent from the Cross being in its lines, as tending to
+perfect the composition, and to make full his great idea, quite
+extraordinary. Poor Vasari, who can never find favour with our author,
+is considered the great depravator of the style of Michael Angelo.
+
+At the too early death of Raffaelle, his style fell into gradual decay.
+Still Julio Romano, and Polidoro da Carravaggio, "deserted indeed the
+standard of their master, but with a dignity and magnitude of compass
+which command respect."
+
+The taste of Julio Romano was not pure enough to detach him from
+"deformity and grimace" and "ungenial colour." Primaticcio and Nicolo
+dell Abate propagated the style of Julio Romano on the Gallic side of
+the Alps, in mythologic and allegoric works. These frescoes from the
+Odyssea at Fontainbleau are lost, but are worthy admiration, though in
+the feeble etchings of Theodore van Fulden. The "ideal light and shade,
+and tremendous breadth of manner" of Michael Angelo Amerigi, surnamed
+Il Caravaggi, are next commended. "The aim and style of the Roman school
+deserve little further notice here, till the appearance of Nicolo
+Poussin." His partiality for the antique mainly affected his style. "He
+has left specimens to show that he was sometimes sublime, and often in
+the highest degree pathetic." Mr Fuseli takes occasion, by contrasting
+"the classic regularity" of Poussin with the "wildness of Salvator
+Rosa"--we think unnecessarily, because there seems to be no true point
+of comparison, and unjustly to censure that great, we may say, that
+original painter. We have noticed occasionally a capricious dislike in
+our author to some artists, for which we are at a loss to account. That
+Salvator should "hide by boldness of hand his inability of exhibiting
+her (Nature) impassioned," is a sentence that will scarcely meet with an
+assenting critic. The wealth and luxury of Venice soon demanded of art,
+to sacrifice the modesty of nature to ostentation. The principle of
+Titian was, however, followed by Tintoretto, Bassan, Paul Veronese, and
+then passed to Velasquez the Spaniard, in Italy. From him "Rubens and
+Vandyck attempted to transplant it to Flanders, France, and England,
+with unequal success." The style of Correggio scarcely survived him, for
+he had more imitators of parts than followers of the whole. His grace
+became elegance under the hand of Parmegiano. "That disengaged play of
+delicate forms, the 'saltezza' of the Italians, is the prerogative of
+Parmegiano, though nearly always obtained at the expense of proportion."
+We cannot agree with the lecturer, that the Moses of Parmegiano--if he
+speaks of _the_ Moses referred to in the Discourses of Sir Joshua, of
+which Mr Burnet, in his second edition, has given a plate--loses "the
+dignity of the lawgiver in the savage." Such was the state of art to the
+foundation of the Eclectic School by the Caracci--an attempt to unite
+the excellences of all schools. The principles are perpetuated in a
+sonnet by Agostino Caracci. The Caracci were, however, in their practice
+above their precepts. Theirs, too, was the school of the "Naturalists."
+Ludovico is particularly praised for his solemnity of hue, most suited
+to his religious subjects--"that sober twilight, the air of cloistered
+meditation, which you have so often heard recommended as the proper tone
+of historic colour." If the recommendation has at our Academy been often
+heard, it has entirely lost its influence; our English school is--with
+an ignorance of the real object of colour, or with a very bad taste as
+to its harmony--running into an opposite extravagance, destructive of
+real power, glaring and distracting where it ought to concentrate
+through vision the ideas of the mind. Annibal Caracci had more power of
+execution, but not the taste of Agostino. In their immediate scholars,
+the lecturer seems little disposed to see fairly their several
+excellences. They are out of the view of his bias. They are not Michael
+Angelesque. His judgment of Domenichino--a painter who greatly restored
+the simplicity and severity of the elder schools, and greatly surpassed
+his masters--is an instance of blindness to a power in art which we
+would almost call new, that is very strange to see. "Domenichino, more
+obedient than the rest to his masters, aimed at the beauty of the
+antique, the expression of Raphael, the vigour of Annibal, the colour of
+Ludovico; and mixing something of each, fell short of all." Nor do we
+think him just with regard to Guercino, or even at all describing his
+characteristic style, when he speaks of his "fierceness of chiaroscuro,
+and intrepidity of hand." We readily give up to him "the great but
+abused talents of Pietro da Cortona," a painter without sentiment, and
+the "fascinating but debauched and empty facility of Luca Giordano."
+
+The German schools here come under consideration, which, simultaneously
+with those of Italy, and without visible communication, spread the
+principles of art. "Towards the decline of the fifteenth century, the
+uncouth essays of Martin Schoen, Michael Wolgemuth, and Albrecht
+Altorfer, were succeeded by the finer polish and the more dexterous
+method of Albert Durer." His well-known figure of "Melancholy" would
+alone entitle him to rank. The breadth and power of his wood engravings
+are worthy of admiration. Mr Fuseli thinks "his colour went beyond his
+age, and as far excelled, in truth and breadth of handling, the
+oil-colour of Raphael, as Raphael excels him in every other quality.
+His influence was not unfelt in Italy. It is visible in the style of
+even the imitators of Michael Angelo--Andrea del Sarto, particularly in
+the angular manner of his draperies. Though Albert Durer had no
+scholars, he was imitated by the Dutch Lucas of Leyden. Now it was that
+the style of Michael Angelo, spread by the graver of Giorgio Mantuano,
+brought to Italy "those caravans of German, Dutch, and Flemish students,
+who, on their return from Italy, at the courts of Prague and Munich, in
+Flanders and the Netherlands, introduced the preposterous manner, the
+bloated excrescence of diseased brains, which, in the form of man, left
+nothing human; distorted action and gesture with insanity of
+affectation, and dressed the gewgaws of children in colossal shapes."
+But though such as Golzius, Spranger, Heyntz, and Abach, "fed on the
+husks of Tuscan design, they imbibed the colour of Venice, and spread
+the elements of that excellence which distinguished the succeeding
+schools of Flanders and of Holland." So it was till the appearance of
+Rubens and Rembrandt--"both of whom, disdaining to acknowledge the usual
+laws of admission to the temple of Fame, boldly forged their own keys,
+entered, and took possession, each of a most conspicuous place, by his
+own power." Rubens, with many advantages, acquired in his education at
+Antwerp, and already influenced by the gorgeous pomp of Austrian and
+Spanish superstition, arrived in Italy rather as the rival than pupil of
+the masters whom he travelled to study. Whatever he borrowed from the
+Venetian school--the object of his admiration--he converted into a new
+manner of florid magnificence. It is just the excellence of Rubens--the
+completeness, the congruity of his style--that has raised him to the
+eminence in the temple of fame which he will ever occupy. A little short
+of Rubens is intolerable: the clumsy forms and improprieties of his
+imitators are not to be endured. Mr Fuseli excepts Vandyck and Abraham
+Drepenbeck from the censure passed upon the followers of Rubens. As
+Drepenbeck is not so well known, we quote the passage respecting
+him:--"The fancy of Drepenbeck, though not so exuberant, if I be not
+mistaken, excelled in sublimity the imagination of Rubens. His
+Bellerophon, Dioscuri, Hippolytus, Ixion, Sisyphus, fear no competitor
+among the productions of his master." Rembrandt he considers a genius of
+the first class in all but form. Chiaroscuro and colour were the
+elements, in fact, in which Rembrandt reveled. In these he was the
+poet--the maker. He made colour and chiaroscuro throw out ideas of
+sublimity: that he might throw himself the more into these great
+elements of his art, and depend solely on their power, he seems
+purposely not to have neglected form, but to have selected such as,
+without beauty to attract, should be merely the objects of life, the
+sensitive beings in his world of mystery. That such was his intention we
+cannot doubt; because we cannot imagine the beautiful but too attractive
+figures of the Apollo or the Venus adopted into one of his pictures.
+Excepting in a few instances, we would not wish Rembrandt's forms other
+than they are. They appear necessary to his style. Mr Fuseli speaks very
+favourably of art in Switzerland; but says there are only two painters
+of name--Holbein, and Francis Mola. The designs of the Passion and Dance
+of Death of the former, are instanced as works of excellence. Mola, we
+are surprised to find ranked as Swiss; for he is altogether, in art,
+Italian. The influence of the school and precepts of the Caracci,
+produced in France an abundant harvest of mediocrity. In France was the
+merit of Michael Angelo first questioned. There are, however, names that
+rescue France from the entire disgrace of the abandonment of the true
+principles of art: Nicolo Poussin, Le Sueur, Le Brun, Sebastian Bourdon,
+and Pierre Mignard. The Seven Works of Charity, by Seb. Bourdon, teem
+with surprising, pathetic, and always novel images; and in the Plague of
+David, by Pierre Mignard, our sympathy is roused by energies of terror
+and combinations of woe, which escaped Poussin and Raphael himself." Of
+Spanish art he says but little, but that "the degree of perfection
+attained by Diego Velasquez, Joseph Ribera, and Murillo, in pursuing the
+same object by means as different as successful, impresses us with deep
+respect for the variety of their powers." Art, as every thing else, has
+its fashion. The Spanish school have, of later years, been more eagerly
+sought for; and a strange whim of the day has attached a very
+extraordinary value to the works of Murillo--a painter in colour
+generally monotonous, and in form and expression almost always vulgar.
+
+Art in England is the next subject of the lecture. He takes a view of it
+from the age of Henry VIII. to our own. No great encouragement was here
+given to art till the time of Charles I.: Holbein, indeed, and Zucchero,
+under Elizabeth, were patronized, but "were condemned to Gothic work and
+portrait painting." The troubles and death of Charles I. were a sad
+obstacle to art. "His son, in possession of the Cartoons of Raphael, and
+with the magnificence of Whitehall before his eyes, suffered Verio to
+contaminate the walls of his palaces, or degraded Lely to paint the
+Cymons and Iphigenias of his court; whilst the manner of Kneller swept
+completely what might yet be left of taste under his successors. Such
+was the equally contemptible and deplorable state of English art, till
+the genius of Reynolds first rescued from the mannered depravation of
+foreigners his own branch; and, soon extending his view to the higher
+departments of art, joined that select body of artists who addressed the
+ever open ear, ever attentive mind, of our royal founder with the first
+idea of this establishment." After this little parade of our artists as
+a body, but four are mentioned by name--"Reynolds, Hogarth,
+Gainsborough, and Wilson."
+
+We are surprised that, in this summary history of art, no notice has
+been taken of Van Eyck, and the influence of his discovery on art. Nor
+are we less surprised that so important a branch as landscape painting
+should have been omitted; Claude and Gaspar Poussin not mentioned; yet,
+in the English school, Wilson is spoken of, whose sole merit rested upon
+his landscape. He should more distinctly have stated his purpose to
+treat only of high and historical art.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THIRD LECTURE.--In the commencement, there is an unnecessary, and rather
+affectedly written disquisition of the old question, or rather
+comparison between poetry and painting, from which nothing is to be
+learned; nor does it suggest any thing. Nor do we now-a-days want to
+read pages to tell us what invention is, and how it differs from
+creation--nor is it at all important in matters of art, that we should
+draw any such distinction at all. It is far better to go at once "in
+medias res," and take it for granted that the reader both knows and
+feels, without metaphysical discussion, what that invention is which is
+required to make a great painter. Nor are we disposed to look upon
+otherwise than impertinent, while we are waiting for didactic rules, the
+being told that "he who discovers a gold mine, is surely superior to him
+who afterwards adapts the metal for use;" especially when it is paraded
+with comparisons between "Colombo" and "Amerigo Vespucci," and a
+misplaced panegyric on Newton. And much of this is encumbered with
+language that fatigues and makes a plain matter obscure. There is a
+little affectation sometimes in Mr Fuseli's writing of Ciceronic
+_ambages_, that is really injurious to the good sense and just thoughts,
+which would without this display, come free, open, and with power. Some
+pages, too, are taken up with a preliminary argument--"_whether it be
+within the artist's province or not, to find or to combine a subject
+from himself, without having recourse to tradition, or the stores of
+history and poetry_." We have a display of learning to little purpose,
+quotations from Latin and Greek, really "nihil ad rem;" the "[Greek:
+phantasias]" of the Greek, and "visiones" of the Romans. Who that ever
+saw even one work of Hogarth, the "Marriage a la Mode," would for a
+moment think the question worth a thought. "The misnamed gladiator of
+Agasias," seems forced into this treatise, for the sole purpose of
+showing Mr Fuseli's reading, and after all, he leaves the figure as
+uncertain as he finds it. He _once_ thought it might have been an
+Alcibiades rushing from the flames, when his house was fired; but is
+more satisfied that "it might form an admirable Ulysses bestriding the
+deck of his ship to defend his companions from the descending fangs of
+Scylla, or rather, with indignation and anguish, seeing them already
+snatched up, and writhing in the mysterious gripe." In such fanciful
+humours, it might be made to mean any thing or any body. And we are,
+after all, quite at a loss to know whether the _conjecture_ is offered
+as a specimen of "_invention_." He considers the cartoon of Pisa "the
+most striking instance, of the eminent place due to this _intuitive
+faculty among the principal organs of invention_"--we mark these words
+in italics, not quite certain of their meaning. The work is engraved for
+Foster, by Schiavonetti; and a wonderful work it is--the work of Michael
+Angelo begun in competition with Leonardo da Vinci. The original is said
+to have been destroyed by Baccio Bandinelli; still there are the ancient
+prints and drawings which show the design, and there is a small copy at
+Holkham. Benvenuto Cellini--and could there be a better
+authority?--denies that the powers afterwards exerted in the Capella
+Sistina, arrive at half its excellence. Mr Fuseli's description is so
+good, that we give it entire. "It represents an imaginary moment
+relative to the war carried on by the Florentines against Pisa; and
+exhibits a numerous group of warriors, roused from their bathing in the
+Arno, by the sudden signal of a trumpet, and rushing to arms. This
+composition may, without exaggeration, be said to personify with
+unexampled variety, that motion which Agasias and Theon embodied in
+single figures. In imagining this transient moment from state of
+relaxation to a state of energy, the ideas of motion, to use the bold
+figure of Dante, seem to have showered into the artist's mind. From the
+chief, nearly placed in the centre, who precedes, and whose voice
+accompanies the trumpet, every age of human agility, every attitude,
+every feature of alarm, haste, hurry, exertion, eagerness, burst into so
+many rays, like sparks flying from the hammer. Many have reached, some
+boldly step, some have leaped on the rocky shore; here two arms emerging
+from the water, grapple with the rock, there two hands cry for help, and
+their companions bend over or rush on to assist them: often imitated,
+but inimitable, is the ardent feature of the grim veteran, whose every
+sinew labours to force over the dripping limbs his clothes, whilst
+gnashing, he pushes the foot through the rending garment. He is
+contrasted by the slender elegance of a half-averted youth, who, though
+eagerly buckling the armour to his thigh, methodizes haste; another
+swings the high-raised hauberk on his shoulder; whilst one, who seems a
+leader, mindless of his dress, ready for combat, and with brandished
+spear, overturns a third, who crouched to grasp a weapon; one, naked
+himself, buckles on the mail of his companion, and he, turned toward
+the enemy, seems to stamp impatiently the ground. Experience and rage;
+old vigour, young velocity; expanded or contracted, vie in exertions of
+energy. Yet in this scene of tumult, one motive animates the
+whole--eagerness to engage, with subordination to command. This
+preserves the dignity of the action, and from a strangling rabble,
+changes the figures to men, whose legitimate contest interests our
+wishes." Another example is given--Raffaelle's "Incendio del Borgo"--a
+good description follows: "the enraged elements of _wind_ and fire," we
+do not see in the original, not even in the drapery of the woman with
+her back to us in the foreground. Speaking of this power of "invention,"
+he says--after having, as we conceive, mistaken the aim of Raffaelle in
+his Madonnas, and Holy families, which was somewhat beyond even the
+"charities of father, son, and mother"--"Nor shall I follow it in its
+more contaminated descent, to those representations of local manners and
+national modifications of society, whose characteristic discrimination
+and humorous exuberance, for instance, we admire in Hogarth, but which,
+like the fleeting passions of the day, every hour contributes something
+to obliterate, which soon become unintelligible by time, or degenerate
+into caricature, the chronicle of scandal, the history-book of the
+vulgar." It seems, strangely enough, to have been the fashion among the,
+in comparison with Hogarth, puny academicians of that day, to underrate
+that great painter, that moral painter. We really should pity the
+infatuated prejudice of the man, who could see in the deep tragedy, the
+moral tragedy, "Marriage a la Mode," any _humorous_ exuberance; or not
+understand that the passions set forth, and for a moral end, are not
+"the fleeting passions of the day," but as permanent as human
+nature--who could see, in such series of pictures, any "caricature," or
+that their object is to "chronicle scandal." That it is the "history of
+the vulgar," we dispute not. For it is drama of the vulgar as of the
+unvulgar--a deep tragedy of human nature; alas! time has not made
+"_unintelligible_" these _not_ "fleeting passions of the day." As long
+as man is man, will Hogarth be true to nature; and nothing in art is
+more strange, than that such opinions should emanate from an Academy,
+and be either ventured upon or received _ex cathedra_.
+
+Invention, according to Mr Fuseli, receives its subjects from poetry or
+tradition--"they are _epic_ or sublime, _dramatic_ or impassioned,
+_historic_ or circumscribed by truth. The first _astonishes_, the second
+_moves_, the third _informs_." We confess ourselves weary of this sort
+of classification. They only tend to hamper the writer, painter, and
+critic. It is possible for a work to admit all three, and yet preserve
+its unity. And such we believe to be the case with Homer. He is epic and
+dramatic in one, and certainly historic. It is more ingenious than
+unquestionable, that Homer's purpose was to "impress one forcible idea
+of war--its origin, its progress, and its end." Nor will the "Iliad" be
+read with greater delight, by the reader's reception of such an idea.
+The drawing forth the purpose of Michael Angelo's design--his invention,
+in the series of frescoes in the Sistine Chapel--is more happy. That
+theocracy is the subject--the dispensations of Providence to man--the
+Creation--life and adoration in Adam and Eve, their sin, their
+punishment, their separation from God--justice and grace in the Deluge
+and covenant with Noah--prophets, sibyls, herald the Redeemer--and the
+patriarchs--the Son of Man--the brazen serpent--and the Fall of
+Haman--the giant subdued by the stripling in Goliah and David--and the
+conqueror destroyed by female weakness in Judith, are types of his
+mysterious progress, till Jonah pronounces him immortal. The Last
+Judgment, and the Saviour the Judge of man, complete the whole--and the
+Founder and the race are reunited. Such is the spirit of the general
+invention. "The specific invention of the pictures separate, as each
+constitutes an independent whole, deserves our consideration next: each
+has its centre, from which it disseminates, to which it leads back all
+secondary points, arranged, hid, or displayed, as they are more or less
+organs of the inspiring plan; each rigorously is circumscribed by its
+generic character." The more particular criticism on this great work of
+Michael Angelo, is very good, and we earnestly refer the reader to it.
+He thinks the genius of Michael Angelo more generic in its aim--that of
+Raffaelle more specific. That as M. Angelo's aim was the "destiny of
+man, simply considered as the subject of religion, faithful or
+rebellious," admitting only a "general feature of the passions;" so, in
+the hands of Raffaelle, the subject would have teemed with a choice of
+imagery to excite our sympathies; "he would have combined all possible
+emotions with the utmost variety of probable or real character; all
+domestic, politic, religious relations--whatever is not local in virtue
+and in vice; and the sublimity of the greatest events would have been
+merely the minister of sympathies and passions." The latter mode of
+representing the subject, that of Raffaelle, he considers dramatic. The
+distinction is, however, doubtful: we do not see why the mode of M.
+Angelo may not be held to be equally dramatic. The criticism on the
+comparison between Raffaelle's and Michael Angelo's Adam and Eve, if not
+quite just, is striking. "The elevation of Michael Angelo's soul,
+inspired by the operation of creation itself, furnished him at once with
+the feature that stamped on human nature its most glorious prerogative;
+whilst the characteristic subtility, rather than sensibility, of
+Raffaelle's mind, in this instance, offered nothing but a frigid
+succedaneum--a symptom incident to all, when, after the subsided
+astonishment on a great and sudden event, the mind, recollecting itself,
+ponders on it with inquisitive surmise. In Michael Angelo, all
+self-consideration is absorbed in the sublimity of the sentiment which
+issues from the august presence that attracts Eve; 'her earthly,' in
+Milton's expression, 'by his heavenly overpowered,' pours itself in
+adoration; whilst, in the inimitable cast of Adam's figure, we trace the
+hint of that half-conscious moment, when sleep began to give way to the
+vivacity of the dream inspired. In Raffaelle, creation is complete--Eve
+is presented to Adam, now awake; but neither the new-born charms, the
+submissive grace, and virgin purity, of the beauteous image; nor the
+awful presence of her Introductor, draw him from his mental trance, into
+effusions of love or gratitude; at ease reclined, with fingers pointing
+at himself and his new mate, he seems to methodize the surprising event
+that took place during his sleep, and to whisper the words--'flesh of my
+flesh.'" Not subscribing to any criticism which concludes insensibility
+of mind to Raffaelle, and which is rather inconsistent with the judgment
+made by Mr Fuseli, that he was the painter of expression, from the
+utmost conflict of passions, to the enchanting round of gentler emotion,
+and the nearly silent hints of mind and character--we look to the object
+of the painter in this his series of works called his Bible. The first
+five pictures represent only the act of creation--the Deity, the
+Creator--all nature, is as yet passive--even adoration, the point chosen
+by Michael Angelo, might be said scarcely to have begun--the plan is
+developed, not put in action. As yet, the Deity is all in all--Eve, his
+gift to Adam, is the last of this division of the series. As in Genesis,
+there is the bare, short statement, grand from its simplicity, and our
+knowledge of its after consequences; but in the words unimpassioned--so
+Raffaelle, that he might make his pictorial language agree with the
+written book, with utmost forbearance, lest he should tell more, and
+beyond his authority, in this portion of the series manifestly avoids
+expression, or the introduction of any feeling that would make the
+creatures more than the most passive recipients of the goodness of their
+Maker. Nor is there authority to show, that as _yet_ they were fully,
+perfectly conscious of the nature of the gifts of life and
+companionship; and we certainly do not agree with Mr Fuseli, that it was
+a moment for Adam to show his sensibility to the personal charms of
+Eve--the pure Adam--nor was he--the as yet untransgressing Adam--to feel
+fear, in "the awful presence of the Introductor." Raffaelle's aim seems
+to have been, to follow the text in its utmost simplicity, that the
+unlettered might read--and this justifies in him the personality of the
+Creator, and the apparently manual act of his creation, corresponding
+with the words--"God _made_." The "allegoric drama" of the Church
+empire, that fills the stanzas of the Vatican, is praised by Mr Fuseli,
+with a full understanding of the purpose of the painter, and feeling for
+its separate parts. He does not cavil, as some have done, at the
+anachronisms. "When," says an able, reflecting, and very amusing
+author,[2] "Aristotle, Plato, Leo X., and Cardinal Bembo, are brought
+together in the school of Athens, every person must admit, that such
+offences as these, against truths so obvious, if they do not arise from
+a defect of understanding, are instances of inexcusable carelessness."
+Here we think this writer has missed the key of explanation. The very
+picture is the history of the progress of mind, through science and
+philosophy, to the acknowledgment of an immortal being. The very subject
+amalgamates, in one moral idea, times, epochs, localities. It treats of
+that which passes over time, and embodies only its results. Mr Fuseli
+notices not these anachronisms, but says aptly of the picture--"What was
+the surmise of the eye and wish of hearts, is gradually made the result
+of reason, in the characters of the school of Athens, by the researches
+of philosophy, which, from bodies to mind, from corporeal harmony to
+moral fitness, and from the duties of society, ascends to the doctrine
+of God and hopes of immortality." The very entertaining author whom we
+have quoted above, we must here, somewhat out of place, observe, has,
+with Mr Fuseli, mistaken the character of Hogarth's works. He
+says--"Hogarth has painted comedy!" and what is very strange, he seems
+to rank him as a comedian with "Pope, Young and Crabbe"--the last, the
+most tragic in his pathos of any writer. The invention in the Cartoons
+comes next under Mr Fuseli's observation. "In whatever light we consider
+their invention, as parts of _one whole_, relative to each other, or
+independent _each of the rest_, and as single subjects, there can be
+scarcely named a beauty or a mystery, of which the Cartoons furnish not
+an instance or a clue; _they are poised between perspicuity and
+pregnancy of moment_." We believe we understand the latter sentence; it
+is, however, somewhat affected, and does not rightly balance the
+_perspicuity_. We must go back, however, to a passage preceding the
+remarks on the Cartoons; because we wish, above all things, to vindicate
+the purest of painters from charges of licentiousness. He sees in Cupid
+and Psyche a voluptuous history: this may or may not be so--we think it
+is far from being such; but when he adds, "the voluptuous history of his
+(Raffaelle's) own _favourite passion_," he is following a prejudice, an
+unfounded story--one which we think, too, has in no slight degree
+influenced his general criticism and estimation of Raffaelle. We would
+refer the reader to "Passavant's Life of Raffaelle," where he will see
+this subject investigated, and the tale refuted. It is surprising, but
+good men affect to speak of amorous passion as if it were a crime; by
+itself it may disgust, but surely coldness is not the better nature.
+Insensibilities of all kinds must be avoided, even where "Amor," as Mr
+Fuseli calls him, and Psyche are the subjects. It is the happiest genius
+that shall signify without offence the necessary existence of passion,
+and leave purity in its singleness and innocence. How exquisitely is
+this done by Shakspeare in his "Romeo and Juliet!" He keeps the lovers
+free from every grosser particle of love, while he throws it all upon
+the subordinate characters, particularly the nurse, whose part in the
+drama, in no small degree, tends to naturalise to our sympathy the
+youth, the personal beauty, and whole loveliness, of the unhappy Romeo
+and Juliet.
+
+The differences of manner in which the same subject, "the Murder of the
+Innocents," has been represented by several painters, according to the
+genius of each, are well noticed. "History, strictly so called, follows
+the drama; fiction now ceases, and invention consists only in selecting
+and fixing with dignity, precision, and sentiment, the moments of
+_reality_." He instances, by a given subject, that were the artist to
+choose the "Death of Germanicus," he is never to forget that he is to
+represent "a Roman dying amidst Romans," and not to suffer individual
+grief to un-Romanize his subject. "Germanicus, Agrippina, Caius,
+Vitellius, the Legates, the Centurions at Antioch, the hero, the
+husband, the father, the friend, the leader--the struggles of nature and
+sparks of hope, must be subjected to the physiognomic character and
+features of Germanicus, the son of Drusus, the Caesar of Tiberius.
+Maternal, female, connubial passion, must be tinged by Agrippina, the
+woman absorbed in the Roman, less lover than companion of her husband's
+grandeur. Even the bursts of friendship, attachment, allegiance, and
+revenge, must be stamped by the military ceremonial, and distinctive
+costume of Rome." For an instance of this propriety of invention in
+history, reference is made, we presume as much, to Mr West's "Death of
+Wolfe." Undoubtedly, this is Mr West's best picture. The praise from Mr
+Fuseli was, in all probability, purely academic; he frequently showed
+that he did not too highly estimate the genius of the painter. Having
+given these outlines of general and specific invention in the epic,
+dramatic, and historic branches of art, he admits that there is not
+always a nice discrimination of their limits: "and as the mind and fancy
+of man, upon the whole, consist of mixed qualities, we seldom meet with
+a human performance exclusively made up of epic, dramatic, or pure
+historic materials." This confession, as it appears to us, renders the
+classification useless to a student, and shows a yet incomplete view of
+arrangement, and specification of the power, subjects, and means of art.
+
+Indeed Mr Fuseli proceeds to instances wherein his epic assumes the
+dramatic, the dramatic the epic, and the historic both. There does seem
+something wanting in an arrangement which puts the _Iliad_ and
+_Odyssey_, two works essentially different, in the same category. We do,
+therefore, venture the opinion, that such distinctions are, more
+particularly in painting, not available. With Sir Joshua, he considers
+borrowing justifiable, and that it does not impair the originality of
+invention. The instances given of happy adoption are the "Torso of
+Apollonius," by Michael Angelo; of the figure of "Adam dismissed from
+Paradise," by Raffaelle, borrowed from Massaccio, as likewise the figure
+of "Paul at Athens;" and for figures of Michael Angelo's, Raffaelle,
+Parmegiano, Poussin, are all indebted to the cartoon of Pisa. The
+lecture concludes with some just remarks upon the "Transfiguration," and
+a censure upon the coldness of Richardson, and the burlesque of the
+French critic Falconet, who could not discover the point of contact
+which united the two parts of this celebrated picture. "Raphael's design
+was to represent Jesus as the Son of God, and, at the same time, the
+reliever of human misery, by an unequivocal fact. The transfiguration on
+Tabor, and the miraculous cure which followed the descent of Jesus,
+united, furnished the fact. The difficulty was, how to combine two
+successive actions in one moment. He overcame it, by sacrificing the
+moment of cure to that of the apparition, by implying the lesser miracle
+in the greater. In subordinating the cure to the vision, he obtained
+sublimity; in placing the crowd and patient on the foreground, he gained
+room for the full exertion of his dramatic powers. It was not necessary
+that the demoniac should be represented in the moment of recovery, if
+its certainty could be expressed by other means. It is implied, it is
+placed beyond all doubt, by the glorious apparition above; it is made
+nearly intuitive by the uplifted hand and finger of the apostle in the
+centre, who, without hesitation, undismayed by the obstinacy of the
+demon, unmoved by the clamour of the crowd, and the pusillanimous
+scepticism of some of his companions, refers the father of the maniac,
+in an authoritative manner, for certain and speedy help to his Master on
+the mountain above, whom, though unseen, his attitude at once connects
+with all that passes below. Here is the point of contact; here is that
+union of the two parts of the fact in one moment, which Richardson and
+Falconet could not discover."
+
+It is with diffidence that we would suggest any thing upon a work that
+has so nearly exhausted criticism; but we will venture an observation,
+and if we are correct, the glory of the subject is heightened by its
+adoption. It has ever appeared to us to have purposed showing at one
+view, humanity in its highest, its divinely perfected state, the manhood
+taken into Godhead; and humanity in its lowest, its most forlorn, most
+degraded state, in the person of a demoniac: and this contrast seems
+acknowledged--abhorrently felt, by the reluctant spirit within the
+sufferer, whose attitude, starting from the effulgence and the power
+which is yet to heal him, being the strong action of the lower part of
+the picture, and one of suffering, throws the eye and mind of the
+spectator at once and permanently from earth to the heavenly vision, to
+ascending prophets, and that bright and central majesty, "whose
+countenance," Mr. Fuseli observes, "is the only one we know expressive
+of his superhuman nature." This idea of transformation to a higher
+nature is likewise kept up in the figures of the ascending prophets, and
+the apostles below.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Fourth Lecture is in continuation of the subject--Invention; but we
+have left little space for further remarks. In another number of Maga we
+shall resume our review of the lectures.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Perhaps the author of the lectures received this ill
+opinion of Pausanias from Julius Caesar Scaliger, who treats him as an
+impostor; but he is amply vindicated by Vossius. He lived in the second
+century, and died very old at Rome. In his account of the numerous
+representations of the [Greek: Charites], he seems to throw some light
+upon a passage in Xenophon's Memorabilia, which, as far as we know, has
+escaped the notice of the commentators. It is in the dialogue between
+Socrates and the courtesan Theodote. She wishes that he would come to
+her, to teach her the art of charming men. He replies, that he has no
+leisure, being hindered by many matters of private and public
+importance; and he adds, "I have certain mistresses which will not allow
+me to be absent from them day nor night, on account of the spells and
+charms, which learning, they receive from me"--[Greek: eisi de kai
+philai moi, ai oute hemeras oute nuktos aph auton easousi me apienai,
+philtra te manthanousai par emon kai epodas.] Who were these [Greek:
+philai]? Had he meant the virtues or moral qualities, he would have
+spoken plainer, as was his wont; but here, where the subject is the
+personal beauty, the charms of Theodote, it is more in the Socratic vein
+that he refers to other _personal_ charms, which engage his thoughts
+night and day, and keep him at home. Now, it appears too, that Socrates
+was taken to see her, on account of the fame of her beauty, and goes to
+her when she is sitting, or rather standing, to a painter; and it is
+evident from the dialogue, that she did not refuse the exhibition of her
+personal charms. It seems, then, not improbable, that Socrates was
+induced to go to her as the painter went, for the advantage of his art
+as a sculptor, and that the art was that one at home, the [Greek: tis
+philotera sou endon]. Be that as it may, it is extremely probable that
+the [Greek: philai] were some personifications of feminine beauty, upon
+which he was then at work. Are there, then, any such recorded as from
+his hand? Pausanias says there were. "Thus Socrates, the son of
+Sophroniscus, made for the Athenians statues of the Graces, before the
+vestibule of the citadel," And adds the curious fact, that after that
+time the Graces were represented naked, and that these were clothed.
+[Greek: Sokrates te o Sophrotonischon pro tes es ten akropolin esodon
+Chariton eirgasato agalmata Athenaiois. Kai tauta men estin homoios
+apanta en estheti. Oi de usteron, ouk oida eph hoto, metabeblekasi to
+schema autais. Charitas goun, oi kat eme eplasson te kai egraphon
+gumnas]. Did not Socrates allude to these his statues of the
+Graces?--_Pausanias_, cap. xxxv. lib. 9.
+
+[2] _The Literary Conglomerate, or Combination of Various
+Thoughts and Facts._ Oxford: 1839. Printed by Thomas Combe.
+
+
+
+
+SOMETHING ABOUT MUSIC.
+
+
+Gentle Christians, pity us! We are just returned from a musical
+entertainment, and, with aching head and stunned ears, sit down and try
+to recover our equanimity, sorely disturbed by the infliction which, we
+regret to say, we have survived. Had we known how to faint, we had done
+so on the spot, that ours might have been the bliss of being carried out
+over the heads and shoulders of the audience ere the performance had
+well begun--a movement that would have insured us the unfeigned thanks
+of all whom we had rescued from their distressing situation under
+pretence of bearing us off, splashing us with cold water, causing doors
+to bang impressively during our exit, and the various other _petit
+soins_ requisite to the conducting a "faint" with dignity.
+
+But it could not be accomplished. We made several awkward attempts, so
+little like, that their only result was our being threatened with a
+policeman it we made any more disturbance; so, after a hasty glance
+round had assured us of the impracticability of making our escape in any
+more everyday style, we sat down with a stern resolution of
+endurance--lips firmly compressed, eyes fixed in a stony gaze on the
+orchestra, whence issued by turns groans, shrieks, and screams, from
+sundry foully-abused instruments of music; accompanied by equally
+appalling sounds from flat, shrill signorinas, quavering to distraction,
+backed by gigantic "basses," (double ones surely,) who, with voices like
+the "seven devils" of the old Grecian, bellowed out divers
+sentimentalisms about dying for love, when assuredly their most
+proximate danger was of apoplexy.
+
+Well, the affair came to an end, as, it is to be hoped, will every other
+evil in this wicked world; in a spasm of thankfulness we extricated
+ourselves from the crush, and reached our home, where, under the genial
+influence of quiet and a cup of coffee, we can afford to laugh at the
+past, (our own vehement indignation included,) and ruminate calmly on
+the "how" and the "why" of the nuisance, which appears to us as well
+worthy of being put down by act of parliament, as the ringing of muffin
+bells and crying "sweep!"
+
+It is a perfect puzzle to us by what process the standard of music has
+become so lowered, as to make what is ordinarily served up under that
+name be received as the legitimate descendant of the harmony divine
+which erst broke on the ear of the listening world, when "the morning
+stars sang together;" and, in the first freshness of its
+creation--teeming with melody--angels deigned to visit this terrestrial
+paradise, nor turned an exile's gaze to that heaven whose strains were
+chanted in glad accordance with the murmuring stream, and music of the
+waving forest--which, in its greenness and beauty, seemed but "a little
+lower" than its celestial archetype, for
+
+     "Earth hath _this_ variety from heaven."
+
+(Blessings on the poet for that line! We have a most firm belief in
+Milton, and receive his representations of heaven as we would those of a
+Daguerreotype.)
+
+But it is even so. There is but one step from the sublime to the
+ridiculous, and this entrancing art, it seems, has taken it; sorely
+dislocating its graceful limbs, and injuring its goodly proportions in
+the unseemly escapade. There--we have played over a simple air, one that
+thrills through our heart of hearts; and as the notes die on our ears,
+soothing though the strain be, we feel our indignation increase, and
+glow still more fiercely against this--music, as it is by courtesy
+called, for Heaven knows it has no legitimate claim to the name!--till
+it reaches the crusading point, and we rush headlong to a war of
+extermination against bars, rests, crotchets, quavers--undaunted even by
+"staves," and formidable inflated semibreves.
+
+We hate your crashing, clumsy chords, and utterly spit at and defy
+chromatic passages from one end of the instrument to the other, and back
+again; flats, sharps, and most appropriate "naturals," splattered all
+over the page. The essential spirit of discord seems let loose on our
+modern music, tainted, as it were, with the moral infection that has
+seized the land; it is music for a democracy, not the stately, solemn
+measure of imperial majesty. Music to soothe! the idea is obsolete,
+buried with the ruffs and farthingales of our great-grandmothers; or, to
+speak more soberly, with the powdered wigs and hoops of their daughters.
+There is music to excite, much to irritate one, and much more to drive a
+really musical soul stark mad; but none to soothe, save that which is
+drawn from the hiding-places of the past.
+
+We should like to catch one of the old masters--Handel, for
+instance--and place him within the range of one of our modern
+executioners, to whose taste(!) _carte-blanche_ had been given. We think
+we see him under the infliction. Neither the hurling of wig, nor yet of
+kettle-drum, at the head of the performer, would relieve his outraged
+spirit: he would strangle the offender on the spot, and hang himself
+afterwards; and the jury would, in the first case, return a verdict of
+justifiable homicide, and, in the second, of justifiable suicide, with a
+deodand of no ordinary magnitude on the musical instrument that had led
+to the catastrophe.
+
+There is no repose, no refreshment to the mind, in our popular
+compositions; they are like Turner's skies--they harass and fatigue,
+leaving you certainly wondering at their difficulty, but, as certainly,
+wishing they had been "impossible." There is to us more of touching
+pathos, heart-thrilling expression, in some of the old psalm-tunes,
+feelingly played, than in a whole batch of modernisms. The strains go
+_home_, and the "fountains of the great deep are broken up"--the great
+deep of unfathomable feeling, that lies far, far below the surface of
+the world-hardened heart; and as the unwonted, yet unchecked, tear
+starts to the eye, the softened spirit yields to their influence, and
+shakes off the moil of earthly care; rising, purified and spiritualized,
+into a clearer atmosphere. Strange, inexplicable associations brood over
+the mind,
+
+     "Like the far-off dreams of paradise,"
+
+mingling their chaste melancholy with musings of a still subdued, though
+more cheerful character. How many glad hearts in the olden time have
+rejoiced in these songs of praise--how many sorrowful ones sighed out
+their complaints in those plaintive notes, that steal sadly, yet
+sweetly, on the ear--hearts that, now cold in death, are laid to rest
+around that sacred fane, within whose walls they had so often swelled
+with emotion! Tell us not of neatly trimmed "cemeteries," redolent of
+staring sunflowers, priggish shrubs, and all the modern coxcombry of the
+tomb; with nicely swept gravel walks, lest the mourner should get "wet
+on's feet," and vaults numbered like warehouses, where "parties may
+bring their own minister," and be buried with any form, or no form, if
+they like it better. No, give us the village churchyard with its sombre
+yew-trees, among which
+
+     "The dial, hid by weeds and flowers,
+     Hath told, by none beheld, the solitary hours;"
+
+its grassy hillocks, and mouldering grave-stones, where haply all record
+is obliterated, and nought but a solitary "resurgam" meets the enquiring
+eye; its white-robed priest reverently committing "earth to earth," in
+sure and certain hope "of a joyful resurrection" to the slumbering clay,
+that was wont to worship within the grey and time-stained walls, whence
+the mournful train have now borne him to his last rest; while on the
+ivy-clad tower fall the slanting golden beams of an autumnal sun, that,
+in its declining glory, seems to whisper of hope and consolation to the
+sorrowful ones, reminding them that the night of the tomb shall not
+endure for ever, but that, so surely as the great orb of day shall
+return on the wings of the morning to chase away the tears of the
+lamenting earth, so surely shall the dust, strewed around that temple,
+scattered though it may be to the winds of heaven, "rise again" in the
+morning of the Resurrection, when death "shall be swallowed up in
+victory."
+
+     "'Tis fit his trophies should be rife
+     Around the place where he's subdued;
+     The gate of death leads forth to life."
+
+But we are wandering sadly from our subject; it is perhaps quite as well
+that we have done so, for we should have become dangerous had we dwelt
+much longer on it. We were on the point of wishing (Nero-like) that our
+popular professors of the tuneful art had but one neck, that we might
+exterminate them at a blow, or hang them with one gigantic
+fiddle-string; but now, thanks to our episode, our exacerbated feelings
+are so far mollified, that we will be content with wishing them
+sentenced to grind knives on oil-less stones with creaking axles, till
+the sufferings of their own shall have taught them consideration for the
+ears of other people.
+
+But music, real music--not in the harsh, exaggerated style now in the
+ascendant, but simple, pure, melodious, such as might have entranced the
+soul of a Handel, when, in some vision of night, sounds swept from
+angelic harps have floated around him, the gifted one, in whose liquid
+strains and stately harmonies fall on our ravished ears the echoes of
+that immortal joy--such we confess to be one of our idols, before whose
+shrine we pay a willing, gladsome homage; though now, alas! it must be
+in dens and caves of the earth, since _modern_ heresy has banished it
+from the temple of Apollo.
+
+See how Toryism peeps out even in the fine arts! _Even_ did we say? They
+are its legitimate province; "The old is better," is inscribed in
+glowing character on the portals of the past. Old Painting! See the
+throbbing form start from the pregnant canvass--the "Mother of God"
+folding her Divine Son to her all but celestial arms--the Son of God
+fainting beneath a load of woe, not his own. Old Poetry! Glorious old
+Homer, with his magic song; and sturdy, oak-like in his strength, as in
+his verdure, old Chaucer. Old Music! Hail, ye inspired sons of the lyre!
+A noble host are ye, enshrined in the hearts of all loyal worshippers of
+the tuneful god. And yet (we grieve to confess it) we, even we, spite of
+all our enthusiasm, have been seen laughing at "old music," the aspiring
+psalmody of a country church singing-pew.
+
+Oh, to see the row of performers, the consequential choir, transcending
+in importance (in their own eyes) the clerk, the curate, the rector, and
+even the squire from the great hall, majestic and stern though he be,
+with his awful wig and gold-headed cane! There are the fubsy
+boys--copied apparently from cherubim--who, with glowing, distended
+cheeks, are simpering on the ceiling, _doing_ the tenor, with wide open
+mouths that would shame e'er a barn-door in the village; their red,
+stumpy fingers sprawling over the music which they are (not) reading.
+The pale, lantern-jawed youths, in yellow waistcoats and tall
+shirt-collars, who look as if they were about to whistle a match, are
+holloing out what is professionally, and in this instance with most
+distressing truth, termed counter. "Counter" it is with a vengeance; and
+not only so, but it is a neck-and-neck race between them and the urchins
+aforesaid, which shall have done first. The shock-headed man, with chin
+dropped into his neckerchief, and mouth twisted into every
+_un_imaginable contortion, as though grinning through a horse-collar,
+has the bass confided to his faithful keeping; and emits a variety of
+growls and groans truly appalling, though evidently to his own great
+comfort and satisfaction. The bassoon, the clarinet, the flute--but
+how shall we describe them! Suffice it to say, that they appeared
+to be suffering inexpressible torments at the hands of their
+apoplectic-looking performers; who were all at the last gasp, and all
+determined to die bravely at their posts. And then the entranced
+audience, with half-shut eyes and quivering palms! Oh, it was too much;
+we lost our character typo irretrievably that day; half suppressed
+titters from the squire's pew were not to be borne. In that unhappy
+moment we sinned away some quarter of a century's unrivalled reputation
+for good manners and musical taste. Old Fiddlestrings never forgave us,
+never did he vouchsafe us another anthem, spite of our entreaties and
+protestations, and the thousand and one apologies for our ill-timed
+merriment, which our fruitful brain invented on the spot. To his dying
+day he preserved the utmost contempt for our judgment, not only in this
+department of the fine arts, but also on every other subject. Not to
+admire his music, was condemnation in every thing--an unpardonable
+offence. We, who had been his great friend, patron, (or rather he was
+ours,) to whom he had so often condescended on the Saturday evening to
+hum, whistle, and too-too over the tune--of his own composing--that was
+to be the admiration of the whole parish on the succeeding day--we were
+henceforth to be as the uninitiated, and left to find out, and follow,
+as we best might, the very eccentric windings of his Sunday's asthmatic
+performance; which always went at the rate of three crotchets and a
+cough, to the end of the psalm, which he took care should be an especial
+long one.
+
+Poor old man! we see him now, with his unruly troop of Sunday scholars
+(in training for some important festival, to the due celebration of
+which their labours were essential) singing, bawling we should say, out
+of time and tune, to the utter discomfiture of his irritable temper,
+(there is nothing like a false note for throwing your musical man into a
+perfect tantrum,) and the bringing down on their unlucky heads a smart
+tap with the bow of his violin, which led the harmony. There they stood
+with their brown cheeks and white heads, fine specimens of the
+agricultural interest; each one of them looking as if he could bolt a
+poor, half-starved factory child at a mouthful--but certainly no
+singers. It was beyond the power even of the accomplished old clerk
+himself to make then such--an oyster, with its mouth full of sand, would
+have sung quite as well; but still he laboured on with might and
+main--with closed eyes, and open mouth--delightedly beating time with
+his head, as long as matters went on not intolerably; for David's
+musical soul supplied the deficiency in the sounds that entered his
+unwearied ears. And then he sang so loud himself, that he certainly
+could hear no one else, his voice being as monopolizing as the drone of
+a bagpipe--or as a violent advocate for free trade! Happy urchins when
+this was the case! for they were sure to be dismissed with the most
+flattering encomiums on their vocal powers, when, if truth must be told,
+the good old man had not heard a note.
+
+But he is gathered to his fathers, and now sleeps beneath the sod in the
+quiet churchyard of----. We well remember his funeral. 'Twas a lovely
+day in spring when the long, lifeless trees and fields were bursting
+into all the glory of May--for May was spring then, and not, as now,
+cousin-german to winter; while the gay sunbeams played lovingly, like
+youth caressing age, on the low church-tower, gilding the ivy that waved
+in wild luxuriance around it. Slowly moved on the lowly train that bore
+to the "house appointed for all living" the mortal remains of one whom
+they well loved, and whose removal from among them--essential as he had
+always seemed to the very identity of the village--was an event they had
+never contemplated and which they now, in its unexpectedness, sorely
+lamented. The village choir preceded it, singing those strains which
+poor David's voice had so often led; and surely, for once, the spirit of
+the old man rested on his refractory pupils; for rarely have I heard
+sweeter notes than those that swelled on the balmy air, as the dusky
+procession wound its way across the heath, waving with harebells, and
+along the narrow lane, whose hedges were beginning to show the first
+faint rose, till it reached the church porch, where the good rector
+himself was waiting to pay the last token of respect to his humble
+friend; while groups of villagers were loitering around to witness the
+simple rites. Entering within the church, again was the voice of melody
+heard, and again was as sweetly chanted that mournful psalm, which is
+appointed, with such affecting appropriateness, for the burial of the
+dead. "I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not in my
+tongue; I will keep my mouth, as it were, with a bridle, while the
+ungodly is in my sight." Then came the dull, hollow sound of "earth to
+earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes;" and so, amid many tears, (and we
+confess our eyes were not dry,) closed the grave over one who, despite
+some innocent, though mirth-provoking failings, was honoured by all who
+knew him for the stern, unbending integrity of his character, and the
+strictness with which he fulfilled all the duties of life. David was an
+_honest_ man, one whose "word was as good as his bond," who "promised to
+his hurt, and changed not." Would that as much might be said of many who
+move in a higher sphere, and make far larger professions of sanctity
+than he did! But he shall be remembered, when their names are blotted
+out for ever.
+
+        "Only the actions of the just
+     Smell sweet in death, and blossom in the dust."
+
+The music which we hear in our social intercourse, is too generally--we
+say it in grief, but in truth--detestable. "Like figures on a
+dial-plate," sit the four-and-twenty Englishmen and Englishwomen, who
+have been drawn together to receive their friend's hospitality; till the
+awful silence convinces the host that some desperate effort must be made
+to break the spell, and that the best thing is some music to set them
+a-talking. Some _mimini-pimini_ Miss is in consequence selected as the
+victim, (or rather, the victimizer,) and requested to "pain" the
+company. She fidgets, bridles, and duly declines, at the same time
+vigorously pulling off one of her gloves in evident preparation for the
+attack. After much pressing, she reluctantly yields to what she had from
+the first made up her mind to do; takes her seat at a grand pianoforte,
+behind a couple of candles and an enormous music-book, and--crash go the
+keys in a thundering prelude, (the pedal, and every other means of
+increasing the noise being unscrupulously resorted to,) which, after
+superhuman exertions, lands her in what, to our affrighted and stunned
+ears, is evidently the key of Z flat! Who would have thought those
+delicate hands could thus descend with the vigour of a pavior's hammer
+on the unhappy ivories, that groan and shriek beneath the infliction, as
+though fully sensible of the surpassing cruelty with which they are
+treated.
+
+But hark! she sings--"Rome, Rome, thou art _n'more_," (_sic_)--a furious
+scramble on the keys, with a concluding bang--"On thy seven hills thou
+satt'st of yore,"--another still more desperate and discordant flourish,
+which continues alternating with her "most sweet voice," till she has
+piped through the whole of her song: when the group around, apprehensive
+of a repetition of the torture to which they have been subjected,
+overwhelm her with thanks and expressions of admiration, under cover of
+which they hurry her to her seat. Such is the stuff palmed off on us,
+varied as it is by glees, screamed out by four voices all in different
+keys; solos, squeaked out by stout gentlemen, and roared by pale lanky
+lads of eighteen; duets by young ladies, who accidentally set out on
+discordant notes, and don't find out the mistake till they come to the
+finale; with occasionally a psalm crooned by worthy sexagenarians,
+guiltless alike of ear and voice, but who, seeming to think it a duty to
+add their mite to the inexpressible dissonance, perform the same to the
+unmixed dismay of all their hearers.
+
+We would far rather hear an unpretending street organ than such
+abominations; and, indeed, some of the itinerant music is, to our
+unsophisticated ears, sweet beyond expression, especially when
+accompanied, as it is sometimes, by a rich Italian or reedy German
+voice; for whose sake we can forgive the tuneless squalls that too often
+greet our ears from ambulatory minstrels, be they of the Madonna, or
+fishy, Dutch-swamp style of beauty. A sweet-toned street organ, heard in
+the distance, when all around is still, is not a thing to be despised,
+by those who have music enough in their souls to respond to the
+slightest touches of Apollo's lyre. If the heart be but attuned to
+harmony, it will vibrate to the simplest notes, faint though they be, as
+by the wafting of the evening breeze among the chords of a neglected
+harp, sadly hung upon the willows; it will cherish the feeblest idea,
+and nurture it into perfect melody. As love begets love, so does harmony
+beget its kind in the heart of him who can strike the keynote of nature,
+and listen to the wild and solemn sounds that swell from her mysterious
+treasure-house, and echo among her "eternal hills," while the celestial
+arch concludes and re-affirms the wondrous cadence. But these are
+secrets revealed to none but her loving worshipper; he who, with a
+reverential homage, seeks the hidden recesses of her temple, to bend in
+awe before her purest shrine. From him who lingers heedlessly in her
+antechamber with faint loyalty, they are deeply veiled, and the glowing
+revelations of her favoured ones seem but as the recital of a dream to
+his cold heart: for "to _love_ is to know."
+
+But surely of all instruments, the violin, first-rately played, is the
+most--yes, we will say it--heavenly. Hark! to the clear, vocal melody,
+now rapturously rising in one soul-exalting strain, anon melting away in
+the saddest, tenderest lament, as though the soft summer breeze sighed
+forth a requiem over the dying graces of its favourite flower; then
+bursting forth in haughty, triumphant notes, swept in gusts from the
+impassioned strings, as though instinct with life, and glowing with
+disdain. Any one may see that painters are no musicians, else had they
+furnished their angels not with harps--beautiful and sparkling as the
+sea-foam, as are their most graceful chords--but with this, of all
+instruments the most musical, whose tones admit of more variety than
+any, (the Proteus organ alone excepted,) and whose delicious long-drawn
+notes must entrance every one not absolutely soulless. Oh, they are
+excruciatingly delightful! And yet you shall hear this identical violin,
+in the hands of an everyday performer, emit such squeals and screams as
+shall set your teeth on edge for a twelvemonth, curdle your whole frame,
+and make you vehemently anathematize all benevolent institutions for the
+relief of deafness.
+
+Verily your violin is an exclusive instrument, and approachable by none
+but the eldest born of Apollo, who, in all the majesty of hereditary
+prerogative, calmly sway the dominions of their sire; while usurpers (as
+is the meed of all who grasp unrighteous rule) are plunged in utter
+confusion and ruin.
+
+Warming with our theme, and impatient to manifest our royal descent, in
+a paroxysm of enthusiasm we clutch our Cremona, clasp him lovingly to
+our shoulder, and high waving in air our magical bow, which is to us a
+sceptre, bring it down with a crash, exulting in the immortal harmony
+about to gush, like a mountain torrent, from the teeming strings; when
+lo! to our unmitigated disgust, it glides noiselessly along its hitherto
+resounding path, for--ye gods and little fishes!--some murderous wretch,
+at the instigation of we know not what evil sprite, has _greased_ the
+horsehair, for which we solemnly devote him to the "bowstring," the
+first time he is caught napping.
+
+Well, it is over now, and we find ourselves once more on earth, after
+knocking our head gainst the stars; and, ---- ---- bless us! we have sat
+the fire out, having precisely one inch of candle left to go to bed by.
+
+Good night, dearest reader. Can you find your way in the dark?
+
+M. J.
+
+
+
+
+THE PURPLE CLOAK; OR, THE RETURN OF SYLOSON TO SAMOS.
+
+HEROD. III. 139.
+
+
+  I.
+
+  The king sat on his lofty throne in Susa's palace fair,
+  And many a stately Persian lord, and satrap proud, was there:
+  Among his councillors he sat, and justice did to all--
+  No supplicant e'er went unredrest from Susa's palace-hall.
+
+  II.
+
+  There came a slave and louted low before Darius' throne,
+  "A wayworn suppliant waits without--he is poor and all alone,
+  And he craves a boon of thee, oh king! for he saith that he has done
+  Good service, in the olden time, to Hystaspes' royal son."
+
+  III.
+
+  "Now lead him hither," quoth the king; "no suppliant e'er shall wait,
+  While I am lord in Susa's halls, unheeded at the gate;
+  And speak thy name, thou wanderer poor, pray thee let me know
+  To whom the king of Persia's land this ancient debt doth owe."
+
+  IV.
+
+  The stranger bow'd before the king--and thus began to speak--
+  Full well, I ween, his garb was worn, and with sorrow pale his cheek,
+  But his air was free and noble, and proudly flash'd his eye,
+  As he stood unknown in that high hall, and thus he made reply--
+
+  V.
+
+  "From Samos came I, mighty king, and Syloson my name;
+  My brother was Polycrates, a chief well known to fame;
+  That brother drove me from my home--a wanderer forth I went--
+  And since that hour my weary soul has never known content!
+
+  VI.
+
+  "Methinks I need not tell to thee my brother's mournful fate;
+  He lies within his bloody grave--a churl usurps his state--
+  Moeandrius lords it o'er the land, my brother's base born slave;
+  Restore me to that throne, oh king! this, this, the boon I crave.
+
+  VII.
+
+  "Nay, start not; let me tell my tale! I pray thee look on me,
+  And, prince, thou soon shalt know the cause that I ask this gift of thee;
+  Round Persia's king a bristling ring of spearmen standeth now,
+  But when Cambyses wore the crown--a wanderer poor wast _thou_!
+
+  VIII.
+
+  "Remember'st not, oh king! the day when, in old Memphis town,
+  Upon the night ye won the fight, thou wast pacing up and down?
+  The costly cloak that then I wore, its colours charm'd thy eye--
+  In sooth it was a gorgeous robe, of purple Tyrian dye--
+
+  IX.
+
+  "Let base-born peasants buy and sell, I gave that cloak to thee!
+  And for that gift on thee bestow'd, grant thou this boon to me--
+  I ask not silver, ask not gold--I ask of thee to stand
+  A prince once more on Samos' shore--my own ancestral land!"
+
+  X.
+
+  "Oh! best and noblest," quoth the king, "thou ne'er shalt rue the day,
+  When to Cambyses' spearman poor thou gav'st thy cloak away;
+  The faithless eye each well-known form and feature may forget,
+  But the deeds of generous kindness done--the heart remembers yet.
+
+  XI.
+
+  "To-day thou art a wanderer sad, but thou shalt sit, erelong,
+  Within thy fair ancestral hall, and hear the minstrel's song;
+  To-day thou art a homeless man--to-morrow thou shalt stand--
+  A conqueror and a sceptred king--upon thy native land.
+
+  XII.
+
+  "A cloud is on thy brow to-day--thy lot is poor and low,
+  To all who gaze on thee thou seem'st a man of want and wo;
+  But thou shalt drain the bowl erelong within thy own bright isle,
+  A wreath of roses round thy head, and on thy brow a smile."
+
+  XIII.
+
+  And he called the proud Otanes, one of the seven was he
+  Who laid the Magian traitor low, and set their country free;
+  And he bade him man a gallant fleet, and sail without delay,
+  To the pleasant isle of Samos, in the fair Icarian bay.
+
+  XIV.
+
+  "To place yon chief on Samos' throne, Otanes, be thy care,
+  But bloodless let thy victory be, his Samian people spare!"
+  For thus the generous chieftain said, when he made his high demand,
+  "I had rather still an exile roam, than waste my native land."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PART II.
+
+  I.
+
+  Oh, "monarchs' arms are wondrous long!"[3] their power is wondrous great,
+  But not to them 'tis given to stem the rushing tide of fate.
+  A king may man a gallant fleet, an island fair may give,
+  But can he blunt the sword's sharp edge, or bid the dead to live?
+
+
+  II.
+
+  They leave the strand, that gallant band, their ships are in the bay,
+  It was a glorious sight, I ween, to view that proud array;
+  And there, amid the Persian chiefs, himself he holds the helm,
+  Sits lovely Samos' future lord--he comes to claim his realm!
+
+  III.
+
+  Moeandrius saw the Persian fleet come sailing proudly down,
+  And his troops he knew were all too few to guard a leaguer'd town;
+  So he laid his crown and sceptre down, his recreant life to save--
+  Who thus resigns a kingdom fair deserves to be a slave.
+
+  IV.
+
+  He calls his band--he seeks the strand--they grant him passage free--
+  "And shall they then," his brother cried, "have a bloodless victory?
+  No--grant me but those spears of thine, and I soon to them shall show,
+  There yet are men in Samos left to face the Persian foe."
+
+  V.
+
+  The traitor heard his brother's word, and he gave the youth his way;
+  "An empty land, proud Syloson, shall lie beneath thy sway."
+  That youth has arm'd those spearmen stout--three hundred men in all--
+  And on the Persian chiefs they fell, before the city's wall.
+
+  VI.
+
+  The Persian lords before the wall were sitting all in state,
+  They deem'd the island was at peace--they reck'd not of their fate;
+  When on them came the fiery youth[4]--with desperate charge he came--
+  And soon lay weltering in his gore full many a chief of fame.
+
+  VII.
+
+  The outrage rude Otanes view'd, and fury fired his breast--
+  And to the winds the chieftain cast his monarch's high behest.
+  He gave the word, that angry lord--"War, war unto the death!"
+  Then many a scimitar flash'd forth impatient from its sheath.
+
+  VIII.
+
+  Through Samos wide, from side to side, the carnage is begun,
+  And ne'er a mother there is seen, but mourns a slaughter'd son;
+  From side to side, through Samos wide, Otanes hurls his prey,
+  Few, few, are left in that fair isle, their monarch to obey!
+
+  IX.
+
+  The new-made monarch sits in state in his loved ancestral bow'rs,
+  And he bids his minstrel strike the lyre, and he crowns his head
+    with flow'rs;
+  But still a cloud is on his brow--where is the promised smile?
+  And yet he sits a sceptred king--in his own dear native isle.
+
+  X.
+
+  Oh! Samos dear, my native land! I tread thy courts again--
+  But where are they, thy gallant sons? I gaze upon the slain--
+  "A dreary kingdom mine, I ween," the mournful monarch said,
+  "Where are my subjects good and true? I reign but o'er the dead!
+
+  XI.
+
+  "Ah! woe is me--I would that I had ne'er to Susa gone,
+  To ask that fatal boon of thee, Hystaspes' generous son.
+  Oh, deadly fight! oh, woeful sight! to greet a monarch's eyes!
+  All desolate--my native land, reft of her children, lies!"
+
+  XII.
+
+  Thus mourn'd the chief--and no relief his regal state could bring.
+  O'er such a drear unpeopled waste, oh! who would be a king?
+  And still, when desolate a land, and her sons all swept away,
+  "The waste domain of Syloson," 'tis call'd unto this day!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[3] Greek proverb.
+
+[4] "The fiery youth, with desperate charge,
+ Made for a space an opening large."--MARMION.
+
+
+
+
+LOVE AND DEATH.
+
+
+  O strong as the Eagle,
+    O mild as the Dove!
+  How like, and how unlike,
+    O Death and O Love!
+
+  Knitting Earth to the Heaven,
+    The Near to the Far--
+  With the step on the dust,
+    And the eyes on the star!
+
+  Interweaving, commingling,
+    _Both_ rays from God's light!
+  Now in sun, now in shadow,
+    Ye shift to the sight!
+
+  Ever changing the sceptres
+    Ye bear--as in play;
+  Now Love as Death rules us,
+    Now Death has Love's sway!
+
+  Why wails so the New-born?
+    Love gave it the breath.
+  The soul sees Love's brother--
+    Life enters on Death!
+
+  Why that smile the wan lips
+    Of the dead man above?
+  The soul sees Death changing
+    Its shape into Love.
+
+  So confused and so blending
+    Each twin with its brother,
+  The frown of one melts
+    In the smile of the other.
+
+  Love warms where Death withers,
+    Death blights where Love blooms;
+  Death sits by our cradles,
+    Love stands by our tombs!
+
+Edward Lytton Bulwer.
+
+Nov. 9, 1843.
+
+
+
+
+THE BRIDGE OVER THE THUR.
+
+FROM THE GERMAN.--GUSTAV SCHWAB.
+
+
+ Spurning the loud THUR'S headlong march,
+ Who hath stretcht the stony arch?
+ That the wayfarer blesses his path!
+ That the storming river wastes his wrath!
+
+ Was it a puissant prince, in quelling
+ This watery vassal, oft rebelling?--
+ Or earthly Mars, the bar o'erleaping,
+ That wrong'd his war of its onward sweeping?
+
+ Did yon high-nesting Castellan
+ Lead the brave Street, for horse and man?
+ And, the whiles his House creeps under the grass,
+ The Road, that he built, lies fair to pass?
+
+ Nay! not for the Bridge, which ye look upon,
+ Manly hest knit stone with stone.
+ The loved word of a woman's mouth
+ Bound the thundering chasm with a rocky growth.
+
+ She, in turret, who sitteth lone,
+ Listing the broad stream's heavier groan,
+ Kenning the flow, from his loosen'd fountains,
+ From the clouds, that have wash'd a score of mountains.
+
+ A skiff she notes, by the shelvy marge,
+ Wont deftly across to speed its charge;
+ Now jumping and twisting, like leaf on a lynn,
+ Wo! if a foot list cradle therein!
+
+ Sooner, than hath she THOUGHT her FEELING,
+ With travellers twain is the light plank reeling.
+ Who are they?... Marble watcher! Who?
+ Thy beautiful, youthful, only two!
+
+ Coming, glad, from the greenwood slaughter,
+ They reach the suddenly-swollen water;
+ But the nimble, strong, and young,
+ Boldly into the bark have sprung.
+
+ The game in the forest fall, stricken and bleeding;
+ Those river-waves are of other breeding!
+ And the shriek of the mother helpeth not,
+ At seeing turn upwards the keel of the boat.
+
+ Whilst her living pulses languish,
+ As she taketh in her anguish,
+ By the roar, her soul which stuns,
+ On the corses of her sons.
+
+ Needs must she upon the mothers think,
+ Who yet may stand beholding sink,
+ Under the hastily-roused billow,
+ Sons, upthriven to be their pillow.
+
+ Till, in her deeply-emptied bosom,
+ There buds a melancholy blossom,
+ Tear-nourisht:--the will the wo to spare
+ To others, which hath left her bare.
+
+ Ere doth her sorrow a throe abate,
+ Is chiseling and quarrying, early, late.
+ The hoarse flood chafes, with straiten'd tides:
+ Aloft, the proud Arch climbs and strides.
+
+ How her eyes, she fastens on frolicsome boys,
+ O'er the stone way racing, with careless noise.
+ Hark!--hark!--the wild Thur, how he batters his rocks!
+ But YE gaze, laugh, and greet the gruff chider, with mocks.
+
+ Or, she vieweth with soft footfall,
+ Mothers, following their children all.
+ A gleam of pleasure, a spring of yearning,
+ Sweetens her tears, dawns into her mourning.
+
+ And her pious work endureth!
+ And her pain a slumber cureth!
+ Heareth not yonder torrent's jars!
+ Hath her young sons above the stars!
+
+Fontainbleau, 1843.
+
+
+
+
+THE BANKING-HOUSE.
+
+A HISTORY IN THREE PARTS. PART II.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A NEGOTIATION.
+
+
+It is vastly amusing to contemplate the activity and perseverance which
+are exhibited in the regard shown by every man for his individual
+interests. Be our faults what they may--and our neighbours are not slow
+to discover them--it is very seldom indeed that we are charged with
+remissness in this respect. So far from this being the case, a moralist
+of the present day, in a work of no mean ability, has undertaken to
+prove that selfishness is the great and crying evil of the age. Without
+venturing to affirm so wholesale a proposition, which necessarily
+includes in its censure professors and professions _par excellence_
+unsecular and liberal, we may be permitted in charity to express our
+regret, that the rewards apportioned to good men in heaven are not
+bestowed upon those in whom the selfish principle is most rampant,
+instead of being strictly reserved for others in whom it is least
+influential; since it is more pleasing to consider celestial joys in
+connexion with humanity at large, than with an infinitesimal minority of
+mortals.
+
+Whilst Michael Allcraft coolly and designedly looked around him, in the
+hope of fixing on the prey he had resolved to find--whilst, cautious as
+the midnight housebreaker, who dreads lest every step may wake his
+sleeping victim, he almost feared to do what most he had at heart, and
+strove by ceaseless effort to bring into his face the show of
+indifference and repose;--whilst he was thus engaged, there were many,
+on the other hand, eager and impatient to crave from him, as for a boon,
+all that he himself was but too willing to bestow. Little did Michael
+guess, on his eventful wedding-day, as his noble equipage rattled along
+the public roads, what thoughts were passing in the minds of some who
+marked him as he went, and followed him with longing eyes. His absorbing
+passion, his exhilaration and delight, did not suffer him to see one
+thin and anxious-looking gentleman, who, spyglass in hand, sat at his
+cottage window, and brought as near as art allowed--not near enough to
+satisfy him--the entranced and happy pair. That old man, with nine times
+ten thousand pounds safe and snug in the stocks, was miserable to look
+at, and as miserable in effect. He was a widower, and had a son at
+Oxford, a wild, scapegrace youth, who had never been a joy to him, but a
+trial and a sorrow even from his cradle. Such punishments there are
+reserved for men--such visitations for the sins our fathers wrought, too
+thoughtless of their progeny. How the old man envied the prosperous
+bridegroom, and how vainly he wished that his boy might have done as
+well; and how through his small grey eye, the labouring tear-drops
+oozed, as he called fresh to mind again all that he had promised himself
+at the birth of his unhappy prodigal! What would he not give to recover
+and reform the wayward boy? The thought occurred to him, and he dallied
+with it for his pleasure. "If I could but settle him with this young
+Allcraft! Why should it not be done? I will give him all I have at once,
+if necessary, and live in a garret, if it will save my poor Augustus. I
+will speak to him on his return. What a companion and example for my
+boy! Open and straightforward--steady as a rock--as rich as Croesus.
+Most certainly I'll see him. I knew his father. I'll not grudge a few
+thousands to establish him. Stick him to business, and he shall do yet."
+The equipage rolled on as unconscious of the old man's dreams as were
+its animated inmates; and in due time it passed a massive lodge, which
+led through green and winding paths to the finest park and mansion in
+the parish. Close to the lodge's porch there stood a tall and
+gloomy-looking man, neatly dressed--alone. His arms were folded, and he
+eyed the carriage thoughtfully and seriously, as though he had an
+interest there, known to himself, and to no one else. He was a very
+proud man that--the owner of this vast estate, master of unnumbered
+acres, and feared rather than loved by the surrounding people. Wealth is
+the most royal of despots--the autocrat of all the world. Men whose
+sense of liberty forbids them to place their worst passions under wise
+control, will crawl in fetters to lick the basest hand well smeared with
+gold. There was not an individual who could say a good word for the
+squire behind his back. You would hardly believe it, if you saw
+individual and squire face to face. And there he stood, with as
+ill-omened a visage as ever brought blight upon a party of pleasure. He
+watched the panting horses out of sight--opened his gate, and walked the
+other way. He, like the old man, had his plans, and an itching for a
+share in Michael Allcraft's fortune. How he, so wealthy and respected,
+could need a part of it, remains a mystery at present. The squire knew
+his business. He went straightway to the banking-house, and made enquiry
+respecting Allcraft's destination. He gained intelligence, and followed
+him at once. They met abroad--they returned home in company. They became
+great friends, and within three months--PARTNERS. And the old man had
+been, as he threatened to be, very busy likewise. He had fought his
+son's battle very hardly and very successfully, as he believed, and with
+twenty thousand pounds had purchased for him a junior partner's interest
+in the estate. The hopeful boy was admitted into the concern during his
+residence in Oxford. He had never been seen, but his father was a man of
+substance, well known and esteemed. The character which he gave with his
+son was undeniable. Its truth could not be questioned, backed as it was
+by so liberal an advance.
+
+Let it not be supposed that Michael, in his anxiety to involve other men
+in his own fearful responsibility, was injudicious enough to act without
+all forethought and consideration. Not he. He had inherited from his
+sire the valuable faculty of detecting the wishes and views of men in
+their external evidences. On the countenances of men he read their
+hearts. It did not take long to discover that the venerable Mr Brammel
+and the haughty Mr Bellamy were bent upon the partnership, and would
+secure it at any cost. Satisfied of this, like a lazy and plethoric fish
+he kept within sight of his bait, close upon it, without deigning for a
+time as much as a nibble. It was his when he chose to bite. But there
+were deep enquiries to make, and many things to do, before he could
+implicate himself so far. In every available quarter he sought
+information respecting the one partner, and the father of the other, and
+of both; the intelligence that he received well repaid his trouble.
+Nothing could be more promising and satisfactory. Nor did he content
+himself with such arms against the selfishness of gentlemen, who, he was
+shrewd enough to know, were seeking only their own advantage in their
+earnest desire of a union with him. He had an eye to the balance of
+power. Two men, united and active, in the firm, pulling together on all
+occasions, might, not by one blow perhaps, but in the course of time,
+and by accumulating force and skill, oust him from his present elevated
+and natural position. Once admit them to authority, and the limits of
+their dominion must be prescribed by their own sense of honour, or by
+the opportunities afforded them of supremacy and independent action.
+Michael the impulsive saw and felt this most acutely, and took occasion,
+from their eagerness, to insure a proper equilibrium of the forces
+before permitting them to coalesce. There lived in the same city with
+Michael, and within a quarter of a mile of the banking-house, an
+individual to whom he turned his thoughts in his emergency. Mr Planner
+was his name, and his character is worth more than a mere passing
+observation. He was a study for an artist--a lesson for mankind. He was
+a man of surprising abilities, ill directed, and badly educated; at any
+period of his life capable of any thing--to the last moment of his
+existence accomplishing nothing. From a child he had displayed a love of
+admiration and applause, a craving after superiority and distinction, a
+burning ambition for fame. He had the body of a giant, and a giant's
+mental apparatus. But with all his gifts, physical and spiritual, all
+his energies and aims, he arrived at middle life a melancholy spectacle
+of failure and incompetency. There was no one object which he could
+pursue with steadiness and patience--no single mark to which he could
+perseveringly apply the combined powers of his gifted intellect. He
+frittered his faculties upon a hundred trifles, never concentrated them
+upon a worthy purpose once. Pride, emulation, and the internal
+consciousness of strength, led him, year after year, and day after day,
+into difficulties and trials, and carried him through them only to drag
+him into deeper. There was no one man whom he would allow to perform any
+one thing so skilfully as himself. There was no branch of knowledge into
+which he did not grope his way, and from which he would not manage to
+extract sufficient learning to render his conceit intolerable, and his
+opposition dangerous to a more erudite antagonist. He could build a
+church--dam a river--form a company--warm a house--cool a room--one and
+all he would undertake at a minute's notice, and engage to execute
+better than any person living. He asserted it with confidence, and you
+believed him when he spoke with all the earnestness of self-conviction
+and of truth. He despised all works--all theories but his own; and these
+were unapproachable, inimitable. He wrote with his own invented pen,
+used his own ink, sat on his own chair, made with his own incomparable
+tools. Men were ignorant, behind their age--burdened with superstitions,
+clogged by false principles. This was a text from which he never ceased
+to preach. As a youth he was engaged in profitable business. Before he
+reached his thirtieth year he had realized a handsome competency. He
+retired from his occupation, and went abroad to found a city across the
+ocean, with views that were unknown to man, and which, well carried out,
+must prove infallible. He chose a spot removed from civilized
+society--lived for three years amongst a tribe of savages, and came home
+at last without a farthing in his scrip--beggared but not depressed. He
+had dwelt for many months in a district of swamps, and he had discovered
+a method of draining lands cheaper and more effectual than any hitherto
+attempted. He contracted to empty some thousand acres--began his work,
+succeeded for a time, and failed at last, from having falsely calculated
+his expenses, and for lack of means to carry out his plans. There were
+few public matters in which Mr Planner did not meddle. He wrote
+pamphlets, and "hints," and "original views" by dozens. His articles on
+the currency and corn-laws were full of racy hits and striking
+points--his criticisms on the existing state of art worthy of the
+artist's best attention. The temper of Mr Planner was such as might be
+expected from such a mass of arrogance and conceit. A man who, in the
+easiness of his heart, would listen humbly, patiently, approvingly to Mr
+Planner, must pronounce the ardent character an angel. The remarkable
+docility which Mr Planner evinced under such treatment, was only to be
+equalled by the volubility and pleasure with which he communicated his
+numerous and ingenious ideas. Sceptics--nay, men who had ventured only
+to contend for the soundness of their preconceived ideas, and who had
+been met with a torrent of vituperation and reproach in consequence--did
+not hesitate to call Mr Planner--the devil incarnate. Such as he was, he
+had become an agent and a tool in the hands of Allcraft's father.
+Michael had been his friend for years, and Planner liked the boy who had
+ever regarded him with awe and veneration. The youth had been taught by
+his parent to note the faults and inconsistencies of his character; but
+these had not rendered him insensible to the talents which had commanded
+even that discerning parent's respect and admiration. It was this
+personage, for some years the hanger-on at the bank, and the traveller
+and negotiator of many things for Allcraft senior, whose name suggested
+to Michael the means of providing against the encroachments of his
+future brethren. Planner could be relied upon. The smallest possible
+interest in the business would excite in him a corresponding interest in
+its prosperity, and secure his steadiness and good behaviour. Why not
+offer it then, and make his entrance into the firm a _sine qua non_ in
+the bargain with Bellamy and Brammel? He revolved the matter, and saw no
+real objection to it. Planner was reputed a first-rate accountant; his
+services would be important, no remuneration could be too great,
+provided he would settle down, and fix his energies upon the one great
+object of advancing the welfare of the establishment. His friendship was
+secured, and a word or two would suffice to gain his faithful support
+and co-operation. So far from his becoming burdensome and useless in the
+bank, his talents would be in every way desirable. A coadjutor, such as
+he might be, firm and trusty, was invaluable. And why should he not be?
+A day had been fixed for accepting or rejecting the propositions of the
+gentlemen. The time was drawing on, when Michael visited his friend to
+sound him on his purpose.
+
+Planner lived in a very humble part of a very humble house, in a very
+humble street. The two-pair back was his domain, and his territory was
+less adorned than crowded with the evidences of his taste and handiwork.
+In the remote corner of his unclean apartment was a lathe for turning
+ivory--near it the material, a monstrous elephant's tusk. Shelves,
+carried round the room, supported bottles of various sizes, externally
+very dirty, and internally what you please; for eyes could not penetrate
+so far, and determine the contents. A large label, crowning all,
+announced them to be "samples." Books were strewed every
+where--manuscripts met you at every turn. The walls were filled with
+charts and drawings, one of the former representing the field of
+Waterloo, dissected and intersected, with a view to prove Lord
+Wellington guilty of winning a battle, which, in conformity with every
+law of strategy, he should have lost. One drawing was a rough sketch of
+his unhappy swamp; another, the elaborate delineation of a hydraulic
+pump. In the niche corresponding to that in which the lathe was fixed,
+there was a small iron bedstead; and in this, although it was nearly
+noon when Michael paid his friendly visit, Mr Allcraft caught sight of
+Mr Planner when he opened the door, in obedience to the very sharp and
+loud voice which invited him to "walk in." The ingenious gentleman had
+breakfasted. The tea things were on a stool at his side. He wore his
+nightcap, and he was busy in examining a crimson liquid, which he held
+in a glass close to his eyes. "That man was murdered, Allcraft!"
+exclaimed Mr Planner after the briefest possible salutation. "Murdered,
+as I am a living Christian!"
+
+"What man?" asked Allcraft.
+
+"Him they hanged last week for poisoning his father. What was the
+evidence? Why, when they opened the body, they found a grain or two of
+arsenic. Hang a man upon that! A pretty state of things--look here,
+sir--look here!"--and he pointed triumphantly to his crimson liquid.
+
+"What is that, Mr Planner?" inquired the visitor.
+
+"What? My blood, sir. I opened a vein the very day they hanged him. I
+suspected it all along, and there it is. There is more arsenic there,
+sir, than they found in the entire carcass of that man. Arsenic! Why,
+it's a prime ingredient in the blood. This it is to live in the clouds.
+Talk of dark ages--when shall we get light?"
+
+"I was not aware, Mr Planner,"----
+
+"Of course you were not. How should you be? It is the interest of the
+ruling powers to darken the intellect of society. Why am I kept down?
+Why don't I prosper? Why don't my works sell? Ah, Allcraft--put that
+small pamphlet in your pocket--there it is--under the model--take care
+what you are about--don't break it--there, that's right! What is it
+called?"
+
+"Popular delusions."
+
+"Ah, true enough!--put it into your pocket and read it. If Pitt could be
+alive to read it!---- Well, never mind! I say, Allcraft, how does that
+back room flue get on--any smoke now?"
+
+"None."
+
+"No. I should think not. Michael, I must say it, though the old
+gentleman is dead, he was one of the hardest fellows to move I ever met.
+He would have been smoke-dried--suffocated, years ago, if it hadn't been
+for me. I was the first man that ever sent smoke up that chimney. Nobody
+could do it, sir. A fellow came from London, tried, and failed."
+
+"It is a pity, Mr Planner, that, with abilities like yours, you have not
+been more successful in life. Pardon me if I say that success would have
+made you a quieter and a happier man."
+
+"Ah, Michael, so your father used to say! Well, I don't know--people are
+such fools. They will not think for themselves, and they are ready to
+crush any one who offers to think for them. It has ever been so. Men in
+advance of their generation have always fared badly. Ages ago they were
+put to death cruelly and violently. Now they are left to starve, and
+die. The creatures are ignorant, but they are worse than that; they are
+selfish and jealous, and will rather sit in gloom, than owe light, and
+confess they owe it, to a fellow mortal and a superior spirit."
+
+"I am afraid, Mr Planner, after such an observation, that you will
+hardly give me credit for the feeling which has induced me to visit you
+this morning."
+
+"You are a good fellow, Michael. You were always a generous-hearted
+lad--an exception to the general rule. When you were five years old, you
+used to share your biscuits with me. It was a fine trait in your
+character. Proceed."
+
+"You are aware, Mr Planner, that through my father's death increased
+responsibilities have come upon me."
+
+"You may say that. He never would take my advice about the bank-notes.
+Stop--remind me before you go, of the few hints to bankers, which I drew
+up. You will do well to look at them. You'll see the advantages of my
+system of paper issues. Your father, sir, was stone-blind to his own
+interests---- but I am interrupting you."
+
+"I have for some time past determined to associate with me in the bank,
+two gentlemen of noble fortunes and the first respectability. I would
+not willingly carry on the concern alone, and the accession of two such
+gentlemen as I describe, cannot but be in every way desirable."
+
+"Humph--go on."
+
+"Now Mr Planner, you are a very, very old friend of my father's, and I
+know he valued your advice as it deserved to be."
+
+"The old gentleman was good in the main, Michael."
+
+"Had he been aware of my position, he would have recommended the step
+which I am about to adopt. Mr Planner, I am young, and therefore
+inexperienced. These gentlemen are very worthy persons no doubt; indeed,
+I am assured they are; still, they are comparatively strangers to me,
+and I am certain you would advise me to be most cautious."
+
+"Proceed."
+
+"What I feel to want is the constant presence of a friend--one who, from
+personal attachment, may have my welfare and interest at heart, and form
+as it were a second self at all times--let me be present or absent--and
+absent I must be very often--you perceive?"
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"A sort of counterpoise to the opposite weight, in fact, if I may be
+allowed to call it so. Now, I can sincerely affirm that I know no
+person, Mr Planner, in whom I could rely so entirely and unreservedly as
+yourself; and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to serve a man
+so highly gifted, so long connected with our family by the closest
+friendship. If you think the occupation of a banker suitable to your
+present tastes, I believe that I can offer you an appointment worthy
+your serious consideration."
+
+Mr Planner rose in his bed, and grasped firmly the hand of Mr Michael
+Allcraft. The latter sat at the bedside until past three o'clock, and
+then retired, leaving his friend in a state of great mental excitement.
+When Michael, upon taking his departure, reached the street door, he
+stopped short, and retraced his steps. Entering the apartment for a
+second time, he discovered Mr Planner in his night clothes, standing
+before a looking glass, and repeating one of his own compositions in a
+voice of thunder, and with the most vehement gesticulation.
+
+"I beg your pardon. You told me to remind you, Planner, of your hints to
+bankers. Have you the book handy?"
+
+"It is here, Michael. Read it attentively, my boy--trust to me. I'll
+make the house's name ring throughout the country. Don't forget what I
+have said. We must have a new facade to the old building after a while.
+I have such a plan for it!"
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+A LULL.
+
+_Allcraft, Bellamy, Brammel, and Planner_. It was a goodly ship that
+bore the name, and fair she looked at the launching; her sails well set,
+her streamers flying, and the music of men's voices cheering her on her
+career. Happy and prosperous be her course! We think not of winter's
+cold in the fervent summer time, and wreck and ruin seem impossible on
+the smooth surface of the laughing sea; yet cold and winter come, and
+the smiling, sweet-tempered ripple can awaken from slumber, and battle
+and storm with the heavens. Never had bark left haven with finer
+promises of success. We will follow her from the port, and keep
+watchfully in the good ship's wake.
+
+Michael formed a just conclusion when he reckoned upon increase of
+business. His own marriage, and the immense wealth of his lady, had
+inspired the world with unbounded confidence. The names of two of his
+partners were household words in the county, and stood high amongst the
+best. A convulsion of nature may destroy the world in half an hour, as
+love, it is said, _may_ transform a man into an oyster; but either of
+these contingencies was as remote as the possibility of Allcraft's
+failure. Silently and successfully the house went on. For a quarter of a
+year the sun shone brightly, and profit, and advantage, and honour,
+looked Michael in the face. Thriving abroad, happy at home, what did he
+need more? His spirit became buoyant--his heart carefree and light. He
+congratulated himself upon the prudence and success of his measures, and
+looked for his reward in the brilliant future which he had created for
+himself and earned. His soul was calmed; and so are the elements,
+fearfully and oppressively, sometimes an hour before the tempest and the
+storm.
+
+At the end of three months, Michael deemed it necessary to go abroad.
+The heaviest of his father's debts had been contracted with a house in
+Lyons, and notices as to payment had been conveyed to him--notices as
+full of politeness as they were of meaning. The difficulties in which he
+had found himself at the death of his parent--the seriousness of his
+engagements--and the wariness which he had been compelled to
+exercise--had gone far to sober down the impetuous youth, and to endue
+him with the airs and habits of a man of business. He had attended to
+his duties at the banking-house faithfully and punctually. He had
+entered into its affairs with the energy and resolution of a practical
+and working mind. He had given his heart to the work, and had put his
+shoulder to the wheel, honestly and earnestly. Whatsoever may have been
+his faults previously to his connexion with his partners, it is due to
+him to say that he was no sluggard afterwards, and that he grudged
+neither time nor labour that could be in any way productive to the
+house--could add a shilling to its profits, or a breath of reputation to
+its name. To pay his father's debts from the earnings of the bank--to
+keep those debts a secret--and to leave the fortune of his wife
+untouched, were the objects for which he lived, and soon began to slave.
+Believing that a favourable arrangement could be effected with his
+father's creditors, he determined to visit them in person. He had not
+been absent from the bank even for a day; and now, before he could quit
+it with comfort, he deemed it necessary to have a few parting words with
+his right hand and factotum, Planner.
+
+Planner was the only member of the firm who lived in the establishment.
+His specimens, his bottles, his maps, and drawings, had been removed to
+a spacious apartment over the place of business, and he rejoiced in the
+possession of an entire first floor. His bed-room had now a distinct
+existence. He had not enjoyed it for a week, before the water with which
+he performed his daily ablutions was insinuated by a cunning contrivance
+through the ceiling, and dismissed afterwards, as cleverly, through the
+floor. Hot water came through the wall at any hour of the day, and a
+constant artificial ventilation was maintained around his bed by night
+and day. There was no end to the artifices which the chamber exhibited.
+Michael, although he lived at a considerable distance from the bank, was
+always the first at his post, after Planner himself. He arrived
+unusually early on the day fixed for his visit to the Continent. Planner
+and he sat for an hour together, and in the course of their
+conversation, words to the following effect escaped them:--
+
+"You will be careful and attentive, Planner. Let me hear from you by
+every post. Do not spare ink and paper."
+
+"Trust me. I shall not forget it. But don't you miss the opportunity,
+Allcraft, of doing something with those mines. Your father wouldn't
+touch them--but he repented it. I tell you, Michael, if we bought them,
+and worked them ourselves, we might coin money! I'd go abroad and see
+the shafts sunk. I could save a fortune in merely setting them to
+rights."
+
+"It is rather strange, Planner, that Brammel is so long absent. He
+should come home, and settle down to work. It isn't well to be away. It
+hasn't a fair appearance to the world. You saw his father yesterday.
+What said he?"
+
+"Oh, that young Brammel had a good many things to arrange in Oxford and
+in the neighbourhood, and would soon be back now. But never mind him,
+Allcraft. Between ourselves, he is better where he is; he is a horrible
+ass."
+
+"Hush. So he is, Planner, but he must not run wild. We must keep him at
+home. He has been a rackety one, and I fear he is not much better now. I
+question whether I should have received him here, if I had known as much
+of him at first as I have heard lately. But his father deceived me."
+
+"Queer old man that, Michael! How he takes the boy's part always, and
+how frightened he seems lest you should think too badly of him. Young
+Brammel will have every farthing of the old man's money at his death. A
+pretty sum, too. A hundred thousand pounds, isn't it?"
+
+"Well, Planner, let me know when he returns. That was a curious report
+about his marriage. Can it be true?"
+
+"His father denies it, but you mustn't trust the old sinner when he
+talks about his son. He'll lie through thick and thin for him. They do
+say he lived with the girl at the time he was at college, and married
+her at last because her brother threatened to kick him."
+
+"Nonsense, Planner."
+
+"Why nonsense? More than half the marriages you hear of are scarcely a
+whit better. What are the rules for a correct match? Who obeys them?
+Where do you ever hear, now-a-days, of a proper marriage? People are
+inconsistent in this respect as in other things. A beauty marries a
+beast. A philosopher weds a fool. They can't tell you why, but they do
+it. It's the perversity of human nature."
+
+"I shall look sharp after Brammel."
+
+"Take my advice, Michael, and look after the mines. Brammel can take
+care of himself, or his wife and brother-in-law can do it. The timber on
+the property will realize the purchase money."
+
+"Well, we shall see; but here is Mr Bellamy. Mind you write to me, and
+be explicit and particular."
+
+"I shall do it, Michael."
+
+"And mark, Planner; prudence--prudence."
+
+And so saying, Michael advanced to Bellamy with a smiling countenance.
+An hour afterwards, both he and his lovely bride were comfortably seated
+in a post-chaise and four, admiring the garden-land of Kent, and
+speeding to Dover fast as their horses could carry them.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A SWEET COUPLE.
+
+The very emphatic and somewhat vulgar expression of Mr Planner, was by
+no means ill-chosen to express the character of Augustus Theodore
+Brammel. He had been lovingly spoiled from his cradle--humoured and
+ruined with the most praiseworthy care and perseverance. His
+affectionate parents had studiously neglected the few goodly shoots
+which the youth had brought into the world with him, and had embarked
+all their energies in the cultivation of the weeds that grew noxious and
+numerous around the unhappy boy's heart. His mother lived to see her
+darling expelled from Eton--the father to see much worse, and yet not
+the worst that the hopeful one was doomed to undergo. Gross vices, if
+not redeemed, are rendered less hideous by intellectual power and
+brilliancy. Associated with impotency and ignorance, they are disgusting
+beyond expression. Augustus Brammel was the most sensual and
+self-engrossed of men--the most idle and dissipated; and, as if these were
+not enough to render him an object of the deepest aversion, he was as
+self-willed, thick-headed, overbearing a dunce as ever moved a man to
+that contempt "which wisdom holds unlawful ever;" and Brammel was not
+only a fool, but a conceited, upstart, irritating fool. He considered
+himself the shrewdest of mortals, and presumed to dictate, to be
+impertinent, to carry matters with a high hand and a flourish. As for
+modesty, the word was not in his dictionary. He had never known its
+meaning; and therefore, perhaps, in justice is not to be blamed for the
+want of it. Augustus, being a great blusterer, was of course a low
+coward. He bullied, oppressed, and crushed the helpless and the weak,
+who were avenged as often as he cowered and sneaked beneath the look of
+the strong and the brave. The companions and friends of such creatures
+as Brammel, are generally selected from the lower grades of life. The
+tone of feeling found amongst the worst members of these classes,
+harmonizes with their own. They think the like thoughts, talk the same
+language. They are led to them by the true Satanic impulse, for it is
+their triumph to reign in hell--their misery to serve in heaven.
+Flattered by the dregs and refuse of society, they endeavour to forget
+that they are avoided, spurned, trodden on, by any thing higher. Just
+when it was too late to profit by the discovery, old Brammel found out
+his mistake; and then he sagaciously vowed, that if his time were to
+come over again, he would educate his boy in a very different manner.
+His first attempt had certainly been a failure. Augustus had been
+rusticated at the university; he had run away from his home; he had
+committed all kinds of enormity. He had passed weeks in the sinks of
+London, and had been discovered at last by his heartbroken parent
+amongst the stews of Shadwell, in a fearful state of disease and
+destitution. Years were passed in proceedings of this nature, and every
+attempt at recovery proved abortive and useless. His debts had been
+discharged a dozen times, and on every occasion under a solemn
+engagement that it should be the last. When Brammel senior signed the
+deed of partnership on behalf of his son, the latter, as I have already
+said, was in Oxford, having returned to the university only a month
+before, at the termination of his period of banishment. Whilst the
+father was engaged in publishing the imaginary virtues of his son to
+most admiring listeners, the promising youth himself was passing his
+days in the very agreeable society of Miss Mary Anne Waters, the eldest
+daughter of the cook of his college--a young lady with some pretension
+to beauty, but none whatever to morality, being neither more nor less
+than Mr Augustus Brammel's very particular and _chere amie_. The letter
+which arrived with the unwelcome intelligence of the arrangement, found
+the charming pair together. A specimen of their discourse at the time,
+will show the temper with which the communication was received.
+
+"I sha'n't go," ejaculated the youth. "I can't be nailed down to a desk.
+What business had the old man to do any thing without me? Why can't he
+mind his own affairs? He's old and ugly enough. It's cursed impudence in
+him, and that's a fact."
+
+"Oh ducky!" interposed Miss Mary Anne, with a rueful face, "I know how
+it will be. You'll have to go home for good, and you won't think of me
+no more."
+
+"Don't you bother yourself. I sha'n't do any thing of the kind. If I go
+home, Molly, you go with me."
+
+"Do you mean it, dear bless-ed?"
+
+"Don't I? that's all. I say it is blasted impertinent in the old man,
+and I shall tell him so. I shall have blunt enough when his toes are up.
+What is the good of working for more?"
+
+"Oh dear me, bless-ed!"
+
+"What is the matter, old girl?"
+
+"If you should ever forget me!"
+
+"Don't you fear."
+
+"I should hang myself up to the bedpost with my garters. I know I
+should. Don't leave me, there's a dear ducky."
+
+"Well, haven't I said I won't?"
+
+"Ah, you think you won't, dear bless-ed!"
+
+"I tell you I won't."
+
+"Yes, but when they get you up, they'll just be trying to marry you to
+some fine rich woman; and I am sure she won't know how to take care of
+you as I do. They ain't brought up to air and mend linen, to darn
+stockings, and to tack on shirt-buttons. They'll never suit you, ducky."
+
+"Catch me marrying a fine woman, Moll!"
+
+"Ha, won't you though, bless-ed? Oh, dear me!" Mary Anne burst into
+tears.
+
+"What's the matter, Moll, now?"
+
+"Oh, dear ducky! I wish I was an honest woman. I might go every where
+with you, and not be ashamed of it either; and I do love you so. I shall
+die if you leave me--I know I shall!"
+
+"But I won't leave you."
+
+"Oh, there's a ducks! But you know what you promised me, Tiddy dear?"
+
+"Yes, I know, Molly, and I'll keep my word with you. If father makes a
+partner of me, he shall make partners of both of us."
+
+"No, do you mean it though?"
+
+"Haven't I said it, you stupid?"
+
+"Yes, you dear ducks of diamonds! You do look so handsome this morning!
+And when shall it be? If you are to go to this business, the sooner the
+better, you know, darling. Oh, I shall be so happy!"
+
+Happy or not, the lady was at least successful. In the course of a week
+Mary Anne Waters became extinct, and from her ashes rose the
+surprizingly fine, and surpassingly vulgar, Mrs Augustus Brammel.
+Augustus, notwithstanding his vapoury insubjection, visited his father
+and the partners in the bank, leaving his bride in snug lodgings at a
+respectable distance from all. He remained a few days at the
+banking-house, and then absented himself on the plea of finally
+arranging his incompleted affairs in Oxford and elsewhere. He had
+engaged to return to business at the end of a month. Nearly three had
+passed away, and no tidings whatever had been heard of him. Allcraft, as
+it has been seen, grew anxious--less perhaps for his partner's safety,
+than for the good name and credit of the firm. He had heard of his
+precious doings, and reports of his inauspicious marriage were already
+abroad. No wonder that the cautious and apprehensive Michael trembled
+somewhat in his state of uncertainty. As for Mr Augustus Brammel
+himself, the object of his fears, he, in conformity with general custom,
+and especially in compliance with the wishes of his wife, had quitted
+England on a wedding tour. With five hundred pounds in his purse--a sum
+advanced by his father to liquidate his present outstanding
+liabilities--he steamed from Dover on the very day that he was supposed
+to have reached Oxford for his final arrangements. From Boulogne, he,
+his wife, and suite, proceeded to Paris; and there they were, up to
+their eyes in the dissipation of that fascinating city, when Allcraft
+started on their track, followed them, unwittingly enough, from town to
+town, and came upon them at length in the great city itself, and in the
+very hotel in which they lodged. It was at night that Michael first
+caught sight of the runaway. And where? In a gaming-house, the most
+fashionable of the many legalized haunts of devils in which, not many
+years since, Paris abounded. Allcraft had entered upon the scene of
+iniquity as into a theatre, to behold a sight--the sight of human nature
+in its lowest, most pitiable, and melancholy garb; in its hour of
+degradation, craziness, and desperation. He had his recreation in such a
+spectacle, as men can find their pleasure in the death-struggle of a
+malefacter on the gibbet. He came, not to join the miserable throng that
+crowded round the tables, exhibiting every variety of low, unhealthy
+feeling; nor did he come, in truth, prepared to meet with one in whose
+affairs and conduct he had so deep an interest. It was with
+inexpressible astonishment and horror that he beheld his colleague, busy
+and active amongst the busiest of the crew, venturing rouleau after
+rouleau, losing stake upon stake, and growing more reckless and madder
+with every new defeat. For a time Michael would not, could not, believe
+his own eyes. It was one of the curious resemblances which we meet every
+now and then in life: it was any thing but what he dreaded it to be--the
+actual presence of Augustus Brammel. Michael retreated to a distant part
+of the room, and watched his man. The latter spoke. He used a disgusting
+English oath, and flung his last rouleau across the table like a drunken
+fiend. The heart of Allcraft grew sick, but still he kept his eye upon
+the gamester. Losing his stake, Brammel quitted the apartment, and
+retired to a spacious saloon, splendidly furnished. He called for
+champagne--drank greedily--finished the bottle--returned to the
+gaming-room flushed and feverish--looked at the players savagely, but
+sottishly, for a few moments, and then left the house altogether.
+Michael was on his heels. The worthy Brammel stopped at many small
+public-houses on his road, in each drank off a glass of brandy, and so
+went on. Michael had patience, and kept to his partner like a leech. It
+was midnight when he found himself once more before his hotel.
+
+Brammel had rung at the porter's bell, and gained admittance. A quarter
+of an hour afterwards Allcraft followed his example. Before he retired
+to rest he learnt that Brammel and himself were inmates of the same
+house. About eleven o'clock on the following morning, Augustus quitted
+his dressing-room. Michael had been waiting some hours for this
+operation. A few minutes afterwards Mr Brammel's servant announced a
+visitor. Great was the consternation of Augustus Brammel when Mr Michael
+Allcraft looked him in the face. First the delinquent turned very white,
+like a guilty man--then his colour returned to him, and he tried to
+laugh like an innocent and careless one; but he was not so happy in the
+second instance. As a third experiment, he smoothed his hair with his
+fingers--pointed to a chair--and held out his hand. Mrs Brammel was at
+the breakfast table, reading an English newspaper.
+
+"Ah! Mr Allcraft--glad to see you--glad to see you. Out on the same
+business, eh? Nothing like it--first weeks of marriage are
+delightful--there's nothing like a honey-moon on the Continent to my
+thinking. Mrs Brammel, my wife--Mr Allcraft, my partner, my dear."
+
+Mrs Brammel looked up from her newspaper and giggled.
+
+"I cannot tell you, Mr Brammel," said Allcraft in a serious tone, "how
+surprised I am to find you here. Are you aware, sir, that neither your
+father, nor any one of your partners, have the least knowledge of your
+movements. You were supposed to be in England. You gave your word to
+return to business within a month of your departure. You have not
+written or given the slightest account of yourself."
+
+"Come, that's very good, Mister. Given an account of myself, indeed!
+Pray, whom am I accountable to?"
+
+"To those, sir," replied Allcraft, quickly and angrily, "with whom you
+are associated in business, and who have an interest in your good
+conduct--who suffer by your acts, and will be blamed for your folly and
+indiscretion."
+
+"Come, I say, that's all very fine in you, Mr Allcraft; but what brings
+you here, I should like to know? Haven't I as much right to bring my
+wife to Paris as you have? Give and take, if you please"----
+
+"No, bless-ed," sagely and sarcastically interposed Mrs Brammel, "I
+ain't so rich as Mrs Allcraft; I can't dress so fine; we ain't sich
+gentle-folks"----
+
+"Mr Brammel, pray let us have no more recrimination. I have met you here
+by the merest chance. It is my duty to speak to you at once, and very
+seriously, on your position. You are mistaken if you suppose that my own
+pleasure has brought me here; business--important, weighty business--is
+the sole cause, I can assure you."
+
+"_Ally--ally_," answered Brammel with a knowing leer, attempting a
+little _facetiae_ in French.
+
+"I tell you the truth, sir," continued Michael, reddening with anger,
+"and I warn you in good time to look to yourself, and to your course of
+conduct. You may bring infamy upon yourself, as you have brought sorrow
+and anguish upon the head of your aged father; but you shall not with
+impunity involve and disgrace others who are strangers to you, although
+unfortunately connected with you by their occupation. Depend upon it,
+you shall not."
+
+"My aged father, as you call him, didn't stump up all that money, I'm
+thinking, Mr Allcraft, to bind me apprentice. Perhaps you'd like to kick
+me next. I am as much a partner in that concern as you are; and if I
+think proper to take my lady abroad, I am at liberty to do it as well as
+you. You ain't the first man because you married a rich widow, and
+because your name begins with A. Certainly not, monsweer."
+
+"In course not, bless-ed. Besides, ducky, your name begins with B--and
+that's A's next door neighbour."
+
+"You shall take your own course, sir," proceeded Michael; "but it shall
+be at your own peril, and with your eyes opened. It is my part to give
+you good counsel. I shall do so. You may act as you then think fit."
+
+"I haven't done any thing to disgrace you, as you call it. It is cursed
+impudent in you to say so."
+
+"You have. You disgraced yourself and me, and every one associated with
+you, only last night, when you were pleased to exhibit to the world as a
+public gamester. (Augustus Theodore changed colour.) You see that your
+actions are observed; they will become more so. The house shall not lose
+its good name through your misconduct, sir. Assure yourself of that.
+There are means to rid ourselves of a nuisance, and to punish severely,
+if we choose to use them."
+
+"What do you mean by punish?" asked Augustus, unfeignedly alarmed by his
+partner's threat, and yet not liking to be bullied. "Don't you insult
+me, sir, in my own room; better not, I can tell you."
+
+"Pshaw, you are an idiot;" exclaimed Michael most contemptuously.
+
+"I'll just thank you to go, sir, and not call my husband names," said
+Mrs Brammel, rising from her chair. "You are a nasty ill-bred fellow,
+I'm sure. Talk of high people! I never see sich airs in all my life. If
+your wife ain't no better behaved, there's a nice pair of you, I don't
+think. Never mind him, ducky dear--don't you fret. We are as good as
+them any day. Let's go up stairs, there's a bless-ed. Call the
+_garsoon_."
+
+Poor Michael knew not what step to take, what language to employ, in
+order to effect his purpose. He could not think of quitting Paris,
+leaving his partner behind him, open to the seductions of the city, and
+eager to avail himself of every license and indulgence. He had hoped to
+frighten him into better behaviour, and perhaps he would have succeeded
+but for the presence of the lady, whose appearance and demeanour, more
+than any thing else, confounded and annoyed him. He remained silent for
+a few seconds, and then, in a quieter tone, he asked Brammel when he
+really thought of getting back to business.
+
+"Why, very soon," replied the youth, himself reduced to civility by
+Michael's more peaceful aspect; "and I should have been back before now,
+if I hadn't been bothered about a lot of things. If you hadn't come in
+blustering, I should have told you so. I shall be all right enough,
+don't you fear, when I get home. I promised father I should settle, and
+so I mean--but a wedding trip is a wedding trip, and ladies mustn't be
+baulked."
+
+"Certainly not," answered Allcraft, grateful for as much as this--"then,
+when do you think of reaching home?"
+
+"Oh, before you, I'll wager! We haven't got much more to see. We went to
+the Jordan de Plants yesterday. We are going to the Pantheon to-morrow.
+We shall soon get done. Make your mind easy."
+
+"As soon as you have visited these places, I am to understand, then,
+that you return to business?"
+
+"Exactly so."
+
+"And may I venture to intreat you to abstain from visiting the
+gambling-house again?"
+
+"Oh, don't you worry yourself! If you had only spoken at first like a
+gentleman, I should have promised you without being asked."
+
+"Both you and Mrs Brammel must see, I am sure, the very great propriety
+of avoiding all such scenes."
+
+"Yes," answered Mary Anne; and then repeating her husband's words, "but
+if you had only spoken at first like a gentleman!"
+
+"Perhaps I was too hasty, madam. It is a fault that I have. We shall
+understand one another much better for the future. You will be at home
+in about--ten days we'll say, from the present time, at latest."
+
+"Oh, don't fix days, I never could bear it! We shall be all right. Will
+you stay breakfast?"
+
+Michael excused himself, and, having done all that was permitted him,
+departed. With a sad spirit he encountered his lady, and with gloomy
+forebodings his mind was filled that day. Augustus Brammel was destined
+to be his thorn, his trial, and his punishment. He could see it already.
+His house, otherwise so stable, so promising, and so prosperous, would
+receive a mortal blow from this one threatening point. It must be warded
+off. The hurtful limb must by degrees be got away. He must, from this
+time forward, engage himself in its removal. It was, after all, a
+consolation to have met the pair, and to have succeeded so far in
+frightening them home again, as he fully believed he had. For a time at
+least, he conceived that Brammel was still safe. This conviction gave
+him courage, and carried him on his road to Lyons, with a heart not
+altogether ill at ease, and without good hope. In the meanwhile Mrs
+Brammel had inveighed, in the most unmeasured terms, against the
+insolent behaviour of Mr Allcraft, the pride and arrogance of his wife,
+whom she had never seen--the marked, unpardonable insult she had offered
+her in not accompanying Allcraft on his visit; and had succeeded, in
+short, in effectually driving from her husband's mind the little good
+effect which had been produced by the partner's just remonstrance.
+Ignorant and vulgar as she was, the woman had unbounded influence and
+power. How much, may be guessed from the fact, that before Michael
+Allcraft was ten miles on his journey to Lyons, she had prevailed upon
+her husband to draw his first cheque upon his house to the tune of
+L.500, and to prolong their holiday by visiting in succession the south
+of France, Switzerland, and Italy. The fool, after an inane resistance,
+consented; his cheque was converted to money--the horses were
+ordered--and on they dashed.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A SPECULATION.
+
+"When the cat is away, the mice begin to play." It is an old and a true
+saying, and Michael, had he been an experienced mouser, would have
+remembered it to his advantage, when he thought of leaving the
+banking-house to the tender mercies of his colleagues. His confidence in
+Planner was very great, and I will not say undeserved; still some
+account should have been taken of his previous habits, and the positive
+abiding infirmity of human nature. It was surely dangerous to surround a
+man so fickle, and so easily led by the delusions of his sanguine
+spirit, with every temptation to walk astray, and to remove every check
+that had hitherto kept down the capricious movements of his most
+unsteady will. The daily, almost hourly presence of Allcraft, his
+vigorous and immediate superintendence of affairs, had subdued the
+speculative soul of Planner, and rendered him a useful man of business.
+He was, in truth, a good accountant, ardent in his pursuits, a faithful
+friend, an honest man. With the needful restraints upon him, he proved,
+as Allcraft had believed he would, a warm and active partisan. Had those
+restraints been continued for any time--had he been trained, and so
+reconciled and accustomed to his yoke, all might have prospered and been
+well with him. His own happiness might have been secured, and the hopes
+of his friend and patron would not have been blasted. It was the
+misfortune of Allcraft, with all his long-sightedness, not to see far
+enough. He was to blame, deeply to blame, for the desertion of a man
+whom he knew to be at the mercy of his own wayward spirit, and utterly
+incapable of self-defence. Yet, called abroad, what could he do? It is
+the fate of cunning, as it is of suspicion and other mortal weaknesses,
+to fall into toils of its own weaving. Michael too soon was called to
+pay the penalty. Allcraft had been in France a fortnight, when Planner
+received a fatal visit at the bank from a very old friend and stanch
+ally--a creature as excitable and sanguine as himself, as full of
+projects, and as unsuccessful. They had known each other in the early
+and distant days of their prosperity--they had grown poor together--they
+were united by the uniformity of their fortunes as by the similarity of
+their natures. They had both for years regarded themselves as the
+persecuted and injured of society--and both were satisfied of their
+ability to achieve miracles, time and the occasion serving. It is not
+for speculative spirits to be disheartened by failure, but rather to be
+encouraged by ill success to fresh extravagance, else had the poor
+result of all their schemes long since extinguished the fire at work
+within them. Not one of their innumerable plans had shown a gleam, a
+spark, of reality and life. One morning, about five years before the
+present visit, Mr William Wedge rose from bed with the pleasing notion
+that he would ruin all the public gaming-houses in the world. He had
+suddenly discovered the secret of their success--the cause of their
+enormous gains--and had arranged, with minutest care and skill, a
+systematic course of play to bring against them. It was with difficulty
+that he contained himself until he mentioned his good fortune to his
+friend. They met time after time in secret, grew fearfully
+mysterious--closed their windows in the open day--played cards from
+morning till night, and sometimes through the night--with no other eye
+upon them than the very feeble, faint-glimmering one of their farthing
+rushlight;--they carried directions in their pocket--learnt them
+off--repeated them until they grew familiar as their oaths, and more
+familiar than their prayers. To realize between them a standing capital
+of five pounds, a sum essential to their operations, they pawned all the
+available clothing they possessed; and on the very night that they
+obtained the cash, they sallied forth to carry devastation and affright
+throughout the camps of innocent and unsuspecting blacklegs. As might be
+expected, it took about as many minutes as they had pounds to effect the
+ruin of the adventurers. Did they despond? Not they; a flaw existed in
+their calculations. They looked for it with care, and were torn from
+their employment only by the exigencies of the time, and the pressing
+demands of nature for immediate bread. Mr Wedge had from this period
+struggled on, living as he knew how, and nobody could tell, until
+Planner's unexpected good fortune and ascent provided him with an
+allowance and a quiet mind to follow out his views. Since Planner's
+introduction into the bank, he had behaved faithfully and well to his
+ancient crony; in addition to a pension, paid weekly and in advance, he
+gave him a right of entree to his rooms after the hours of business, a
+certain supper three times a-week, and an uncertain quantity of brandy
+and water on the same occasions. One stipulation only he deemed
+necessary for his protection. He had given his word to Allcraft to avoid
+all trading unconnected with the bank--to abstain from speculation. Weak
+at the best of times, he knew himself to be literally helpless with the
+_ignis fatuus_ of a hopeful project before his eyes; and he made a
+condition of Wedge's visits--his silence upon matters of business,
+private or public. It was a wise resolution, nobly formed, and for a
+season well carried out. Wedge promised to be cautious, and did not
+break his word. Peace of mind, a regular diet, and a full stomach, were
+such extraordinary circumstances in the daily doings of the latter, that
+the restraint upon his tongue was, in the first month or two of the new
+excitement, scarcely felt as an inconvenience. Planner himself, with the
+eye of Allcraft upon him, kept his natural inclination safely in the
+rear of _his_ promise, and so the days and nights passed pleasantly. On
+the evening above alluded to--that is to say, just a fortnight after
+Michael's departure--Wedge came as usual for his supper, grog, and
+conversation. The clock had just struck eleven--the friends were sitting
+together, their feet upon the fender, their hands upon their tumblers.
+As was usual with them, they discussed the doings of the nation, and
+called in question the proceedings of the existing government. One
+subject after another was dismissed--politics, law, love, and
+religion--they abused every thing, and agreed marvellously. It was
+getting very near midnight, the hour at which, it is said, devils are
+let loose upon earth for mischief--when a rascally little imp crawled up
+to Planner's ear, and put it into his head to talk about the amusements
+of the poor, and their effects upon the rising generation.
+
+"They will be sorry for it, Wedge--mark my words. All this stabbing and
+killing comes from too much work and no play. Jack's at his tools for
+ever--gets a dull boy--and then stabs and cuts about him for the sake of
+getting lively. Government should have playgrounds in every parish. They
+would save the expense in the rapid diminution of the standing army. I
+wrote a letter once to the prime minister"----
+
+Wedge sighed.
+
+"What do you mean by that, Wedge? Ah, quite right--I see! You are a good
+fellow, Wedge. You have kept the compact. I won't be the first to break
+it. Let us change the subject. I burnt all my letters and papers the day
+I got here. What was the good of keeping them? This is an ungrateful
+country, Wedge!"
+
+Wedge sipped his grog, and sighed again.
+
+"What is the matter, boy?" enquired his patron. "Speak your
+mind--relieve your heart."
+
+"No, I won't, Planner--I won't be the first. You sha'n't say it is me. I
+don't mean to be blamed, that's a fact--but if I dared, oh, that's all!"
+
+"Is it any thing very good?"
+
+"Good! Good, did you say? Well, an agreement's an agreement, Planner. It
+isn't for me to introduce the subject; but I could tell you something,
+if we were differently situated, that would be a fortune to you. Ah,
+Planner, I sha'n't be a burden upon you long! I have hit upon a thing at
+last--I am a made man!"
+
+"Now I tell you what, Wedge," said Planner, pulling out his watch, and
+looking very serious, "we'll have just five minutes' private
+conversation on this matter, and then have done with it. Only five
+minutes, mind you, by the watch. If we mutually agree to lay aside our
+compact for a minute or so, there's no great harm done, provided it
+isn't made a precedent. I should like to see you set a-going, Wedge. You
+may open your mind to me, and be sure of good advice. It's now seven
+minutes to twelve. Till twelve, Wedge, you are at liberty to talk on
+business."
+
+"What were you saying just now about amusements, Planner? Do you
+recollect."
+
+"I do."
+
+"I have thought about it for the last six months. We have formed a
+company."
+
+"A company!"
+
+Wedge was as full of mystery as an Oxford tractman. He rose on tiptoe
+from his chair, proceeded to the passage, listened on the stairs,
+returned as carefully, closed the door, resumed his seat.
+
+"A company!" repeated Planner.
+
+"Such an undertaking!" proceeded the ungagged and self-deluded Wedge.
+"It's the finest thing that has been thought of for these hundred years.
+I _am_ surprised it never once occurred to you. Your mind, Planner,
+should have grasped it."
+
+"What can it be?"
+
+"We mean to call it the _Pantamorphica_, because it takes all shapes. We
+are in treaty now for a hundred acres of land within three miles of
+London. We are to have a race-course--public gardens with fountains and
+promenades--a gymnasium for callisthenic and other exercises--boating--a
+menagerie--a library--lecture-rooms--conservatories"----
+
+"By Jove, I see!" ejaculated Planner. "Capital!--a universal playground;
+trust me, I have thought of it before. Go on."
+
+"These are for the daylight. At night we have a concert-room--a
+theatre--saloons for dancing--halls for refreshment--museums for
+_converzatione_. In the centre of the public walks we have a synagogue,
+a church, and chapel for Sabbath visitors. Then we shall have
+aviaries--apiaries--caves--alpine scenery"----
+
+"Upon my soul, Wedge, it's a grand conception!" There was a large clock
+at the bottom of the stairs which struck twelve, loud enough to awake
+the sleeping household; but, strange to say, neither Planner nor his
+friend heard a single chime. "Who are your men?" continued Planner.
+
+"Oh, first-rate men! Three of the first London bankers, two of the chief
+architects, the richest capitalist in England"----
+
+"What, have you got them all?"
+
+"No, but we mean to ask them to take shares, and to take part in the
+direction. They'll jump, sir, at the offer."
+
+"Ah, that they will! What's your capital?"
+
+"Half a million--five thousand shares of a hundred each. It's nothing at
+all!"
+
+"No, nothing really. What is your appointment?"
+
+"I am secretary; and I am to have a bonus of five thousand pounds when
+the thing is fairly started."
+
+"You well deserve it, Wedge. Ah, sir, I have dreamt of this before!"
+
+"No--have you?"
+
+"It must do, Wedge. It can't help itself. People will be amused--people
+will pay for it. Amuse them from morning till night--change the scene
+every hour of the day--vary the pleasures. Wedge, you are a national
+benefactor."
+
+"It is past twelve," said Wedge hesitatingly, looking at the watch.
+
+"No--is it?" asked Planner, looking at it likewise. "There must be some
+mistake. Have you heard the clock strike?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor I; my watch is out of order--too fast a great deal. Let us go by
+the big clock. Now, when that strikes twelve, Wedge, you shall go home,
+and I'll to bed--an understanding is an understanding, Wedge."
+
+"And so you like it, Planner--eh?"
+
+"Like it, sir"----
+
+It was exactly a quarter to four o'clock when Planner put out his
+bedroom candle, and Wedge tucked himself up as well as he could on the
+hard horsehair sofa in Planner's sitting-room. Having enlarged upon the
+_Pantamorphica_ speculation until the above unreasonable hour, it was
+not deemed respectable for Mr Wedge to quit the banking-house on the
+dark side of sunrise. The latter gentleman had worked himself up to such
+a pitch of excitement in blowing out his bubble, that it was very nearly
+six o'clock before he could be pronounced in a condition to say his
+prayers like a rational being, and go to sleep. As for Planner, he had
+heard too much to be quiet. He tossed his head on his pillow--turned
+from side to side--sat up and lay down again at intervals, until the
+break of day. He had resolved to take an active interest in this
+glorious undertaking. Nothing should hinder him. Its returns must
+necessarily be immense. He had promised Allcraft to enter into no
+business foreign to the banking-house. But what of that? He should be
+without an excuse for his blindness if he closed his eyes to the
+advantages which stared him in the face. He would not be selfish.
+Allcraft should share in the reward. He, who had acted so friendly a
+part to him, should be repaid for his noble conduct. "Share and share
+alike," should be his motto. And he would not hesitate or postpone his
+intentions. He would look thoroughly into the affair at once, and go
+boldly forward. It should be his pleasure and his pride to greet and
+surprise his partner with the unexpected news the instant he returned.
+Sweet are the visions of life, sleeping or waking. It is the substance
+and the truth that pass like iron to the soul, and kill it. Poor
+Planner!
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A LANDED PROPRIETOR.
+
+After Michael had spent a month in France, he discovered that he must
+still travel on, and still sacrifice time and exertion, if he hoped to
+bring his unfortunate parent's affairs to a satisfactory issue. Many
+things had happened since his arrival to give him great pain and
+annoyance. In the first place, he had learned, with a sickening heart,
+that the private debts of his father considerably exceeded in amount
+those which had appeared in the testamentary memorandum. He had seen
+with his own eyes his father's acknowledgment of liabilities, the
+existence of which was thus revealed to him for the first time. In his
+immediate and violent disgust, he burned to expose his parent's cupidity
+and dishonesty, and to rid himself of the burden which he had
+voluntarily taken as his own; but pride, shame, and other low
+incentives, came between him and the fulfilment of a rash resolution,
+and he had nothing to do but to look his difficulty fully and bravely in
+the face. In addition to this trial, he found it necessary to proceed
+without delay as far eastward as Vienna; for thither his chief creditor
+had taken himself on urgent business, which threatened to detain him on
+the spot until the following year. Nor was this all; a Lyonese merchant,
+who held old Allcraft's note of hand for a considerable sum, advanced
+under assurances of early payment, had grown obstinate and restive with
+disappointment and anxiety. He insisted upon the instant discharge of
+his claim, and refused to give another hour's grace. To rid himself of
+this plague, Michael had not hesitated to draw upon his house for a sum
+somewhat greater than five thousand pounds. The act had not been
+committed without some distress of mind--some murmurings of conscience;
+but the necessity was great--the compulsion not to be avoided. To put an
+end to all further and importunate demands, he posted into Austria fast
+as he could be conveyed. The chief creditor was destined to be Michael's
+chief misery. He was an obdurate, unyielding man, and, after days of
+negotiation, would finally listen to nothing but the chink of the gold
+that was due to him. And how much that was, Michael dared not trust
+himself to think. Now, what was to be done? To draw again upon the
+bank--to become himself, to his partners, an example of recklessness and
+extravagance, was out of the question. He had but one course before him,
+and it was one which he had solemnly vowed never to adopt. To beg a loan
+from his wife so early in the morning of their union, seemed a thing
+impossible--at least it seemed so in the outset, when the thought first
+blushed upon him, and there remained a chance, a hope, of escaping from
+the miserable alternative. But as the creditor got clamorous, and every
+prospect of satisfying his demand--every means save one--grew dim, and
+shadowy, and blank, the wrongfulness, the impropriety of making an
+appeal to her, whose heart was willing as her hand was able to release
+him from despair, became less evident, and by degrees not evident at
+all. It would have been well for Allcraft, and for Margaret too, had the
+latter resisted his demand, or opposed it with one kind word of
+remonstrance. Michael was prepared for this, and the gentlest opposition
+would have saved them both. But what did Margaret possess, which she
+wished not to share with him who was her idol--dearer to her than her
+life--the joy and light of life! He hinted his request; she hardly
+suffered him to hint it. She placed her substance at his command, and
+bade him use it. Like a guilty man--one guilty of his first but heavy
+fault--blushing and faltering, Allcraft thanked his Margaret for the
+loan, promised speedy payment, and vowed that he would beg no more. Fond
+Margaret! she kissed the vow away, and bade him clear his brow, smile,
+and be happy. It was a woman's part, who loves not wisely, but too well.
+The day that gave him the means of satisfying the claims of one great
+creditor, bound Allcraft more seriously to another; but he rejoiced at
+his success, which brought him temporary ease, and he congratulated
+himself upon his deliverance from failure and exposure. There was little
+to do. The lady's broker was written to; the legal adviser of the
+gentleman, at Michael's own request, prepared an instrument to secure
+repayment of the loan; the money came--the debts of Allcraft senior to
+the last farthing were discharged, and scarcely discharged before
+Michael, eager and anxious to be at home, quitted Vienna, ready to
+travel by night and day, and longing to feel his footing safely in the
+banking-house again.
+
+It is now proper to state, that on the very day that Michael's draft of
+five thousand pounds applied for honourable reception at the counter of
+his most respectable establishment, by a curious coincidence another
+demand for double that amount appeared there likewise; not in the shape
+of cheque or written order, but in that of a request, personal and oral,
+proceeding from the proud and high-born lips of Walter Bellamy, Esquire,
+lord of the manor--gentleman and banker. Mr Bellamy was not the first
+man, by a great number, who has attempted to clothe and conceal real
+poverty in the stately apparel of arrogance and offensive
+self-sufficiency. He, man of the world, knew well enough, that, thus
+disguised, _necessity_ need never fear discovery--might look and laugh
+in secret at mankind--might feed and thrive upon its faults and
+weaknesses. How comparatively easy it is to avoid the shoals and rocks
+of life--to sail smoothly and pleasantly on its waters, when we take for
+our rudder and our guide the world's great axiom, "RICHES ARE
+VIRTUE--POVERTY IS VICE." "Assume the _virtue_, if you have it not;"
+assume its shows and appearances, its tricks, its offences, and its
+crimes, rather than confess your nakedness. Be liberal and prodigal, if
+it must be, with the crown you need to pay your necessary lodging; adorn
+with velvet and with silk the body that grows sick for lack of wholesome
+food; bribe, beyond their expectation, the pampered things in livery
+that stand between you and the glory you aspire to--bribe them, though
+to part with money is to lose your meal. Upon this broad principle it
+was, that Walter Bellamy existed--in virtue of it he held lands, and by
+its means he had become a partner in the bank, an active one, as very
+soon he proved himself to be. His property was estimated by shrewd
+calculators at a hundred thousand pounds--that, at the very least. And
+Bellamy chuckled at his fireside--no one being by--at the universal
+gullibility of man. A hundred thousand pounds! Why, he could not--at any
+one period during the last twenty years, command as many farthings. What
+right had strangers to calculate for him? What right had Allcraft to
+depend upon such calculations? We may well ask the question, since Mr
+Bellamy did so, when he endeavoured, as the worst of us will do, to
+justify bad conduct to an unfaithful conscience. Why, what was he? a
+simple _locum tenens_ of a dozen mortgagees, who had advanced upon the
+estate a great deal more money than it would ever realize, if forced to
+sale--a haughty, overbearing man, (though very benevolent to postboys
+and other serving men,) a magistrate, and a great disciplinarian. This
+was the amount of his pretensions, and yet men worshipped him. It was
+surely not the fault of Mr Bellamy, but rather his good fortune; and if
+he chose to make the most of it, he was a wise and prudent personage.
+When it is borne in mind that the possessions of Mr Bellamy were
+involved beyond their actual worth--that for some time he had lived in a
+perpetual dread of exposure and utter ruin--that for years he had looked
+abroad for some kind friend, who, if not altogether willing, might still
+be prevailed upon to release him from his difficulties--it will be easy
+to understand his very great desire to confer on Michael Allcraft all
+the advantages of his own position and high character.
+
+The part which Bellamy had taken in the business of the house, was very
+inconsiderable until Michael's departure. Up to that time, he came to
+the bank in his carriage with much ceremony--spoke to the dependents
+there with becoming _hauteur_, and took his leave, on all occasions, as
+a rich man should, with abundant fuss, scarcely troubling himself with
+the proceedings of the day. "He had," he was always repeating the words,
+"he had the greatest confidence in Allcraft. It was unbounded. He felt
+that he could trust to him entirely and unreservedly." Gratefully did
+such expressions fall upon the flattered ear of Michael, applauding
+himself ever upon his victory--upon the acquisition of such a man. Of
+what service he would be to him in his well-laid plans! Of what use was
+his name already--and how much more serviceable than all would be the
+noble sum of money which he had _promised_ to bring into the bank at the
+close of the year! Michael, in his moments of chivalry, standing in the
+presence of Bellamy, looked upon him almost with an eye of pity and
+self-reproach. Whilst he himself could only plead guilty to a most
+refined and cunning policy, his innocent partner was but too full of
+trust; too simple and too unsuspecting. Somebody remarks, that God
+reserves unto himself that horrid sight--a naked, human heart. Had
+Allcraft and Bellamy, during one of their early interviews, suddenly
+stripped, and favoured each other with reciprocal glances--one or both
+would have been slightly startled by the unexpected exhibition. Planner
+had always looked upon Mr Bellamy as a very great man indeed--had
+contemplated him with that exact admixture of awe and admiration, that
+was pleasing and acceptable to the subject of it. Mr Bellamy, in his
+turn, conducted himself towards the schemer with much cordiality and
+kindness. Proud men never unbend until their supremacy is acknowledged
+through your servility. Your submission turns their gall to
+honey--converts their vinegar to milk--to the very cream of human
+complaisance. Mr Bellamy acted his part in this respect, as in every
+other--well; a tiger to such as would not cringe, he could become a
+playful lamb to all who were content to fawn. Planner and he were on the
+best possible terms. Looking into what is called the nature of things,
+we shall think it very natural on the part of Mr Bellamy, when he found
+himself so agreeably situated in regard to the circulating medium, if he
+took an early opportunity to help himself of the abundance by which he
+was surrounded. The truth is, that some time before the visit of
+Allcraft to the Continent, he had entertained a very serious intention
+of drawing out of the concern the anticipatory profits of a few years,
+in order to relieve himself and fine estate from certain engagements
+which pressed inconveniently on both--but his object had not, for many
+reasons, been carried into effect. In the first place, a moderate degree
+of actual shame withheld him--and again, he had begged for time from his
+creditor, and obtained it. Allcraft absent, the sense of shame
+diminished; before he could return to England, the grateful respite was
+at an end. It was a fine bright morning when Mr Bellamy's grand carriage
+drew up in state before the banking-house, and the highly respectable
+proprietor descended from it with his accustomed style and dignity. Mr
+Planner was, at the moment, at his desk, very busy with the prospectus
+of the _Pantamorphica_ Association, in which he had just completed some
+very striking additions--but perceiving his respected colleague, he
+jumped from his seat, and hastened to give him greeting.
+
+"Don't let me disturb you, my dear friend," said the gracious Mr
+Bellamy. "I beg you'll prosecute your labours."
+
+"Don't mention it, I pray--so like you, Mr Bellamy--always considerate
+and kind."
+
+"Busy, Mr Planner--eh?--a deal to do now in the absence of our good
+friend?"
+
+"Enough, enough sir, I assure you--but business, sir, is pleasure to the
+active mind."
+
+"Very true--we feel your worth, sir--the house acknowledges your
+ability, Mr Planner."
+
+"Dear Mr Bellamy--you are very flattering."
+
+"No--not at all. Have you any engagement, Mr Planner, for this evening?
+Can you find time to dine with us at the Hall? I am positively angry
+with you for your repeated excuses."
+
+"I shall be too proud, sir--business hitherto"----
+
+"Ay--ay--but, my good sir, we must not sacrifice ourselves to business.
+A little recreation is absolutely necessary."
+
+"So it is, sir--so it is--and you, sir, with your splendid fortune and
+superior taste"----
+
+"Ah, ah--_apropos_! have you heard from Mr Allcraft lately?"
+
+"This morning, sir."
+
+"When does he return, pray?"
+
+"In about a week from this. He writes he leaves Vienna this very day."
+
+"Dear me, how very inconvenient, how very vexing!"
+
+"What is it, may I ask, sir?"
+
+"Oh, a trifle, Mr Planner. Dear me--dear me--it is annoying too!"
+
+"Is it nothing that we can do, sir? Any thing the bank can offer?"
+
+"Why--my dear sir--it is rather awkward, certainly. I have engaged to
+complete a purchase, and it must be done to-morrow. What cash have we in
+the house? There can be no impropriety in withdrawing a few thousand
+pounds for a short time. What do you think--Mr Allcraft being away?"
+
+Now, Planner himself, during the last few days, had been very busy with
+the cash-box, in order to meet the expenses of certain preliminaries
+essential to the success of the infant _Pantamorphica_--into which
+speculation, by the way, he had entered heart and soul--and it was quite
+a relief and a joy to him to find his partner turning his attention to
+the same quarter; so true it is, that no pleasure is so sweet to a
+sinner, as the wickedness and companionship of a brother criminal.
+
+"Impropriety, sir!" exclaimed the schemer. "Certainly not. Draw your
+cheque, sir. If we have not the money here, we have a heavy purse in
+London--and I beg you will command it."
+
+"You think, then, that until our friend's return"----
+
+"I am perfectly satisfied, Mr Bellamy," said Planner, with an emphasis
+on every word, as men will sometimes use, feeling and believing all that
+they assert. "I am thoroughly convinced that nothing would give Mr
+Allcraft greater pain than to know you had needed a temporary loan, and
+had not availed yourself of every opportunity that the bank affords you.
+I entreat you not to hesitate one instant. How much may you require?"
+
+"Well, my dear sir--you will dine with us this evening. We will talk the
+matter over. Don't be late. Upon consideration, it may be quite as well,
+perhaps, to draw upon the bank."
+
+"Much better, sir, I am sure, in every way. Will you walk into the
+private room? You'll find pen, ink, and paper there. We can accommodate
+you, sir--no doubt."
+
+"Thank you, Mr Planner, thank you."
+
+How very few of the numerous clients of Messrs Allcraft, Bellamy,
+Brammel, and Planner, in their worst dreams that night, dreamt of the
+havoc which was making with their beloved and hard-earned cash!
+
+
+
+
+COLLEGE THEATRICALS.
+
+
+It wanted but two or three weeks to the Christmas vacation, and we--the
+worshipful society of under-graduates of ---- College, Oxford--were
+beginning to get tired of the eternal round of supper parties which
+usually marked the close of our winter's campaign, and ready to hail
+with delight any proposition that had the charm of novelty. A three
+weeks' frost had effectually stopped the hunting; all the best tandem
+leaders were completely screwed; the freshmen had been "larked" till
+they were grown as cunning as magpies; and the Dean had set up a
+divinity lecture at two o'clock, and published a stringent proclamation
+against rows in the Quad. It was, in short, in a particularly
+uninteresting state of things, with the snow falling lazily upon the
+grey roofs and silent quadrangle, that some half dozen of us had
+congregated in Bob Thornhill's rooms, to get over the time between lunch
+and dinner with as little trouble to our mental and corporal faculties
+as possible. Those among us who had been for the last three months
+promising to themselves to begin to read "next week," had now put off
+that too easy creditor, conscience, till "next term." One alone had
+settled his engagements of that nature, or, in the language of his
+"_Testamur_"--the prettiest bit of Latin, he declared, that he ever
+saw--"_satisfecit examinatoribus_." Unquestionably, in his case, the
+examiners must have had the rare virtue of being very easily satisfied.
+In fact, Mr Savile's discharge of his educational engagements was rather
+a sort of "whitewashing" than a payment in full. His passing was what is
+technically called a "shave," a metaphor alluding to that intellectual
+density which finds it difficult to squeeze through the narrow portal
+which admits to the privileges of a Bachelor of Arts. As Mr S. himself,
+being a sporting man, described it, it was "a very close run indeed;"
+not that he considered that circumstance to derogate, in any way, from
+his victory; he was rather inclined to consider, that, having shown the
+field of examiners capital sport, and fairly got away from them in the
+end without the loss of his brush, his examination had been one of the
+very best runs of the season. In virtue whereof he was now mounted on
+the arm of an easy-chair, with a long _chibouque_, which became the
+gravity of an incipient bachelor better than a cigar, and took upon
+himself to give Thornhill (who was really a clever fellow, and
+professing to be reading for a first) some advice as to his conducting
+himself when his examination should arrive.
+
+"I'll tell you what, Thornhill, old boy, I'll give you a wrinkle; it
+doesn't always answer to let out all you know at an examination. That
+sly old varmint, West of Magdalen, asked me who Hannibal was.
+'Aha!'--said I to myself--'that's your line of country, is it? You want
+to walk me straight into those botheration Punic Wars, it's no go,
+though; I sha'n't break cover in that direction.' So I was mute. 'Can't
+you tell me something about Hannibal?' says old West again. 'I can,'
+thinks I, 'but I won't.' He was regularly flabbergasted; I spoilt his
+beat entirely, don't you see? so he looked as black as thunder, and
+tried it on in a fresh place. If I had been fool enough to let him dodge
+me in those Punic Wars, I could have been run into in no time. Depend
+upon it, there's nothing like a judicious ignorance occasionally."
+
+"Why," said Thornhill, "'when ignorance is bliss,' (_i. e._ when it gets
+through the schools,) 'tis folly to be wise.'"
+
+"Ah! that's Shakspeare says that, isn't it? I wish one could take up
+Shakspeare for a class! I'm devilish fond of Shakspeare. We used to act
+Shakspeare at a private school I was at."
+
+"By Jove!" said somebody from behind a cloud of smoke--whose the
+brilliant idea was, was afterwards matter of dispute--"why couldn't we
+get up a play?"
+
+"Ah! why not? why not? Capital!"
+
+"It's such a horrid bore learning one's part," lisped the elegant Horace
+Leicester, half awake on the sofa.
+
+"Oh, stuff!" said Savile, "it's the very thing to keep us alive! We
+could make a capital theatre out of the hall; don't you think the little
+vice principal would give us leave?"
+
+"You had better ask for the chapel at once. Why, don't you know, my dear
+fellow, the college hall, in the opinion of the dean and the vice, is
+held rather more sacred of the two? Newcome, poor devil, attempted to
+cut a joke at the high table one of the times he dined there after he
+was elected, and he told me that they all stared at him as if he had
+insulted them; and the vice (in confidence) explained to him that such
+'levity' was treason against the '_reverentia loci_!'"
+
+"Ay, I remember when that old villain Solomon, the porter, fined me ten
+shillings for walking in there with spurs one day when I was late for
+dinner; he said the dean always took off his cap when he went in there
+by himself, and threatened to turn off old Higgs, when he had been scout
+forty years, because he heard him whistling one day while he was
+sweeping it out! Well," continued Savile, "you shall have my rooms; I
+sha'n't trouble them much now. I am going to pack all my books down to
+old Wise's next week, to turn them into ready _tin_; so you may turn the
+study into a carpenter's shop, if you like. Oh, it can be managed
+famously!"
+
+So, after a few _pros_ and _cons_, it was finally settled that Mr
+Savile's rooms should become the Theatre Royal, ---- College; and I was
+honoured with the responsible office of stage-manager. What the play was
+to be was a more difficult point to settle. Savile proposed _Romeo and
+Juliet_, and volunteered for the hero; but it passed the united strength
+of the company to get up a decent _Juliet_. _Richard the Third_ was
+suggested; we had "six _Richards_ in the field" at once. We soon gave up
+the heroics, and decided on comedy; for, since our audience would be
+sure to laugh, we should at least have a chance of getting the laugh in
+the right place. So, after long discussion, we fixed on _She Stoops to
+Conquer_. There were a good many reasons for this selection. First, it
+was a piece possessing that grand desideratum in all amateur
+performances, that there were several parts in it of equal calibre, and
+none which implied decided superiority of talent in its representative.
+Secondly, there was not much _love_ in it; a material point where, as an
+Irishman might say, all the ladies were gentlemen. Thirdly, the scenery,
+dresses, properties, and decorations, were of the very simplest
+description: it was easily "put upon the stage." We found little
+difficulty in casting the male characters; old Mrs Hardcastle, not
+requiring any great share of personal attractions, and being considered
+a part that would tell, soon found a representative; but when we came to
+the "donnas"--_prima_ and _secunda_--then it was that the manager's
+troubles began. It was really necessary, to ensure the most moderate
+degree of success to the comedy, that Miss Hardcastle should have at
+least a lady-like deportment. The public voice, first in whispers, then
+audibly, at last vociferously, called upon Leicester. Slightly formed,
+handsome, clever and accomplished, with naturally graceful manners, and
+a fair share of vanity and affectation, there was no doubt of his making
+a respectable heroine if he would consent to be made love to. In vain
+did he protest against the petticoats, and urge with affecting
+earnestness the claims of the whiskers which for the last six months he
+had so diligently been cultivating; the chorus of entreaty and
+expostulation had its effect, aided by a well-timed compliment to the
+aristocratically small hand and foot, of which Horace was pardonably
+vain. Shaving was pronounced indispensable to the due growth of the
+whiskers; and the importance of the character, and the point of the
+situations, so strongly dwelt upon, that he became gradually reconciled
+to his fate, and began seriously to discuss the question whether Miss
+Hardcastle should wear her hair in curls or bands. A freshman of
+seventeen, who had no pretensions in the way of whiskers, and who was
+too happy to be admitted on any terms to a share in such a "fast idea"
+as the getting up a play, was to be the Miss Neville; and before the
+hall bell rang for dinner, an order had been despatched for a dozen
+acting copies of "She Stoops to Conquer."
+
+Times have materially changed since Queen Elizabeth's visit to
+Christ-Church; the University, one of the earliest nurses of the infant
+drama, has long since turned it out of doors for a naughty child; and
+forbid it, under pain of worse than whipping, to come any nearer than
+Abingdon or Bicester. Taking into consideration the style of some of the
+performances, in which under-graduates of some three hundred years ago
+were the actors, the "Oxford Theatre" of those days, if it had more wit
+in it than the present, had somewhat less decency: the ancient
+"moralities" were not over moral, and the "mysteries" rather Babylonish.
+So far we have had no great loss. Whether the judicious getting
+up of a tragedy of Sophocles or Aeschylus, or even a comedy of
+Terence--classically managed--as it could be done in Oxford--and well
+acted, would be more unbecoming the gravity of our collected wisdom, or
+more derogatory to the dignity of our noble "theatre," than the
+squalling of Italian singers, masculine, feminine, and neuter--is a
+question which, when I take my M.A., I shall certainly propose in
+convocation. Thus much I am sure of, if a classical play-bill were duly
+announced for the next grand commemoration, it would "draw" almost as
+well as the Duke; the dresses might be quite as showy, the action hardly
+less graceful, than those of the odd-looking gentlemen who are dubbed
+doctors of civil law on such occasions; and the speeches of Prometheus,
+Oedipus, or Antigone, would be more intelligible to the learned, and
+more amusing to the ladies, than those Latin essays or the Creweian
+oration.
+
+However, until I am vice-chancellor, the legitimate drama, Greek, Roman,
+or English, seems little likely to revive in Oxford. _Our_ branch of
+that great family, I confess, bore the bar-sinister. The offspring of
+our theatrical affections was unrecognized by college authority. The
+fellows of ---- would have done any thing but "smile upon its birth."
+The dean especially would have burked it at once had he suspected its
+existence. Nor was it fostered, like the former Oxford theatricals to
+which we have alluded, by royal patronage; we could not, consistently
+with decorum, request her Majesty to encourage an illegitimate.
+Nevertheless--spite of its being thus born under the rose--it grew and
+prospered. Our plan of rehearsal was original. We used to adjourn from
+dinner to the rooms of one or other of the company; and there, over our
+wine and dessert, instead of quizzing freshmen and abusing tutors, open
+each our copy, and, with all due emphasis and intonation, go regularly
+through the scenes of "She Stoops to Conquer." This was all the study we
+ever gave to our parts: and even thus it was difficult to get a muster
+of all the performers, and we had generally to play dummy for some one
+or more of the characters, or "double" them, as the professionals call
+it. The excuses for absenteeism were various. Mrs Hardcastle and Tony
+were gone to Woodstock with a team, and were not to be waited for;
+Diggory had a command to dine with the principal; and once an
+interesting dialogue was cut short by the untoward event of Miss
+Neville's being "confined"--in consequence of some indiscretion or
+other--"to chapel." It was necessary in our management, as much as in Mr
+Bunn's or Mr Macready's, to humour the caprices of the stars of the
+company: but the lesser lights, if they became eccentric at all in their
+orbits, were extinguished without mercy. Their place was easily
+supplied; for the moment it became known that a play was in
+contemplation, there were plenty of candidates for dramatic fame,
+especially among the freshmen: and though we mortally offended one or
+two aspiring geniuses by proffering them the vacant situations of Ralph,
+Roger, and Co., in Mr Hardcastle's household, on condition of having
+their respective blue dress coats turned up with yellow to represent the
+family livery, there were others to whom the being admitted behind the
+scenes, even in these humble characters, was a subject of laudable
+ambition. Nay, unimportant as were some parts in themselves, they were
+quite enough for the histrionic talent of some of our friends. Till I
+became a manager myself, I always used to lose patience at the wretched
+manner in which some of the underlings on the stage went through the
+little they had to say and do: there seemed no reason why the "sticks"
+should be so provokingly sticky; and it surprised me that a man who
+could accost one fluently enough at the stage door, should make such a
+bungle as some of them did in a message of some half dozen words "in
+character." But when I first became initiated into the mysteries of
+amateur performances, and saw how entirely destitute some men were of
+any notion of natural acting, and how they made a point of repeating two
+lines of familiar dialogue with the tone and manner, but without the
+correctness of a schoolboy going through a task--then it ceased to be
+any matter of wonder that those to whom acting was no joke, but an
+unhappily earnest mode of getting bread, should so often make their
+performance appear the uneasy effort which it is. There was one man in
+particular, a good-humoured, gentlemanly fellow, a favourite with us
+all; not remarkable for talent, but a pleasant companion enough, with
+plenty of common sense. Well, "he would be an actor"--it was his own
+fancy to have a part, and, as he was "one of us," we could not well
+refuse him. We gave him an easy one, for he was not vain of his own
+powers, or ambitious of theatrical distinction; so he was to be "second
+fellow"--one of Tony's pot-companions. He had but two lines to speak;
+but, from the very first time I heard him read them, I set him down as a
+hopeless case. He read them as if he had just learned to spell the
+words; when he repeated them without the book, it was like a clergyman
+giving out a text. And so it was with a good many of the rank and file
+of the company; we had more labour to drill them into something like a
+natural intonation than to learn our own longest speeches twice over. So
+we made their attendance at rehearsals a _sine qua non_. We dismissed a
+promising "Mat Muggins" because he went to the "Union" two nights
+successively, when he ought to have been at "The Three Pigeons." We
+superseded a very respectable "landlord" (though he had actually been
+measured for a corporation and a pair of calves) for inattention to
+business. The only one of the supernumeraries whom it was at all
+necessary to conciliate, was the gentleman who was to sing the comic
+song instead of Tony, (Savile, the representative of the said Tony, not
+having music in his soul beyond a view-holloa.) He was allowed to go and
+come at our readings _ad libitum_, upon condition of being very careful
+not to take cold.
+
+When we had become tolerably perfect in the words of our parts, it was
+deemed expedient to have a "dress rehearsal"--especially for the ladies.
+It is not very easy to move safely--let alone gracefully--in petticoats,
+for those who are accustomed to move their legs somewhat more
+independently. And it would not have been civil in Messrs Marlow and
+Hastings to laugh outright at their lady-loves before company, as they
+were sure to do upon their first appearance. A dress rehearsal,
+therefore, was a very necessary precaution. But if it was difficult to
+get the company together at six o'clock under the friendly disguise of a
+wine-party, doubly difficult was it to expect them to muster at eleven
+in the morning. The first day that we fixed for it, there came a not
+very lady-like note, evidently written in bed, from Miss Hardcastle,
+stating, that having been at a supper-party the night before, and there
+partaken of brandy-punch to an extent to which she was wholly
+unaccustomed, it was quite impossible, in the present state of her
+nervous system, for her to make her appearance in character at any
+price. There was no alternative but to put off the rehearsal; and that
+very week occurred a circumstance which was very near being the cause of
+its adjournment _sine die_.
+
+"Mr Hawthorne," said the dean to me one morning, when I was leaving his
+rooms, rejoicing in the termination of lecture, "I wish to speak with
+you, if you please." The dean's communications were seldom of a very
+pleasing kind, and on this particular morning his countenance gave token
+that he had hit upon something more than usually _piquant_. The rest of
+the men filed out of the door as slowly as they conveniently could, in
+the hope, I suppose, of hearing the dean's fire open upon me, but he
+waited patiently till my particular friend, Bob Thornhill, had picked up
+carefully, one by one, his miscellaneous collection of note-book,
+pencil, penknife, and other small wares, and had been obliged at length
+to make an unwilling exit; when, seeing the door finally closed, he
+commenced with his usual--"Have the goodness to sit down, sir."
+
+Experience had taught me, that it was as well to make one's-self as
+comfortable as might be upon these occasions; so I took the easy-chair,
+and tried to look as if I thought the dean merely wanted to have a
+pleasant half-hour's chat. He marched into a little back-room that he
+called his study, and I began to speculate upon the probable subject of
+our conference. Strange! that week had been a more than usually quiet
+one. No late knocking in; no cutting lectures at chapel; positively I
+began to think that, for once, the dean had gone on a wrong scent, and
+that I should repel his accusations with all the dignity of injured
+innocence; or had he sent for me to offer his congratulations on my
+having commenced in the "steady" line, and to ask me to breakfast? I was
+not long to indulge such delusive hopes. Re-enter the dean, O. P., as
+our stage directions would have had it, with--a pair of stays!
+
+By what confounded ill-luck they had got into his possession I could not
+imagine; but there they were. The dean touched them as if he felt their
+very touch an abomination, threw them on the table, and briefly
+said--"These, sir, were found in your rooms this morning. Can you
+explain how they came there?"
+
+True enough, Leicester had been trying on the abominable articles in my
+bedroom, and I had stuffed them into a drawer till wanted. What to say
+was indeed a puzzle. To tell the whole truth would, no doubt, have ended
+the matter at once, and a hearty laugh should I have had at the dean's
+expense; but it would have put the stopper on "She Stoops to Conquer."
+It was too ridiculous to look grave about; and blacker grew the
+countenance before me, as, with a vain attempt to conceal a smile, I
+echoed his words, and stammered out--"In my rooms, sir?"
+
+"Yes, sir, in your bed-room." He rang the bell. "Your servant, Simmons,
+most properly brought them to me."
+
+The little rascal! I had been afraid to let him know any thing about the
+theatricals; for I knew perfectly well the dean would hear of it in half
+an hour, for he served him in the double capacity of scout and spy.
+Before the bell had stopped, Dick Simmons made his appearance, having
+evidently been kept at hand. He did look rather ashamed of himself, when
+I asked him, what business he had to search my wardrobe?
+
+"Oh dear, sir! I never did no sich a thing; I was a-making of your bed,
+sir, when I sees the tag of a stay-lace hanging out of your topmost
+drawer, sir--("I am a married man, sir," to the dean apologetically,
+"and I know the tag of a stay-lace, sir")--and so I took it out, sir;
+and knowing my duty to the college, sir, though I should be very sorry
+to bring you into trouble, Mr Hawthorne, sir"----
+
+"Yes, yes, Simmons, you did quite right," said the dean. "You are bound
+to give notice to the college authorities of all irregularities, and
+your situation requires that you should be conscientious."
+
+"I hope I am, sir," said the little rascal; "but indeed I am very sorry,
+Mr Hawthorne, sir"----
+
+"Oh! never mind," said I; "you did right, no doubt. I can only say those
+things are not mine, sir; they belong to a friend of mine."
+
+"I don't ask who they belong to, sir," said the dean indignantly; "I
+ask, sir, how came they in your rooms?"
+
+"I believe, sir, my friend (he was in my rooms yesterday) left them
+there. Some men wear stays, sir," continued I, boldly; "it's very much
+the fashion, I'm told."
+
+"Eh! hum!" said the dean, eyeing the brown jean doubtingly. "I have
+heard of such things. Horrid puppies men are now. Never dreamt of such
+things in my younger days; but then, sir, _we_ were not allowed to wear
+white trousers, and waistcoats of I don't know what colours; we were
+made to attend to the statutes, sir. '_Nigri aut suspici_,' sir, Ah!
+times are changed--times are changed, indeed! And do you mean to say,
+sir, you have a friend, a member of this university, who wears such
+things as these?"
+
+I might have got clear off, if it had not been for that rascal Simmons.
+I saw him give the dean a look, and an almost imperceptible shake of the
+head.
+
+"But I don't think, sir," resumed he, "these can be a man's stays--eh,
+Simmons?" Simmons looked diligently at his toes. "No," said the dean,
+investigating the unhappy garment more closely--"no, I fear, Simmons,
+these are female stays!"
+
+The conscientious Simmons made no sign.
+
+"I don't know, sir," said I, as he looked from Simmons to me. "I don't
+wear stays, and I know nothing about them. If Simmons were to fetch a
+pair of Mrs Simmons's, sir," resumed I, "you could compare them."
+
+Mrs Simmons's figure resembled a sack of flour, with a string round it;
+and, if she did wear the articles in question, they must have been of a
+pattern almost unique--made to order.
+
+"Sir," said the dean, "your flippancy is unbecoming. I shall not pursue
+this investigation any further; but I am bound to tell you, sir, this
+circumstance is suspicious--very suspicious." I could not resist a smile
+for the life of me. "And doubly suspicious, sir, in your case. The eyes
+of the college are upon you, sir." He was evidently losing his temper,
+so I bowed profoundly, and he grew more irate. "Ever since, sir, that
+atrocious business of the frogs, though the college authorities failed
+in discovering the guilty parties, there are some individuals, sir,
+whose conduct is watched attentively. Good-morning, sir."
+
+The "business of the frogs," to which the dean so rancorously alluded,
+had, indeed, caused some consternation to the fellows of----. There had
+been a marvellous story going the round of the papers, of a shower of
+the inelegant reptiles in question having fallen in some part of the
+kingdom. Old women were muttering prophecies, and wise men acknowledged
+themselves puzzled. The Ashmolean Society had sat in conclave upon it,
+and accounted so satisfactorily for the occurrence, that the only wonder
+seemed to be that we had not a shower of frogs, or some equally
+agreeable visitors, every rainy morning. Now, every one who has strolled
+round Christ-Church meadows on a warm evening, especially after rain,
+must have been greeted at intervals by a whole gamut of croaks; and, if
+he had the curiosity to peer into the green ditches as he passed along,
+he might catch a glimpse of the heads of the performers. Well, the joint
+reflections of myself and an ingenious friend, who were studying this
+branch of zoology while waiting for the coming up of the boats one
+night, tended to the conclusion, that a very successful imitation of the
+late "Extraordinary Phenomenon" might be got up for the edification of
+the scientific in our own college. Animals of all kinds find dealers and
+purchasers in Oxford. Curs of lowest degree have their prices. Rats,
+being necessary in the education of terriers, come rather expensive. A
+pole-cat--even with three legs only--will command a fancy price.
+Sparrows, larks, and other small birds, are retailed by the dozen on
+Cowley Marsh to gentlemen under-graduates who are aspiring to the
+pigeon-trap. But as yet there had been no demand for frogs, and there
+was quite a glut of them in the market. They were cheap accordingly; for
+a shilling a hundred we found that we might inflict the second plague of
+Egypt upon the whole university. The next evening, two hampers,
+containing, as our purveyor assured us, "very prime 'uns," arrived at my
+rooms "from Mr S----, the wine merchant;" and, by daylight on the
+following morning, were judiciously distributed throughout all the
+come-at-able premises within the college walls. When I awoke the next
+morning, I heard voices in earnest conversation under my window, and
+looked out with no little curiosity. The frogs had evidently produced a
+sensation. The bursar, disturbed apparently from his early breakfast,
+stood robed in an ancient dressing-gown, with the _Times_ in his hand,
+on which he was balancing a frog as yellow as himself. The dean, in cap
+and surplice, on his way from chapel, was eagerly listening to the
+account which one of the scouts was giving him of the first discovery of
+the intruders.
+
+"Me and my missis, sir," quoth John, "was a-coming into college when it
+was hardly to say daylight, when she, as I reckon, sets foot upon one of
+'em, and was like to have been back'ards with a set of breakfast chiney
+as she was a-bringing in for one of the fresh gentlemen. She scritches
+out in course, and I looks down, and then I sees two or three a' 'oppin
+about; but I didn't take much notice till I gets to the thoroughfare,
+when there was a whole row on 'em a-trying to climb up the bottom step;
+and then I calls Solomon the porter, and"----
+
+Here I left my window, and, making a hasty toilet, joined a group of
+under-graduates, who were now collecting round the dean and bursar. I
+cast my eyes round the quadrangle, and was delighted with the success of
+our labours. There had been a heavy shower in the night, and the frogs
+were as lively as they could be on so ungenial a location as a gravelled
+court. In every corner was a goodly cluster, who were making ladders of
+each other's backs, as if determined to scale the college walls. Some,
+of more retiring disposition, were endeavouring to force themselves into
+crevices, and hiding their heads behind projections to escape the gaze
+of academic eyes; while a few active spirits seemed to be hopping a
+sweepstakes right for the common-room door. Just as I made my
+appearance, the principal came out of the door of his lodgings, with
+another of the fellows, having evidently been summoned to assist at the
+consultation. Good old soul! his study of zoology had been chiefly
+confined to the class edibles, and a shower of frogs, authenticated upon
+the oaths of the whole Convocation, would not have been half so
+interesting to him as an importation of turtle. However, to do him
+justice, he put on his spectacles, and looked as scientific as any body.
+After due examination of the specimen of the genus _Zana_ which the
+bursar still held in captivity, and pronouncing an unanimous opinion,
+that, come from where he would, he was a _bona fide_ frog, with nothing
+supernatural about him, the conclave proceeded round the quadrangle,
+calculating the numbers, and conjecturing the probable origin of these
+strange visitors. Equally curious, if not equally scientific, were the
+under-graduates who followed them; for, having strictly kept our own
+secret, my friend and myself were the only parties who could solve the
+mystery; and though many suspected that the frogs were unwilling
+emigrants, none knew to whom they were indebted for their introduction
+to college. The collected wisdom of the dons soon decided that a shower
+of full-grown frogs was a novelty even in the extraordinary occurrences
+of newspapers; and as not even a single individual croaker was to be
+discovered outside the walls of ----, it became evident that the whole
+affair was, as the dean described it, "another of those outrages upon
+academic discipline, which were as senseless as they were disgraceful."
+
+I daresay the dean's anathema was "as sensible as it was sincere;" but
+it did not prevent our thoroughly enjoying the success of the
+"_outrage_" at the time; nor does it, unfortunately, suffice at this
+present moment to check something like an inward chuckle, when I think
+of the trouble which it cost the various retainers of the college to
+clear it effectually of its strange visitors. Hopkins, the old butler,
+who was of rather an imaginative temperament, and had a marvellous tale
+to tell any one who would listen, of a departed bursar, who, having
+caught his death of cold by superintending the laying down of three
+pipes of port, might ever afterwards be heard, upon such interesting
+occasions, walking about the damp cellars after nightfall in pattens.
+Hopkins, the oracle of the college "tap," maintained that the frogs were
+something "off the common;" and strengthened his opinion by reference to
+a specimen which he had selected--a lank, black, skinny individual,
+which really looked ugly enough to have come from any where. Scouts,
+wives, and children, (they always make a point of having large families,
+in order to eat up the spare commons,) all were busy, through that
+eventful day, in a novel occupation, and by dinnertime not a frog was to
+be seen; but long, long afterwards, on a moist evening, fugitives from
+the general prescription might be seen making their silent way across
+the quadrangle, and croakings were heard at night-time, which might (as
+Homer relates of _his_ frogs) have disturbed Minerva, only that the
+goddess of wisdom, in chambers collegiate, sleeps usually pretty sound.
+
+The "business of the stays," however, bid fair to supersede the business
+of the frogs, in the dean's record of my supposed crimes; and as I fully
+intended to clear myself, even to his satisfaction, of any suspicion
+which might attach to me from the possession of such questionable
+articles so soon as our theatre closed for the season, I resolved that
+my successful defence from this last imputation would be an admirable
+ground on which to assume the dignity of a martyr, to appeal against all
+uncharitable conclusions from insufficient premises, and come out as the
+personification of injured innocence throughout my whole college career.
+
+When my interview with the dean was over, I ordered some luncheon up to
+Leicester's rooms, where, as I expected, I found most of my own "set"
+collected, in order to hear the result. A private conference with the
+official aforesaid seldom boded good to the party so favoured; the dean
+seldom made his communications so agreeable as he might have done. In
+college, as in most other societies, La Rochefoucauld's maxim holds
+good--that "there is always something pleasant in the misfortunes of
+one's friends;" and, whenever an unlucky wight did get into a row, he
+might pretty confidently reckon upon being laughed at. In fact,
+under-graduates considered themselves as engaged in a war of stratagem
+against an unholy alliance of deans, tutors, and proctors; and in every
+encounter the defeated party was looked upon as the deluded victim of
+superior ingenuity--as having been "done," in short. So, if a lark
+succeeded, the authorities aforesaid were decidedly done, and laughed at
+accordingly; if it failed, why the other party were done, and there was
+still somebody to laugh at. No doubt, the jest was richer in the first
+case supposed; but, in the second, there was the additional gusto, so
+dear to human philanthropy, of having the victim present, and enjoying
+his discomfiture, which, in the case of the dons being the sufferers,
+was denied us. It may seem to argue something of a want of sympathy to
+find amusement in misfortunes which might any day be our own; but any
+one who ever witnessed the air of ludicrous alarm with which an
+under-graduate prepares to obey the summons, (capable of but one
+interpretation,)--"The dean wishes to see you, sir, at ten
+o'clock"--which so often, in my time at least, was sent as a whet to
+some of the assembled guests at a breakfast party; whoever has been
+applied to on such occasions for the loan of a tolerable cap, (that of
+the delinquent having its corners in such dilapidated condition as to
+proclaim its owner a "rowing man" at once,) or has responded to the
+pathetic appeal--"Do I look _very_ seedy?"--any one to whom such absurd
+recollections of early days occur--and if you, good reader, are a
+university man, as, being a gentleman, I am bound in charity to conclude
+you are, and yet have no such reminiscences--allow me to suggest that
+you must have been a very slow coach indeed;--any one, I say once more,
+who knows the ridiculous figure which a man cuts when "hauled up" before
+the college Minos, or Radamanthus, will easily forgive his friends for
+being inclined to laugh at him.
+
+However, in the present case, any anticipations of fun at my expense,
+which the party in Leicester's rooms might charitably entertain, were
+somewhat qualified by the fear, that the consequences of any little
+private difference between the dean and myself might affect the
+prosperity of our unlicensed theatre. And when they heard how very
+nearly the discovery of the stays had been fatal to our project,
+execrations against Simmons's espionage were mingled with admiration of
+my escape from so critical a position.
+
+The following is, I apprehend, an unique specimen of an Oxford bill--and
+the only one, out of a tolerably large bundle which I keep for the sake
+of the receipts attached, (a precaution by no means uncalled for,) which
+I find any amusement in referring to.
+
+     ---- Hawthorne, Esq.,
+
+                       To M. Moore.
+
+     2 pr. brown jean corsets,        8  0
+     Padding for do., made to order,  2  6
+                                     -----
+                                     10  6
+             Rec'd. same day, M. M.
+
+(Savile, when I showed it to him, said the receipt was the only one of
+the kind he had seen in the course of a long experience.) Very much
+surprised was the old lady, of whom I made the purchase in my capacity
+of stage-manager, at so uncommon a customer in her line of business; and
+when, after enjoying her mystification for some time, I let her into the
+secret, so delighted was she at the notion, that she gave me sundry
+hints as to the management of the female toilet, and offered to get made
+up for me any dresses that might be required. So I introduced Leicester
+and his fellow-heroines to my friend Mrs Moore, and by the joint
+exertions of their own tastes and her experience, they became possessed
+of some very tolerable costumes. There was a good deal of fun going on,
+I fancy, in fitting and measuring, in her back parlour; for there was a
+daughter, or a niece, or something of the sort, who cut out the dresses
+with the prettiest hands in the world, as Leicester declared; but I was
+too busy with carpenters, painters, and other assistants, to pay more
+than a flying visit to the ladies' department.
+
+At last the rehearsal did come on. As Hastings, I had not much in the
+way of dress to alter; and, having some engagement in the early part of
+the morning, I did not arrive at the theatre until the rest of the
+characters were already dressed and ready to begin. Though I had been
+consulted upon all manner of points, from the arranging of a curl for
+Miss Neville to the colour of Diggory's stockings, and knew the costume
+of every individual as well as my own, yet so ludicrous was the effect
+of the whole when I entered the room, that I threw myself into the
+nearest chair, and laughed myself nearly into convulsions. The figure
+which first met my eyes was a little ruddy freshman, who had the part of
+the landlord, and who, in his zeal to do honour to our preference, had
+dressed the character most elaborately. A pillow, which he could
+scarcely see over, puffed out his red waistcoat; and his hair was cut
+short, and powdered with such good-will, that for weeks afterwards, in
+spite of diligent brushing, he looked as grey as the principal. There he
+stood--his legs clothed in grey worsted, retreating far beyond his
+little white apron, as if ashamed of their unusual appearance,
+
+     "The mother that him bare,
+     She had not known her son."
+
+Every one, however, had not been so classical in their costume. There
+was Sir Charles Marlow in what had been a judge's wig, and Mr Hardcastle
+in a barrister's; both sufficiently unlike themselves, at any rate, if
+not very correct copies of their originals. Then the women! As for Mrs
+Hardcastle, she was perfection. There never was, I believe, a better
+representation of the character. It was well dressed, and turned out a
+first-rate bit of acting--very far superior to any amateur performance I
+ever saw, and, with practice, would have equalled that of any actress on
+the stage. Her very curtsy was comedy itself. When I recovered my breath
+a little, I was able to attend to the dialogue which was going on, which
+was hardly less ridiculous than the strange disguises round me. "Now,
+Miss Hardcastle," (Marlow _loquitur_,) "I have no objection to your
+smoking cigars during rehearsal, of course--because you won't do that on
+Monday night, I suppose; but I must beg you to get out of the practice
+of standing or sitting crosslegged, because it's not lady-like, or even
+barmaid-like--and don't laugh when I make love to you; for if you do, I
+shall break down to a certainty." "Thornhill, do you think my waist will
+do?" said the anxious representative of the fair Constance. "I have worn
+these cursed stays for an hour every evening for the last week, and
+drawn them an inch tighter every time; but I don't think I'm a very good
+figure after all--just try if they'll come any closer, will you?" "Oh!
+Hawthorne, I'm glad you are come," said Savile, whom I hardly knew, in a
+red wig; "now, isn't there to be a bowl of real punch in the scene at
+the Three Pigeons--one can't _pretend_ to drink, you know, with any
+degree of spirit?" "Oh! of course," said I; "that's one of the
+landlord's properties: Miller, you must provide that, you know--send
+down for some cold tankards now; they will do very well for rehearsal."
+At last we got to work, and proceeded, with the prompter's assistance,
+pretty smoothly, and mutually applauding each other's performance, going
+twice over some of the more difficult scenes, and cutting out a good
+deal of love and sentiment. The play was fixed for the next Monday
+night, playbills ordered to be printed, and cards of invitation issued
+to all the performers' intimate friends. Every scout in the college, I
+believe, except my rascal Simmons, was in the secret, and probably some
+of the fellows had a shrewd guess at what was going on; but no one
+interfered with us. We carried on all our operations as quietly as
+possible; and the only circumstances likely to arouse suspicion in the
+minds of the authorities, was the unusual absence of all disturbances of
+a minor nature within the walls, in consequence of the one engrossing
+freak in which most of the more turbulent spirits were engaged.
+
+At length the grand night arrived. By nine o'clock the theatre in
+Savile's rooms was as full as it could be crammed with any degree of
+comfort to actors and audience; and in the study and bedroom, which,
+being on opposite sides, served admirably for dressing-rooms behind the
+scenes, the usual bustle of preparation was going on. As is common in
+such cases, some essential properties had been forgotten until the last
+moment. No bonnet had been provided for Mrs Hardcastle to take her walks
+abroad in; and when the little hairdresser, who had been retained to
+give a finishing touch to some of the coiffeurs, returned with one
+belonging to his "missis," which he had volunteered to lend, the roar of
+uncontrollable merriment which this new embellishment of our disguised
+friend called forth, made the audience clamorous for the rising of the
+curtain--thinking, very excusably, that it was quite unjustifiable to
+keep all the fun to ourselves.
+
+After some little trial of our "public's" patience, the play began in
+good earnest, and was most favourably received. Indeed, as the only
+price of admission exacted was a promise of civil behaviour, and there
+were two servants busily employed in handing about punch and "bishop,"
+it would have been rather hard if we did not succeed in propitiating
+their good-humour. With the exception of two gentlemen who had been
+dining out, and were rather noisy in consequence, and evinced a strong
+inclination occasionally to take a part in the dialogue, all behaved
+wonderfully well, greeting each performer, as he made his first
+entrance, with a due amount of cheering; rapturously applauding all the
+best scenes; laughing, (whether at the raciness of the acting or the
+grotesque metamorphoses of the actors, made no great difference,) and
+filling up any gap which occurred in the proceedings on the stage, in
+spite of the prompter, with vociferous encouragement to the "sticket"
+actor. With an audience so disposed, each successive scene went off
+better and better. One deserves to be particularized. It was the second
+in the first act of the comedy; the stage directions for it are as
+follow:--"Scene--An ale-house room.--Several shabby fellows with punch
+and tobacco; Tony at the head of the table, &c., discovered." Never
+perhaps, in any previous representation, was the _mise en scene_ so
+perfect. It drew three rounds of applause. A very equivocal compliment
+to ourselves it may be; but such jolly-looking "shabby fellows" as sat
+round the table at which our Tony presided, were never furnished by the
+supernumeraries of Drury or Covent-garden. They were as classical, in
+their way, as Macready's Roman mob. Then there was no make-believe
+puffing of empty pipes, and fictitious drinking of small-beer for punch;
+every nose among the audience could appreciate the genuineness of both
+liquor and tobacco; and the hearty encore which the song, with its
+stentorian chorus, was honoured with, gave all the parties engaged time
+to enjoy their punch and their pipes to their satisfaction. It was quite
+a pity, as was unanimously agreed, when the entrance of Marlow and
+Hastings, as in duty bound, interrupted so jovial a society. But "all
+that's bright must fade"--and so the Three Pigeons' scene, and the play,
+too, came to an end in due course. The curtain fell amidst universal
+applause, modified only by the urgent request, which, as manager, I had
+more than once to repeat, that gentlemen would be kind enough to
+restrain their feelings for fear of disturbing the dons. The house
+resolved itself into its component elements--all went their ways--the
+reading men probably to a Greek play, by way of afterpiece--sleepy ones
+to bed, and idle ones to their various inventions--and the actors, after
+the fatigues of the night, to a supper, which was to be the "finish." It
+was to take place in one of the men's rooms which happened to be on the
+same staircase, and had been committed to the charge of certain parties,
+who understood our notions of an unexceptionable spread. And a right
+merry party we were--all sitting down in character, Mrs Hardcastle at
+the top of the table, her worthy partner at bottom, with the "young
+ladies" on each side. It was the best _tableau_ of the evening; pity
+there was neither artist to sketch, nor spectators to admire it! But,
+like many other merry meetings, there are faithful portraits of
+it--proof impressions--in the memories of many who were present; not yet
+obliterated, hardly even dimmed, by time; laid by, like other valuables,
+which, in the turmoil of life, we find no time to look at, but not
+thrown aside or forgotten, and brought out sometimes, in holidays and
+quiet hours, for us to look at once more, and enjoy their beauty, and
+feel, after all, how much what we have changed is "_calum non animum_."
+I am now--no matter what. Of my companions at that well-remembered
+supper, one is a staid and orthodox divine; one a rising barrister; a
+third a respectable country gentleman, justice of the peace, "and
+quorum;" a fourth, they tell me, a semi Papist, but set us all down
+together in that same room, draw the champagne corks, and let some Lethe
+(the said champagne, if you please) wash out all that has passed over us
+in the last five years, and my word on it, three out of four of us are
+but boys still; and though much shaving, pearl powder, and carmine,
+might fail to make of any of the party a heroine of any more delicate
+class than Meg Merrilies, I have no doubt we could all of us once more
+smoke a pipe in character at "The Three Pigeons."
+
+Merrily the evening passed off, and merrily the little hours came on,
+and song and laugh rather grew gayer than slackened. The strings of the
+stays had long ago been cut, and the tresses, which were in the way of
+the cigars, were thrown back in dishevelled elegance. The landlord found
+his stuffing somewhat warm, and had laid aside half his fleshy
+incumbrance. Every one was at his ease, and a most uproarious chorus had
+just been sung by the whole strength of the company, when we heard the
+ominous sound of a quiet double rap at the outer door.
+
+"Who's there?" said one of the most self-possessed of the company.
+
+"I wish to speak to Mr Challoner," was the quiet reply.
+
+The owner of the rooms was luckily in no more _outre_ costume than that
+of Sir Charles Marlow; and having thrown off his wig, and buttoned his
+coat over a deep-flapped waistcoat, looked tolerably like himself as he
+proceeded to answer the summons. I confess I rather hoped than
+otherwise, that the gentleman, whoever he was, would walk in, when, if
+he intended to astonish us, he was very likely to find the tables
+turned. However, even college dons recognize the principle, that every
+man's house is his castle, and never violate the sanctity of even an
+under-graduate's rooms. The object of this present visit, however, was
+rather friendly than otherwise; one of the fellows, deservedly popular,
+had been with the dean, and had left him in a state of some excitement
+from the increasing merriment which came somewhat too audibly across the
+quadrangle from our party. He had called, therefore, to advise
+Challoner, either to keep his friends quiet, or to get rid of them, if
+he wished to keep out of the dean's jurisdiction. As it was towards
+three in the morning, we thought it prudent to take this advice as it
+was meant, and in a few minutes began to wend our respective ways
+homewards. Leicester and myself, whose rooms lay in the same direction,
+were steering along, very soberly, under a bright moonlight, when
+something put it into the heads of some other stragglers of the party to
+break out, at the top of their voices, into a stanza of that immortal
+ditty--"We won't go home till morning." Instantly we could hear a
+window, which we well knew to be the dean's, open above us, and as the
+unmelodious chorus went on, his wrath found vent in the usual
+strain--"Who is making that disturbance?"
+
+No one volunteering an explanation, he went on.
+
+"Who are those in the quadrangle?" Leicester and I walked somewhat
+faster. I am not sure that our dignity did not condescend to run, as we
+heard steps coming down from No. 5, at a pace that evidently portended a
+chase, and remembered for the first time the remarkable costume, which,
+to common observers, would indicate that there was a visitor of an
+unusual character enjoying the moonlight in the quadrangle. When we
+reached the "thoroughfare," the passage from the inner to the outer
+quadrangle, we fairly bolted; and as the steps came pretty fast after
+us, and Leicester's rooms were the nearest, we both made good our
+retreat thither, and sported oak.
+
+The porter's lodge was in the next number; and hearing a knocking in
+that quarter, Leicester gently opened the window, and we could catch the
+following dialogue:--
+
+"Solomon! open this door directly--it is I--the dean."
+
+"Good, dear sir!" said Solomon, apparently asleep, and fumbling for the
+keys of the college gates--"let you out? Oh yes! sir, directly."
+
+"Listen to me, Solomon: I am not going out. Did you let any one out just
+now--just before I called you?"
+
+"No, sir, nobody whatsomdever."
+
+"Solomon! I ask you, did you not, just now, let a _woman_ out?"
+
+"Lawk! no, sir, Lord forbid!" said Solomon, now thoroughly wakened.
+
+"Now, Solomon, bring your light, and come with me, this must be enquired
+into. I saw a woman run this way, and, if she is not gone through the
+gate, she is gone into this next number. Whose rooms are in No. 13?"
+
+"There's Mr Dyson's, sir, on the ground floor."
+
+Mr Dyson was the very fellow who had called at Challoner's rooms.
+
+"Hah! well, I'll call Mr Dyson up. Whose besides?"
+
+"There's Mr Leicester, sir, above his'n."
+
+"Very well, Solomon; call up Mr Dyson, and say I wish to speak with him
+particularly."
+
+And so saying, the dean proceeded up stairs.
+
+The moment Leicester heard his name mentioned, he began to anticipate a
+domiciliary visit. The thing was so ridiculous that we hardly knew what
+to do.
+
+"Shall I get into bed, Hawthorne? I don't want to be caught in this
+figure?"
+
+"Why, I don't know that you will be safe there, in the present state of
+the dean's suspicions. No; tuck up those confounded petticoats, clap on
+your pea-jacket, twist those love-locks up under your cap, light this
+cigar, and sit in your easy-chair. The dean must be 'cuter than usual,
+if he finds you out as the lady he is in search of."
+
+Leicester had hardly time to take this advice, the best I could hit upon
+at the moment, when the dean knocked at the door.
+
+"Who are you? Come in," said we both in a breath.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Mr Leicester," said the dean in his most official
+tone; "nothing but actually imperative duty occasions my intrusion at
+this unseasonable hour, but a most extraordinary circumstance must be my
+excuse. I say, gentlemen--I saw with my own eyes," he continued, looking
+blacker as he caught sight of me, and remembering, no doubt, the little
+episode of the stays--"I saw a female figure pass in this direction but
+a few minutes ago. No such person has passed the gate, for I have made
+enquiry; certainly I have no reason to suppose any such person is
+concealed here, but I am bound to ask you, sir, on your honour as a
+gentleman--for I have no wish to make a search--is there any such person
+concealed in your apartments?"
+
+"On my honour, sir, no one is, or has been lately here, but myself and
+Mr Hawthorne."
+
+Here Dyson came into the room, looking considerably mystified.
+
+"What's the matter, Mr Dean?" said he, nodding good-humouredly to us.
+
+"A most unpleasant occurrence, my dear sir; I have seen a woman in this
+direction not five minutes back. Unfortunately, I cannot be mistaken.
+She either passed into the porter's lodge or into this staircase."
+
+"She is not in my rooms, I assure you," said he, laughing; "I should
+think you made a mistake: it must have been some man in a white
+mackintosh."
+
+I smiled, and Leicester laughed outright.
+
+"I am not mistaken, sir," said the dean warmly. "I shall take your word,
+Mr Leicester; but allow me to tell you, that your conduct in lolling in
+that chair as if in perfect contempt, and neither rising, nor removing
+your cap, when Mr Dyson and myself are in your rooms, is neither
+consistent with the respect due from an under-graduate, or the behaviour
+I should expect from a gentleman."
+
+Poor Leicester coloured, and unwittingly removed his cap. The chestnut
+curls, some natural and some artificial, which had been so studiously
+arranged for Miss Hardcastle's head-dress, fell in dishevelled
+luxuriance round his face, and as he half rose from his previous
+position in the chair, a pink silk dress began to descend from under the
+pea-jacket. Concealment was at an end; the dean looked bewildered at
+first, and then savage; but a hearty laugh from Dyson settled the
+business.
+
+"What, Leicester! you're the lady the dean has been hunting about
+college! Upon my word, this is the most absurd piece of
+masquerading!--what on earth is it all about?"
+
+I pitied Leicester, he looked such an extraordinary figure in his
+ambiguous dress, and seemed so thoroughly ashamed of himself; so
+displaying the tops and cords in which I had enacted Hastings, I
+acknowledged my share in the business, and gave a brief history of the
+drama during my management. The dean endeavoured to look grave: Dyson
+gave way to undisguised amusement, and repeatedly exclaimed, "Oh! why
+did you not send me a ticket? When do you perform again?"
+
+Alas! never. Brief, as bright, was our theatrical career. But the memory
+of it lives in the college still: of the comedy, and the supper, and the
+curious mistake which followed it: and the dean has not to this hour
+lost the credit which he then gained, of having a remarkably keen eye
+for a petticoat.
+
+
+
+
+LINES WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF BUTE.
+
+BY DELTA.
+
+
+ I.
+
+ Ere yet dim twilight brighten'd into day,
+ Or waned the silver morning-star away,
+ Shedding its last, lone, melancholy smile,
+ Above the mountain-tops of far Argyle;
+ Ere yet the solan's wing had brush'd the sea,
+ Or issued from its cell the mountain bee;
+ As dawn beyond the orient Cumbraes shone,
+ Thy northern slope, Byrone,
+ From Ascog's rocks, o'erflung with woodland bowers,
+ With scarlet fuschias, and faint myrtle flowers,
+ My steps essay'd; brushing the diamond dew
+ From the soft moss, lithe grass, and harebell blue.
+ Up from the heath aslant the linnet flew
+ Startled, and rose the lark on twinkling wing,
+ And soar'd away, to sing
+ A farewell to the severing shades of night,
+ A welcome to the morning's aureate light.
+ Thy summit gain'd, how tranquilly serene,
+ Beneath, outspread that panoramic scene
+ Of continent and isle, and lake and sea,
+ And tower and town, hill, vale, and spreading tree,
+ And rock and ruin tinged with amethyst,
+ Half-seen, half-hidden by the lazy mist,
+ Volume on volume, which had vaguely wound
+ The far off hills around,
+ And now roll'd downwards; till on high were seen,
+ Begirt with sombre larch, their foreheads green.
+
+
+ II.
+
+ There, save when all, except the lark, was mute,
+ Oh, beauty-breathing Bute
+ On thee entranced I gazed; each moment brought
+ A new creation to the eye of thought:
+ The orient clouds all Iris' hues assumed,
+ From the pale lily to the rose that bloom'd,
+ And hung above the pathway of the sun,
+ As if to harbinger his course begun;
+ When, lo! his disk burst forth--his beams of gold
+ Seem'd earth as with a garment to enfold,
+ And from his piercing eye the loose mists flew,
+ And heaven with arch of deep autumnal blue
+ Glow'd overhead; while ocean, like a lake,
+ Seeming delight to take
+ In its own halcyon-calm, resplendent lay,
+ From Western Kames to far Kilchattan bay.
+ Old Largs look'd out amid the orient light,
+ With its grey dwellings, and, in greenery bright,
+ Lay Coila's classic shores reveal'd to sight;
+ And like a Vallombrosa, veil'd in blue,
+ Arose Mount Stuart's woodlands on the view;
+ Kerry and Cowall their bold hill-tops show'd,
+ And Arran, and Kintire; like rubies glow'd
+ The jagged clefts of Goatfell; and below,
+ As on a chart, delightful Rothesay lay,
+ Whence sprang of human life the awakening sound,
+ With all its happy dwellings, stretching round
+ The semicircle of its sunbright bay.
+
+
+ III.
+
+ Byrone, a type of peace thou seemest now,
+ Yielding thy ridges to the rustic plough,
+ With corn-fields at thy feet, and many a grove
+ Whose songs are but of love;
+ But different was the aspect of that hour,
+ Which brought, of eld, the Norsemen o'er the deep,
+ To wrest yon castle's walls from Scotland's power,
+ And leave her brave to bleed, her fair to weep;
+ When Husbac fierce, and Olave, Mona's king,[5]
+ Confederate chiefs, with shout and triumphing,
+ Bade o'er its towers the Scaldic raven fly,
+ And mock each storm-tost sea-king toiling by!--
+ Far different were the days,
+ When flew the fiery cross, with summoning blaze,
+ O'er Blane's hill, and o'er Catan, and o'er Kames,
+ And round thy peak the phalanx'd Butesmen stood,[6]
+ As Bruce's followers shed the Baliol's blood,
+ Yea! gave each Saxon homestead to the flames!
+
+
+IV.
+
+ Proud palace-home of kings! what art thou now?
+ Worn are the traceries of thy lofty brow!
+ Yet once in beauteous strength like thee were none,
+ When Rothesay's Duke was heir to Scotland's throne;[7]
+ Ere Falkland rose, or Holyrood, in thee
+ The barons to their sovereign bow'd the knee:
+ Now, as to mock thy pride
+ The very waters of thy moat are dried;
+ Through fractured arch and doorway freely pass
+ The sunbeams, into halls o'ergrown with grass;
+ Thy floors, unroof'd, are open to the sky,
+ And the snows lodge there when the storm sweeps by;
+ O'er thy grim battlements, where bent the bow
+ Thine archers keen, now hops the chattering crow;
+ And where the beauteous and the brave were guests,
+ Now breed the bats--the swallows build their nests!
+ Lost even the legend of the bloody stair,
+ Whose steps wend downward to the house of prayer;
+ Gone is the priest, and they who worshipp'd seem
+ Phantoms to us--a dream within a dream;
+ Earth hath o'ermantled each memorial stone,
+ And from their tombs the very dust is gone;
+ All perish'd, all forgotten, like the ray
+ Which gilt yon orient hill-tops yesterday;
+ All nameless, save mayhap one stalwart knight,
+ Who fell with Graeme in Falkirk's bloody fight--
+ Bonkill's stout Stewart,[8] whose heroic tale
+ Oft circles yet the peasant's evening fire,
+ And how he scorn'd to fly, and how he bled--
+ He, whose effigies in St Mary's choir,
+ With planted heel upon the lion's head,
+ Now rests in marble mail.
+ Yet still remains the small dark narrow room,
+ Where the third Robert, yielding to the gloom
+ Of his despair, heart-broken, laid him down,
+ Refusing food, to die; and to the wall
+ Turn'd his determined face, unheeding all,
+ And to his captive boy-prince left his crown.[9]
+ Alas! thy solitary hawthorn-tree,
+ Four-centuried, and o'erthrown, is but of thee
+ A type, majestic ruin: there it lies,
+ And annually puts on its May-flower bloom,
+ To fill thy lonely courts with bland perfume,
+ Yet lifts no more its green head to the skies;[10]
+ The last lone living thing around that knew
+ Thy glory, when the dizziness and din
+ Of thronging life o'erflow'd thy halls within,
+ And o'er thy top St Andrew's banner flew.
+
+
+ V.
+
+ Farewell! Elysian island of the west,
+ Still be thy gardens brighten'd by the rose
+ Of a perennial spring, and winter's snows
+ Ne'er chill the warmth of thy maternal breast!
+ May calms for ever sleep around thy coast,
+ And desolating storms roll far away,
+ While art with nature vies to form thy bay,
+ Fairer than that which Naples makes her boast!
+ Green link between the High-lands and the Low--
+ Thou gem, half claim'd by earth, and half by sea--
+ May blessings, like a flood, thy homes o'erflow,
+ And health--though elsewhere lost--be found in thee!
+ May thy bland zephyrs to the pallid cheek
+ Of sickness ever roseate hues restore,
+ And they who shun the rabble and the roar
+ Of the wild world, on thy delightful shore
+ Obtain that soft seclusion which they seek!
+ Be this a stranger's farewell, green Byrone,
+ Who ne'er hath trod thy heathery heights before,
+ And ne'er may see thee more
+ After yon autumn sun hath westering gone;
+ Though oft, in pensive mood, when far away,
+ 'Mid city multitudes, his thoughts will stray
+ To Ascog's lake, blue-sleeping in the morn,
+ And to the happy homesteads that adorn
+ Thy Rothesay's lovely bay.
+
+ASCOG LODGE, EAST BAY, ROTHESAY,
+September 1843.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] Rothesay Castle is first mentioned in history in connexion
+with its siege by Husbac the Norwegian, and Olave king of Man, in 1228.
+Among other means of defence, it is said that the Scots poured down
+boiling pitch and lead on the heads of their enemies; but it was,
+however, at length taken, after the Norwegians had lost three hundred
+men. In 1263, it was retaken by the Scots after the decisive battle of
+Largs.
+
+[6] This bid was the scene of a conflict between the men of
+Bute and the troops of Lisle, the English governor, in which that
+general was slain, and his severed head, presented to the Lord High
+Steward, was suspended from the battlements of the castle.
+
+[7] In 1398, Robert the Third constituted his eldest son Duke
+of Rothesay, a title still held by every male heir-apparent to the
+British crown. It was the first introduction of the ducal
+dignity--originally a Norman one--into Scotland.
+
+[8] The walls forming the choir of the very ancient church
+dedicated to the Holy Virgin are still nearly entire, and stand close to
+the present parish church of Rothesay. Within a traceried niche, on one
+side, is the recumbent figure of a knight in complete armour, apparently
+of the kind in use about the time of Robert the Second or Third. His
+feet are upon a lion couchant, and his head upon a faithful watch-dog,
+with a collar, in beautiful preservation, encircling its neck. The
+coat-of-arms denotes the person represented to have been of royal
+lineage. Popular tradition individualizes him as the "Stout Stewart of
+Bonkill" of Blind Harry the minstrel, who fell with Sir John the Grahame
+at the battle of Falkirk--although that hero was buried near the field
+of action, as his tombstone there in the old churchyard still records.
+
+Sir John Stewart of Bonkill was uncle and tutor to the then Lord High
+Steward, at that time a minor.
+
+A female figure and child recumbent, also elaborately sculptured in
+black marble, adorn the opposite niche, and under them, in alto-relievo,
+are several figures in religious habits. Another effigies of a knight,
+but much defaced, lies on the ground-floor of the choir--the whole of
+which was cleaned out and put in order by the present Marquis of Bute in
+1827.
+
+[9] On the 4th of April 1406, this unfortunate prince,
+overwhelmed with grief for the death of his eldest son, David, Duke of
+Rothesay and Earl of Carrick, who miserably perished of hunger in
+Falkland Castle; and the capture, during a time of truce, of his younger
+son, Prince James, by the English--died in the Castle of Rothesay of a
+broken heart. The closet, fourteen feet by eight, in which he breathed
+his last, is still pointed out, in the south-east corner of the castle.
+
+[10] In the court of the castle is a remarkable thorn-tree,
+which for centuries had waved above the chapel now in ruins; and which,
+at the distance of a yard from the ground, measures six feet three
+inches in circumference. In 1839, it fell from its own weight, and now
+lies prostrate, with half its roots uncovered, but still vigorous in
+growth.
+
+
+
+
+TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+While tracing the progress of our friend the Khan through the various
+scenes of amusement and festivity at which he assisted rather as a
+spectator than an actor, we had omitted to notice in its proper place an
+incident of some interest--his presence at the opening of the
+Parliamentary session of 1841, on the 26th of January, by the Queen in
+person. By the kindness of one of his friends, who was a member of the
+royal household, he had succeeded in obtaining a ticket of admission to
+the House of Lords, and was placed in a position which afforded him an
+excellent view of the brilliant multitude assembled to receive their
+sovereign. "When I had sufficiently recovered from the first impression
+of all the magnificence around me, I could compare it only to the Garden
+of Trem[11]--nay, it appeared even more wonderful than that marvellous
+place. At twelve o'clock, twenty-one peals of artillery announced the
+approach of the Queen, who shortly after entered with Prince Albert,
+followed by her train-bearers, &c. All rose as she advanced; and when
+the Lords were again seated, the _cadhi-ab-codhat_ (Lord Chancellor) put
+a piece of paper in her hands, and placed himself on the right of the
+throne, while the grand-vizir stood on the left. Shortly after, the
+gentlemen of the House of Commons entered, when the Queen read with a
+loud voice from the paper to the following effect." We need not,
+however, follow the Khan through the details of the royal speech, or the
+debate on the address which succeeded, though, in the latter, he appears
+to have been thunderstruck by the freedom of language indulged in by a
+certain eccentric ex-chancellor, remarking, "that under the emperors of
+Delhi such latitude of speech, in reference to the sovereign, would
+inevitably have cost the offender his head, or at least have ensured his
+spending the remainder of his life in disgrace and exile at Mekka." On
+the dignified bearing and self-possession of our youthful sovereign, the
+Khan enlarges in the strain of eulogy which might be expected from one
+to whom the sight of the ensigns of sovereignty borne by a female hand
+was in itself an almost inconceivable novelty, declaring, that "the
+justice and virtues of her Majesty have obliterated the name of
+Nushirvan from the face of the earth!" But the remarks of the
+simple-minded Parsees on the same subject will be found, from their
+honest sincerity, we suspect, more germane to the matter--"We saw in an
+instant that she was fitted by nature for, and intended to be, a queen;
+we saw a native nobility about her, which induced us to believe that she
+could, though meek and amiable, be firm and decisive; ... that no man or
+set of men would be permitted by her to dictate a line of conduct; and
+that, knowing and feeling that she lived in the hearts and affections of
+her people, she would endeavour to temper justice with mercy; and we
+thought that if no unforeseen event (which God forbid) arose to dim the
+lustre of her reign, that the period of her sway in Britain would be
+quoted as the golden age."
+
+After this introduction, the Khan appears to have become an occasional
+attendant in the gallery of the House of Commons, and was present at a
+debate on the admission of foreign corn, in which Lord Stanley, Sir
+Robert Peel, and Lord John Russell took part--"These three being the
+most eloquent of the speakers, and the chiefs of their respective
+parties, though several other members spoke at great length either for
+or against the motion, according as each was attached to one or other
+of the great factions which divide the House of Commons, and hold the
+destinies of the people in their hands." Of the speeches of these three
+leaders, and the arguments adduced by them, he accordingly attempts to
+give an abstract; though as his information must have been derived, we
+imagine, principally through the medium of an interpreter, this first
+essay at Parliamentary reporting is not particularly successful; and if
+we are to conclude, from his constant use of the phrase _zemindars_ to
+denote the landed interest, that he considered the estates of the
+English proprietors to be held by _zemindarry_ tenures similar to those
+in Bengal, his notions on the subject of the debate must have been
+considerably perplexed. "At length, however, as the debate had already
+been protracted to a late hour, and there was no probability of a speedy
+termination to this war of words, I left the House with no unfavourable
+impression of what I had heard. This eternal wrangling between the two
+factions is inherent, it appears, in the nature of the constitution.
+With us, two wise men never dispute; yet every individual member of the
+legislature is supposed to possess a certain share of wisdom--so that
+here are a thousand wise men constantly disputing. One would think no
+good could result from such endless differences of opinion; but the fact
+is the reverse--for from these debates result those measures which mark
+the character of the English for energy and love of liberty."
+
+But though thus constantly alluding to the two great political parties
+which divide the state, the Khan nowhere attempts to give his readers a
+definition of the essential differences which separate them; and, for a
+statement of the respective tenets of Whigs and Tories, as represented
+to an oriental, we must once more have recourse to the journal of Najaf
+Kooli, who has apparently taken great pains to make himself acquainted
+with this abstruse subject. "The Tories," says the Persian prince,
+"argue as follows:--'Three hundred years ago we were wild people, and
+our kingdom ranked lower than any other. But, through our wisdom and
+learning, we have brought it to its present height of honour, and, as
+the empire was enlarged under our management, why should we now _reform_
+and give up our policy which has done all this good?' To which the Whigs
+reply--'It is more prudent to go according to the changes of time and
+circumstances. Moreover, by the old policy, only a few were benefited;
+and, as government is for the general good, we must observe that which
+is best for the whole nation, so that all should be profited.'" The
+Shahzadeh's description of the ceremony of opening Parliament, and his
+summary of the usual topics touched upon in the royal speech, are marked
+by the same amusing _naivete_--"When all are met, the king, arrayed in
+all his majestic splendour and state, with the crown on his head, stands
+up with his face to the assembly, and makes a speech with perfect
+eloquence as follows:--'Thank God that my kingdom is in perfect
+happiness, and all the affairs, both at home and abroad, are in good
+order. All the foreign badishahs (kings and emperors) have sent to me
+ambassadors, assuring me of their friendship. The commerce of this
+empire is enjoying the highest prosperity; and all these benefits are
+through your wise ordination of affairs last session. This year also I
+have to request you again to meet in your houses, and to take all
+affairs into the consideration of your high skill and learning, and
+settle them as you find best. Should there be any misunderstanding in
+any part which may require either war or peace to be declared, you will
+thereupon also take the proper measures for settling it according to the
+welfare and interests of the kingdom.' Then they receive their
+instructions, the king leaves them, and they meet every day, Sunday
+excepted, from one o'clock in the afternoon till four hours after
+sunset. They take all things into consideration, and decide all
+questions; and when there is a difference of opinion there will arise
+loud voices and vehement disputes."
+
+But we must now return to the movements of the Khan, after the Lord
+Mayor's dinner, described in our last Number, in the world of amusement
+which surrounded him in London. His next visit, when he recovered from
+the fit of meditation into which he was thrown by the sight of the
+marvellous banquet aforesaid, was to the Colosseum; but his account of
+the wonders of this celebrated place of resort, perhaps from his
+faculties still being in some measure abstracted, is less full than
+might have been expected. The ascending-room (which the Persian prince
+describes as "rising like an eagle with large wings into the atmosphere,
+till, after an hour's time, it stopped in the sky, and opened its beak,
+so that we came out") he merely alludes to as "the talismanic process by
+which I was carried to the upper regions;" and though the panoramic view
+of London is pronounced to be, "of all the wonders of the metropolis the
+most wonderful," it is dismissed with the remark that "it is useless to
+attempt to describe it in detail. After this," continues the Khan, "I
+passed under ground among some artificial caves, which I at first took
+for the dens of wild beasts; and that people should pay for seeing such
+places as these, does seem a strange taste. By going a short distance
+out of Delhi, a man may enter as many such places as he pleases, bearing
+in mind, at the same time, that he runs the greatest chance in the world
+of encountering a grinning hyaena, or some such beast; and it was with
+some such feeling that I entered these grottoes, not being exactly
+acquainted with their nature."
+
+The Khan had now nearly exhausted the circle of places of public
+entertainment; but one yet remained to be visited, and that, perhaps,
+the most congenial of all to oriental tastes in the style of its
+decorations, brilliant lights, and multifarious displays--Vauxhall. "A
+large garden! a paradise!"--such is the rapturous description of the
+Persian princes--"filled with roses of various hues, with cool waters
+running in every direction on the beautiful green, and pictures painted
+on every wall. There were burning about two millions of lamps, each of a
+different colour; and we saw here such fire-works, as made us forget all
+others we had already seen. Here and there were young moon-faces selling
+refreshments; and in every walk there were thousands of Frank _moons_
+(ladies) led by the hand, while the roses grew pale with admiring their
+beautiful cheeks." The Khan, though less ardent and enthusiastic than
+the grandsons of Futteh Ali Shah, does ample justice to the splendour of
+the illumination; "thousands of lights distributed over the gardens,
+suspended on the trees, and arranged in numberless fanciful devices, so
+as to form flowers, names, &c.; and when it became dark, one blaze of
+bright light was presented, extending over a vast space." He was
+fortunate, moreover, in making his visit to the gardens on the evening
+of a balloon ascent, "and thus I witnessed the most wonderful sight I
+ever saw--a sight which a hundred millions of people in India consider
+to be a _Feringhi_ fiction, an incredible fable; for though a Frenchman
+made an ascent at Lucknow some years ago, nobody believes it who did not
+see it, and many even who were present, believed that their senses had
+been beguiled by magic.... A car in the shape of a _howdah_ was swung by
+ropes beneath the balloon, in which six individuals seated themselves,
+besides the aeronaut; and when it was filled with the gas and ready to
+start, the latter tried to prevail on me to take a seat, telling me he
+had performed nearly three hundred aerial voyages, and that, if any
+accident should happen, he himself would be the first to suffer. I
+certainly had a wish to satisfy my curiosity, by ascending to the skies,
+but was dissuaded by the friends who accompanied me, who said it was
+safer to remain on _terra firma_, and look on at the voyagers; and
+accordingly I did so."
+
+Though it would appear that the Khan had already paid more than one
+visit to the treasures of art and nature collected within the walls of
+the British Museum, his description of that institution, "one like which
+I had never before heard of," is reserved almost to the last in the
+catalogue of the wonders of London; and his remarks on the numberless
+novel objects which presented themselves at every turn to his gaze, form
+one of the most curious and interesting passages in his journal. The
+brilliant plumage of the birds in the gallery of natural history, and
+particularly of the humming birds "from the far isles of the Western
+Sea," the splendour of which outshone even the gorgeous feathered tribes
+of his native East, excited his admiration to the highest
+degree--"animals likewise from every country of the earth were placed
+around, and might have been mistaken for living beings, from the gloss
+of their skins and the brightness of their eyes." The library,
+"containing, as I was told, 300,000 volumes, among which were 20,000
+Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscripts," is briefly noticed; and the
+sight of the mummies in the Egyptian collection sets the Khan
+moralizing, not in the most novel strain, on these relics of bygone
+mortality. The sculptures were less to his taste--the Egyptian colossi
+are alluded to as "the work in former days, I suppose, of some of the
+mummies up stairs;" and the Grecian statues "would appear, to an
+unbiassed stranger, a quantity of useless, mutilated _idols_,
+representing both men and monsters; but in the eyes of the English, it
+is a most valuable collection, said to have cost seven _lakhs_ of
+rupees, (L.70,000,) and venerated as containing some of the finest
+sculptures in the world. I cannot understand how such importance can be
+attached in Europe to this art, since the use of all images is as
+distinctly forbidden by the _Tevrat_, (Bible,) as it is by our own
+law ... But the strangest sight was in one of the upper rooms, which
+contains specimens of extinct monsters, recently discovered in the
+bowels of the earth in a fossil state, and supposed to be thousands of
+years old. Many men of science pass their whole lives in inventing names
+for these creatures, and studying the shape of a broken tooth supposed
+to have belonged to them; the science to which this appertains, being a
+branch of that relating to minerals, of which there is in the next room
+a vast collection ranged in well-polished cases, with the names written
+on them.... Among these, the most extraordinary were some stones said to
+have fallen from the sky, one of which was near 300 lbs. in weight, and
+with regard to the origin of which their philosophers differ. The most
+generally received opinion is, that they were thrown from volcanoes in
+the moon, thus assuming, first, the existence of volcanoes there;
+secondly, their possessing sufficient force to throw such masses to a
+distance, according to their own theory, of between 200,000 and 300,000
+miles; and this through regions, the nature of which is wholly unknown.
+This hypothesis cannot be maintained according to the Ptolemaic system;
+indeed, it is in direct contravention to it."
+
+The perverse abandonment by the Feringhis of the time-honoured system of
+Ptolemy, in favour of the new-fangled theories of Copernicus, by which
+the earth is degraded from its recognised and respectable station in the
+centre of the universe, to a subordinate grade in the solar system,
+seems to have been a source of great scandal and perplexity to the Khan;
+"since," as he remarks, "the former doctrine is supported by their own
+Bible, not less than by our Koran." These sentiments are repeated
+whenever the subject is referred to; and particularly on the occasion of
+a visit to the Observatory at Greenwich, where he was shown all the
+telescopes and astronomical apparatus, "though, owing to the state of
+the weather, I had not the opportunity of viewing the heavens to satisfy
+myself of the correctness of the statements made to me. I was told,
+however, that on looking through these instruments at the moon,
+mountains, seas, and other signs of a world, are distinctly visible."
+After satisfying his curiosity on these points, the Khan proceeded to
+inspect the hospital, where he saw the pensioners at dinner in the great
+hall; "most of these had lost their limbs, and those who were not maimed
+were very old, and nearly all of them had been severely wounded; indeed,
+it was a very interesting spectacle, and reflected great credit on the
+English nation, which thus provides for the old age of those who have
+shed their blood in her defence." To the charitable institutions of the
+country, indeed, we find the Khan at all times fully disposed to do
+justice; "there is no better feature than this in the national
+character, for there is scarcely a disease or deformity in nature for
+which there is not some edifice, in which the afflicted are lodged, fed,
+and kindly treated. Would that we had such institutions in Hindustan!"
+In pursuance of this feeling, we now find him visiting the Blind Asylum
+and the Deaf and Dumb School; and the circumstantial details into which
+he enters of the comforts provided for the inmates of these
+establishments, and the proficiency which many of them had attained in
+trades and accomplishments apparently inconsistent with their
+privations, sufficiently evidences the interest with which he regarded
+these benevolent institutions. Another spectacle of the same character,
+which he had an opportunity of witnessing about this period, was the
+annual procession of the charity children to St Paul's:--"I obtained a
+seat near the officiating _imam_ or high priest, and saw near ten
+thousand children of both sexes, belonging to the different eleemosynary
+establishments, which are deservedly the pride of this country, all
+clothed in an uniform dress, while every corner was filled with
+spectators. After the _khotbah_ (prayer) was read, they began to sing,
+not in the ordinary manner, but, as I was given to understand, so as to
+involve a form of prayer and thanksgiving. I was told that they belonged
+to many schools,[12] and are brought here once a year, that those who
+contribute to their support may witness the progress they have made, as
+well as their health and appearance."
+
+The military college at Addiscombe, for the education of the cadets of
+the East India Company's army, would naturally be to the Khan an object
+of peculiar interest; and thither he accordingly repaired, in company
+with several of his friends, apparently members of the Indian direction,
+on the occasion of the examination of the students by Colonel
+Pasley.[13] "After partaking of a sumptuous luncheon, we went to the
+students' room, where they were examined in various branches of the
+military science, as mathematics, fortification, drawing, &c., besides
+various languages, one of which was the Oordoo."[14] After the close of
+the examination, and the distribution of prizes to the successful
+candidates,[15] the company repaired to the grounds, where the Khan was
+astonished by the quickness and precision with which the cadets took to
+pieces and reconstructed the pontoons, and went through other operations
+of military engineering; and still more by a subaqueous explosion of
+powder by the means of the voltaic battery--"a method by which Colonel
+Pasley was engaged near Portsmouth in raising a vessel which had sunk
+there." It would be hardly fair to surmise the probable tendency of the
+Khan's secret thoughts on thus witnessing the care bestowed on the
+training of those destined hereafter to maintain the Feringhi yoke on
+his native country; but he expressed himself highly gratified by all
+that he saw; and we find him, shortly after, in attendance at a
+spectacle more calculated than any thing he had yet witnessed, to
+impress him with an adequate idea of British power--the launch of a
+first-rate man-of-war at Woolwich.[16] "The sight was extremely
+exhilarating, from the fineness of the day, and the immense crowds of
+people, of all ages and both sexes, generally well dressed, who were
+congregated on the land and the water, expecting the arrival of the
+Queen. Her majesty appeared at one o'clock, and proceeded to the front
+of the great ship, where a place, covered with red cloth, was prepared
+for her; I had a seat quite close, and saw it all very well.... The
+ceremony of _christening_ a ship is taken from that of christening a
+child, which, as practised in the Nazarene churches, consists in
+throwing water in its face, and saying a prayer; but here a bottle of
+wine hung before her majesty, and opposite to it a piece of iron,
+against which she pushed the bottle and broke it, and the wine was
+sprinkled over the ship, which then received its name.... In a short
+time the slips were drawn, and she glided nobly into the stream of the
+Thames amidst the shouts of the spectators, and anchored at a short
+distance. I went on board this immense floating castle, but observed
+that she was not ready for sea, and I was told that she would require
+some time to be rigged, provisioned, &c. Our party then returned to
+Greenwich; and after my friends had dined, with whom I partook of a
+delicate little fish now in season, (whitebait,) drove back to town."
+
+The Khan had no leisure, on this occasion, to inspect the wonders of the
+_top-khana_, or arsenal; but he paid a second visit for the purpose a
+few days later, duly armed with an order from the Master-General of the
+Ordnance, which is indispensable for the admission of a foreigner. His
+sensations, on entering this vast repository of arms, were not unlike
+those attributed to a personage whose fictitious adventures, though the
+production of a _Feringhi_ pen, present one of the most faithful
+pictures extant of the genuine feelings of an oriental on Frank
+matters:--"When we came to the guns," says the eximious Hajji Baba, "by
+my beard, existence fled from our heads! We saw cannons of all sizes and
+denominations, enough to have paved the way, if placed side by side,
+from Tehran to Tabriz--if placed lengthways, Allah only knows where they
+would have reached--into the very grave of the father of all the
+Russians, perhaps!" "The cannon distributed over the whole place," says
+the graver narrative of the Khan, "are said to amount to 40,000! all
+ready for use in the army, navy, or fortresses; and, as if these were
+not sufficient for the destruction of the human race, other pieces are
+constantly casting by a process the reverse of that in India, where the
+guns are cast in moulds--whereas here a solid cylinder is cast, and
+afterwards bored, shaped, and finished by steam power.... There are,
+moreover, a considerable number taken from enemies in battle, two of
+which, taken from Tippoo Sultan at Seringapatam, have their muzzles in
+the form of a lion's mouth, and are very well cast and elaborately
+ornamented; having their date, with the weight of powder and ball they
+carry, expressed in Persian characters about the mouth. There are also
+three from Bhurtpore, and three others from Aden, the inscriptions on
+which denote that they were cast by order of the Turkish emperor,
+_Mahmood_[17] Ibn Soliman." After leaving the arsenal, the Khan
+proceeded to the dockyard, of which he merely enumerates the various
+departments; but the proving of the anchors and chain-cables by means of
+the hydraulic press, impressed him, as it must do every one who has
+witnessed that astonishing process, with the idea of almost illimitable
+power. "On the ground lay a huge anchor which had been broken a few days
+before in the presence of Prince Albert, and when I was there four men
+were trying the strength of a chain by turning a wheel, the force
+produced by which was more than sufficient to break it; for just as I
+arrived it began to give way, when they desisted. The force here
+produced by means of this single wheel must have been equal to that of
+some 200,000 elephants, which might perhaps have pulled till doomsday
+without effecting it. Such is the wonderful effect of this agent
+(steam,) the results of which I meet with in so many different places,
+and under so many different circumstances!" After visiting the
+convict-hulk, and seeing the anchor-founderies in operation, the Khan
+crossed to Blackwall, and returned to town by the railway, his first
+conveyance when he landed in England. His increased experience in
+steam-travelling had now, however, enabled him to detect the difference
+between the mode of propulsion by engines on the other railroads, and
+the "immense cables made of iron wires" by which the vehicles are drawn
+on this line; the construction of which, as well as the
+electro-telegraph, ("a process for which we have no phrase in
+Oordoo,") by which communication is effected between the two ends of
+the line, he soon after paid another visit to inspect. "This railway is
+carried partly over houses and partly under ground; and as the price of
+the ground was unusually high, I was told that it cost, though only
+three miles and a half in length, the enormous sum of a crore of rupees,
+(L.1,000,000!")
+
+With this notice of the Blackwall railway, the personal narrative of the
+Khan's residence in England is brought to an abrupt conclusion; leaving
+us in the dark as to the time and circumstances of his return to his
+native land, which we believe took place soon after this period. The
+remainder of his work is in the nature of an appendix, consisting
+chiefly of dissertations on the manners, institutions, &c., of Great
+Britain, as compared with those of Hindustan. He likewise gives an
+elaborate retrospect of English history, from the Britons downwards;
+excepting, however, the four centuries from the death of William the
+Conqueror to the accession of Henry VIII.--an interval which he perhaps
+considers to have been sufficiently filled up by his disquisitions on
+the struggles for power between the crown and the barons, and the
+consequent origin and final constitution of parliament, related in a
+previous part of his work. His object in undertaking this compilation
+was, as he informs us, "for the benefit of those in Hindustan, who are
+to this day entirely ignorant of English history, and indifferent as to
+acquiring any knowledge whatever of a people whose sway has been
+extended over so many millions of human beings, and whose influence is
+felt in the remotest corners of the globe." The manner in which the Khan
+has performed his self-imposed task, is highly creditable to his
+industry and discrimination, and strongly contrasts, in the accuracy of
+the facts and plain sense of the narration, with the wild extravagances
+in which Asiatic historiographers are apt to indulge; the Anglo-Saxon
+part of the history, on which especial pains appears to have been
+bestowed, is particularly complete and well written--unless (as, indeed,
+we are almost inclined to suspect) it be a translation _in toto_ from
+some popular historical treatise. The Khan's acquired knowledge of
+English history, indeed, is sometimes more accurate than his
+acquaintance with the annals of his own country; as when, in comparing
+Queen Elizabeth with the famous Queen of Delhi, Raziah Begum, he speaks
+of the latter princess as "daughter of Behlol Khan, the Pathan Emperor
+of Delhi;" whereas a reference to Ferishta, or any other native
+historian, will inform us that Raziah died A.D. 1239, more than 200
+years before the accession of Behlol Lodi. No such errors as this,
+either in fact or chronology, disfigure the Khan's sketch of English
+history; but as it would scarcely present so much novelty to English
+readers as it may possibly do to the Hindustani friends of the author
+for whom it is intended, we shall give but a few brief notices of it.
+His favourite hero, in the account of the Saxon period, is of course
+Alfred, and he devotes to the events of his reign more than half the
+space occupied by the history of the dynasty;[18] thus summing up his
+character:--"To describe all the excellent qualities, intellectual and
+moral, attributed to this prince by English historians, would be to
+condense in a single individual the highest perfections of which the
+human species is capable. Qualities contradictory in their natures, and
+which are possessed only by men of different characters, and scarcely
+ever by one man, seem to have been united in this monarch; he was
+humane, prudent, and peaceful, yet brave, just, and impartial; affable,
+and capable of giving and receiving counsel. In short, he was a man
+especially endowed by the Deity with virtue and intelligence to benefit
+the human race!"
+
+The story of Edwy and Elgiva, and the barbarities which the beautiful
+queen suffered at the hands of Dunstan, are related with fitting
+abhorrence by the Khan, who seems to entertain, on all occasions, a
+special aversion to the ascendancy of the Romish priesthood. The loves
+of Edgar and Elfrida, and the punishment of the faithless courtier who
+deceived his sovereign by a false report of the attractions of the lady,
+are also duly commemorated; as well as the fall of the Saxon kingdom
+before the conquering swords of the Danes, during the reign of Ethelred
+the Unready, the son of the false and cruel Elfrida. But the intrusive
+monarch Canute "was looked upon, in those times of ignorance, as a very
+extraordinary man, and supposed to be the greatest king of the world,
+the sovereign of the seas and the land." The well-known story of his
+pretending to command the waves, as related by the Khan, differs
+considerably from the usually received version, and perhaps may be
+better adapted to the notions prevalent in the East, where success by
+stratagem is always considered preferable to a manly avowal of
+incompetency. "One day he was seated on the sea-shore, when the waves
+reached his chair. Canute commanded them to retire; and as the tide
+happened to be actually ebbing at the time, the waters retreated to the
+ocean. Then turning to his courtiers, he exclaimed, that the king whose
+mandates were obeyed by the billows of the sea, as well as by the
+children of men, was truly the monarch of the earth. Ever after this he
+was regarded by the ignorant multitude with a sort of religious awe, and
+was called Canute _the Great_, as we should say _Sahib-i-kiran_,"
+(the Lord of the Conjunction, implying a man born under a peculiar
+conjunction of planetary influences which predestines him to
+distinguished fortunes.)
+
+But of all the English monarchs whose reigns are noticed by the Khan,
+the one who appears to stand highest, as a pious and patriotic king, in
+his estimation--a distinction which he not improbably owes to his zeal
+as an iconoclast, the use of images in worship being abhorred by the
+Moslems--is no other than Henry VIII. No hint of the "gospel light that
+beamed from Boleyn's eyes," or of the doom which overtook more than one
+of his consorts, is allowed to interfere with the lustre of his
+achievements; such allusions, indeed, would probably be regarded by the
+Khan as unwarrantable violations of the privacy of the zenana. But in
+order to set in a stronger light the difficulties which he had to
+encounter, we have a circumstantial account of the rise of the Papal
+power, and the exorbitant prerogatives assumed for some centuries
+previously, by the Pope. "This personage was the monarch of Christendom,
+something analogous to our holy khalifs, who were the heads of Islam and
+the Mohammedan world; and from him the princes of Christendom received
+investiture, as did our Mohammedan sovereigns from the khalifs of
+Bagdad. The ecclesiastics every where gave out that the pontiff was the
+vicegerent of God, and that every one who died without his blessing and
+forgiveness would suffer endless torments hereafter. Moreover, if the
+king of any country did aught contravening the Pope's pleasure, his
+people were excommunicated, and anathemas published against them to the
+whole of Europe. Thus were the nations led by the nose like a string of
+camels." He then proceeds to state how Henry, by holding forth to his
+nobles the prospect of participation in the rich possessions of the
+church, induced them to join him in the enterprize of destroying the
+papal ascendency. "He then commanded the name of the Pope to be expunged
+from the _khotbah_, and his own to be substituted as head of the church;
+while the _idols_ and pictures were removed from the churches, and not
+allowed to be again used in worship; and the confiscated property was
+divided into three parts, one of which he reserved for himself, the
+second he gave to the nobles who had assisted him, and distributed the
+third among the clergy of the new or reformed religion.
+
+"The Pope's wrath was kindled at these proceedings, and he
+excommunicated the king, who trampled the edict under his feet. The Pope
+then wrote to the princes of Christendom, exhorting them all to
+undertake a _holy war_ against Henry, who was not only a heretic, but an
+infidel; adding, that if they did not, fire would be rained on them from
+heaven as a punishment for their neglect. Some of the Christian
+monarchs, as the King of Spain, declared war accordingly against Henry,
+and sent ships to the coast of England; but all their attempts failed;
+and the King of Denmark and other potentates, perceiving that the
+Pope's threats were not accomplished, and that no fire fell from heaven,
+followed Henry's example in expelling the Pope's clergy from their
+dominions, and adopted measures of reform similar to his. From this time
+the Pope's power began to decline in all the countries of Europe, so
+that at the present day his name is read in the _khotbah_ only in the
+city of Rome and the small territory which is yet left him in its
+neighbourhood; and the old practice of excommunication seems to have
+entirely ceased; while the reformed religion introduced by Henry, and
+which is so different from the ancient faith, has existed in England
+ever since, a period of above three hundred years."
+
+We need not pursue further our extracts from the Khan's speculations on
+English history, of which the passages already given afford a sufficient
+specimen; but we may notice that he mentions James I. as the first
+English monarch who sent an ambassador (Sir Thomas Roe) to the court of
+Delhi, and refers to the history of Ferishta for an account of his
+reception by the Emperor Jehanghir. He next proceeds to describe the
+climate, productions, and statistics of the country, its division into
+_zillahs_ or counties, the law of primogeniture as regards succession to
+landed property, &c.; and enters into minute details on the laws
+regulating the succession to the throne, the responsibility of
+ministers, the election of the members of the House of Commons, and the
+mutual dependence of the three branches of the legislature; but his
+remarks on these subjects, though creditable from their general
+accuracy, possess little originality; and may be left without comment
+for the edification of his friends in Hindustan, for whose benefit it is
+to be presumed they were intended. The doctrine of the responsibility of
+ministers, (which the Khan in a former part of his narrative, as we had
+occasion to remark, seemed either to have been unacquainted with, or to
+have lost sight of,) is here stated with a full appreciation of its
+practical bearings; and is pronounced to be "the best law which the
+English ever made for the government of the people, by imposing a check
+on the absolute will of the sovereign; resembling the similar restraint
+on the power of our monarchs which prevails in Islam, though with us the
+check is still more powerful and effectual, as the judge is empowered by
+the Koran to demand satisfaction from the sovereign himself!" The
+details of the British finances are briefly touched upon, with a special
+denunciation of "that most extraordinary tax laid on the light of the
+sun when it comes through a window:"--but the Khan contents himself with
+stating the amount of the national debt, and the interest annually paid
+to the public creditors, without offering any scheme for its extinction,
+like that of his countryman Mirza Abu-Taleb, who with perfect gravity
+and good faith proposes that the fundholders should be summoned before
+Parliament, and informed by the minister, that since the pressure of the
+taxes necessary to meet the interest must inevitably, erelong, produce a
+revolution, in which the whole debt would be cancelled, it would be far
+better for them at once to relinquish with a good grace great part of
+their claim, and accept payment of the balance by instalments. Of the
+feasibility, as well as equity of this plan, the Mirza does not appear
+to entertain the smallest doubt:--"and thus," he triumphantly concludes,
+"in twenty or thirty years, the whole of the debt would be liquidated;
+some of the most oppressive taxes might be immediately abolished, and
+others gradually relinquished; provisions would become cheaper, and the
+people be rendered happy, and grateful to the government."
+
+"When in Hindustan," says the Khan, "I had heard, like millions of
+others, of something in connexion with the Feringhi rulers, called
+_Company_; but no one knew whether this was a man, or a medicine, or a
+weapon, or a horse, or a ship, or any thing else. The most prevalent
+notion was, that it was an old woman; but as the oldest among us, and
+their fathers before them, had always heard it spoken of in exactly the
+same terms, they were further puzzled to account for her preternatural
+longevity." A well-directed course of enquiry in England, speedily
+enabled the Khan to unravel the mystery; and he has enlightened his
+countrymen with full details on the composition of the venerable Begum,
+with the Court of Directors, the Board of Control, &c.; but in the
+prosecution of these researches, he was surprised by finding that
+_Company_ was so far from being one and indivisible, that _Companies_
+"exist by thousands for multifarious objects--many even for speculation
+in human life. The most recent is the Victoria, composed of twelve
+directors, and other officers. A man puts a value on his life, and on
+this sum they put a per centage, varying according to his age and state
+of health, which he pays, and when he dies his heirs receive the money.
+People of the middle classes generally resort to this method of
+providing, by small annual contributions, for the support of their
+families after their decease--and consequently the man's own relations
+often rejoice when he dies, while strangers (the Insurance Company)
+grieve."
+
+On the important subject of the domestic usages and manners of the
+English, the Khan enters less at length than might have been expected.
+Of country life, indeed, from which alone correct ideas on such subjects
+can be derived, he saw absolutely nothing, his knowledge of the country
+being apparently limited to the prospect from the windows of a railway
+carriage; and his acquaintance with London manners was drawn more from
+ballrooms and crowded soirees, than from the private circles of family
+reunions. With these limited opportunities of observation, his remarks
+on the mass of the people are necessarily confined, in a great measure,
+to their outdoor habits; in which nothing appears to have surprised him
+more than the small number of horsemen (as he considers) to be seen in
+the streets of London; "the generality of these, too, are extremely bad
+riders, though this, perhaps, may be owing to the uncouth and awkward
+saddles they use:" a libel on our national character for horsemanship,
+into which we must charitably hope that the Cockney cavaliers who crowd
+the Regent's Park on Sundays, are responsible for having misled him. The
+important point of the comparative deference paid to women, and the
+amount of liberty and privileges enjoyed by them, in the social systems
+of Mohammedan and Christian countries respectively, is taken up by the
+Khan in behalf of the former, with as much warmth as in past years by
+his compatriot Mirza Abu-Taleb,[19] and in much the same line of
+argument--to the effect that the dowery which the eastern husband is
+bound by law to pay over in money to his wife in the event of a
+separation, is a far more effectual protection to the wife from the
+fickleness and caprice of her partner, ("whose _interest_ it thus
+becomes, setting affection wholly out of the question, to remain on good
+terms with her,") than any remedy afforded by the laws of England; where
+a wife, though bound by ties less easily dissolved than under the
+Mohammedan system of divorces, may still be driven, without misconduct
+on her part, from her husband's house, and left to seek redress by the
+slow process of litigation. The Khan assures us that several ladies with
+whom he conversed on these interesting topics, and who had passed many
+years of their lives in India, were utterly unacquainted with these
+protective rights of Hindustani wives; and were obliged to confess, that
+if they were correctly stated, "the ladies in India are far better off
+than ourselves. For (said they) the dowery we receive from our fathers
+on our marriage goes to our husbands, who may squander it in one day if
+they like; and even the dresses we wear are not our own property, but
+are given us by our husbands." But if we allow the Khan all due credit
+for the adroitness and success with which he maintained on this occasion
+the cause of his fair countrywomen, we can scarcely acquit him of
+something like disingenuousness in a discussion with "another lady,"
+apparently one who had _not_ been in India, and who lamented the hard
+fate (as she believed) of the Indian widows, who could not marry again
+after the death of their first husband, and were at the mercy of the
+priests, who filled their heads with terrors of a future state to
+prevent their doing so. "With regard to this last idea, it is so
+utterly groundless, that there is no word in our language corresponding
+with 'priest;' and of all religions in the world, Islam is the least
+influenced by spiritual meddlers of any sort. It is, besides, expressly
+enjoined in the Koran, that widows should marry; they may do so as often
+as they like, if they survive their husbands; and if they do not, it is
+their own choice." Now, though this vehement denial of the Khan's is
+perfectly true as regards _Moslem_ law and _Moslem_ widows, he must have
+been well aware that the lady's error arose from her considering as
+common to all the natives of India, Hindustanis as well as Hindus, those
+customs and restrictions which are peculiar to the Hindus alone. Among
+the latter, as is well known, both the priestcraft of the Brahmins, and
+the impediments to the marriage of a widow,[20] exist in full force at
+this day; and it would have been more candid on the part of the Khan,
+even at the expense of a little of his Moslem pride, to have set his
+fair opponent right on these points, than to have triumphed over her
+ignorance, without showing her wherein lay her error.
+
+But however deeply the Khan may have commiserated the unprotected
+condition of English wives, as compared with the security of rights
+enjoyed by the more fortunate dames of Hindustan, we find him at all
+times disposed to do ample justice to the social qualifications and
+accomplishments of our countrywomen, and the beneficial influence
+exercised by them in smoothing the asperities of society. The masculine
+portion of the community, indeed, find little favour in the eyes of the
+Khan, who accuses them of being prone to indulge in inveterate enmity
+and ill-feeling on slight grounds, while instances of real friendship,
+on the contrary, are extremely rare: and he is wearied and disgusted by
+the endless disputes which occur at all times and all places, from the
+collision of individuals of adverse political sentiments. "They dispute
+in parliament, they dispute in their social circles, they dispute in
+steam-boats, on railroads, in eating and drinking; and I verily believe
+that, but for some slight feeling of religion, they would dispute even
+in their churches. But in the same proportion as the men were hostile to
+each other, did the women seem united: the more there were of these fair
+creatures, the pleasanter did they make the party by their smiles and
+good-humour: with the men, the more there were collected together, the
+more wrangling always ensued. In qualities of the mind and heart, as
+well as in the social virtues, the women far surpass the men--they are
+more susceptible of friendship, more hospitable to strangers, less
+reserved, and, I must say, generally better informed. Wherever I have
+been conversing with gentlemen in society, if a difficulty occurred on
+any topic, the men would invariably turn to their wives or sisters, and
+ask for an explanation, thus tacitly admitting the superior attainments
+of the ladies: and I have always found that I obtained from the latter a
+more satisfactory answer to any of my enquiries on national customs and
+institutions. Nor must it be supposed that this superiority was only
+apparent, and arose from the desire the men might have to display the
+accomplishments of their ladies by referring so constantly to them: it
+is the real state of the case, as far as I can judge from the manners of
+the people."
+
+We cannot better close our extracts from the Khan's remarks on English
+manners and society, than with this spontaneous tribute to the merits
+and attractions of our countrywomen, the value of which is enhanced by
+its coming, as it does, from an acute observer of a social system in
+which every thing was wholly at variance with his preconceived habits
+and ideas, and from one, moreover, totally unacquainted with that
+routine of compliment, which serves gentlemen in the regions of
+Franguestan, to use the words of Die Vernon, "like the toys and beads
+which navigators carry with them to propitiate the inhabitants of
+newly-discovered lands." But the impression produced on the Khan by the
+contemplation of the institutions and resources of England has yet to be
+viewed in another light--in its relations to the government of India
+under Feringhi rule, and the comparative benefits conferred on the
+people at large, by the sway respectively of the English, and of their
+old Mohammedan rulers. The Khan's opinions on these subjects will
+doubtless be read with surprise by that numerous and respectable class
+of the community, who hold as an article of faith, (to use the words of
+our author,) that in Mohammedan countries "every prince is a tyrant;
+every court of justice full of corruption; and all the people sunk in
+depravity, ignorance, and misery:" and who cling to the comfortable
+delusion that we have succeeded, by the equity of our civil government,
+in attaching to our rule the population of India. As a view of this
+important subject _from the other side of the question_, taken by one,
+however, by no means indisposed to do justice to what he considers as
+the meritorious features of the English administration, the Khan's
+comparative summary, though not wholly devoid of prejudice, possesses
+considerable interest: and it must be admitted, that with respect to the
+internal improvement of the country, his strictures have hitherto had
+but too much foundation, though the schemes of the present
+governor-general, if carried into effect, will go far to remove the
+stigma from the Anglo-Indian rulers. After contrasting, in a
+conversation with an English friend, the expedition of legal proceedings
+under the Moslem rule, with the slow process of the English courts in
+India, to be finally remedied only by the endless and generally
+ineffectual course of appeal to the privy-council at home, (in which,
+according to the Khan's statement, not a single individual of the number
+who have undertaken the long voyage from India has ever succeeded,) he
+proceeds--
+
+"Historical facts seem to be wholly lost sight of by those who talk of
+the conduct of Mohammedan rulers in India, who, as I could prove by many
+instances, were constantly solicitous of the happiness of their
+subjects. Shah-Jehan constructed a road from Delhi to Lahore, a distance
+of 500 miles, with guard-houses at intervals of every three miles, and
+at every ten or twelve miles a caravanserai, where all travellers were
+fed and lodged at the Emperor's expense. Besides this, canals were dug,
+and public edifices built, at the expense of millions, without taxing
+the people to pay for them as here; and these edifices still stand, and
+will endure for many years, as monuments of the munificence of the
+monarchs who erected them. During the seventy years of the English
+dominion in India, what has been done which would remind the people
+fifty years hence, if they should retire from the country, that such a
+nation had ever held sway there? The only memorials they would leave,
+would be the numerous empty bottles scattered over the whole empire, to
+indicate what has been done _in_, if not _for_ India! In some cases
+also, they have squandered millions without benefit either to the people
+or themselves. The money spent in three years on the insane war in
+Cabul, if expended on the construction of railroads or canals, or the
+extension of steam navigation on our great rivers, would have employed
+thousands of men for twenty years, returned an immense profit to
+government, and have gained them a good name among the people. But it is
+the misfortune of India, that notwithstanding the high qualities of
+energy and enterprise, united with superior education and intelligence,
+unquestionably possessed by its masters, they display so lamentable and
+apathetic an indifference to the amelioration of the country. Since I
+have had such opportunities of observing the proofs of English art and
+skill which I see every where and in every department, I cannot but the
+more deeply regret that these wonderful discoveries, and strange and
+unheard-of inventions, in every branch of science and art, are likely to
+remain unknown to the people of India. If I were to relate on my return
+all the wonders I have seen, no one would believe me: and to what could
+I appeal in evidence of the truth of what I say? Are there any
+establishments where these things can be shown to the people on any
+thing like an adequate scale? If such institutions had been established,
+the people would have some tangible proof of the real intellectual
+superiority of their English rulers: but in the lapse of seventy years,
+nothing has been done. Again, if seminaries had been founded on the
+principle of those built and endowed by the emperors, they might have
+produced men eminent in various faculties: but though it is true that
+schools were built by the Company some fifteen years since, in various
+parts of the empire, in which some thousands of children, both Hindoo
+and Moslem, have received education, they have never turned out a single
+man of superior attainments in any department of literature there
+taught:--and it is remarkable that not an instance exists, as far as I
+am aware, of a man thus educated in the Company's own schools having
+been selected for the high judicial offices of _Sadr-ameen_, and
+principal _Sadr-ameen_ (judges in the local courts;) but that these
+functionaries have invariably been chosen from those educated in the
+native method. Is not this strange, that Government should have
+established schools professing to give superior instruction to the
+people; and that not one so trained should have been found eligible to
+fill any of the judicial or fiscal offices of their own government? and
+how can it be accounted for, except by these institutions having been
+conducted on an erroneous principle? When I return to India, I must be
+like the free-masons, silent and reserved, unless when I meet one who
+has been, like myself, in England, and with whom I can converse on the
+wonders we have both witnessed in that marvellous country, and which, if
+I venture to narrate them in public, or even among my own immediate
+friends and relatives, would draw on me such disbelief, that I would
+certainly die from grief of heart."--Here leave we Kerim Khan; not
+without a hope, that in spite of the apprehensions expressed in the
+passage just quoted, of incurring the reproach to which "travellers'
+tales" are supposed to be sometimes obnoxious, he has not eventually
+persisted in withholding from his countrymen a narrative which, both
+from the opportunities of observation enjoyed by the writer, and the
+ability and good judgement with which he has availed himself of these
+advantages, is better calculated to dispel the incredulity which he
+anticipates, than the Travels of Mirza Abu-Taleb, (the text of which has
+been printed at Calcutta,) or indeed than any work with which we are
+acquainted. Trusting, then, that the Khan's patriotic aspirations for
+the welfare of his country may be realized by the speedy introduction of
+all those Feringhi appendages to high civilization, the want of which he
+so feelingly deplores, and that he may live a thousand years in the full
+fruition of all the advantages therefrom resulting, we now take leave
+of him.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[11] The palace constructed, in the early ages of the world, by
+the giant-king Sheddad, as a rival to the heavenly paradise, and
+supposed still to exist, though invisible to mortal eyes, in the
+recesses of the Desert--See LANE'S _Thousand and One Nights_, vol, ii.
+p. 342.
+
+[12] The Persian princes imagine these children to be collected
+from all parts of the United Kingdom, for the purpose of this
+procession!
+
+[13] The Khan never gives dates; but on investigation we find
+that this must have been on the 11th of June 1841; as among the list of
+visitors on that day occur the names of _Kurreen_ Khan, Mohabet Khan,
+and, singularly enough, the Parsee poet, Manackjee Cursetjee, who will
+be well remembered as a lion of the London drawing-rooms during that
+season.
+
+[14] The _polite_ dialect of Hindustani, which differs
+considerably from that in use among the lower orders. The phrase is
+derived from _Oorda_, the court, or camp, of the sovereign--whence our
+word _horde_.
+
+[15] "One hundred and fifty-three of the students," he adds,
+"were fixed upon for commissions, who were to be sent out to India;" but
+the Khan must have been strangely misinformed here, as the number
+actually selected was only thirty-one.
+
+[16] This must have been the Trafalgar of 120 guns, which was
+launched June 21, 1841; but the Khan is mistaken in supposing that the
+Queen personally performed the ceremony of _christening_ the ship, since
+that duty devolved on Lady Bridport, the niece of Nelson, who used on
+the occasion a bottle of wine which had been on board the Victory when
+Nelson fell.
+
+[17] This must be a slip of the pen for _Selim_, or perhaps for
+Soliman Ibn Selim, (Soliman the Magnificent.)
+
+[18] "At this epoch," adds the Khan in a note, "reigned the
+great Harun-al-Rashid, the khalif and supreme head of Islam; and
+Charles the Great was Emperor of the Franks."
+
+[19] The Mirza even went so far as to write during his stay in
+England a treatise, entitled "Vindication of the Liberties of the
+Asiatic Women," which was translated by Captain Richardson, and
+published first in the _Asiatic Annual Register_ for 1801, and again as
+an Appendix to the Mirza's Travels. It is a very curious pamphlet, and
+well worth perusal.
+
+[20] Great efforts have of late been made, among the more
+enlightened Hindus, to get rid of this prejudice. Baboo Motee Loll Seal,
+a wealthy native of Calcutta, offered 20,000 rupees, a year or two
+since, to the first Hindu who would marry a widow, and we believe the
+prize has been since claimed:--and in the _Asiatic Journal_ (vol.
+xxxviii. p. 370,) we find the announcement of the establishment, in
+1842, of a "Hindu widow re-marrying club" at Calcutta!
+
+
+
+
+NOTES ON A TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES.
+
+BY JOSEPH DOWNES.
+
+Author of "The Mountain Decameron."
+
+
+Llangaddock, Carmarthenshire,
+September 9.
+
+"And this is the '_disturbed district!_'--this is the seat of war!--the
+'_Agrarian civil war!_'--the headquarters of the '_Rebecca rebels!_" I
+soliloquized, about the hour of one A.M. on the night of September 9,
+1843--a night of more than summer beauty, sultry and light as day--while
+thrusting my head from the window of "mine inn" the Castle, in this
+pretty picturesque little village-town, to coin a term. The shadows of
+the rustic houses, and interspersed corn-stacks, trees, and orchards,
+stretched across the irregular street, without a causeway, in unbroken
+quiet; not a sound was heard but the voice of an owl from a "fold" in
+the very heart of "the town," and the low murmur of the river chafing
+against the buttresses of an antique bridge at the end of the said
+"street;" while an humble bow window of a shop, where at nightfall I had
+observed some dozens of watches (_silver_, too!) displayed, without a
+token of "Rebecca" terrorism appearing, was seen jutting into the road,
+only hidden, not defended, by such a weak apology for a shutter, as
+would not have resisted a burglar of ten years' old.
+
+It was now Sunday morning, and the clean-swept neatness of the sleeping
+village, whose inhabitants we had seen busily engaged in this pleasing
+preparation for the day of rest, as we strolled there at twilight,
+confirmed the assurance of profound and fearless peace; for only in that
+happy condition of society could the mind be supposed disengaged enough
+to regard those minute decencies of rural English life. With a smile of
+well-pleased wonder at the exaggerations of the press, which were
+persuading the Londoners that the "dogs of war" were really "let slip"
+among these our green mountains and pastoral valleys, after enjoying
+this prospect of a village by moonlight at the foot of the majestic
+_Mynydd Du_, (black mountain,) whose range is seen by day, towering at a
+few miles' distance, and hugging myself in the security of life and
+purse, which warriors (if they would cross-question their own great
+hearts) do really prize as much as I do, I returned to bed, (the heat of
+which had first driven me forth to this air-bath of half an hour.) "And
+_this_ is the seat of insurrection!" I reiterated sarcastically against
+all English and all Welsh purveyors of "news" for terror-loving readers.
+
+I have a huge deal of patriotism in my composition--also, a great love
+of rural quiet, joined to some _trifling_ degree of cowardice, as my
+family pretend; but that I impute to my over-familiarity with them. "No
+man is great to his valet," has been remarked. The domestics of
+Alexander wondered what the world found to wonder at, in the little man
+their master. However this may be, I confess it was very pleasant to me
+to find peace unbroken in these my old haunts. Here I had many a summer
+night enacted, as recorded in my "Mountain Decameron," the
+amateur-gipsy, "a long while ago," _bivouacking_ in their wildest
+solitudes, between some wood and water, on moonlight greensward, or
+reading at our tents' mouth by a lamp, while two boys, my sons, slept
+soundly within; and in the blindness of human nature, thus sneering
+against the "gentlemen of the press," sneered myself to sleep, "shut up
+in measureless content."
+
+"Most lame and impotent conclusion!" The peace of nature in that sweet
+night was weak assurance of any kindred feeling in the bosom of man. It
+so happened (as I afterwards learned) that felony--_bloody_ felony--was
+at that very time busy, at no great distance; that murder, that arson in
+its direst character, were stamping their first damnable characters on a
+province noted, through ages, for innocence and simple piety; that the
+first victim to rebellion was, at that moment, bleeding to death under
+the hands of those wearing the shapes of men; that victim innocent,
+helpless, and--a woman!!
+
+But of this in the course of my narrative. Sunday, September 10.
+
+As I proceeded from Llangaddock this afternoon, in company with my son,
+we found no slackness in the attendance on the chapels, which keep
+rising in all directions in the principality. The groups issuing from
+them, survey us with surly eyes, as _Sabbath-breakers_, for travelling
+on the "Lord's day." It is curious to reflect that these very persons
+who have just been listening to the preachers of a gospel of peace, with
+white upturning eyes and inward groans, who present countenances deeply
+marked, as it seems to us, with the spirit of severe sanctity, betrayed
+by their sour looks at us, and not rarely vested in two or three
+expressions _at_ us among themselves--I say, how curious a fact in the
+_pathology_ of minds does it present, that these very men will (some of
+them) reappear in a few hours, or days, in the characters of _felons_,
+midnight rebels to law and order, redressing minor wrongs committed by a
+few against themselves, by a tenfold fouler wrong against all men,
+against society itself. For a _system_ which consists in defying the
+laws, is a systematic waging of war against the very element that binds
+men in society--it is a casting off of civilization, a return to
+miserable dependence on animal strength alone, on brutish cunning, or
+midnight hiding in the dark, for all we enjoy. It seems well known that
+the farmers themselves are the Rebeccaites, aided by their servants, and
+that _the_ Rebecca is no other than some forward booby, or worse
+character, who ambitiously claims to _act_ the leader, under the unmanly
+disguise of a female, yielding his post in turn to other such petticoat
+heros. The "Rebecca" seems no more than a living figure to give _effect_
+to the drama, as boys dress up an effigy and parade it as _the_ Guy
+Fawkes.
+
+It is curious to witness the chop-fallen aspect of the poor
+toll-collectors. The "looking for" of a dark hour is depicted on the
+_female_ faces, at least, and a certain constrained civility mixed with
+sullenness, marks the manners of the male portion near large towns; for
+elsewhere, humble civility has _always_ met the traveller in this class
+of Welsh cottagers. The frequent appearance of dragoons, the clatter of
+their dangling accoutrements of war, and grotesque ferocity of hairy
+headgear, and mock-heroic air of superiority to the more quietly
+grotesque groups of grey-coated men, and muffled up Welsh women gives a
+new feature to our tour in this hitherto tranquil region, where a
+soldier used to be a monster that men, women, children, all alike, would
+run to the cottage door to look at. A very different sort of look than
+that of childish curiosity now greets these gallant warriors, at least
+from the farmers. "'Becca" is the beloved of their secret hearts--'Becca
+has already given them roads without paying for them! 'Becca is longed
+for by every _honest_ farmer of them all, whenever he pays a toll-gate.
+And these fellows are come sword in hand, to hunt down poor innocent
+'Becca! Well may the Welshman's eyes lower on them, whatever may be the
+looks of the Welsh women.
+
+We have now rode through several toll-gates, the ruins of the
+toll-houses only remaining, and rode scatheless! No toll asked--no
+darting forth of a grim figure from his little castle, at the shake of
+the road by tramp of horses--like the spider showing himself at his
+hole, on the trembling of his web to the struggle of a luckless fly.
+Nothing appeared but a shell of a house, with blackened remains of
+rafters, or a great heap of stones, not even a wall left--and huge
+stumps of gate-posts, and not a hand extended, or voice raised to demand
+payment for our use of a road!--that payment which the laws of the land
+had formally pronounced due! Had new laws been passed? Had a new mode
+arisen of discharging the debt we had incurred by the purchase of the
+use of so much road for two horses? Nothing of the kind! A mob at
+midnight had thrown down the barrier law had built; and law dared not,
+or neglected to--erect it again! "Rebecca," like Jack Cade, had
+pronounced _her_ law--"sic volo, sic jubeo"--and we rode through, by
+virtue of her most graceless Majesty's absolute edict--cost free. It was
+really a very singular feeling we experienced on the first of these
+occasions. I assure thee, my reader; believe me, my pensive public! I
+never was transported--never held up hand at the Old Bailey, or
+elsewhere; am not conscious of any sinister sort of projections about
+my skull that phrenologists might draw ugly conclusions on; yet I
+confess, that after an eloquent burst of Conservative wrath against this
+strange triumph of anarchy--after looking down on these works of mob
+law, unreversed, tamely endured--after fancying I saw the prostrate
+genius of social order there lying helpless--the dethroned majesty of
+British law there grovelling among the black ruins, insulted,
+unrestored--left to be trampled over with insolent laughter, by
+refractory boors, ignorant as savages of that law's inestimable
+blessing--I say, after all these hurried thoughts and feelings--let me
+whisper thee, my reader, that a certain scandalous pleasure _did_ creep
+up from these finger-ends, instinctively groping the pocket for the
+pre-doomed "thrippence," yea, quite up to this lofty, reasoning, and
+right loyal sensorium, on leaving the said sum in good and lawful money,
+snug and safe in my own pocket, instead of handing it over to a toll
+collector. Let us not expect too much from poor human nature! I defy any
+man--Aristides Redivivus himself, to ride _toll free_ through, or rather
+over, a turnpike defunct in this manner, and not feel a pernicious
+pleasure at his heart, a sort of slyly triumphing satisfaction, spite of
+himself, as of a dog that gets his adversary undermost; in
+short--without becoming for the moment, under the Circean chink of the
+saved "coppers," a rank Rebeccaite! The Lord and the law forgive me, for
+I surely loved 'Becca at _heart_ at that moment!
+
+My son being a young man about returning to college, it was highly
+important to conceal this backsliding within; so I launched out the more
+upon the monster character of this victory of brawny ignorance and
+stupid rebellion over the spirit of laws--but it wouldn't do. "But you
+don't _look_ altogether so angry about it as you speak, father," said
+he, though what he could see to betray any inward chuckling, I am not
+aware. If the casual saving of a toll could thus operate upon ME, who
+should, perhaps, never pass there again, can it be wondered at that
+farmers, to whom this triumph must prove a great annual gain, are
+Rebeccaites _to the backbone_, and to a man? I fear they must be more
+than man, not to cry secretly to this levelling lady "God speed!" And
+this leads me to more serious reflection on the incomprehensible and
+fatal conduct of the local authorities _in the first instance_, in not
+_instantly_ re-erecting the toll-gates, or fixing chains _pro tempore_,
+protecting at whatever expense some persons to demand compliance with
+the laws, that not for a week, a day, an hour, the disgraceful and
+dangerous spectacle should be exhibited, of authority completely
+down-trodden, law successfully defied. Surely the first step in
+vindication of the dignity of legal supremacy could not be difficult. By
+day, at least, surely a constabulary force might have compelled
+obedience. A few military at _first_, stationed near the gates, would
+have awed rustic rebels. It is the _impunity_ which this unheard-of
+palsy of the governing strong hand so long ensured to them, which has
+fostered riot into rebellion, and rebellion into incendiarism and
+murder. Is it possible for a thinking man to see these poor and (truth
+to tell) most money-loving people, saving two or three shillings every
+time they drive their team to market or lime, by the prostration of a
+gate, and be at a loss to discover the secret of this midnight work
+spreading like wildfire? Why, every transit which a farmer makes cost
+free, is a spur to his avarice, a tribute of submission to his lawless
+will, a temptation to his ignorant impatience of _all_ payments to try
+his hand against all. The quiet acquiescence in refusal to pay--the
+vanishing of toll-house and toll-takers without one magisterial
+edict--the mere submission to the mob, seems to cry "_peccavi_" too
+manifestly, and affords fresh colour to indiscriminate condemnation of
+all. A _bonus_ in the shape of a toll for horse or team remitted, is
+thus actually presented, many times a-day, to the rioter, the rebel, the
+midnight incendiary of toll-houses, for this good work, by the supine,
+besotted, or fear-palsied local authorities. Shall a man look on while a
+burglar enters his house, ransacks his till, let him depart, and then,
+in despair, leave the door he broke open, open still all night for his
+entrance, and then wonder that burglary is vastly on the increase? The
+wonder, I think, is that one gate remains; and that wonder will not
+exist long, if government do not do something more than send down _a_
+gentleman to ask the Welsh what they please to want? The temptation
+forced upon the eyes and minds of a poverty-stricken and greedy people,
+by this shocking spectacle of the mastery of anarchy over order, in the
+annihilation of an impost by armed mountain peasants, is in itself a
+great cruelty; for in all Agrarian risings the state has triumphed at
+last, inasmuch as wealth and its resources are an over-match for
+poverty, however furious or savage; hence blood will flow under the
+sword of justice ultimately, which early vigilance on her part might
+have wholly spared. "Knock down that toll-house--fire its
+contents--murder its tenant," seems the voice of such sleepy justice to
+pronounce, "and neither I, nor my myrmidons will even _ask_ you again
+for toll! Do this, and you shall not pay!!"
+
+Such was the tacit invitation kindly presented by the _first_ torn down
+toll-gate that remained in ruins, to every Welsh farmer. The farmer has
+accepted it, and "justice"--justice keeps her promise religiously, for
+no toll is demanded. If the law had been violated by trustees, we have a
+body called parliament strong enough to reform, ay, and punish them, as
+they, some of them perhaps, richly deserve; but was that a reason for
+the laws to be annulled, and lawlessness made the order of the day, in
+so important a matter as public roads, by the very men who are to profit
+by it, self-erected into judges in their own cause?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Llandilo Vaur. Evening, Sept. 10.
+Sunday.
+
+A scene to turn even a "commercial traveller" (_vulgo_ a bagman) into a
+"sentimental" one, if any thing could! Clouds that had overcast our ride
+of the last few miles, kindly "flew diverse" as we reached the bridge
+over the Towey, that flows at the foot of the declivity on which this
+romantic town stands. The sun broke forth, and all at once showed, and
+burnished while it showed, one of the noblest landscapes in South
+Wales--not the less attractive for being that which kindled the muse of
+Dyer--on which the saintly eye of a far greater poet had often
+reposed--the immortal _prose-poet_ bishop, Jeremy Taylor, a refugee here
+during the storm of the Civil Wars. Golden Grove, his beautiful retreat,
+with its venerable trees, was in our sight, the green mountain meadows
+between literally verifying its name by the brilliance of their sunshiny
+rich grass, where "God had showered the landscape;" to a fantastic
+fancy, giving the idea of the quivering of the richest leaf gold on a
+ground of emerald. The humbler Welsh Parnassus of the painter poet,
+Grongar Hill, towered also in distance. We traced the pastoral yet noble
+river, winding away in long meanders, up-flashing silver, through a
+broad mountain valley, dotted with white farms, rich in various foliage,
+marked as a map by lines, with well-marked hedge-rows; harvest fields
+full of sheaves, yellowing all the lofty slopes that presented these
+beautiful farms and folds full to the descending sun; those slopes,
+surmounted by grand masses of darkness, solemnly contrasted with the gay
+luxuriance all below; that darkness only the shade of woods, nodding
+like the black plume over the golden armour of some giant hero of fable,
+"magna componere parvis."
+
+Nearer, rose directly from the river a noble park, with all the charm of
+the wild picturesque, from its antique look, its romantic undulations
+and steepness, its woody mount and ivied ruin of a castle, "bosomed high
+in tufted trees," half-hidden, yet visible and reflected in the
+now-placid mirror of a reach of the river.
+
+Being Sunday, a moral charm was added to those of this exquisite natural
+panorama, from which the curtain of storm-cloud seemed just then drawn
+up, as if to strike us the more with its flashing glory of sunshine,
+water, and a whole sky become cerulean in a few minutes. No Sabbath
+bells chimed, indeed; but the hushed town, and vacant groups come abroad
+to enjoy the return of that Italian weather we had long luxuriated in,
+impressed, equally with any music, the idea of Sabbath on the mind. It
+was hard to believe, revolting to be forced to believe, that this fine
+scene of perfect beauty and deep repose, as presented to the eye,
+directed to nature only--to the mind's eye rolling up to nature's
+God--was also the (newly transfigured) theatre of man's worst and
+darkest passions; that the _army_--that odious, hideous, necessary curse
+of civilization, the severe and hateful guardian of liberty and peace,
+(though uncongenial to both)--was at that moment evoked by all the
+lovers of both for their salvation; was even then violating the ideal
+harmony of the hour, by its foul yet saving presence; was parading those
+green suburbs, and the sweet fields under those mountain walls, with
+those clangours so discordant to the holy influences of the hour and
+scene--emerging in their gay, shocking costume, (the colour of blood,
+and devised for its concealment,) from angles of rocks, and mouths of
+bowered avenues, where the mild fugitive from civil war, and faithful
+devotee of his throneless king, had often wandered, meditating on "Holy
+Dying"--of "Holy Living" himself a beautiful example--where even still,
+nothing gave outward and visible sign of incendiarism and murder lurking
+among those hermitages of rustic life; yet were both in active, secret
+operation!
+
+In that very park of _Dynevor_, whose beauty we were admiring from the
+bridge, a little walk would have led us to--a _grave!_--no consecrated
+one, but one dug ready to receive a corpse; _dug, in savage threatening
+of slaughter, for the reception of one yet living_--the son of the noble
+owner of that ancient domain--dug in sight of his father's house, in his
+own park, by wretches who have warned him to prepare to fill that grave
+in October! The gentleman so threatened, being void of all offence save
+that of being a magistrate--a sworn preserver of the public peace!
+
+Equally abhorrent to rational piety, if less shocking, is that air of
+sourest sanctity which the groups now passing us bring with them out
+from the meeting-houses.
+
+Ask a question, and a nasal noise between groan and snort seems to
+signify that they ask to be asked again, a sort of _ha--a--h?_ "long
+drawn out." The human face and the face of nature, at that hour, were as
+an east of thunder fronting a west of golden blue summer serenity. The
+Mawworms of Calvinistic Methodism have made a sort of monkery of all
+Wales, as regards externals at least. To think a twilight or noonday
+walk for pleasure a sin, involves the absurdest principle of ascetic
+folly, as truly as self-flagellation, or wearing horsehair shirts. Not
+that these ministers set their flocks any example of self-mortification.
+The greater number of preachers show excellent "condition," the poorest
+farmers' wives vying with each other in purveying "creature comforts"
+for these spiritual comforters. Preparing hot dinners, it seems, is not
+working on the Lord's Day when it is for the preacher; though to save a
+field of corn, which is in danger of being spoiled if left out, as in
+some seasons, would be a shocking desecration of that day. Yet, to
+observe the abstracted unearthly carriage of these men, who seem
+"conversing with the skies" while walking the streets, one wonders at
+the contrast of such burly bodies and refined spirits.
+
+To return to the flock from these burly shepherds of souls--this
+outbreak of a devilish spirit--this crusade against law and order, tolls
+and tithes, life and property, is a damning evidence against these
+spiritual pastors and masters, for such they are to the great body of
+the Welsh common people, in the fullest sense. The _Times_ newspaper has
+ruffled the whole "Volscian" camp of Dissent, it appears, by thundering
+forth against them a charge of inciting their congregations to midnight
+crime. "John Joneses, and David Reeses, and Ap Shenkinses, have sprung
+up like the men from the dragon's teeth, to repel this charge. It is
+probable that it was not well founded, for the simple reason, that such
+daring subornation of crime would have brought _themselves_ into
+trouble. But what sort of defence is this, even if substantiated? You
+did not _excite_ your followers to rebellion and arson! _You_, with your
+unlimited command of their minds, and almost bodies, why did you not
+allay, resist, put down the excitement, by whomever raised? That is the
+gravamen of the charge against you! You who make then weep, make then
+tremble, puff them with spiritual conceit, or depress them with terrors
+of damnation just as you please, how comes it that you are powerless all
+at once in deterring them from wild and bad actions--you, who are
+all-powerful in inciting them to any thing, since to refrain from
+violence is easier than to commit it?
+
+The increase of these outrages proves, that not the power, but will, is
+wanting on your part, to put down this spirit of revenge and revolt. You
+perceive the current of their ignorant minds setting strongly in toward
+rapine and rebellion, (the _feeler_ put forth being the toll grievance,)
+and you basely, wickedly, pander to their passions, by a discreet
+silence in your rostra, an unchristian apathy; while deeds are being
+done under your very eyes--in your daily path--which no good man can
+view without horror; no bold good man in the position which you hold, of
+public instructors in human duties, could see, without denouncing! And
+as your boldness, at least, is pretty apparent, whatever your goodness
+may be, other motives than fear must be sought for this unaccountable
+suspension of your influence--and I find it in _self-interest_--love of
+"filthy lucre." You are "supported by voluntary contribution," and to
+thwart the passions of your followers, and stem the tide of lawless
+violence, though your most sacred spiritual duty, is not the way to
+conciliate--is not compatible with that "voluntary principle" on which
+your bread depends, and which too often places your duty and your
+interest in direct opposition."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Llanon, Carmarthenshire.
+
+The good woman of our inn in this village has just been apologizing for
+the almost empty state of her house, the furniture being chiefly sent
+away to Pembree, whither she and her family hoped to follow in a few
+days. The cause of her removal was _fear of the house being set fire
+to_, it being the property of Mr Chambers, a magistrate of Llanelly, and
+the "Rebecca's company" had warned all his tenants to be prepared for
+their fiery vengeance. His heinous offence was heading the police in
+discharge of his duty, in a conflict that has just occurred at
+Pontardulais gate, near this place, in which some of the 'Beccaites were
+wounded. [Since this, farm-houses and other property of this gentleman
+have been consumed, his life has been threatened, and his family have
+prevailed on him to abandon his home and native place.] The wounded men,
+now prisoners, were of this village, the _focus_ of this rebellion that
+dares not face the day. It is here that the murderous midnight attack
+was made on the house of a Mr Edwards, when the wretches fired volleys
+at the windows, where his wife and daughter appeared _at their command_.
+They escaped, miraculously it might be said, notwithstanding. The poor
+old hostess complained, as well she might, of the hardship of being thus
+put in peril, purely in hostility to her landlord. We slept, however,
+soundly, and found ourselves alive in the morning; whether through
+evangelical Rebecca's scruples about burning us out (or _in_) on a
+"Lord's Day" night, or her being engaged elsewhere, we knew not.
+
+And here also we rode through a crowd, murmuring hymns, pouring from the
+chapel, where, no doubt, they had heard some edifying discourse about
+the "sweet Jesus," and "sweet experiences," and "new birth," the
+omnipotence of faith to salvation, and all and every topic but a _man's_
+just indignation, and a religious man's most solemn denunciation against
+the bloody and felonious outrages just committed by those very
+villagers--against the night-masked assassins, who had just before
+wantonly pointed deadly weapons against unoffending women--against the
+chamber of a sick man, a husband, and a father!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Llanelly, Sept. 11, Monday.
+
+The headquarters of vindictive rebellion, arson, and spiritual oratory!
+An ugly populous town near the sea, now in a ferment of mixed fear and
+fury, from recent savage acts of the Rebeccaites against a most
+respectable magistrate, resident in the town, Mr W. Chambers, jun., the
+denounced landlord of our old Welsh hostess at Llanon. Two of his
+farm-houses have been burned to the ground, and his life has been
+threatened. His grievous offence I stated before. Soldiers are seen
+every where; and verily, the mixture of brute-ignorance and
+brute-ferocity, depicted in the faces of the great mass of "operatives"
+that we meet, seem to hint that their presence is not prematurely
+invoked. Their begrimed features and figures, caused by their various
+employments, give greater effect to the wild character of the coatless
+groups, who, in their blue check shirt-sleeves, congregate at every
+corner to _cabal_, rather than to _dispute_, it seems; for, fond as they
+are of dissent, (though not one in fifty could tell you _from_ what
+they dissent, or _to_ what they cleave in doctrine,) there seems no
+leaning to dissent from the glorious new Rebecca law of might (or
+midnight surprisals) against right.
+
+In this neighbourhood, our Welsh annals will have to record--_the first
+dwelling-house_, not being a toll-house, _was laid in ashes; the first
+blood was shed_ by "Rebecca's company," as they call the rioters here.
+And _here_ resides, rants, prays, and preaches, and scribbles sedition,
+an illiterate fanatic, who is recognised as an organ of one sect of
+Methodists, Whitfieldites publishing a monthly inflammatory Magazine,
+called Y Diwygiwr, (the "_Reformer!_")--God bless the mark!
+
+This little pope, within his little circle of the "great unwashed," is
+very oracular, and his infallibility a dogma with his followers and
+readers. How much he himself and his vulgar trash of prose run mad,
+stand in need of that wholesome reform which some of his English
+brother-firebrands have been taught in Coldbathfields and Newgate, let
+my reader judge from the following extract. The _Times_ newspaper did
+good service in _gibbeting_ this precious morceau, supplied by its
+indefatigable reporter, in its broad sheet. How great was the neglect of
+_Welsh_ society, and every thing Welsh, when this sort of war-cry of
+treason could be raised, this trump of rebellion sounded, and, as it
+were, from the pulpit "Evangelical," with perfect impunity to the
+demagogue, thus prostituting religion itself to the cause of anarchical
+crime!--
+
+"We cannot regard these tumults, with their like in other parts, but as
+the effects of Tory oppression. Our wish is to see _Rebecca and her
+children arrayed by thousands, for the suppression of Toryism_. These
+are the only means to remove the burden from the back of the country....
+Resolve to see the sword of reason plunged in oppression's heart." He
+goes on to say, "_there must be a hard-blowing storm_ before the high
+places in State and Church can be levelled," &c. &c. There is the usual
+twaddle about "_moral_ force," forsooth, under which saving periphrasis,
+now-a-days, every rebel ranter in field, or tub, or conventicle,
+insinuates lawless violence without naming it. Jack Cade would have made
+it the rallying cry of his raggamuffins, so would Wat Tyler, had it been
+hit upon in his day. The _array_ of _thousands_ is intelligible "to the
+meanest capacity." The dullest Welsh "copper-man," or collier, or wild
+farm cultivator, could not miss the meaning. But as to this magical
+weapon, "moral force," which they are to handle when so arrayed--the
+brightest capacity must be at a loss to know what it means. How absurd
+(if he pretends such a thing) to expect that enlightened statesmen will
+stand reformed, restrained, stricken through, with a new light in
+politics by the exhibition of these smutty patriots' _minds_ alone!--by
+the force of conviction, wrought by ascertaining _their_ convictions,
+(the _illuminati_ of Llanelly coal-works, of Swansea copper-works, of
+Carmarthen farm-yards,) will instantly _tack_--put the vessel of State
+right about, and bring her triumphant into the placid haven of
+Radicalism! And why _physical_ "array" to wield such shadowy arms as
+"_moral_" force? This favourite stalking-horse of incendiary politics is
+but the secret hiding-place of retreat from the "force of government."
+The peace, the forbearance it breathes, is like the brief silence
+maintained--the holding of the breath--by those snugly ensconced within
+that other horse of famous memory, the _Trojan_, which served admirably
+to lay vigilance asleep, and evade the defensive _force_ of the
+garrison, till the hour came to leap from its protection, and fire the
+citadel. This "moral force" covert of revolt, is every whit as hollow,
+as treacherous, as fatal, if trusted to. Inflame, enrage, and then
+gather together "thousands" of the most ignorant of mankind, pointing to
+a body, or a class, or a government, as the sole cause of whatever they
+suffer or dislike, and then--_tell_ them to be moral! peaceable! not to
+use those tens of thousands of brawny arms, inured to the sledge-hammer;
+oh, no! tell them that _force_ means to stand still--or disperse--or
+gabble--any thing but to--_fight!_ And such vile "juggling with us in a
+double sense" as this, is evangelical morality!
+
+In justice to the Liberal party, I shall add that it does not sanction
+the ravings of this hypocrite, but laughs at his illiterate pretensions
+to the character of a public writer. As evidence of this, the editor of
+the _Welshman_, a Liberal journal, published at Carmarthen, has ably
+castigated this sedition-monger, who has exposed his own ignorance in
+venting his wrath at the infliction.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pontardulais. Monday Evening.
+
+It was pleasant to emerge from that dingy seat of fanaticism and fury,
+pseudo religion and moral violation of religion's broad principles. Its
+aspect almost recalled the description of one of Rome's imperial
+monsters, equally in physionomy and nature--"a mixture of dirt and
+blood." The day was superb, and the adjacent country, though rather tame
+_for Wales_, improved in rural beauty as we approached a crossway very
+near to this village, Pontardulais. Two cottages appeared in a green,
+quiet, dingle we were descending to, watered by a small river, and
+surrounded by sloping meadows, now yellowed by the evening sun, and well
+inhabited by their proper population, sheep and cows, now beginning
+their homeward course at the call of the milkmaid; the only other motion
+in this simply beautiful landscape, being a scattered gleaner or two,
+with her load, and the rather thick volume of blue smoke curling up from
+one of those cots, which, standing so close, without any other near,
+prompted the idea of some rustic old couple in conjugal quietude,
+smiling out life's evening, by themselves, apart from all the world.
+Such was the perfect calm of scene, and the day in which summer heat was
+joined to the golden serenity of autumn.
+
+We were beginning to dismiss ugly Rebeccaism from our thoughts,
+meditating where we should find one of those Isaac Waltonian hostelries,
+with a sign swinging from an old tree, which we delight to make our
+evening quarters; for Pontardulais, we knew, was too lately a little
+battle-field to afford hope of this tranquil bliss, for here had
+occurred the first conflict, in which men had been wounded and prisoners
+made. The advance of evening, with its halcyon attributes of all kinds,
+had the effect of a lullaby on the mind, disturbed at every stage by
+some hurrying dragoon, some eager gossiping group, or fresh "news" of
+some farm "burned last night," or rumours of "martial law" being
+actually impending over us poor rebels of South Wales.
+
+Reaching the little houses in their lonely crossway, we were startled by
+the appearance of a gutted house; the walls alone having remained to
+present to us, on the higher ground, the semblance of a white cottage.
+The old thatch, fallen in, and timber, were still smouldering visibly,
+though the house was fired about one A.M. yesterday morning.
+
+Before the near adjoining cottage a quiet crowd of some twenty persons
+appeared, and a few rustic articles of furniture on the roadside. Where
+was their owner? Dismounting, we entered this cottage, that had looked
+all peaceful security so lately to our eyes. It had not been injured,
+but was all dismantled and in confusion; and stretched on some low sort
+of bench or seat, lay the murdered owner of that smoking ruin--the Hendy
+toll-house. Her coffin had been already made, (the coffin-plate giving
+her age, 75,) and stood leaning against the wall, but the body was
+preserved just as it fell, for the inspection of the jury. (The jury! a
+British jury! Is there a British _man_, incapable of perjury, of
+parricide, of bloody and blackest felony, _himself_, who will ever
+forget, who will ever cease to spurn, spit upon in thought,
+execrate in words, that degraded, wretched, most wicked knot of
+murder-screeners--_the Hendy Gate jury?_)
+
+There was nothing in this dismal spectacle for a poet to find there food
+for fancy. All was naked, ugly horror. An old rug just veiled the
+corpse, which, being turned down, revealed the orifice, just by the
+nipple, of a shot or slug wound, and her linen was stiff and saturated
+with the blood which had flowed. Another wound on the temple had caused
+a torrent of blood, which remained glued over the whole cheek. The
+retracted lips of this poor suffering creature, gave a dreadful grin to
+the aged countenance, expressing the strong agony she must have endured,
+no doubt from the filling up of the breast with those three pints of
+blood found there by the surgeons. The details of this savage murder
+have been too fully given in all the papers to need repetition here.
+Suffice it to say, that to any one _viewing_ the body as we thus
+happened to do, the atrocity of this heartless treason against society
+and the injured dead becomes yet more striking; it seeming wonderful
+that the piteousness of the sight--the mute pleading of that mouth full
+of cloated blood--the arousing ocular evidence of the unprovoked
+assassin's cruelty--the helplessness of the aged woman--her
+innocence--all should not have kindled humanity in their hearts, (if all
+principle was dead in their dark minds,) just enough to dare to call a
+foul murder "murder"--to turn those twelve Rebecca-ridden, crouching
+slaves into _men_! Some of them, probably, had old helpless mothers at
+home; did no flying vision of her white hairs all blooded, and the
+breast, where they had lain and fed, full of blood also, cross the
+conscience of one of them, when, by their conspiracy, protection for
+life was to be denied to her, to all, by their unheard-of abuse of the
+only known British protective power--trial by jury? It is almost an
+apology for them to imagine, that one or more of them were actually part
+of the gang. Self-preservation, under _instant_ danger, (involved in a
+just verdict,) is less revolting than the less urgent degree of the same
+natural impulse, implied in the hypothesis of pure selfish and most
+dastardly dread of some remoter evil to self from the ill-will of those
+impugned by a righteous verdict.
+
+The verdict, it will be remembered, was, that Sarah Williams died from
+effusion of blood, _but from what cause is to this jury unknown!!!_ The
+designed _trick_--the sly juggle concocted by these men, sworn before
+Almighty God to tell truth respecting the cry of blood then rising to
+his throne, evidently was to leave a loop-hole for a doubt whereby
+justice might be defeated--a possibility, so they flattered themselves,
+that, just in the nick of time, a bloodvessel burst, or fright destroyed
+her, or any thing but the bloody hand of "Rebecca." Though, as the slugs
+were actually found _in_ the lungs, the hope they "dressed themselves
+in" was as "drunk," as swinishly stupid, as their design was unmanly,
+inhuman, and devilish--to wink at this horror! to huddle up this murder,
+and hurry into the earth a murdered woman, as if she had lived out her
+term!
+
+Whatever was the prompting feeling of this monster-jury, let us hope
+that the arm of the law will reach them yet, for this double crime
+against bleeding innocence and against their country. It would be a
+fitting punishment to them, to pronounce every individual an outlaw--to
+deny him all benefit of those laws he has done his best to defeat, and
+leave the craven traitor to his kind--to adopt his beloved "'Becca's"
+disguise for ever, skulk about the land that disowns him in petticoats,
+and blush out his life (if shame be left him;) and let his name be fixed
+up, as a scarecrow to deter such evil doers, on the wall of every court
+of justice:--"To the infamous memory of A. B., one of the perjured
+protectors of murder--The Hendy Gate Jury!"
+
+Most revolting was the _betrayed_ bias of almost all we spoke with,
+toward palliation of this dark act. "_Didn't she die in a fit; or of
+fright; or something?_" was a frequent question, even from those near
+the scene of this tragedy. "_What did ail the old creture to go near
+'em? Name of goodness! didn't they order her not?_" Even from her own
+sex, a disgusting lack of warm-hearted pity and indignation was most
+palpable. Truly, morality and the meeting-house have a deep gulf between
+them, if these are the morals of the people. The regular church is
+really so little prized here, that we can only turn to the _dissenting_
+ministers of religious instruction, for the lower orders. And seeing
+these doings and sentiments in the flocks, one turns with astonishment
+to those professing _teachers_ of the Welsh, and is ready to
+exclaim--"What is it that you _do_ teach?" Only the _mechanical_ part of
+religion, only the necessary outer _mummery_, I shall venture to say,
+which, perhaps, all revealed religions require, to maintain a hold on
+the reverence of the common people. It seems impossible that the voice
+of _true_ religion can have reached hearts that a slight pecuniary
+interest, the abatement of a turnpike toll, or the like, can sear
+against the death-shriek of murdered woman; the cry of blood out of the
+earth; the fear of God's judgement against perjury, and connivance at
+murder!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, Sept. 12.
+
+Riding from Llanelly to this place, by a road skirting the coast, we,
+for the first time, heard the horn of Rebecca sounded, and replied to
+from among the darkling hills, the night being one of dusky moonlight.
+We at first believed it the signal of some persons in the collieries,
+but learned that "'Becca's company" had been out round Kidwelly that
+night, and an incendiary fire was the "good work" accomplished. It being
+near ten o'clock at night, and our road wild and solitary, we felt
+rather pleased to gain the covert of this usually most quiet little
+town, with its air of antiquity and dead repose, as agreeable to a
+sentimental traveller, as unwelcome to its few traders and dwellers.
+
+The innkeepers and shopkeepers, _being much injured in their trades by_
+the terrifying effect of Rebeccaism on strangers, who have kept aloof
+all the summer, lift up the voice (but cautiously) against this terrible
+lady. Hardly an expression of regret for the poor victim at Hendy Gate
+reaches our ears; but rather, they seem to visit on her the anticipated
+severity of future dealing with the rioters, which they foresee.
+
+We see already posted placards, offering L.500 for the discovery of the
+actual perpetrator of the murder of the poor toll-collector. It is
+headed "Murder," in the teeth of the audacious, solemn declaration by
+the jury, of their ignorance of the cause of death. _Query_, Was a
+coroner warranted in receiving such a verdict? Was he not
+empowered--required--to send the jury back to learn common sense?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Inn between Carmarthen and Llandilo.
+
+Just as we were sauntering in the rural road, admiring the placidity of
+the night, about ten o'clock, and the twilight landscape of the banks of
+the Towey, a sudden light opened up to us the whole night prospect,
+where the farther side of this broad vale rises finely covered with
+woods, round Middleton Hall, and soon learned the nature of this sudden
+illumination and pyramidal fire, being the conflagration of extensive
+property belonging to its owner, Mr Adams, close to the mansion.
+
+The terror of the female inhabitants may be imagined, there being, I
+believe, not any male inmates but servants at home, and the incendiaries
+doing their work at that early hour in the most daring manner, firing
+guns, blowing horns, &c. Mr Adams drove in just as the fire was at its
+height, (having, indeed, believed the house to be in flames while he
+approached,) and found the goods and moveables all brought out in fear
+of its catching fire; but it escaped--so did the Rebeccaites, of course.
+
+Not to extend too far these hasty Notes, I shall throw together the
+heads of a few made on the spot. Our "sentimental journey" occupied
+about three weeks, and brought us to almost every part infested by the
+disturbers. Having put up at an inn in the outskirts of a town in
+Cardiganshire for the night, leaving the horses, we walked to the town.
+As we returned, the night being rather dark, I was not conscious of any
+one being on the same road behind, and was talking to my son, rather
+earnestly, of the iniquitous verdict of the Hendy Gate assassin jury,
+when a voice behind asked in English, saucily, if _I_ was going to
+attend the future trial of the "Hugheses, and them of the Llanon
+village, then in Swansea jail?" The tone clearly indicated how alien to
+the Welshman's feelings were those I was expressing, though but those of
+common humanity. Giving the voice in the dark such short answer,
+refusing to satisfy him, as the question deserved, and with responsive
+bluffness, we left the man behind, who, it proved, was bound to our inn.
+We found our parlour filled with farmers, who instantly became _mum_ as
+we entered, but their eyes suspiciously surveyed us. It was near eleven
+o'clock, so we retired to our double-bedded chamber, which happened to
+be situated over the parlour. The inn (whose owners were _ultra_
+"Welshly," speaking English very badly,) was well situated for holding a
+midnight council of (Rebecca) war, being lonely, at the confluence of
+two roads, and this proved to be the nature of this late assemblage. We
+were just in bed, (having _secured the door as well as we could_,) when
+we heard through the imperfect flooring a very animated _melee_ of Welsh
+tongues all astir at once, and I fancied I recognized the voice of the
+pious Christian in the dark, who had been moved by the spirit (of
+religion of course) to hint or betray his dissent from the Saxon
+"stranger's" rebuke of perjury and murder-screening. A few minutes
+after, several hurried out, and three or four discharges of guns
+followed in front of the house, but nothing more. I was pleased to
+think that the said house and windows were "mine host's," and not mine,
+otherwise a little hail of shot might have followed the "short thunder;"
+but as it was, nothing more than this warning bravado (as I imagine it
+to have been) occurred.
+
+A great deal of _solo_ spouting, by orators in orderly succession, went
+on till near two in the morning--_Sunday_. At least, falling asleep, I
+left this little patriot parliament sitting, and found it in full tongue
+on awaking at that hour. I suppose this sitting in judgment on
+toll-houses (and possibly _other_ houses) of these anti-landlord
+committees, are _not_ breaches of the observance of the Sabbath.
+
+On the whole, we may remark, that neither Poor-Law, nor Tory, nor Whig,
+nor right rule, nor misrule, nor politics, nor party, had the slightest
+influence in this astounding moral revolution among an agricultural
+people. Utterly false is almost all that the London Press broached and
+broaches, implicating ministers in the provocation of this outbreak.
+Twenty years of residence, and leisure for observation among them,
+allows me to positively deny that any feeling of discontent, any sense
+of oppression, any knowledge of "Grievances," now so pompously heading
+columns of twaddle--ever existed before the _one_ daily, weekly spur in
+their side, goaded this simple people to a foolish mode of resistance to
+it.
+
+Why, not one in ten of the farmers has yet heard of Sir Robert Peel's
+accession to office! and I doubt if one in twenty knows whether they
+live under a Whig or Tory administration. Nor does one in a hundred
+_care_ which, or form one guess about their comparative merits.
+
+The only idea they have of Chartists, is a vague identification of them
+with "_rebels_," as they _used_ to call _all_ sorts of rioters, not
+dreaming of their forming any party with definite views, unless that of
+seizing the good things of the earth, and postponing, _sine die_, the
+day of payment.
+
+Judge what chance the brawling apostles of Chartism would have here
+among them, especially under the difficulty of haranguing them through
+interpreters!
+
+The Poor-Law they certainly hate, but from no pity for paupers. The
+dislike arises from a wide spread belief, that the host of "officers"
+attached to it swallows up great part of what they pay for the poor.
+They grudged the poor-rate before, even when their own overseer paid it
+away to poor old lame Davy or blind Gwinny; but now that it reaches them
+by a more circuitous route, and in the altered form of loaves or
+workhouse support, they seem to lose sight of it, and fancy that it
+stops _by the way_, in the pockets of these "strange" new middlemen, as
+we may call them, thrust in between the farmers and their poor and
+worn-out labourers.
+
+The prevalence of the Welsh language perpetuates the ignorance which is
+at the root of the mischief. Of their _native_ writers, I have given a
+specimen from the monthly magazine published at Llanelly, and the evil
+of these is uncorrected by English information.
+
+The work of mounting heavenward was, we are told, defeated by a
+confusion of tongues--the advance of civilization (which we may
+designate a progress toward a divine goal, that of soul-exalting and
+soul-saving wisdom) is as utterly prevented by this non-intercourse
+system between the civilized and the _half_ civilized; which, with all
+deference to the ancient Britons, I must venture to consider them.
+Camden, the antiquary, has preserved a tradition, that "certain
+Brittaines" (Britons) going over into Armorica, and taking wives from
+among the people of Normandy, "_did cut out their tongues_," through
+fear that, when they should become mothers, they might corrupt the Welsh
+tongue of the children, by teaching them that foreign language! The love
+of their own tongue thus appears to be of very old standing, if we are
+to believe this agreeable proof of it. I believe the extirpation of
+Welsh, as a spoken language, would pioneer the way to knowledge,
+civilization, and _religion_ here, of which last blessing there is a
+grievous lack, judging from the morals of the people.
+
+
+
+
+ADVENTURES IN TEXAS.
+
+NO. II.
+
+A TRIAL BY JURY.
+
+
+When I recovered from my state of insensibility, and once more opened my
+eyes, I was lying on the bank of a small but deep river. My horse was
+grazing quietly a few yards off, and beside me stood a man with folded
+arms, holding a wicker-covered flask in his hand. This was all I was
+able to observe; for my state of weakness prevented me from getting up
+and looking around me.
+
+"Where am I?" I gasped.
+
+"Where are you, stranger? By the Jacinto; and that you are _by_ it, and
+not _in_ it, is no fault of your'n, I reckon."
+
+There was something harsh and repulsive in the tone and manner in which
+these words were spoken, and in the grating scornful laugh that
+accompanied them, that jarred upon my nerves, and inspired me with a
+feeling of aversion towards the speaker. I knew that he was my
+deliverer; that he had saved my life, when my mustang, raging with
+thirst, had sprung head-foremost into the water; that, without him, I
+must inevitably have been drowned, even had the river been less deep
+than it was; and that it was by his care, and the whisky he had made me
+swallow, and of which I still felt the flavour on my tongue, that I had
+been recovered from the death-like swoon into which I had fallen. But
+had he done ten times as much for me, I could not have repressed the
+feeling of repugnance, the inexplicable dislike, with which the mere
+tones of his voice filled me. I turned my head away in order not to see
+him. There was a silence of some moments' duration.
+
+"Don't seem as if my company was over and above agreeable," said the man
+at last.
+
+"Your company not agreeable? This is the fourth day since I saw the face
+of a human being. During that time not a bit nor a drop has passed my
+tongue."
+
+"Hallo! That's a lie," shouted the man with another strange wild laugh.
+"You've taken a mouthful out of my flask; not _taken_ it, certainly, but
+it went over your tongue all the same. Where do you come from? The beast
+ain't your'n."
+
+"Mr Neal's," answered I.
+
+"See it is by the brand. But what brings you here from Mr Neal's? It's a
+good seventy mile to his plantation, right across the prairie. Ain't
+stole the horse, have you?"
+
+"Lost my way--four days--eaten nothing."
+
+These words were all I could articulate. I was too weak to talk.
+
+"Four days without eatin'," cried the man, with a laugh like the
+sharpening of a saw, "and that in a Texas prairie, and with islands on
+all sides of you! Ha! I see how it is. You're a gentleman--that's plain
+enough. I was a sort of one myself once. You thought our Texas prairies
+was like the prairies in the States. Ha, ha! And so you didn't know how
+to help yourself. Did you see no bees in the air, no strawberries on the
+earth?"
+
+"Bees? Strawberries?" repeated I.
+
+"Yes, bees, which live in the hollow trees. Out of twenty trees there's
+sure to be one full of honey. So you saw no bees, eh? Perhaps you don't
+know the creturs when you see 'em. Ain't altogether so big as wild-geese
+or turkeys. But you must know what strawberries are, and that _they_
+don't grow upon the trees."
+
+All this was spoken in the same sneering savage manner as before, with
+the speaker's head half turned over his shoulder, while his features
+were distorted into a contemptuous grin.
+
+"And if I had seen the bees, how was I to get at the honey without an
+axe?"
+
+"How did you lose yourself?"
+
+"My mustang--ran away"--
+
+"I see. And you after him. You'd have done better to let him run. But
+what d'ye mean to do now?"
+
+"I am weak--sick to death. I wish to get to the nearest house--an
+inn--anywhere where men are."
+
+"Where men are," repeated the stranger, with his scornful smile. "Where
+men are," he muttered again, taking a few steps on one side.
+
+I was hardly able to turn my head, but there was something strange in
+the man's movement that alarmed me; and, making a violent effort, I
+changed my position sufficiently to get him in sight again. He had drawn
+a long knife from his girdle, which he clutched in one hand, while he
+ran the fore finger of the other along its edge. I now for the first
+time got a full view of his face, and the impression it made upon me was
+any thing but favourable. His countenance was the wildest I had ever
+seen; his bloodshot eyes rolled like balls of fire in their sockets;
+while his movements and manner were indicative of a violent inward
+struggle. He did not stand still for three seconds together, but paced
+backwards and forwards with hurried irregular steps, casting wild
+glances over his shoulder, his fingers playing all the while with the
+knife, with the rapid and objectless movements of a maniac.
+
+I felt convinced that I was the cause of the struggle visibly going on
+within him, that my life or death was what he was deciding upon. But in
+the state I then was, death had no terror for me. The image of my
+mother, sisters, and father, passed before my eyes. I gave one thought
+to my peaceful happy home, and then looked upwards and prayed.
+
+The man had walked off to some distance. I turned myself a little more
+round, and, as I did so, I caught sight of the sane magnificent
+phenomenon which I had met with on the second day of my wanderings. The
+colossal live oak rose in all its silvery splendour, at the distance of
+a couple of miles. Whilst I was gazing at it, and reflecting on the
+strange ill luck that had made me pass within so short a distance of the
+river without finding it, I saw my new acquaintance approach a
+neighbouring cluster of trees, amongst which he disappeared.
+
+After a short time I again perceived him coming towards me with a slow
+and staggering step. As he drew near, I had an opportunity of examining
+his whole appearance. He was very tall and lean, but large-boned, and
+apparently of great strength. His face, which had not been shaved for
+several weeks, was so tanned by sun and weather, that he might have been
+taken for an Indian, had not the beard proved his claim to white blood.
+But his eyes were what most struck me. There was something so
+frightfully wild in their expression, a look of terror and desperation,
+like that of a man whom all the furies of hell were hunting and
+persecuting. His hair hung in long ragged locks over his forehead,
+cheeks, and neck, and round his head was bound a handkerchief, on which
+were several stains of a brownish black colour. Spots of the same kind
+were visible upon his leathern jacket, breeches, and mocassins; they
+were evidently blood stains. His hunting knife, which was nearly two
+feet long, with a rude wooden handle, was now replaced in his girdle,
+but in its stead he held a Kentucky rifle in his hand.
+
+Although I did my utmost to assume an indifferent countenance, my
+features doubtless expressed something of the repugnance and horror with
+which the man inspired me. He looked loweringly at me for a moment from
+under his shaggy eyebrows.
+
+"You don't seem to like the company you've got into," said he. "Do I
+look so very desperate, then? Is it written so plainly on my face?"
+
+"What should there be written upon your face?"
+
+"What? What? Fools and children ask them questions."
+
+"I will ask you none; but as a Christian, as my countryman, I beseech
+you"----
+
+"Christian!" interrupted he, with a hollow laugh. "Countryman!" He
+struck the but of his rifle hard upon the ground. "That is my
+countryman--my only friend!" he continued, as he examined the flint and
+lock of his weapon. "That releases from all troubles; that's a true
+friend. Pooh! perhaps it'll release you too--put you to rest."
+
+These last words were uttered aside, and musingly.
+
+"Put him to rest, as well as---- Pooh! One more or less--Perhaps it
+would drive away that cursed spectre."
+
+All this seemed to be spoken to his rifle.
+
+"Will you swear not to betray me?" cried he to me. "Else, one touch"----
+
+As he spoke, he brought the gun to his shoulder, the muzzle pointed
+full at my breast.
+
+I felt no fear. I am sure my pulse did not give a
+throb the more for this menace. So deadly weak and helpless as I lay, it
+was unnecessary to shoot me. The slightest blow from the but of the
+rifle would have driven the last faint spark of life out of my exhausted
+body. I looked calmly, indifferently even, into the muzzle of the piece.
+
+"If you can answer it to your God, to your and my judge and creator, do
+your will."
+
+My words, which from faintness I could scarcely render audible, had,
+nevertheless, a sudden and startling effect upon the man. He trembled
+from head to foot, let the but of his gun fall heavily to the ground,
+and gazed at me with open mouth and staring eyes.
+
+"This one, too, comes with his God!" muttered he. "God! and your and my
+creator--and--judge."
+
+He seemed hardly able to articulate these words, which were uttered by
+gasps and efforts, as though something had been choking him.
+
+"His and my--judge"--groaned he again. "Can there be a God, a creator
+and judge?"
+
+As he stood thus muttering to himself, his eyes suddenly became fixed,
+and his features horribly distorted.
+
+"Do it not!" cried he, in a shrill tone of horror, that rang through my
+head. "It will bring no blessin' with it. I am a dead man! God be
+merciful to me! My poor wife, my poor children!"
+
+The rifle fell from his hands, and he smote his breast and forehead in a
+paroxysm of the wildest fury. It was frightful to behold the
+conscience-stricken wretch, stamping madly about, and casting glances of
+terror behind him, as though demons had been hunting him down. The foam
+flew from his mouth, and I expected each moment to see him fall to the
+ground in a fit of epilepsy. Gradually, however, he became more
+tranquil.
+
+"D'ye see nothin' in my face?" said he in a hoarse whisper, suddenly
+pausing close to where I lay.
+
+"What should I see?"
+
+He came yet nearer.
+
+"Look well at me--_through_ me, if you can. D'ye see nothin' now?"
+
+"I see nothing," replied I.
+
+"Ah! I understand, you can see nothin'. Ain't in a spyin' humour, I
+calkilate. No, no, that you ain't. After four days and nights fastin',
+one loses the fancy for many things. I've tried it for two days myself.
+So, you are weak and faint, eh? But I needn't ask that, I reckon. You
+look bad enough. Take another drop of whisky; it'll strengthen you. But
+wait till I mix it."
+
+As he spoke, he stepped down to the edge of the river, and scooping up
+the water in the hollow of his hand, filled his flask with it. Then
+returning to me, he poured a little into my mouth.
+
+Even the bloodthirsty Indian appears less of a savage when engaged in a
+compassionate act, and the wild desperado I had fallen in with, seemed
+softened and humanized by the service he was rendering me. His voice
+sounded less harsh; his manner was calmer and milder.
+
+"You wish to go to an inn?"
+
+"For Heaven's sake, yes. These four days I have tasted nothing but a bit
+of tobacco."
+
+"Can you spare a bit of that?"
+
+"All I have."
+
+I handed him my cigar case, and the roll of _dulcissimus_. He snatched
+the latter from me, and bit into it with the furious eagerness of a
+wolf.
+
+"Ah, the right sort this!" muttered he to himself. "Ah, young man, or
+old man--you're an old man, ain't you? How old are you?"
+
+"Two-and-twenty."
+
+He shook his head doubtingly.
+
+"Can hardly believe that. But four days in the prairie, and nothin' to
+eat. Well, it may be so. But, stranger, if I had had this bit of tobacco
+only ten days ago--A bit of tobacco is worth a deal sometimes. It might
+have saved a man's life!"
+
+Again he groaned, and his accents became wild and unnatural.
+
+"I say, stranger!" cried he in a threatening tone. "I say! D'ye see
+yonder live oak? D'ye see it? It's the Patriarch, and a finer and
+mightier one you won't find in the prairies, I reckon. D'ye see it?"
+
+"I do see it."
+
+"Ah! you see it," cried he fiercely. "And what is it to you? What have
+you to do with the Patriarch, or with what lies under it? I reckon you
+had best not be too curious that way. If you dare take a step under that
+tree."--He swore an oath too horrible to be repeated.
+
+"There's a spectre there," cried he; "a spectre that would fright you to
+death. Better keep away."
+
+"I will keep away," replied I. "I never thought of going near it. All I
+want is to get to the nearest plantation or inn."
+
+"Ah! true, man--the next inn. I'll show you the way to it. I will."
+
+"You will save my life by so doing," said I, "and I shall be ever
+grateful to you as my deliverer."
+
+"Deliverer!" repeated he, with a wild laugh. "Pooh! If you knew what
+sort of a deliverer--Pooh! What's the use of savin' a life, when--yet I
+will--I will save yours, perhaps the cursed spectre will leave me then.
+Will you not? Will you not?" cried he, suddenly changing his scornful
+mocking tones to those of entreaty and supplication, and turning his
+face in the direction of the live oak. Again his wildness of manner
+returned, and his eyes became fixed, as he gazed for some moments at the
+gigantic tree. Then darting away, he disappeared among the trees, whence
+he had fetched his rifle, and presently emerged again, leading a ready
+saddled horse with him. He called to me to mount mine, but seeing that I
+was unable even to rise from the ground, he stepped up to me, and with
+the greatest ease lifted me into the saddle with one hand, so light had
+I become during my long fast. Then taking the end of my lasso, he got
+upon his own horse and set off, leading my mustang after him.
+
+We rode on for some time without exchanging a word. My guide kept up a
+sort of muttered soliloquy; but as I was full ten paces in his rear, I
+could distinguish nothing of what he said. At times he would raise his
+rifle to his shoulder then lower it again, and speak to it, sometimes
+caressingly, sometimes in anger. More than once he turned his head, and
+cast keen searching glances at me, as though to see whether I were
+watching him or not.
+
+We had ridden more than an hour, and the strength which the whisky had
+given me was fast failing, so that I expected each moment to fall from
+my horse, when suddenly I caught sight of a kind of rude hedge, and
+almost immediately afterwards the wall of a small blockhouse became
+visible. A faint cry of joy escaped me, and I endeavoured, but in vain,
+to give my horse the spur. My guide turned round, fixed his wild eyes
+upon me, and spoke in a threatening tone.
+
+"You are impatient, man! impatient, I see. You think now, perhaps"----
+
+"I am dying," was all I could utter. In fact, my senses were leaving me
+from exhaustion, and I really thought my last hour was come.
+
+"Pooh! dyin'! One don't die so easy. And yet--d----n!--it might be
+true."
+
+He sprang off his horse, and was just in time to catch me in his arms as
+I fell from the saddle. A few drops of whisky, however, restored me to
+consciousness. My guide replaced me upon my mustang, and after passing
+through a potato ground, a field of Indian corn, and a small grove of
+peach-trees, we found ourselves at the door of the blockhouse.
+
+I was so utterly helpless, that my strange companion was obliged to lift
+me off my horse, and carry me into the dwelling. He sat me down upon a
+bench, passive and powerless as an infant. Strange to say, however, I
+was never better able to observe all that passed around me, than during
+the few hours of bodily debility that succeeded my immersion in the
+Jacinto. A blow with a reed would have knocked me off my seat, but my
+mental faculties, instead of participating in this weakness, seemed
+sharpened to an unusual degree of acuteness.
+
+The blockhouse in which we now were, was of the poorest possible
+description; a mere log hut, consisting of one room, that served as
+kitchen, sitting-room, and bedchamber. The door of rough planks swung
+heavily upon two hooks that fitted into iron rings, and formed a clumsy
+substitute for hinges; a wooden latch and heavy bar served to secure it;
+windows, properly speaking, there were none, but in their stead a few
+holes covered with dirty oiled paper; the floor was of clay, stamped
+hard and dry in the middle of the hut, but out of which, at the sides of
+the room, a crop of rank grass was growing, a foot or more high. In one
+corner stood a clumsy bedstead, in another a sort of table or counter,
+on which were half a dozen drinking glasses of various sizes and
+patterns. The table consisted of four thick posts, firmly planted in the
+ground, and on which were nailed three boards that had apparently
+belonged to some chest or case, for they were partly painted, and there
+was a date, and the three first letters of a word upon one of them. A
+shelf fixed against the side of the hut supported an earthen pot or two,
+and three or four bottles, uncorked, and apparently empty; and from some
+wooden pegs wedged in between the logs, hung suspended a few articles of
+wearing apparel of no very cleanly aspect.
+
+Pacing up and down the hut with a kind of stealthy cat-like pace, was an
+individual, whose unprepossessing exterior was in good keeping with the
+wretched appearance of this Texian shebeen house. He was an undersized,
+stooping figure, red-haired, large mouthed, and possessed of small,
+reddish, pig's eyes, which he seemed totally unable to raise from the
+ground, and the lowering, hang-dog expression of which, corresponded
+fully with the treacherous, panther-like stealthiness of his step and
+movements. Without greeting us either by word or look, this personage
+dived into a dark corner of his tenement, brought out a full bottle, and
+placing it on the table beside the glasses, resumed the monotonous sort
+of exercise in which he had been indulging on our entrance.
+
+My guide and deliverer said nothing while the tavern-keeper was getting
+out the bottle, although he seemed to watch all his movements with a
+keen and suspicious eye. He now filled a large glass of spirits, and
+tossed it off at a single draught. When he had done this, he spoke for
+the first time.
+
+"Johnny!"
+
+Johnny made no answer.
+
+"This gentleman has eaten nothing for four days."
+
+"Indeed," replied Johnny, without looking up, or intermitting his
+sneaking, restless walk from one corner of the room to the other.
+
+"I said four days, d'ye hear? Four days. Bring him tea immediately,
+strong tea, and then make some good beef soup. The tea must be ready
+directly, the soup in an hour at farthest, d'ye understand? And then I
+want some whisky for myself, and a beefsteak and potatoes. Now, tell all
+that to your Sambo."
+
+Johnny did not seem to hear, but continued his walk, creeping along with
+noiseless step, and each time that he turned, giving a sort of spring
+like a cat or a panther.
+
+"I've money, Johnny," said my guide. "Money, man, d'ye hear?" And so
+saying, he produced a tolerably full purse.
+
+For the first time Johnny raised his head, gave an indefinable sort of
+glance at the purse, and then springing forward, fixed his small,
+cunning eyes upon those of my guide, while a smile of strange meaning
+spread over his repulsive features.
+
+The two men stood for the space of a minute, staring at each other,
+without uttering a word. An infernal grin distended Johnny's coarse
+mouth from ear to ear. My guide seemed to gasp for breath.
+
+"I've money," cried he at last, striking the but of his rifle violently
+on the ground. "D'ye understand, Johnny? Money; and a rifle too, if
+needs be."
+
+He stepped to the table and filled another glass of raw spirits, which
+disappeared like the preceding one. While he drank, Johnny stole out of
+the room so softly that my companion was only made aware of his
+departure by the noise of the wooden latch. He then came up to me, took
+me in his arms without saying a word, and, carrying me to the bed, laid
+me gently down upon it.
+
+"You make yourself at home," snarled Johnny, who just then came in
+again.
+
+"Always do that, I reckon, when I'm in a tavern," answered my guide,
+quietly pouring out and swallowing another glassful. "The gentleman
+shall have your bed to-day. You and Sambo may sleep in the pigsty. You
+have none though, I believe?"
+
+"Bob!" screamed Johnny furiously.
+
+"That's my name--Bob Rock."
+
+"For the present," hissed Johnny, with a sneer.
+
+"The same as yours is Johnny Down," replied Bob in the same tone. "Pooh!
+Johnny, guess we know one another?"
+
+"Rayther calkilate we do," replied Johnny through his teeth.
+
+"And have done many a day," laughed Bob. "You're the famous Bob from
+Sodoma in Georgia?"
+
+"Sodoma in Alabama, Johnny. Sodoma lies in Alabama," said Bob, filling
+another glass. "Don't you know that yet, you who were above a year in
+Columbus, doin' all sorts of dirty work?"
+
+"Better hold your tongue, Bob," said Johnny, with a dangerous look at
+me.
+
+"Pooh! Don't mind him, he won't talk, I'll answer for it. He's lost the
+taste for chatterin' in the Jacinto prairie. But Sodoma," continued Bob,
+"is in Alabama, man! Columbus in Georgia! They are parted by the
+Chatahoochie. Ah! that was a jolly life we led on the Chatahoochie. But
+nothin' lasts in this world, as my old schoolmaster used to say. Pooh!
+They've druv the Injuns a step further over the Mississippi now. But it
+was a glorious life--warn't it?"
+
+Again he filled his glass and drank.
+
+The information I gathered from this conversation as to the previous
+life and habits of these two men, had nothing in it very satisfactory or
+reassuring for me. In the whole of the south-western states there was no
+place that could boast of being the resort of so many outlaws and bad
+characters as the town of Sodoma. It is situated, or was situated, at
+least, a few years previously to the time I speak of, in Alabama, on
+Indian ground, and was the harbour of refuge for all the murderers and
+outcasts from the western and south-western parts of the Union. Here,
+under Indian government, they found shelter and security; and frightful
+were the crimes and cruelties perpetrated at this place. Scarcely a day
+passed without an assassination, not secretly committed but in broad
+sunlight. Bands of these wretches, armed with knives and rifles, used to
+cross the Chatahoochie, and make inroads into Columbus; break into
+houses, rob, murder, ill-treat women, and then return in triumph to
+their dens, laden with booty, and laughing at the laws. It was useless
+to think of pursuing them, or of obtaining justice, for they were on
+Indian territory; and many of the chiefs were in league with them. At
+length General Jackson and the government took it up. The Indians were
+driven over the Mississippi, the outlaws and murderers fled, Sodoma
+itself disappeared; and, released from its troublesome neighbours,
+Columbus is now as flourishing a state as any in the west.
+
+The recollections of their former life and exploits seemed highly
+interesting to the two comrades; and their communications became more
+and more confidential. Johnny filled himself a glass, and the
+conversation soon increased in animation. I could understand little of
+what they said, for they spoke a sort of thieves' jargon. After a time,
+their voices sounded as a confused hum in my ears, the objects in the
+room became gradually less distinct, and I fell asleep.
+
+I was roused, not very gently, by a mulatto woman, who poured a spoonful
+of tea into my mouth before I had well opened my eyes. She at first did
+not appear to be attending to me with any great degree of good-will; but
+by the time she had given me half a dozen spoonsful her womanly
+sympathies began to be awakened, and her manner became kinder. The tea
+did me an infinite deal of good, and seemed to infuse new life into my
+veins. I finished the cup, and the mulatto laid me down again on my
+pillow with far more gentleness than she had lifted me up.
+
+"Gor! Gor!" cried she, "what poor young man! Berry weak. Him soon
+better. One hour, massa, good soup."
+
+"Soup! What do you want with soup?" grumbled Johnny.
+
+"Him take soup. I cook it," screamed the woman.
+
+"Worse for you if she don't, Johnny," said Bob.
+
+Johnny muttered something in reply, but I did not distinguish what it
+was, for my eyes closed, and I again fell asleep.
+
+It seemed to me as if I had not been five minutes slumbering when the
+mulatto returned with the soup. The tea had revived me, but this gave me
+strength; and when I had taken it I was able to sit up in my bed.
+
+While the woman was feeding me, Bob was eating his beefsteak. It was a
+piece of meat that might have sufficed for six persons, but the man
+seemed as hungry as if he had eaten nothing for three days. He cut off
+wedges half as big as his fist, swallowed them with ravenous eagerness,
+and, instead of bread, bit into some unpeeled potatoes. All this was
+washed down with glass after glass of raw spirits, which had the effect
+of wakening him up, and infusing a certain degree of cheerfulness into
+his strange humour. He still spoke more to himself than to Johnny, but
+his recollections seemed agreeable; he nodded self-approvingly, and
+sometimes laughed aloud. At last he began to abuse Johnny for being, as
+he said, such a sneaking, cowardly fellow--such a treacherous,
+false-hearted gallows-bird.
+
+"It's true," said he, "I am gallows-bird enough myself, but then I'm
+open, and no man can say I'm a-fear'd; but Johnny, Johnny, who"----
+
+I do not know what he was about to say, for Johnny sprang towards him,
+and placed both hands over his mouth, receiving in return a blow that
+knocked him as far as the door, through which he retreated, cursing and
+grumbling.
+
+I soon fell asleep again, and whilst in that state I had a confused sort
+of consciousness of various noises in the room, loud words, blows, and
+shouting. Wearied as I was, however, I believe no noise would have fully
+roused me, although hunger at last did.
+
+When I opened my eyes I saw the mulatto woman sitting by my bed, and
+keeping off the mosquitoes. She brought me the remainder of the soup,
+and promised, if I would sleep a couple of hours more, to bring me a
+beefsteak. Before the two hours had elapsed I awoke, hungrier than ever.
+After I had eaten all the beefsteak the woman would allow me, which was
+a very moderate quantity, she brought me a beer-glass full of the most
+delicious punch I ever tasted. I asked her where she had got the rum and
+lemons, and she told me that it was she who had bought them, as well as
+a stock of coffee and tea; that Johnny was her partner, but that he had
+done nothing but build the house, and badly built it was. She then began
+to abuse Johnny, and said he was a gambler; and, worse still, that he
+had had plenty of money once, but had lost it all; that she had first
+known him in Lower Natchez, but he had been obliged to run away from
+there in the night to save his neck. Bob was no better, she said; on the
+contrary--and here she made the gesture of cutting a man's throat--he
+was a very bad fellow, she added. He had got drunk after his dinner,
+knocked Johnny down, and broken every thing. He was now lying asleep
+outside the door; and Johnny had hidden himself somewhere.
+
+How long she continued speaking I know not, for I again fell into a deep
+sleep, which this time lasted six or seven hours.
+
+I was awakened by a strong grasp laid upon my arm, which made me cry
+out, more, however, from surprise than pain. Bob stood by my bedside;
+the traces of the preceding night's debauch plainly written on his
+haggard countenance. His bloodshot eyes were inflamed and swollen, and
+rolled with even more than their usual wildness; his mouth was open, and
+the jaws stiff and fixed; he looked as if he had just come from
+committing some frightful deed. I could fancy the first murderer to have
+worn such an aspect when gazing on the body of his slaughtered brother.
+I shrank back, horror-struck at his appearance.
+
+"In God's name, man, what do you want?"
+
+He made no answer.
+
+"You are in a fever. You've the ague!"
+
+"Ay, a fever," groaned he, shivering as he spoke; "a fever, but not the
+one you mean; a fever, young man, such as God keep you from ever
+having."
+
+His whole frame shuddered while he uttered these words. There was a
+short pause.
+
+"Curious that," continued he; "I've served more than one in the same
+way, but never thought of it afterwards--was forgotten in less than no
+time. Got to pay the whole score at once, I suppose. Can't rest a
+minute. In the open prairie it's the worst; there stands the old man, so
+plain, with his silver beard, and the spectre just behind him."
+
+His eyes rolled, he clenched his fists, and, striking his forehead
+furiously, rushed out of the hut.
+
+In a few minutes he returned, apparently more composed, and walked
+straight up to my bed.
+
+"Stranger, you must do me a service," said he abruptly.
+
+"Ten rather than one," replied I; "any thing that is in my power. Do I
+not owe you my life?"
+
+"You're a gentleman, I see, and a Christian. You must come with me to
+the squire--the Alcalde."
+
+"To the Alcalde, man! What must I go there for?"
+
+"You'll see and hear when you get there; I've something to tell
+him--something for his own ear."
+
+He drew a deep breath, and remained silent for a short time, gazing
+anxiously on all sides of him.
+
+"Something," whispered he, "that nobody else must hear."
+
+"But there's Johnny there. Why not take him?"
+
+"Johnny!" cried he, with a scornful laugh; "Johnny! who's ten times
+worse than I am, bad as I be; and bad I am to be sure, but yet open and
+above board, always, till this time; but Johnny! he'd sell his own
+mother. He's a cowardly, sneakin', treacherous hound, is Johnny."
+
+It was unnecessary to tell me this, for Johnny's character was written
+plainly enough upon his countenance.
+
+"But why do you want me to go to the Alcalde?"
+
+"Why does one want people before the judge? He's a judge, man; a Mexican
+one certainly, but chosen by us Americans; and an American himself, as
+you and I are."
+
+"And how soon must I go?"
+
+"Directly. I can't bear it any longer. It leaves me no peace. Not an
+hour's rest have I had for the last eight days. When I go out into the
+prairie, the spectre stands before me and beckons me on, and if I try to
+go another way, he comes behind me and drives me before him under the
+Patriarch. I see him just as plainly as when he was alive, only paler
+and sadder. It seems as if I could touch him with my hand. Even the
+bottle is no use now; neither rum, nor whisky, nor brandy, rid me of
+him; it don't, by the 'tarnel.--Curious that! I got drunk
+yesterday--thought to get rid of him; but he came in the night and drove
+me out. I was obliged to go. Wouldn't let me sleep; was forced to go
+under the Patriarch."
+
+"Under the Patriarch? the live oak?" cried I, in astonishment.--"Were
+you there in the night?"
+
+"Ay, that was I," replied he, in the same horribly confidential tone;
+"and the spirit threatened me, and said I will leave you no peace, Bob,
+till you go to the Alcalde and tell him"----
+
+"Then I will go with you to the Alcalde, and that immediately," said I,
+raising myself up in bed. I could not help pitying the poor fellow from
+my very soul.
+
+"Where are you going?" croaked Johnny, who at this moment glided into
+the room. "Not a step shall you stir till you've paid."
+
+"Johnny," said Bob, seizing his less powerful companion by the
+shoulders, lifting him up like a child, and then setting him down again
+with such force, that his knees cracked and bent under him;--"Johnny,
+this gentlemen is my guest, d'ye understand? And here is the reckonin',
+and mind yourself, Johnny--mind yourself, that's all."
+
+Johnny crept into a corner like a flogged hound; the mulatto woman,
+however, did not seem disposed to be so easily intimidated. Sticking her
+arms in her sides, she waddled boldly forward.
+
+"You not take him 'way, Massa Bob?", screamed she. "Him stop here. Him
+berry weak--not able for ride--not able for stand on him foot."
+
+This was true enough. Strong as I had felt in bed, I could hardly stand
+upright when I got out of it.
+
+For a moment Bob seemed undecided, but only for one moment; then,
+stepping up to the mulatto, he lifted her, fat and heavy as she was, in
+the same manner as he had done her partner, at least a foot from the
+ground, and carried her screaming and struggling to the door, which he
+kicked open. Then setting her down outside, "Silence!" roared he, "and
+some good strong tea instead of your cursed chatter, and a fresh
+beefsteak instead of your stinking carcass. That will strengthen the
+gentleman; so be quick about it, you old brown-skinned beast, you!"
+
+I had slept in my clothes, and my toilet was consequently soon made, by
+the help of a bowl of water and towel, which Bob made Johnny bring, and
+then ordered him to go and get our horses ready.
+
+A hearty breakfast of tea, butter, Indian corn bread, and steaks,
+increased my strength so much, that I was able to mount my mustang. I
+had still pains in all my limbs, but we rode slowly; the morning was
+bright, the air fresh and elastic, and I felt myself getting gradually
+better. Our path led through the prairie; the river fringed with wood,
+on the one hand; the vast ocean of grass, sprinkled with innumerable
+islands of trees, on the other. We saw abundance of game, which sprang
+up under the very feet of our horses; but although Bob had his rifle, he
+made no use of it. He muttered continually to himself, and seemed to be
+arranging what he should say to the judge; for I heard him talking of
+things which I would just as soon not have listened to, if I could have
+helped it. I was heartily glad when we at length reached the plantation
+of the Alcalde.
+
+It seemed a very considerable one, and the size and appearance of the
+framework house bespoke comfort and every luxury. The building was
+surrounded by a group of China trees, which I should have thought about
+ten years of age, but which I afterwards learned had not been planted
+half that time, although they were already large enough to afford a very
+agreeable shade. Right in front of the house rose a live oak, inferior
+in size to the one in the prairie, but still of immense age and great
+beauty. To the left was some two hundred acres of cotton fields,
+extending to the bank of the Jacinto, which at this spot made a sharp
+turn, and winding round the plantation, enclosed it on three sides.
+Before the house lay the prairie, with its archipelago of islands, and
+herds of grazing cattle and mustangs; to the right, more cotton fields;
+and in rear of the dwelling, the negro cottages and out-buildings. There
+was a Sabbath-like stillness pervading the whole scene, which seemed to
+strike even Bob. He paused as though in deep thought, and allowed his
+hand to rest for a moment on the handle of the lattice door. Then with a
+sudden and resolute jerk, bespeaking an equally sudden resolution, he
+pushed open the gate, and we entered a garden planted with orange,
+banana, and citron trees, the path through which was enclosed between
+palisades, and led to a sort of front court, with another lattice-work
+door, beside which hung a bell. Upon ringing this, a negro appeared.
+
+The black seemed to know Bob very well, for he nodded to him as to an
+old acquaintance, and said the squire wanted him, and had asked after
+him several times. He then led the way to a large parlour, very
+handsomely furnished for Texas, and in which we found the squire, or
+more properly speaking, the Alcalde, sitting smoking his cigar. He had
+just breakfasted, and the plates and dishes were still upon the table.
+He did not appear to be much given to compliments or ceremony, or to
+partake at all of the Yankee failing of curiosity, for he answered our
+salutation with a laconic "good-morning," and scarcely even looked at
+us. At the very first glance, it was easy to see that he came from
+Tennessee or Virginia, the only provinces in which one finds men of his
+gigantic mould. Even sitting, his head rose above those of the negro
+servants in waiting. Nor was his height alone remarkable; he had the
+true West-Virginian build; the enormous chest and shoulders, and
+herculean limbs, the massive features and sharp grey eyes; altogether an
+exterior well calculated to impose on the rough backwoodsmen with whom
+he had to deal.
+
+I was tired with my ride, and took a chair. The squire apparently did
+not deem me worthy of notice, or else he reserved me for a later
+scrutiny; but he fixed a long, searching look upon Bob, who remained
+standing, with his head sunk on his breast.
+
+The judge at last broke silence.
+
+"So here you are again, Bob. It's long since we've seen you, and I
+thought you had clean forgotten us. Well, Bob, we shouldn't have broke
+our hearts, I reckon; for I hate gamblers--ay, that I do--worse than
+skunks. It's a vile thing is play, and has ruined many a man in this
+world, and the next. It's ruined you too, Bob."
+
+Bob said nothing.
+
+"You'd have been mighty useful here last week; there was plenty for you
+to do. My step-daughter arrived; but as you weren't to be found, we had
+to send to Joel to shoot us a buck and a couple of dozen snipes. Ah,
+Bob! one might still make a good citizen of you, if you'd only leave off
+that cursed play!"
+
+Bob still remained silent.
+
+"Now go into the kitchen and get some breakfast."
+
+Bob neither answered nor moved.
+
+"D'ye hear? Go into the kitchen and get something to eat. And,
+Ptoly"--added he to the negro--"tell Veny to give him a pint of rum."
+
+"Don't want yer rum--ain't thirsty"--growled Bob.
+
+"Very like, very like," said the judge sharply. "Reckon you've taken too
+much already. Look as if you could swallow a wild cat, claws and all.
+And you," added he, turning to me--"What the devil are you at, Ptoly?
+Don't you see the man wants his breakfast? Where's the coffee? Or would
+you rather have tea?"
+
+"Thank you, Alcalde, I have breakfasted already."
+
+"Don't look as if. Ain't sick, are you? Where do you come from? What's
+happened to you? What are you doing with Bob?"
+
+He looked keenly and searchingly at me, and then again at Bob. My
+appearance was certainly not very prepossessing, unshaven as I was, and
+with my clothes and linen soiled and torn. He was evidently considering
+what could be the motive of our visit, and what had brought me into
+Bob's society. The result of his physiognomical observations did not
+appear very favourable either to me or my companion. I hastened to
+explain.
+
+"You shall hear how it was, judge. I am indebted to Bob for my life."
+
+"Your life! Indebted to Bob for your life!" repeated the judge, shaking
+his head incredulously.
+
+I related how I had lost my way in the prairie; been carried into the
+Jacinto by my horse; and how I should inevitably have been drowned but
+for Bob's aid.
+
+"Indeed!" said the judge, when I had done speaking. "So, Bob saved your
+life! Well, I am glad of it, Bob, very glad of it. Ah! if you could only
+keep away from that Johnny. I tell you, Bob, Johnny will be the ruin of
+you. Better keep out of his way."
+
+"It's too late," answered Bob.
+
+"Don't know why it should be. Never too late to leave a debauched,
+sinful life; never, man!"
+
+"Calkilate it is, though," replied Bob sullenly.
+
+"You calculate it is?" said the judge, fixing his eyes on him. "And why
+do you calculate that? Take a glass--Ptoly, a glass--and tell me, man,
+why should it be too late?"
+
+"I ain't thirsty, squire," said Bob.
+
+"Don't talk to me of your thirst; rum's not for thirst, but to
+strengthen the heart and nerves, to drive away the blue devils. And a
+good thing it is, taken in moderation."
+
+As he spoke he filled himself a glass, and drank half of it off. Bob
+shook his head.
+
+"No rum for me, squire. I take no pleasure in it. I've something on my
+mind too heavy for rum to wash away."
+
+"And what is that, Bob? Come, let's hear what you've got to say. Or
+perhaps, you'd rather speak to me alone. It's Sunday to-day, and no
+business ought to be done; but for once, and for you, we'll make an
+exception."
+
+"I brought the gentleman with me on purpose to witness what I had to
+say," answered Bob, taking a cigar out of a box that stood on the table,
+and lighting it. He smoked a whiff or two, looked thoughtfully at the
+judge, and then threw the cigar through the open window.
+
+"It don't relish, squire; nothin' does now."
+
+"Ah, Bob! if you'd leave off play and drink! They're your ruin; worse
+than ague or fever."
+
+"It's no use," continued Bob, as if he did not hear the judge's remark;
+"it must out. I fo't agin it, and thought to drive it away, but it can't
+be done. I've put a bit of lead into several before now, but this
+one"----
+
+"What's that?" cried the judge, chucking his cigar away, and looking
+sternly at Bob. "What's up now? What are you saying about a bit of lead?
+None of your Sodoma and Lower Natchez tricks, I hope? They won't do
+here. Don't understand such jokes."
+
+"Pooh! they don't understand them a bit more in Natchez. If they did, I
+shouldn't be in Texas."
+
+"The less said of that the better, Bob. You promised to lead a new life
+here; so we won't rake up old stories."
+
+"I did, I did!" groaned Bob; "but it's all no use. I shall never be
+better till I'm hung."
+
+I stared at the man in astonishment. The judge, however, took another
+cigar, lighted it, and, after puffing out a cloud of smoke, said, very
+unconcernedly"--
+
+"Not better till you're hung! What do you want to be hung
+for? To be sure, you should have been long ago, if the Georgia and
+Alabama papers don't lie. But we are not in the States here, but in
+Texas, under Mexican laws. It's nothing to us what you've done yonder.
+Where there is no accuser there can be no judge."
+
+"Send away the nigger, squire," said Bob. "What a free white man has to
+say, shouldn't be heard by black ears."
+
+"Go away, Ptoly," said the judge. "Now, then," added he, turning to Bob,
+"say what you have to say; but mind, nobody forces you to do it, and
+it's only out of good will that I listen to you, for to-day's Sunday."
+
+"I know that," muttered Bob; "I know that, squire; but it leaves me no
+peace, and it must out. I've been to San Felipe de Austin, to Anahuac,
+every where, but it's all no use. Wherever I go, the spectre follows me,
+and drives me back under the cursed Patriarch."
+
+"Under the Patriarch!" exclaimed the judge.
+
+"Ay, under the Patriarch!" groaned Bob. "Don't you know the Patriarch;
+the old live oak near the ford, on the Jacinto?"
+
+"I know, I know!" answered the Judge. "And what drives you under the
+Patriarch?"
+
+"What drives me? What drives a man who--who"----
+
+"A man who"---- repeated the judge, gently.
+
+"A man," continued Bob, in the same low tone, "who has sent a rifle
+bullet into another's heart. He lies there, under the Patriarch, whom
+I"----
+
+"Whom you?" asked the judge.
+
+"_Whom I killed!_" said Bob, in a hollow whisper.
+
+"Killed!" exclaimed the judge. "You killed him? Whom?"
+
+"Ah! whom? Why don't you let me speak? You always interrupt me with your
+palaver," growled Bob.
+
+"You are getting saucy, Bob," said the judge impatiently. "Go on,
+however. I reckon it's only one of your usual tantrums."
+
+Bob shook his head. The judge looked keenly at him for a moment, and
+then resumed in a sort of confidential, encouraging tone.
+
+"Under the Patriarch; and how did he come under the Patriarch?"
+
+"I dragged him there, and buried him there," replied Bob.
+
+"Dragged him there! Why did you drag him there?"
+
+"Because he couldn't go himself, with more than half an ounce of lead in
+his body."
+
+"And _you_ put the half ounce of lead into him, Bob? Well, if it was
+Johnny, you've done the country a service, and saved it a rope."
+
+Bob shook his head negatively.
+
+"It wasn't Johnny, although---- But you shall hear all about it. It's
+just ten days since you paid me twenty dollars fifty."
+
+"I did so, Bob; twenty dollars fifty cents, and I advised you at the
+same time to let the money lie till you had a couple of hundred dollars,
+or enough to buy a quarter or an eighth of Sitio land; but advice is
+thrown away upon you."
+
+"When I got the money, I thought I'd go down to San Felipe, to the
+Mexicans, and try my luck; and, at the same time, see the doctor about
+my fever. As I was goin' there, I passed near Johnny's house, and
+fancied a glass, but determined not to get off my horse. I rode up to
+the window, and looked in. There was a man sittin' at the table, havin'
+a hearty good dinner of steaks and potatoes, and washin' it down with a
+stiff glass of grog. I began to feel hungry myself, and while I was
+considerin' whether I should 'light or not, Johnny came sneakin' out,
+and whispered to me to come in, that there was a man inside with whom
+somethin' might be done if we went the right way to work; a man who had
+a leather belt round his waist cram-full of hard Jackson; and that, if
+we got out the cards and pretended to play a little together, he would
+soon take the bait and join us.
+
+"I wasn't much inclined to do it," continued Bob; "but Johnny bothered
+me so to go in, that I got off my horse. As I did so the dollars chinked
+in my pocket, and the sound gave me a wish to play.
+
+"I went in; and Johnny fetched the whisky bottle. One glass followed
+another. There were beefsteaks and potatoes too, but I only eat a
+couple of mouthfuls. When I had drank two, three, ay, four glasses,
+Johnny brought the cards and dice. 'Hallo, Johnny!' says I; 'cards and
+dice, Johnny! I've twenty dollars fifty in my pocket. Let's have a game!
+But no more drink for me; for I know you, Johnny, I know you'----
+
+"Johnny larfed slyly, and rattled the dice, and we sat down to play. I
+hadn't meant to drink any more, but play makes one thirsty; and with
+every glass I got more eager, and my dollars got fewer. I reckoned,
+however, that the stranger would join us, and that I should be able to
+win back from him; but not a bit of it: he sat quite quiet, and eat and
+drank as if he didn't see we were there. I went on playin' madder than
+ever, and before half an hour was over, I was cleaned out; my twenty
+dollars fifty gone to the devil, or what's the same thing, into Johnny's
+pocket.
+
+"When I found myself without a cent, I _was_ mad, I reckon. It warn't
+the first time, nor the hundredth, that I had lost money. Many bigger
+sums than that--ay, hundreds and thousands of dollars had I played
+away--but they had none of them cost me the hundredth or thousandth part
+of the trouble to get that these twenty dollars fifty had; two full
+months had I been slavin' away in the woods and prairies to airn them,
+and I caught the fever there. The fever I had still, but no money to
+cure it with. Johnny only larfed in my face, and rattled my dollars. I
+made a hit at him, which, if he hadn't jumped on one side, would have
+cured him of larfin' for a week or two.
+
+"Presently, however, he came sneakin' up to me, and winkin' and
+whisperin'; and, 'Bob!' says he, 'is it come to that with you? are you
+grown so chicken-hearted that you don't see the beltful of money round
+his body?' said he, lookin' at it. 'No end of hard coin, I guess; and
+all to be had for little more than half an ounce of lead.'"
+
+"Did he say that?" asked the judge.
+
+"Ay, that did he, but I wouldn't listen to him. I was mad with him for
+winning my twenty dollars; and I told him that, if he wanted the
+stranger's purse, he might take it himself, and be d----d; that I
+wasn't goin' to pull the hot chestnuts out of the fire for him. And I
+got on my horse, and rode away like mad.
+
+"My head spun round like a mill. I couldn't get over my loss. I took the
+twenty dollars fifty more to heart than any money I had ever gambled. I
+didn't know where to go. I didn't dare go back to you, for I knew you'd
+scold me."
+
+"I shouldn't have scolded you, Bob; or, if I had, it would only have
+been for your good. I should have summoned Johnny before me, called
+together a jury of twelve of the neighbours, got you back your twenty
+dollars fifty, and sent Johnny out of the country; or, better still, out
+of the world."
+
+These words were spoken with much phlegm, but yet with a degree of
+feeling and sympathy, which greatly improved my opinion of the worthy
+judge. Bob also seemed touched. He drew a deep sigh, and gazed at the
+Alcalde with a melancholy look.
+
+"It's too late," muttered he; "too late, squire."
+
+"Perhaps not," replied the judge, "but let's hear the rest."
+
+"Well," continued Bob, "I kept riding on at random, and when evenin'
+came I found myself near the palmetta field on the bank of the Jacinto.
+As I was ridin' past it, I heard all at once the tramp of a horse. At
+that moment the queerest feelin' I ever had came over me; a sort of cold
+shiverin' feel. I forgot where I was; sight and hearin' left me; I could
+only see two things, my twenty dollars fifty, and the well-filled belt
+of the stranger I had left at Johnny's. Just then a voice called to me.
+
+"'Whence come, countryman, and whither going?' it said.
+
+"'Whence and whether,' answered I, as surly as could be; 'to the devil
+at a gallop, and you'd better ride on and tell him I'm comin'.'
+
+"'You can do the errand yourself,' answered the stranger larfin'; 'my
+road don't lie that way.'
+
+"As he spoke, I looked round, and saw, what I was pretty sure of before,
+that it was the man with the belt full of money.
+
+"'Ain't you the stranger I see'd in the inn yonder?' asked he.
+
+"'And if I am,' says I; 'what's that to you?'
+
+"'Nothin',' said he; 'nothin', certainly.'
+
+"'Better ride on,' says I; 'and leave me quiet.'
+
+"'Will so, stranger; but you needn't take it so mighty onkind. A word
+ain't a tomahawk, I reckon,' said he. 'But I rayther expect your losin's
+at play ain't put you in a very church-goin' humour; and, if I was you,
+I'd keep my dollars in my pocket, and not set them on cards and dice.'
+
+"This put me in a rile to hear him cast my losin's in my teeth that way.
+
+"'You're a nice feller,' said I, 'to throw a man's losses in his face. A
+pitiful chap _you_ are,' says I.
+
+"I thought to provoke him, and that he'd tackle me. But he seemed to
+have no fancy for a fight, for he said quite humble like--
+
+"'I throw nothin' in your face; God forbid that I should reproach you
+with your losses! I'm sorry for you, on the contrary. Don't look like a
+man who can afford to lose his dollars. Seem to me one who airns his
+money by hard work.'
+
+"We were just then halted at the further end of the cane brake, close to
+the trees that border the Jacinto. I had turned my horse, and was
+frontin' the stranger. And all the time the devil was busy whisperin' to
+me, and pointin' to the belt round the man's waist. I could see where it
+was, plain enough, though he had buttoned his coat over it.
+
+"'Hard work, indeed,' says I; 'and now I've lost every thing; not a cent
+left for a quid of baccy.'
+
+"'If that's all,' says he; 'there's help for that. I don't chew myself,
+and I ain't a rich man; I've wife and children, and want every cent I've
+got, but it's one's duty to help a countryman. You shall have money for
+tobacco and a dram.'
+
+"And so sayin', he took a purse out of his pocket, in which he carried
+his change. It was plenty full; there may have been some twenty dollars
+in it; and as he drew the string, it was as if the devil laughed and
+nodded to me out of the openin' of the purse.
+
+"'Halves!' cried I.
+
+"'No, not that,' says he; 'I've wife and child, and what I have belongs
+to them; but half a dollar'----
+
+"'Halves!' cried I again; 'or else'----
+
+"'Or else?' repeated he: and, as he spoke, he put the purse back into
+his pocket, and laid hold of the rifle which was slung on his shoulder.
+
+"'Don't force one to do you a mischief,' said he. 'Don't' says he; 'we
+might both be sorry for it. What you're thinkin' of brings no blessin'.'
+
+"I was past seein' or hearin'. A thousand devils from hell were
+possessin' me.
+
+"'Halves!' I yelled out; and, as I said the word, he sprang out of the
+saddle, and fell back over his horse's crupper to the ground.
+
+"'I'm a dead man!' cried he; as well as the rattle in his throat would
+let him. 'God be merciful to me! My poor wife, my poor children!'"
+
+Bob paused; he gasped for breath, and the sweat stood in large drops
+upon his forehead. He gazed wildly round the room. The judge himself
+looked very pale. I tried to rise, but sank back in my chair. Without
+the table I believe I should have fallen to the ground.
+
+There was a gloomy pause of some moments' duration. At last the judge
+broke silence.
+
+"A hard, hard case!" said he. "Father, mother, children, all at one
+blow. Bob, you are a bad fellow; a very bad fellow; a great villain!"
+
+"A great villain," groaned Bob. "The ball was gone right through his
+breast."
+
+"Perhaps your gun went off by accident," said the judge anxiously.
+"Perhaps it was his own ball."
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"I see him now, judge, as plain as can be, when he said, 'Don't force me
+to do you a mischief. We might both be sorry for it.' But I pulled the
+trigger. His bullet is still in his rifle.
+
+"When I saw him lie dead before me, I can't tell you what I felt. It
+warn't the first I had sent to his account; but yet I would have given
+all the purses and money in the world to have had him alive agin. I must
+have dragged him under the Patriarch, and dug a grave with my huntin'
+knife; for I found him there afterwards."
+
+"You found him there?" repeated the judge.
+
+"Yes. I don't know how he came there. I must have brought him, but I
+recollect nothin' about it."
+
+The judge had risen from his chair, and was walking up and down the
+room, apparently in deep thought. Suddenly he stopped short.
+
+"What have you done with his money?"
+
+"I took his purse, but buried his belt with him, as well as a flask of
+rum, and some bread and beef he had brought away from Johnny's. I set
+out for San Felipe, and rode the whole day. In the evenin', when I
+looked about me, expectin' to see the town, where do you think I was?"
+
+The judge and I stared at him.
+
+"Under the Patriarch. The ghost of the murdered man had driven me there.
+I had no peace till I'd dug him up and buried him again. Next day I set
+off in another direction. I was out of tobacco, and I started across the
+prairie to Anahuac. Lord, what a day I passed! Wherever I went, _he_
+stood before me. If I turned, _he_ turned too. Sometimes he came behind
+me, and looked over my shoulder. I spurred my mustang till the blood
+came, hopin' to get away from him, but it was all no use. I thought when
+I got to Anahuac I should be quit of him, and I galloped on as if for
+life or death. But in the evenin', instead of bein' close to the
+salt-works as I expected, there I was agin, under the Patriarch. I dug
+him up a second time, and sat and stared at him, and then buried him
+agin."
+
+"Queer that," observed the judge.
+
+"Ay, very queer!" said Bob mournfully. "But it's all no use. Nothin'
+does me any good. I sha'n't be better--I shall never have peace till I'm
+hung."
+
+Bob evidently felt relieved now, he had in a manner passed sentence on
+himself. Strange as it may appear, I had a similar feeling, and could
+not help nodding my head approvingly. The judge alone preserved an
+unmoved countenance.
+
+"Indeed!" said he, "indeed! You think you'll be no better till you're
+hung."
+
+"Yes," answered Bob, with eager haste. "Hung on the same tree under
+which _he_ lies buried."
+
+"Well, if you will have it so, we'll see what can be done for you. We'll
+call a jury of the neighbours together to-morrow."
+
+"Thank ye, squire," murmured Bob, visibly comforted by this promise.
+
+"We'll summon a jury," repeated the Alcalde, "and see what can be done
+for you. You'll perhaps have changed your mind by that time."
+
+I stared at him like one fallen from the clouds, but he did not seem to
+notice my surprise.
+
+"There is, perhaps, another way to get rid of your life, if you are
+tired of it," he continued. "We might, perhaps, hit upon one that would
+satisfy your conscience."
+
+Bob shook his head. I involuntarily made the same movement.
+
+"At any rate, we'll hear what the neighbours say," added the judge.
+
+Bob stepped up to the judge, and held out his hand to bid him farewell.
+The other did not take it, and turning to me, said--"_You_ had better
+stop here, I think."
+
+Bob turned round impetuously.
+
+"The gentleman must come with me."
+
+"Why must he?" said the judge.
+
+"Ask himself."
+
+I again explained the obligations I was under to Bob; how we had fallen
+in with one another, and what care and attention he had shown me at
+Johnny's.
+
+The judge nodded approvingly. "Nevertheless," said he, "you will remain
+here, and Bob will go alone. You are in a state of mind, Bob, in which a
+man is better alone, d'ye see; and so leave the young man here. Another
+misfortune might happen; and, at any rate, he's better here than at
+Johnny's. Come back to-morrow, and we'll see what can be done for you."
+
+These words were spoken in a decided manner, which seemed to have its
+effect upon Bob. He nodded assentingly, and left the room. I remained
+staring at the judge, and lost in wonder at these strange proceedings.
+
+When Bob was gone, the Alcalde gave a blast on a shell, which supplied
+the place of a bell. Then seizing the cigar box, he tried one cigar
+after another, broke them peevishly up, and threw the pieces out of the
+window. The negro whom the shell had summoned, stood for some time
+waiting, while his master broke up the cigars, and threw them away. At
+last the judge's patience seemed quite to leave him.
+
+"Hark ye, Ptoly!" growled he to the frightened black, "the next time you
+bring me cigars that neither draw nor smoke, I'll make your back smoke
+for it. Mind that, now;--there's not a single one of them worth a rotten
+maize stalk. Tell that old coffee-coloured hag of Johnny's, that I'll
+have no more of her cigars. Ride over to Mr Ducie's and fetch a box.
+And, d'ye hear? Tell him I want to speak a word with him and the
+neighbours. Ask him to bring the neighbours with him to-morrow morning.
+And mind you're home again by two o'clock. Take the mustang we caught
+last week. I want to see how he goes."
+
+The negro listened to these various commands with open mouth and staring
+eyes, then giving a perplexed look at his master, shot out of the room.
+
+"Where away, Ptoly?" shouted the Alcalde after him.
+
+"To Massa Ducie."
+
+"Without a pass, Ptoly? And what are you going to say to Mr Ducie?"
+
+"Him nebber send bad cigar again, him coffee-cullud hag. Massa speak to
+Johnny and neighbours. Johnny bring neighbours here."
+
+"I thought as much," said the judge with perfect equanimity. "Wait a
+minute, I'll write the pass, and a couple of lines for Mr Ducie."
+
+This was soon done, and the negro dispatched on his errand. The judge
+waited till he heard the sound of his horse's feet galloping away, and
+then, laying hold of the box of despised cigars, lit the first which
+came to hand. It smoked capitally, as did also one that I took. They
+were Principes, and as good as I ever tasted.
+
+I passed the whole of that day _tete a tete_ with the judge, who, I soon
+found, knew various friends of mine in the States. I told him the
+circumstances under which I had come to Texas, and the intention I had
+of settling there, should I find the country to my liking. During our
+long conversation, I was able to form a very different, and much more
+favourable estimate of his character, than I had done from his interview
+with Bob. He was the very man to be useful to a new country; of great
+energy, sound judgment, enlarged and liberal views. He gave me some
+curious information as to the state of things in Texas; and did not
+think it necessary to conceal from me, as an American, and one who
+intended settling in the country, that there was a plan in agitation for
+throwing off the Mexican yoke, and declaring Texas an independent
+republic. The high-spirited, and, for the most part, intelligent
+emigrants from the United States, who formed a very large majority of
+the population of Texas, saw themselves, with no very patient feeling,
+under the rule of a people both morally and physically inferior to
+themselves. They looked with contempt, and justly so, on the bigoted,
+idle, and ignorant Mexicans, while the difference of religion, and
+interference of the priests, served to increase the dislike between the
+Spanish and Anglo-American races.
+
+Although the project was as yet not quite ripe for execution, it was
+discussed freely and openly by the American settlers. "It is the
+interest of every man to keep it secret," said the judge; "and there can
+be nothing to induce even the worst amongst us to betray a cause, by the
+success of which he is sure to profit. We have many bad characters in
+Texas, the offscourings of the United States, men like Bob, or far worse
+than him; but debauched, gambling, drunken villains though they be, they
+are the men we want when it comes to a struggle; and when that time
+arrives, they will all be found ready to put their shoulders to the
+wheel, use knife and rifle, and shed the last drop of their blood in
+defence of their fellow citizens, and of the new and independent
+republic of Texas. At this moment, we must wink at many things which
+would be severely punished in an older and more settled country; each
+man's arm is of immense value to the State; for, on the day of battle,
+we shall have, not two to one, but twenty to one opposed to us."
+
+I was awakened the following morning by the sound of a horse's feet;
+and, looking out of the window, saw Bob dismounting from his mustang.
+The last twenty-four hours had told fearfully upon him. His limbs
+seemed powerless, and he reeled and staggered in such a manner, that I
+at first thought him intoxicated. But such was not the case. His was the
+deadly weariness caused by mental anguish. He looked like one just taken
+off the rack.
+
+Hastily pulling on my clothes, I hurried down stairs, and opened the
+house door. Bob stood with his head resting on his horse's neck, and his
+hands crossed, shivering, and groaning. When I spoke to him, he looked
+up, but did not seem to know me. I tied his horse to a post, and taking
+his hand, led him into the house. He followed like a child, apparently
+without the will or the power to resist; and when I placed him in a
+chair, he fell into it with a weight that made it crack under him, and
+shook the house. I could not get him to speak, and was about to return
+to my room to complete my toilet, when I again heard the tramp of
+mustangs. This was a party of half a dozen horsemen, all dressed in
+hunting shirts over buckskin breeches and jackets, and armed with rifles
+and bowie-knives; stout, daring looking fellows, evidently from the
+south-western states, with the true Kentucky half horse half alligator
+profile, and the usual allowance of thunder, lightning, and earthquake.
+It struck me when I saw them, that two or three thousand such men would
+have small difficulty in dealing with a whole army of Mexicans, if the
+latter were all of the pigmy, spindle-shanked breed I had seen on first
+landing. These giants could easily have walked away with a Mexican in
+each hand.
+
+They jumped off their horses, and threw the bridles to the negroes in
+the usual Kentuckian devil-may-care style, and then walked into the
+house with the air of people who make themselves at home every where,
+and who knew themselves to be more masters in Texas than the Mexicans
+themselves. On entering the parlour, they nodded a "good-morning" to me,
+rather coldly to be sure, for they had seen me talking with Bob, which
+probably did not much recommend me. Presently, four more horsemen rode
+up, and then a third party, so that there were now fourteen of them
+assembled, all decided-looking men, in the prime of life and strength.
+The judge, who slept in an adjoining room, had been awakened by the
+noise. I heard him jump out of bed, and not three minutes elapsed before
+he entered the parlour.
+
+After he had shaken hands with all his visitors, he presented me to
+them, and I found that I was in the presence of no less important
+persons than the Ayuntamiento of San Felipe de Austin; and that two of
+my worthy countrymen were corregidors, one a procurador, and the others
+_buenos hombres_, or freeholders. They did not seem, however, to prize
+their titles much, for they addressed one another by their surnames
+only.
+
+The negro brought a light, opened the cigar box, and arranged the
+chairs; the judge pointed to the sideboard, and to the cigars, and then
+sat down. Some took a dram, others lit a cigar.
+
+Several minutes elapsed, during which the men sat in perfect silence, as
+if they were collecting their thoughts, or, as though it were
+undignified to show any haste or impatience to speak. This grave sort of
+deliberation which is met with among certain classes, and in certain
+provinces of the Union, has often struck me as a curious feature of our
+national character. It partakes of the stoical dignity of the Indian at
+his council fire, and of the stern, religious gravity of the early
+puritan settlers in America.
+
+During this pause Bob was writhing on his chair like a worm, his face
+concealed by his hands, his elbows on his knees. At last, when all had
+drank and smoked, the judge laid down his cigar.
+
+"Men!" said he.
+
+"Squire!" answered they.
+
+"We've a business before us, which I calculate will be best explained by
+him whom it concerns."
+
+The men looked at the squire, then at Bob, then at me.
+
+"Bob Rock! or whatever your name may be, if you have aught to say, say
+it!" continued the judge.
+
+"Said it all yesterday," muttered Bob, his face still covered by his
+hands.
+
+"Yes, but you must say it again to-day. Yesterday was Sunday, and Sunday
+is a day of rest, and not of business. I will neither judge you, nor
+allow you to be judged, by what you said yesterday. Besides, it was all
+between ourselves, for I don't reckon Mr Rivers as any thing; I count
+him still as a stranger."
+
+"What's the use of so much palaver, when the thing's plain enough?" said
+Bob peevishly, raising his head as he spoke.
+
+The men stared at him in grave astonishment. He was really frightful to
+behold, his face of a sort of blue tint; his cheeks hollow, his beard
+wild and ragged; his blood-shot eyes rolling, and deep sunk in their
+sockets. His appearance was scarcely human.
+
+"I tell you, again," said the judge, "I will condemn no man upon his own
+word alone; much less you, who have been in my service, and eaten of my
+bread. You accused yourself yesterday, but you were delirious at the
+time--you had the fever upon you."
+
+"It's no use, squire," said Bob, apparently touched by the kindness of
+the judge, "You mean well, I see; butt though you might deliver me out
+of men's hands, you couldn't rescue me from myself. It's no use--I must
+be hung--hung on the same tree under which the man I killed lies
+buried."
+
+The men, or the jurors, as I may call them, looked at one another, but
+said nothing.
+
+"It's no use," again cried Bob, in a shrill, agonized tone. "If he had
+attacked me, or only threatened me; but no, he didn't do it. I hear
+his words still, when he said, 'Do it not, man! I've wife and child.
+What you intend, brings no blessin' on the doer.' But I heard
+nothin' then except the voice of the devil; I brought the rifle
+down--levelled--fired."
+
+The man's agony was so intense, that even the iron featured jury seemed
+moved by it. They cast sharp, but stolen glances at Bob. There was a
+short silence.
+
+"So you have killed a man?" said a deep bass voice at last.
+
+"Ay, that have I!" gasped Bob.
+
+"And how came that?" continued his questioner.
+
+"How it came? You must ask the devil, or Johnny. No, not Johnny, he can
+tell you nothing; he was not there. No one can tell you but me; and I
+hardly know how it was. The man was at Johnny's, and Johnny showed me
+his belt full of money."
+
+"Johnny!" exclaimed several of the jury.
+
+"Ay, Johnny! He reckoned on winning it from him, but the man was too
+cautious for that; and when Johnny had plucked all my feathers, won my
+twenty dollars fifty"----
+
+"Twenty dollars fifty cents," interposed the judge, "which I paid him for
+catching mustangs and shooting game."
+
+The men nodded.
+
+"And then because he wouldn't play, you shot him?" asked the same
+deep-toned voice as before.
+
+"No--some hours after--by the Jacinto, near the Patriarch--met him down
+there and killed him."
+
+"Thought there was something out o' the common thereaway," said one of
+the jury; "for as we rode by the tree a whole nation of kites and turkey
+buzzards flew out. Didn't they, Mr Heart?"
+
+Mr Heart nodded.
+
+"Met him by the river, and cried, halves of his money," continued Bob
+mechanically. "He said he'd give me something to buy a quid, and more
+than enough for that, but not halves 'I've wife and child,' said he"----
+
+"And you?" asked the juror with the deep voice, which this time,
+however, had a hollow sound in it.
+
+"Shot him down," said Bob, with a wild hoarse laugh.
+
+For some time no word was spoken.
+
+"And who was the man?" said a juror at last.
+
+"Didn't ask him; and it warn't written on his face. He was from the
+States; but whether a hosier, or a buckeye, or a mudhead, is more than I
+can say."
+
+"The thing must be investigated, Alcalde," said another of the jury
+after a second pause.
+
+"It must so," answered the Alcalde.
+
+"What's the good of so much investigation?" grumbled Bob.
+
+"What good?" repeated the Alcalde. "Because we owe it to ourselves, to
+the dead man, and to you, not to sentence you without having held an
+inquest on the body. There's another thing which I must call your
+attention to," continued he, turning to the jury; "the man is half out
+of his mind--not _compos mentis_, as they say. He's got the fever, and
+had it when he did the deed; he was urged on by Johnny, and maddened by
+his losses at play. In spite of his wild excitement, however, he saved
+that gentleman's life yonder, Mr Edward Nathanael Rivers."
+
+"Did he so?" said one of the jury. "That did he," replied I, "not only
+by saving me from drowning when my horse dragged me, half dead and
+helpless, into the river, but also by the care and attention he forced
+Johnny and his mulatto to bestow upon me. Without him I should not be
+alive at this moment."
+
+Bob gave me a look which went to my heart. The tears were standing in
+his eyes. The jury heard me in deep silence.
+
+"It seems that Johnny led you on and excited you to this?" said one of
+the jurors.
+
+"I didn't say that. I only said that he pointed to the man's money bag,
+and said---- But what is it to you what Johnny said? I'm the man who did
+it. I speak for myself, and I'll be hanged for myself."
+
+"All very good, Bob," interposed the Alcalde; "but we can't hang you
+without being sure you deserve it. What do you say to it, Mr Whyte?
+You're the procurador--and you, Mr Heart and Mr Stone? Help yourselves
+to rum or brandy; and, Mr Bright and Irwin, take another cigar. They're
+considerable tolerable the cigars--ain't they? That's brandy, Mr Whyte,
+in the diamond bottle."
+
+Mr Whyte had got up to give his opinion, as I thought, but I was
+mistaken. He stepped to the sideboard, took up a bottle in one hand and
+a glass in the other, every movement being performed with the greatest
+deliberation.
+
+"Well, squire," said he, "or rather _Alcalde_"----
+
+After the word _Alcalde_, he filled the glass half full of rum.
+
+"If it's as we've heard," added he, pouring about a spoonful of water on
+the rum, "and Bob has killed the man"--he continued, throwing in some
+lumps of sugar--"murdered him"--he went on, crushing the sugar with a
+wooden stamp--"I rather calkilate"--here he raised the glass--"Bob ought
+to be hung," he concluded, putting the tumbler to his mouth and emptying
+it.
+
+The jurors nodded in silence. Bob drew a deep breath, as if a load were
+taken off his breast.
+
+"Well," said the judge, who did not look over well pleased; "if you all
+think so, and Bob is agreed, I calculate we must do as he wishes. I tell
+you, though, I don't do it willingly. At any rate we must find the dead
+man first, and examine Johnny. We owe that to ourselves and to Bob."
+
+"Certainly," said the jury with one voice.
+
+"You are a dreadful murderer, Bob a very considerable one," continued
+the judge; "but I tell you to your face, and not to flatter you, there
+is more good in your little finger than in Johnny's whole hide. And I'm
+sorry for you, because, at the bottom, you are not a bad man, though
+you've been led away by bad company and example. I calculate you might
+still be reformed, and made very useful--more so, perhaps, than you
+think. Your rifle's a capital good one."
+
+At these last words the men all looked up, and threw a keen enquiring
+glance at Bob.
+
+"You might be of great service," continued the judge encouragingly, "to
+the country and to your fellow-citizens. You're worth a dozen Mexicans
+any day."
+
+While the judge was speaking, Bob let his head fall on his breast, and
+seemed reflecting. He now looked up.
+
+"I understand, squire; I see what you're drivin' at. But I can't do
+it--I can't wait so long. My life's a burthen and a sufferin' to me.
+Wherever I go, by day or by night, he's always there, standin' before
+me, and drivin' me under the Patriarch."
+
+There was a pause of some duration. The Judge resumed.
+
+"So be it, then," said he with a sort of suppressed sigh. "We'll see the
+body to-day, Bob, and you may come to-morrow at ten o'clock."
+
+"Couldn't it be sooner?" asked Bob impatiently.
+
+"Why sooner? Are you in such a hurry?" asked Mr Heart.
+
+"What's the use of palaverin'?" said Bob sulkily. "I told you already
+I'm sick of my life. If you don't come till ten o'clock, by the time
+you've had your talk out and ridden to the Patriarch, the fever'll be
+upon me."
+
+"But we can't be flying about like a parcel of wild geese, because of
+your fever," said the procurador.
+
+"Certainly not," said Bob humbly.
+
+"It's an ugly customer the fever, though, Mr Whyte," observed Mr Trace;
+"and I calculate we ought to do him that pleasure. What do you think,
+squire?"
+
+"I reckon he's rather indiscreet in his askin's," said the judge, in a
+tone of vexation. "However, as he wishes it, and if it is agreeable to
+you," added he, turning to the Ayuntamiento; "and as it's you, Bob, I
+calculate we must do what you ask."
+
+"Thankee," said Bob.
+
+"Nothing to thank for," growled the judge. "And now go into the kitchen
+and get a good meal of roast beef, d'ye hear?" He knocked upon the
+table. "Some good roast beef for Bob," said he to a negress who entered;
+"and see that he eats it. And get your self dressed more decently,
+Bob--like a white man and a Christian, not like a wild redskin."
+
+The negress and Bob left the room. The conversation now turned upon
+Johnny, who appeared, from all accounts, to be a very bad and dangerous
+fellow; and after a short discussion, they agreed to lynch him, in
+backwoodsman's phrase, just as cooly as if they had been talking of
+catching a mustang. When the men had come to this satisfactory
+conclusion, they got up, drank the judge's health and mine, shook us by
+the hand, and left the house.
+
+The day passed more heavily than the preceding one. I was too much
+engrossed with the strange scene I had witnessed to talk much. The
+judge, too, was in a very bad humour. He was vexed that a man should be
+hung who might render the country much and good service if he remained
+alive. That Johnny, the miserable, cowardly, treacherous Johnny, should
+be sent out of the world as quickly as possible, was perfectly correct,
+but with Bob it was very different. In vain did I remind him of the
+crime of which Bob had been guilty--of the outraged laws of God and
+man--and of the atonement due. It was of no use. If Bob had sinned
+against society, he could repair his fault much better by remaining
+alive than by being hung; and, for anything else, God would avenge it in
+his own good time. We parted for the night, neither of us convinced by
+the other's arguments.
+
+We were sitting at breakfast the next morning, when a man, dressed in
+black, rode up to the door. It was Bob, but so metamorphosed that I
+scarcely knew him. Instead of the torn and bloodstained handkerchief
+round his head, he wore a hat; instead of the leathern jacket, a decent
+cloth coat. He had shaved off his beard too, and looked quite another
+man. His manner had altered with his dress; he seemed tranquil and
+resigned. With a mild and submissive look, he held out his hand to the
+judge, who took it and shook it heartily.
+
+"Ah, Bob!" said he, "if you had only listened to what I so often told
+you! I had those clothes brought on purpose from New Orleans, in order
+that, on Sundays at least, you might look like a decent and respectable
+man. How often have I asked you to put them on, and come with us to
+meeting, to hear Mr Bliss preach? There is same truth in the saying, the
+coat makes the man. With his Sunday coat, a man often puts on other and
+better thoughts. If that had been your case only fifty-two times in the
+year, you'd have learned to avoid Johnny before now."
+
+Bob said nothing.
+
+"Well, well! I've done all I could to make a better men of you. All that
+was in my power."
+
+"That you have," answered Bob, much moved. "God reward you for it!"
+
+I could not help holding out my hand to the worthy judge; and as I did
+so I thought I saw a moistness in his eye, which he suppressed, however,
+and, turning to his breakfast table, bade us sit down. Bob thanked him
+humbly, but declined, saying that he wished to appear fasting before his
+offended Creator. The judge insisted, and reasoned with him, and at last
+he took a chair.
+
+Before we had done breakfast our friends of the preceding day began to
+drop in, and some of them joined at the meal. When they had all taken
+what they chose, the judge ordered the negroes to clear away, and leave
+the room. This done, he seated himself at the upper end of the table,
+with the Ayuntamiento on either side, and Bob facing him.
+
+"Mr Whyte," said the Alcade, "have you, as procurador, any thing to
+state?"
+
+"Yes, Alcalde," replied the procurador. "In virtue of my office, I made
+a search in the place mentioned by Bob Rock, and there found the body of
+a man who had met his death by a gunshot wound. I also found a belt
+full of money, and several letters of recommendation to different
+planters, from which it appears that the man was on his way from
+Illinois to San Felipe, in order to buy land of Colonel Austin, and to
+settle in Texas."
+
+The procurador then produced a pair of saddle-bags, out of which he took
+a leathern belt stuffed with money, which he laid on the table, together
+with the letters. The judge opened the belt, and counted the money. It
+amounted to upwards of five hundred dollars, in gold and silver. The
+procurador then read the letters.
+
+One of the corregidors now announced that Johnny and his mulatto had
+left their house and fled. He, the corregidor, had sent people in
+pursuit of them; but as yet there were no tidings of their capture. This
+piece of intelligence seemed to vex the judge greatly, but he made no
+remark on it at the time.
+
+"Bob Rock!" cried he.
+
+Bob stepped forward.
+
+"Bob Rock, or by whatever other name you may be known, are you guilty or
+not guilty of this man's death?"
+
+"Guilty!" replied Bob, in a low tone.
+
+"Gentlemen of the jury, will you be pleased to give your verdict?"
+
+The jury left the room. In ten minutes they returned.
+
+"Guilty!" said the foreman.
+
+"Bob Rock," said the judge solemnly, "your fellow-citizens have found
+you guilty; and I pronounce the sentence--that you be hung by the neck
+until you are dead. The Lord be merciful to your soul!"
+
+"Amen!" said all present.
+
+"Thank ye," murmured Bob.
+
+"We will seal up the property of the deceased," said the judge, "and
+then proceed to our painful duty."
+
+He called for a light, and he and the procurador and corregidors sealed
+up the papers and money.
+
+"Has any one aught to allege why the sentence should not be put in
+execution?" said the Alcalde, with a glance at me.
+
+"He saved my life, judge and fellow-citizens," cried I, deeply moved.
+
+Bob shook his head mournfully.
+
+"Let us go, then, in God's name," said the judge.
+
+Without another word being spoken, we left the house and mounted our
+horses. The judge had brought a Bible with him; and he rode on, a little
+in front, with Bob, doing his best to prepare him for the eternity to
+which he was hastening. Bob listened attentively for some time; but at
+last he seemed to get impatient and pushed his mustang into so fast a
+trot, that for a moment we suspected him of wishing to escape the doom
+he had so eagerly sought. But it was only that he feared the fever might
+return before the expiration of the short time he yet had to live.
+
+After an hour's ride, we came to the enormous live oak distinguished as
+_the Patriarch_. Two or three of the men dismounted, and held aside the
+heavy moss-covered branches which swept the ground, and formed a
+complete curtain round the tree. The party rode through the opening thus
+made, and drew up in a circle beneath the huge leafy dome. In the centre
+of this ring stood Bob, trembling like an aspen-leaf, and with his eyes
+fixed on a small mound of fresh earth, partly concealed by the branches,
+and which had escaped my notice on my former visit to the tree. It was
+the grave of the murdered man.
+
+A magnificent burial-place was that: no poet could have dreamt or
+desired a better. Above, the huge vault, with its natural frettings and
+arches; below, the greenest, freshest grass; around, an eternal half
+light, streaked and varied, and radiant as a rainbow. It was imposingly
+beautiful.
+
+Bob, the judge, and the corregidors, remained sitting on their horses,
+but several of the other men dismounted. One of the latter cut the lasso
+from Bob's saddle, and threw an end of it over one of the lowermost
+branches; then uniting the two ends, formed them into a strong noose,
+which he left dangling from the bough. This simple preparation
+completed, the Alcalde took off his hat and folded his hands. The others
+followed his example.
+
+"Bob!" said the judge to the unfortunate criminal, whose head was bowed
+on his horse's mane; "Bob! we will pray for your poor soul, which is
+about to part from your sinful body."
+
+Bob raised his head. "I had something to say," exclaimed he, in a
+wondering and husky tone. "Something I wanted to say."
+
+"What have you to say?"
+
+Bob stared around him; his lips moved, but no word escaped him. His
+spirit was evidently no longer with things of this earth.
+
+"Bob!" said the judge again, "we will pray for your soul."
+
+"Pray! pray!" groaned he. "I shall need it."
+
+In slow and solemn accents, and with great feeling, the judge uttered
+the Lord's Prayer. Bob repeated every word after him. When it was
+ended--
+
+"God be merciful to your soul!" exclaimed the judge.
+
+"Amen!" said all present.
+
+One of the corregidors now passed the noose of the lasso round Bob's
+neck, another bound his eyes, a third person drew his feet out of the
+stirrups, while a fourth stepped behind his horse with a heavy
+riding-whip. All was done in the deepest silence; not a word was
+breathed; not a footfall heard on the soft yielding turf. There was
+something awful and oppressive in the profound stillness that reigned in
+the vast enclosure.
+
+The whip fell. The horse gave a spring forwards. At the same moment Bob
+made a desperate clutch at the bridle, and a loud "Hold!" burst in
+thrilling tones from the lips of the judge.
+
+It was too late, Bob was already hanging. The judge pushed forward,
+nearly riding down the man who held the whip, and seizing Bob in his
+arms, raised him on his own horse, supporting him with one hand, while
+with the other he strove to unfasten the noose. His whole gigantic frame
+trembled with eagerness and exertion. The procurador, corregidors, all,
+in short, stood in open-mouthed wonder at this strange proceeding.
+
+"Whisky! whisky! has nobody any whisky?" shouted the judge.
+
+One of the men sprang forward with a whisky-flask, another supported the
+body, and a third the feet, of the half-hanged man, while the judge
+poured a few drops of spirits into his mouth. The cravat, which had not
+been taken off, had hindered the breaking of the neck. Bob at last
+opened his eyes, and gazed vacantly around him.
+
+"Bob," said the judge, "you had something to say, hadn't you, about
+Johnny?"
+
+"Johnny," gasped Bob; "Johnny."
+
+"What's become of him?"
+
+"He's gone to San Antonio, Johnny."
+
+"To San Antonio!" repeated the judge, with an expression of great alarm
+overspreading his features.
+
+"To San Antonio--to Padre Jose," continued Bob; "a Catholic. Beware!"
+
+"A traitor, then!" muttered several.
+
+"Catholic!" exclaimed the judge. The words he had heard seemed to
+deprive him of all strength. His arms fell slowly and gradually by his
+side, and Bob was again hanging from the lasso.
+
+"A Catholic! a traitor!" repeated several of the men; "a citizen and a
+traitor!"
+
+"So it is, men!" exclaimed the judge. "We've no time to lose," continued
+he, in a harsh, hurried voice; "no time to lose; we must catch him."
+
+"That must we," said several voices, "or our plans are betrayed to the
+Mexicans."
+
+"After him immediately to San Antonio!" cried the judge with the same
+desperately hurried manner.
+
+"To San Antonio!" repeated the men, pushing their way through the
+curtain of moss and branches. As soon as they were outside, those who
+were dismounted sprang into the saddle, and, without another word, the
+whole party galloped away in the direction of San Antonio.
+
+The judge alone remained, seemingly lost in thought; his countenance
+pale and anxious, and his eyes following the riders. His reverie,
+however, had lasted but a very few seconds, when he seized my arm.
+
+"Hasten to my house," cried he; "lose no time, don't spare horse-flesh.
+Take Ptoly and a fresh beast; hurry over to San Felipe, and tell Stephen
+Austin what has happened, and what you have seen and heard."
+
+"But, judge"----
+
+"Off with you at once, if you would do Texas a service. Bring my wife
+and daughter back."
+
+And so saying, he literally drove me from under the tree, pushing me out
+with hands and feet. I was so startled at the expression of violent
+impatience and anxiety which his features assumed, that, without
+venturing to make further objection, I struck the spurs into my mustang
+and galloped off. Before I had got fifty yards from the tree, I looked
+round. The judge had disappeared.
+
+I rode full speed to the judge's house, and thence on a fresh horse to
+San Felipe, where I found Colonel Austin, who seemed much alarmed by the
+news I brought him, had horses saddled, and sent round to all the
+neighbours. Before the wife and step-daughter of the judge had made
+their preparations to accompany me home, he started with fifty armed men
+in the direction of San Antonio.
+
+I escorted the ladies to their house, but scarcely had we arrived there,
+when I was seized with a fever, the result of my recent fatigues and
+sufferings. For some days my life was in danger, but at last a good
+constitution, and the kindest and most watchful nursing, triumphed over
+the disease. As soon as I was able to mount a horse, I set out for Mr
+Neal's plantation, in company with his huntsman Anthony, who, after
+spending many days, and riding over hundreds of miles of ground in quest
+of me, had at last found me out.
+
+Our way led up past the Patriarch, and, as we approached it, we saw
+innumerable birds of prey, and carrion crows circling round it, croaking
+and screaming. I turned my eyes in another direction; but, nevertheless,
+I felt a strange sort of longing to revisit the tree. Anthony had ridden
+on, and was already hidden from view behind its branches. Presently I
+heard him give a loud shout of exultation. I jumped off my horse, and
+led it through a small opening in the leafage.
+
+Some forty paces from me the body of a man was hanging by a lasso from
+the very same branch on which Bob had been hung. It was not Bob,
+however, for the corpse was much too short and small for him.
+
+I drew nearer. "Johnny!" I exclaimed "That's Johnny!"
+
+"It _was_," answered Anthony. "Thank Heaven, there's an end of him!"
+
+I shuddered. "But where is Bob?"
+
+"Bob?" cried Anthony. "Bob!"
+
+He glanced towards the grave. The mound of earth seemed to me larger and
+higher than when I had last seen it. Doubtless the murderer lay beside
+his victim.
+
+"Shall we not render the last service to this wretch, Anthony?" asked I.
+
+"The scoundrel!" answered the huntsman. "I won't dirty my hands with
+him. Let him poison the kites and the crows!"
+
+We rode on.
+
+
+
+
+
+DEATH FROM THE STING OF A SERPENT.
+
+ As when a monstrous snake, with flaming crest,
+ Some wretch within its glittering folds has press'd--
+ He vainly struggles to escape its fangs,
+ The reptile triumphs, and the victim hangs
+ His head in agony, and bending low,
+ Feels the cursed venom through his life-blood flow.
+ On through his veins the burning poison speeds,
+ Drinks up his spirit--on his vitals feeds,
+ Till, tortured life extinct, the senseless clay
+ In hideous dissolution melts away.
+
+M. J.
+
+
+
+
+GIFTS OF TEREK.
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF LERMONTOFF. BY T. B. SHAW.
+
+ Terek[21] bellows, wildly sweeping
+ Past the cliffs, so swift and strong;
+ Like a tempest is his weeping,
+ Flies his spray like tears along.
+ O'er the steppe now slowly veering--
+ Calm but faithless looketh he--
+ With a voice of love endearing
+ Murmurs to the Caspian sea:
+
+ "Give me way, old sea! I greet thee;
+ Give me refuge in thy breast;
+ Far and fast I've rush'd to meet thee--
+ It is tine for me to rest.
+ Cradled in Kazbek, and cherish'd
+ From the bosom of the cloud,
+ Strong am I, and all have perish'd
+ Who would stop my current proud.
+ For thy sons' delight, O Ocean!
+ I've crush'd the crags of Darial,
+ Onward my resistless motion,
+ Like a flock, hath swept them all."
+
+ Still on his smooth shore reclining,
+ Lay the Caspian as in sleep;
+ While the Terek, softly shining,
+ To the old sea murmur'd deep:--
+
+ "Lo! a gift upon my water--
+ Lo! no common offering--
+ Floating from the field of slaughter,
+ A Kabardinetz[22] I bring.
+ All in shining mail he's shrouded--
+ Plates of steel his arms enfold;
+ Blood the Koran verse hath clouded,
+ That thereon is writ in gold:
+ His pale brow is sternly bended--
+ Gory stains his wreathed lip dye--
+ Valiant blood, and far-descended--
+ 'Tis the hue of victory!
+ Wild his eyes, yet nought he noteth;
+ With an ancient hate they glare:
+ Backward on the billow floateth,
+ All disorderly, his hair."
+
+ Still the Caspian, calm reclining,
+ Seems to slumber on his shore;
+ And impetuous Terek, shining,
+ Murmurs in his ear once more:--
+
+ "Father, hark! a priceless treasure--
+ Other gifts are poor to this--
+ I have hid, to do thee pleasure--
+ I have hid in my abyss!
+ Lo! a corse my wave doth pillow--
+ A Kazaichka[23] young and fair.
+ Darkly pale upon the billow
+ Gleams her breast and golden hair;
+ Very sad her pale brow gleameth,
+ And her eyes are closed in sleep;
+ From her bosom ever seemeth
+ A thin purple stream to creep.
+ By my water, calm and lonely,
+ For the maid that comes not back,
+ Of the whole Stanilza,[24] only
+ Mourns a Grebenskoi Kazak.
+
+ "Swift on his black steed he hieth;
+ To the mountains he is sped.
+ 'Neath Tchetchen's kinjal[25] now lieth,
+ Low in dust, that youthful head."
+
+ Silent then was that wild river;
+ And afar, as white as snow,
+ A fair head was seen to quiver
+ In the ripple, to and fro.
+
+ In his might the ancient ocean,
+ Like a tempest, 'gan arise;
+ And the light of soft emotion
+ Glimmer'd in his dark-blue eyes;
+
+ And he play'd, with rapture flushing,
+ And in his embraces bright,
+ Clasp'd the stream, to meet him rushing
+ With a murmur of delight.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[21] A river which, rising on the eastern side of the ridge of
+the Caucasus, falls, after a rapid and impetuous course, into the
+Caspian, near Anapa.
+
+[22] A mountaineer of the tribe of Kabarda.
+
+[23] A Kazak girl.
+
+[24] Village of Kazaks.
+
+[25] Kinjal, a large dagger, the favourite weapon of the
+mountain tribes of the Caucasus, among which the Tchetchenetzes are
+distinguished for bravery.
+
+
+
+
+MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.
+
+PART VI.
+
+ "Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
+ Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
+ Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
+ Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
+ And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
+ Have I not in the pitched battle heard
+ Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
+
+SHAKSPEARE.
+
+
+My first questions to Lafontaine, when I had his wound looked to, were
+of course for those whom he had left in England.
+
+"Ah, ha!" said he with a laugh, which showed the inextinguishable
+Frenchman, "are you constant still? Well, then, Madame la Comtesse is
+constant too; but it is to her boudoir, or the gaieties of Devonshire
+House, or perhaps to her abhorrence of Monsieur le Mari."
+
+"Le Mari!" I repeated the words with an involuntary start.
+
+"Bah! 'tis all the same. She is affianced, and among us that tie is
+quite as legitimate as marriage, and, our libellers say, a little
+stronger. But they certainly are _not_ married yet, for Mademoiselle
+Clotilde either is, or affects, the invalid; and considering the
+probability that she abhors the man and the match, I think, on the
+whole, that she acts diplomatically in informing the vainest colonel, in
+or out of France, that she is sick of any thing rather than of him."
+
+"But your Mariamne--how go on your interests there?" The question
+brought a smile and a sigh together, before he could find an answer.
+
+"How she is, what she is doing, or intends to do, or even what she is,
+are matters that I can no more answer than I can why the wind blows. She
+torments me, and takes a delight in tormenting me. I have been on the
+point of throwing up my commission a hundred times since I saw you, and
+flying to America, or the world's end. She controls me in every thing,
+insists on knowing all my movements from hour to hour, finds them out
+when I attempt to conceal them as matter of duty, tortures me for the
+concealment, and then laughs at me for the confession. She is
+intolerable."
+
+"And yet you have obtained a lengthening of your chain, or how come
+here? How long have you been in Paris?"
+
+"Just two days; and busy ones, or I should have found you out before.
+Yes, I had Mariamne's full permission to come; though to this moment I
+cannot account for the change. I had received a sudden order from
+Montrecour, who is deep in the emigrant affairs, to set out with letters
+which could not be sent by the courier. But I dared not leave London
+without asking _her_ permission; and I acknowledge asking her at the
+same time to run away with me, and give herself a lawful title to be my
+tyrant for life. Applying to Mordecai was out of the question. Her
+answer was immediate; contemptuous in the extreme as to my proposal, yet
+almost urgent on me to accept the mission, and lose no time between
+London and Paris. Her postscript was the oddest part of all. It was a
+grave recommendation to discover _you_, in whatever height or depth of
+the capital you might exist; whether you figured in the court or the
+cloister; were the idol of the maids of honour, or the model of the
+monks of La Trappe; to remind you that you had forgotten every body on
+the other side of the Channel who was worth remembering, including
+herself; and commending _me_, as a truant and a trifler, to your
+especial, grave, and experienced protection. Apropos! She sent me a
+letter, to be delivered to you with my own hands. But for yourself it
+had nearly failed in the delivery."
+
+He gave me the letter. It was, like the writer, a pretty _melange_;
+trifles gracefully expressed; strong sense expressed like trifles;
+feeling carried off with a laugh; and palpable and fond anxiety for
+Lafontaine couched in the most merciless badinage. While I gave this
+missive a second, and even a third perusal--for it finished with some
+gentle mention of the being whose name was a charm to my wearied
+spirit--my eyes accidentally fell on Lafontaine. His were fixed on me
+with an expression of inconceivable distress. At length his generous
+nature broke forth.
+
+"Marston, if I were capable of jealousy, I should be jealous of _you_
+and of Mariamne. What _can_ be the caprice which dictated that letter?
+what _can_ be the interest which you evidently take in it? I wish that
+the bullet which laid me at your door this evening had finished its
+work, and put an end to an existence which has been a perpetual fever. I
+shall not ask _what_ Mariamne has said to you--but _I_ am miserable."
+
+"Yes, but you _shall_ ask, and shall have all you ask," said I, giving
+him the letter. "It is the language of the heart, and of a heart
+strongly attached to _you_. I can see affection in every line of it. Of
+course she mingles a little coquetry with her sentiment; but was there
+ever a pretty woman, who was not more or less a coquette? She is a gem:
+never think it the less pure because it sparkles. Rely upon your little
+Mariamne."
+
+"Then _you_ have no sincere regard for her--no wish to interfere with my
+claims?" said my pallid friend, dubiously extending his hand towards me.
+
+"Lafontaine, listen to me, and for the last time on the subject. I have
+a very sincere regard for her." (My sensitive auditor started.) "But, I
+have also a perfect respect for your claims. It is impossible not to
+acknowledge the animated graces of the lady on whom you have fixed your
+affections. But mine are fixed where I have neither hope to sustain
+them, nor power to change.--Those matters have nothing to do with
+choice. They are effects without a cause, judgments without a reason,
+influences without an impulse--the problems of our nature, without a
+solution since the beginning of the world."
+
+"But, Marston, you will only laugh at me for all my troubles."
+
+"Lafontaine, I shall do no such thing. Those pains and penalties have
+been the lot of some of the noblest hearts and most powerful minds that
+the earth has ever seen; and have been most keenly felt by the noblest
+and the most powerful. The poet only tells the truth more gracefully
+when he says--
+
+     "'The spell of all spells that enamours the heart,
+       To few is imparted, to millions denied;
+     'Tis the brain of the victim that poisons the dart,
+       And fools jest at that by which sages have died.'
+
+"But now, my friend, let us talk of other things. We must not sink into
+a pair of sentimentalists; these are terrible times. And now, tell me
+what brought you out of quiet England among our madmen here?"
+
+"I may now tell all the world," was the reply, "for the evil is done
+beyond remedy. I was sent by our friends in London, to carry the last
+warning to the royal family of all that has happened this day. My papers
+contained the most exact details, the names of the leaders, their
+objects, their points of assembling, and even their points of attack.
+Those were furnished, as you may conceive, by one of the principal
+conspirators; a fellow whom I afterwards saw on horseback in front of
+the Tuileries, and whom, I think, I had the satisfaction of dismounting
+by a shot from my carbine."
+
+I mentioned the fruitlessness of my own efforts to awake the ministry.
+
+"Ah," said he, with a melancholy smile, "my friend, if you had been
+admitted into the palace, or into the council-chamber itself, you would
+have had precisely the same tale to tell. All was infatuation. I was
+ushered into the highest presence last midnight. My despatches were
+read. I was complimented on my zeal, and then was told that every thing
+was provided for. I was even closeted for two hours with the two
+individuals who, of all France, or of all mankind, had the largest stake
+in the crisis, and was again told that there was no crisis to be feared.
+I even offered to take a squadron of dragoons, and arrest the
+conspirators at the moment with my own hand. I saw the eyes of the
+noblest of women fill with tears of grief and indignation at the
+hopelessness of my appeal, and the answer, 'that though Frenchmen might
+hate the ministers, they always loved their king.' I saw that all was
+over."
+
+"Still," said I, "I cannot comprehend how the mere mob of Paris could
+have succeeded against the defenders of the palace."
+
+"If you had seen it as I did, the only wonder is, how the Tuileries held
+out so long. After passing a night on guard at the Pavilon de Flore, I
+was summoned at daybreak to attend his majesty. What a staff for a
+reviewing monarch! The queen endeavouring to support the appearance of
+calmness; Madame Elizabeth, that human angel, following her, dissolved
+in tears; the two royal children, weeping and frightened, making their
+way through the crowd of nobles, guardsmen, domestics who had gathered
+promiscuously in the chambers and corridors, armed with whatever weapons
+they could find, and all in confusion. From the windows there was
+another scene; and the only time when I saw the queen shudder, was when
+she cast her eye across the Place du Carrousel, and saw it covered with
+the dense masses of the multitude drawn up in battle-array. A more
+gloomy sight never met the eye. From time to time the distant discharge
+of cannon was heard, giving us the idea that some treachery was
+transacting in the remoter parts of the city, every discharge answered
+by a roar of--'Down with the King'--'Death to Marie Antoinette'--'The
+lamp-iron to all traitors.' While, as I glanced on those around me, I
+saw despair in every countenance; the resolution perhaps to die, but the
+evident belief that their death must be in vain. You now know all."
+
+I still expressed my strong anxiety to know what had been the events
+within the palace.
+
+"Marston, I cannot think of them. I cannot speak of them. I see nothing
+but a vision of blood, shame, folly, wretchedness. There never was a
+cause more fatally abandoned. Every thing that could be done to ruin a
+monarchy was done. I was standing beside the royal group, when a
+deputation from the National Assembly made its appearance. At its head
+was a meagre villain, whom one might have taken for the public
+executioner. He came up, cringing and bowing, to the unfortunate king;
+but with a look which visibly said--We have you in our power. I could
+have plunged my sword in the triumphant villain's heart. I had even
+instinctively half drawn it, when I felt the gentle pressure of a hand
+on mine. It was the queen's. 'Remember the king's presence. We must owe
+nothing to violence,' were her words. And at this instant she looked so
+heart-broken, yet so noble, that I could have worshipped her. The
+deputation pressed the necessity of 'taking shelter,' as they phrased
+it, 'in the bosom of the faithful Assembly.' The words, 'assembly of
+traitors,' burst from my lips. A shout of approbation arose on all
+sides. But I was more rewarded by a sorrowing smile from the queen. She
+was indignant at the proposal. 'No; never shall I leave this spot but by
+the king's command!' she exclaimed. 'I would rather be chained to the
+walls.' As the guard pressed round her at the words, she suddenly
+stopped, took a pistol from one of the Garde du Corps, and forcing it on
+the king--'Now,' said the heroine--'now is the time to show yourself a
+king of France!' An universal cry of enthusiasm arose, and hundreds of
+swords were brandished in the air. The deputation, evidently expecting
+to be massacred, made an effort to reach the door, and the monarchy was
+on the point of being saved; when the leader of the party glanced back
+at the royal circle. There stood unfortunate Louis, hesitating, with the
+pistol in his hand. On such moments all depends. The villain crept up to
+the king, and whispered in his ear--'Would you have all your family put
+to death? In the Assembly all are safe.'--'Well, then, we shall go,' was
+the simple answer. He might have added--'To the scaffold.' The queen
+pressed her hands on her eyes, and wept bitterly. All were silent. In a
+few minutes more our sad procession was crossing the garden to the door
+of the Assembly, amid a roar, which could not have been fiercer or more
+triumphant had we been going to execution."
+
+It was already twilight; the fine summer's day, as if it had been
+dimmed by the desperate scenes of which it was witness, set in sudden
+clouds; and the distant shoutings of the populace seemed to be answered
+by the voice of a storm. Lafontaine's wound began to bleed afresh by the
+agitation of his story, and to find medical assistance, was my first
+object. Having seen him conveyed to my bed, and leaving him in charge of
+my valet, I hastened towards the residence of the physician to the
+embassy. In doing this, I had to cross the Rue St Honore. But there my
+course was stopped. I shrink from alluding to those horrid scenes and
+times. The scene which there met my eyes has scarcely left them since.
+
+The populace were returning from the conquest and plunder of the palace
+to the Palais Royale, the headquarters of all convulsion; and they had
+arranged their ranks into something like a triumphal procession on the
+stage. The dead bodies of the brave Swiss were carried on boards or
+biers, preceded by banners of all kinds; the plundered ornaments of the
+Tuileries were borne on the heads of men; the horses from the royal
+stables, caparisoned for the occasion, drew hearses, in which the bodies
+of the mob who had fallen were deposited. Brief as the time for
+decoration had been, wreaths of artificial flowers, taken from the shops
+of the _marchandes de modes_, and theatrical shawls and mantles from the
+stores of the _fripiers_, covered the biers; and the whole, surrounded
+and followed by a forest of pikes and bayonets, plumes and flags, had no
+other light than the lurid and shifting blaze of thousands of torches
+tossing in the wild and howling wind.
+
+The train seemed endless; shocked and sickened, I had made repeated
+efforts to cross the column, but was repeatedly driven back. If all the
+dead criminality of Paris had risen to join all the living, it could
+scarcely have increased my astonishment at the countless thousands which
+continued to pour on before me; nor scarcely, if the procession had
+started from the grave, could it have looked more strange, squalid,
+haggard, and woebegone. In the rear came the cannon, which had achieved
+this melancholy victory. And they, again, were sometimes converted into
+the carriage of the dead, sometimes of the plunder, and, in every
+instance, were surmounted by women, female furies, drinking, shouting,
+and uttering cries of unspeakable savageness and blasphemy against
+priests, nobles, and kings; and, mingled with all this, were choruses of
+bacchanal songs, accompanied with shouts of laughter. It was now near
+midnight; and my anxiety for the condition of my unfortunate friend at
+last urged me to make a desperate attempt to force my way through the
+mass of pikes and daggers. After being swept far along with the stream,
+I reached the street in which the physician lived. He set out with me
+immediately, and, by his superior knowledge of the route, we were
+enabled to make our way unimpeded through streets, that looked like dens
+of robbers, to my hotel.
+
+But there a new and still more alarming disappointment awaited me. I
+found the porter and all the attendants of the establishment gathered on
+the stairs in terror. Lafontaine was gone! Whether, frenzied by the
+insults and yells of the populace, who continued to pass in troops from
+time to time, or anxious for my safety, he had started from his bed, put
+on his sword, and rushed into the street; without the possibility of
+being restrained, and without uttering a word of explanation.
+
+Exhausted as I was by fatigue, and still more by the sights and scenes
+through which I had just passed, this intelligence was a severe blow.
+The fate of a young enthusiast, and a foreigner, whom I had known but so
+lately, and of whom I knew so little, might not have justified much
+personal sacrifice. But the thought of the heart that would be broken by
+his falling into the hands of the barbarians, who were now masters of
+every thing, smote keenly upon me. Mariamne would die; and though I was
+by no means a lover of Mariamne, yet, where I had seen so much that was
+loveable, I might have a regard next in degree. There may, and does
+often, exist the tenderness of love without the flame. I could have
+looked on this pretty and animated creature as the wife of Lafontaine,
+or of any other object of her choice, without the slightest pang; but I
+could not have looked upon her pining away in hopelessness, wasting in
+silent sorrow, or with her gay and gentle existence clouded by a loss
+which nothing could repair, without thinking every effort of mine to
+avert evil from her, due on every principle of common feeling.
+
+While I pondered, a note was brought to me, written by Lafontaine before
+he had sallied from his chamber, and evidently written under the wildest
+emotion. It told me, in a few scarcely legible words, that he felt life
+a burden to him, and thanked Heaven for the opportunity now offered of
+dying for his king and the glory of France. That the monarchy had
+perished beyond redemption. But that, though the royal family were
+surrounded by the poniards of assassins, it was his determination to
+follow and find them, rescue them, or die at their feet. This strange
+production closed with--"You shall hear of me within twenty four hours,
+living or dead. If I fall, remember me to my affianced wife; and
+vindicate my character to the world."
+
+This was so like insanity, that it perplexed me more and more; but, on
+second thoughts, it appeared to offer some clue to his pursuit.--He had
+gone to die in presence of the royal family. If they were to be found by
+him at all, they must be found in the Assembly. I immediately went to
+the garden of the Tuileries, where they met until their new legislative
+palace should be erected. The multitude had now partially retired, for
+it was midnight; and the entrance was comparatively clear. A strong
+force of the National Guard still kept the drunken rabble at a distance;
+and the five franc piece, with which I tempted the incorruptibility of a
+peculiarly ferocious-looking patriot, admitted me without delay.
+
+What a scene there presented itself to my eyes! The "Salle" was large
+and showy; and when I had attended it in former debates, it exhibited
+the taste and skill which the French, more than any other people on
+earth, exhibit in temporary things. Nothing could exceed the elegance
+with which the Parisian decorators had fitted up this silk and tinsel
+abode, which was to be superseded, within a few months, by the solid
+majesty of marble. But, on this memorable and melancholy night, the
+ornaments bore, to me, the look of those sad frivolities with which
+France is fond of ornamenting her tombs. The chandeliers burned dim; the
+busts and statues looked ghostlike; the chief part of the members had
+thrown themselves drowsily on the benches; and the debate had languished
+into the murmurs of a speech, to which no one listened. If the loaded
+table, with its pile of petitions and ordonnances, in the midst of the
+hall, could have been imagined into a bier; the whole had the aspect of
+a _chapelle ardente_; there, indeed, lay in state the monarchy of
+France. My unlucky friend, of course, was not there; but I saw, in a
+narrow box, on the right of the president, a group, from which, when
+once seen, I found it impossible to withdraw my gaze--the first and most
+exalted victims of the Revolution, the king and his family. All but one
+were apparently overcome with fatigue; for they had sat there fifteen
+hours. But that one sat with a steady eye and an erect front, as if
+superior to all suffering. I had seen Marie Antoinette, the most
+splendid figure, in all the splendours of her court. I had seen her
+unshaken before vast popular assemblages, in which any rash or ruffian
+hand might have taken her life at the instant; but she now gave me an
+impression of a still higher order. Sitting in calm resignation and
+unstained dignity, her stately form and countenance, pale and pure as
+marble, looked like some noble statue on a tomb; or rather, sitting in
+that chamber of death, like some pure spirit, awaiting the summons to
+ascend from the relics of human guilt, infirmity, and passion before
+her.
+
+But the slumbers of the Assembly were soon to be broken. A tumult, and
+the tramping of many feet, was heard at the door. It was followed by the
+thunder of clubs and hammers breaking it in; the bars gave way; the
+huissiers and other attendants rushed through the body of the hall, and
+took refuge behind the chair of the president in affright; the sleepers
+started from their seats; and, with a roar which spoke the true
+supremacy of the new power in France, the mob poured in. They announced
+themselves a deputation from the Municipality, and instantly took
+possession of the benches. Men, women, and even children, composed this
+barbarian invasion; like all that I had seen, half intoxicated; but
+evidently trained by higher hands for more determined evil. A chosen
+set of orators, in Roman robes, probably plundered from some suburb
+theatre, moved forward to the table, and took their seats round it in as
+much solemnity as conscript fathers. The chief speaker then advanced
+from the door, preceded by the head of one of the murdered Swiss on a
+pike, a hideous spectacle, and, drawing from his belt a dagger,
+commenced a furious harangue against every thing that bore the shape of
+authority in the kingdom. The Assembly did not escape in the general
+outpouring of its bitterness. They were charged with want of zeal, with
+want of honesty, and, most formidable of all, want of patriotism. I saw
+many a member cower at the word; for it was the countersign of
+Jacobinism; and the man, on whom that charge was personally fastened,
+was sure to fall by pistol or dagger. But the rage of the harangue was
+levelled at the royal family. "There sits the tyrant!" he exclaimed,
+pointing with his poniard to the meekest of monarchs and of men. "The
+vengeance of the people calls for victims. How long shall it be
+insulted? If justice is blind, tear the bandage from her eyes. How long
+shall the sword of the people rust in its sheath! Liberty sitting on her
+altar demands new sacrifices to feed the flame. The blood of tyrants is
+the only incense worthy to be offered by a regenerated people!"
+
+At every pause of those fierce interjections, the crowd burst into yells
+of applause, drew knives and daggers from their bosoms, flourished them
+in the air, and echoed the words. The Assembly were evidently held in
+terror of their lives. The president made some faint attempts to restore
+order. A few of the members made faint attempts at speeches. But the mob
+were masters; and a night of such horrors passed, as I had never dreamed
+of before. At daybreak the orator demanded that a decree should be
+instantly passed, suspending the king, the ministry, and even the
+Assembly, in the midst of which he stood. Of all the extravagances ever
+conceived--of all the insolences of power--of all the licenses of
+popular licentiousness, this was the most daring, unrivalled, and
+unimagined; and yet this was carried, with scarcely a voice raised
+against it. The trembling president, with the dagger at his throat, put
+the motion for extinguishing the throne, the cabinet, and calling a new
+Assembly! From that hour the monarchy was no more.
+
+During this tremendous discussion, I had not ventured to raise my eyes
+towards the royal family; but, as all were now about to retire, I dared
+a single glance. The king was slowly leaving the box, leading the
+dauphin by the hand; the Princess Elizabeth was carrying the sleeping
+dauphiness in her arms; the queen stayed behind, alone, for a moment,
+sitting, as she had done for hours, with her eyes fixed on vacancy, and
+her countenance calm, but corpselike. At length she seemed to recollect
+that she was alone, and suddenly started up. Then nature had its way;
+she tottered, and fainted. From that night forth, that glorious creature
+never saw the light of day but through the bars of a prison. From the
+Feuillans, the royal family were consigned to the cells of the Temple,
+from which Louis and Marie Antoinette never emerged but to the grave!
+
+This night taught me a lesson, which neither time nor circumstance has
+ever made me forget. It cured me of all my republican fantasies at once,
+and for ever. I believe myself above the affectation of romantic
+sensibility. But it would not be less affectation to deny the feelings
+to which that awful scene of human guilt and human suffering gave birth.
+If the memory of the popular atrocities made me almost abhor human
+nature, the memory of that innocent and illustrious woman restored my
+admiration of the noble qualities that may still be found in human
+nature. "If I forget thee even in my mirth," the language of the
+Israelite to his beloved city, was mine, in scarcely a less solemn or
+sacred spirit, in those hours of early experience. Let the hearts and
+eyes of others refuse to acknowledge such feelings. I am not ashamed to
+say, that I have shed many a tear over the fate of the King and Queen of
+France. In the finest fictions of genius, in the most high-wrought
+sorrows of the stage, I have never been so deeply touched, I have never
+felt myself penetrated with such true and irresistible emotion, as in
+reading, many a year after, the simplest record of the unhappy Bourbons.
+What must it be, to have witnessed the last agonies of their hearts and
+throne!
+
+On returning to my chamber, shuddering and wretched, I found a despatch
+on my table. It was from Downing Street; an order, that within twelve
+hours after its receipt, I should set out from Paris, and make my way,
+with the utmost secrecy, to the headquarters of the Austrian and
+Prussian army; where further orders would be waiting for me.
+
+This command threw me into new perplexity. It had been my purpose to
+find my unfortunate friend, if he was not already in the bosom of the
+Seine, or a victim to some of the popular violences. But my orders were
+peremptory. I, however, did all that was in my power. I spent the day in
+looking for him through all the hotels and hospitals; and, after a
+hopeless search, gave my man of mystery, Mendoza, a commission--paid for
+at a rate that made him open his hollow eyes wide with incredulity on
+the coin--to discover and protect him, wherever he was to be found.
+
+But I had now another difficulty which threatened to nip my diplomatic
+honours in the bud. The news had just arrived, that the allied armies
+had passed the frontier, and were sweeping all before them with fire and
+sword. A populace is always mad with courage, or mad with cowardice; and
+the Parisians, who, but yesterday, were ready to have made a march round
+the globe, now thought the wells and cellars of the city not too deep,
+or too dark to hold them. They would have formed a camp in the
+catacombs, if they could. All was sudden terror. The barriers were shut.
+Guards were posted tenfold at all the gates. Men were ranged on the
+heights round the city, to make signals of the first approach of the
+Prussian hussars; and the inhabitants spent half the day on every house
+top that commanded a view of the country, waiting for the first glimpse
+of their devourers. To escape from this city of terror now became next
+to impossible. All my applications were powerless. The government were
+themselves regarded as under lock and key; the populace, as if
+determined that all should share a common massacre, were clustered at
+the barriers, pike in hand, to put all "emigrants" to death; the
+ambassador was, as ambassadors generally are in cases of real
+difficulty, a cipher; and yet I _must_ leave Paris within twelve hours,
+or be cashiered.
+
+It at length occurred to me to avail myself of my Jewish spy, and I
+found him listening to a midnight harangue in the midst of a Jacobin
+crowd, in the Palais Royal. He considered the matter for a while; and I
+walked about, leaving him to his free invention, while I contrasted the
+brilliant blaze of the gaming and dancing-rooms above me with the
+assassin-like darkness of the galleries below. At length he turned to
+me. "There is but one way. Have you any objection to be arrested?"
+
+"The greatest imaginable," was my answer.
+
+"Just as you please," he replied; "but I have here an order for the
+seizure of one of the emigrant agents, a Chevalier Lafontaine, lately
+arrived in Paris. He has been seen in the palace, but we have missed him
+for the last twelve hours. The order is for Vincennes. Will you take his
+place?"
+
+I naturally looked all surprise, and peremptorily refused.
+
+"Do as you will," said my intractable adviser; "but there is no other
+way to pass the gates. I shall take you to Vincennes as a state
+prisoner; I have influence there. In short, if you trust me, you shall
+be safe, and on your road by daybreak. If you do not, here your life is
+uncertain; you are known, watched, and the first order that I receive
+to-morrow, may be one for your apprehension."
+
+All this was likely enough; there was but a moment to deliberate, and I
+got into the first cabriolet, and drove with him to the barrier. The
+streets still exhibited scattered bands, who questioned us from time to
+time, but the words, "By order of the Municipality," which were enough
+to terrify the stoutest hearts, and the display of his badge, carried us
+through. We passed the guard at the gate, after a slight examination of
+the order, and galloped to Vincennes.
+
+At the sight of the frowning fortress my blood chilled, and I refused to
+go further. "In that case," said my conductor, "_I_ am compromised, and
+_you_ are ruined; the first patrol will seize you, while I shall be
+shot. I pledge myself, that here you shall not remain; but I must be
+acquitted to the head of the police. You shall be M. le Chevalier
+Lafontaine for the night; and, if such a man exists, you will probably
+be the means of saving his life. To-morrow I shall bring proofs of my
+mistake, and then you will be outside the walls of Paris, and free to go
+where you please."
+
+The name of Lafontaine decided me. Even the risk seemed less serious
+than before, and we drove over the drawbridge. The interior of the
+fortress formed a striking contrast to the scenes which I had just left
+behind me. All was still stern, and noiseless.
+
+"Give me your papers," said Mendoza; "they will be safer in my hands
+than in yours."
+
+I had but time to give him my despatch, as we passed through the court
+which led to the governor's apartments. I was searched in the presence
+of that important functionary, a meagre old captain of invalids, who had
+been roused from his bed, and was evidently half asleep. I stoutly
+denied my being "the criminal who had offended the majesty of the
+people." But as the governor himself, on gazing at me with his purblind
+eyes, was perfectly satisfied of my identity, there was no use in
+contesting the point. A couple of sentinels were placed at the door of
+my cell, and I was left, like himself, to my slumbers. Before the door
+closed, I grasped my guide by the throat. The thought that I had been
+entrapped, actually agonized me.
+
+"Am I betrayed?" I asked, in a whisper of fury.
+
+The only answer was, "Mordecai."
+
+I felt security in the word, and, without a further pang, heard his
+tread echoing along the distant corridor.
+
+Time rolls on, whether we are happy or miserable. Morning came, and
+found me feverish from a thousand dreams. Noon came, and my impatience
+grew with the hour. Evening came, and yet no symptom of my liberation.
+If, "hope deferred maketh the heart sick," confidence duped, and
+blindly, weakly, rashly duped, turns to torture.
+
+Why trust a known agent of the police? Why put my liberty into his
+hands? Why, above all, make him master of my papers? I was overwhelmed
+with shame. I writhed with remorse. As hour after hour dragged into slow
+length along, I sank from dejection to dejection, or burst from rage to
+rage. But at last, when the drums of the garrison were making their
+final flourish for the night, the key turned in the door of my cell, and
+the Jew entered. I almost sprang upon him, and his life would have been
+worth little, but for the words--"You may now leave the fortress." He
+told me, further, that my absence was fortunate, for a domiciliary visit
+had been paid to my apartments by direction of the municipality; my
+trunks examined, and my doors sealed. My absence was imputed to flight;
+and, as jails were then the only safe residences in France, I had
+escaped actual imprisonment simply by my volunteer detention; to watch
+the event, had been the source of his delay. All was speedily settled
+with the old commandant, who was now as perfectly "convinced, on his own
+knowledge," that I was not the chevalier, as he had been convinced on
+the night before that I was. Mendoza's proofs were registered in due
+form; and with unspeakable delight I once again mounted his cabriolet,
+and heard the chains of the drawbridge rattle behind me.
+
+My Jew had been true to his pledge. I found horses provided for me at a
+lonely cabaret, a league off. With the minute foresight which men of his
+trade learn, he had provided for me a couple of disguises--the garb of a
+peasant, which I was to use when I passed among the soldiery; and the
+uniform of an aide-de-camp, with which I was to keep down enquiries when
+I came among the peasantry. But I was weary of disguise. It had never
+thriven with my temperament. I was determined, at all events, now to
+trust to chance and my proper person; and if I must fail, have the
+satisfaction of failing after my own style. The only recompense which my
+magnanimous police-officer would receive, was a promise that I should
+mention his conduct to Mordecai; and, gathering up his rejected
+wardrobe, he departed.
+
+Fortunately I found disguises unnecessary, though at any other time they
+might have been essential. The country was all in a state of flight, and
+every man was too much employed in securing himself, to think of laying
+hold of others. Thus galloped I through hill and dale, through bush and
+brier, unquestioned and almost unseen; until, on the evening of the
+fourth day, as I plunged into a forest, which for the last half hour I
+had been imagining into a scene of fairyland, a bower where a pilgrim
+might finish his journey for life, or a man, "crazed by care, or crossed
+in hopeless love," might forget woman and woe together--I was awakened
+to the realities of things by the whistle of a bullet, which struck off
+a branch within an inch of my head, followed by a fierce howl for the
+countersign. By all the laws of war, the howl should have come first;
+but these were not times for ceremony. A troop of Hulans rushed round
+me, sabre in hand. I stood like a stoic; and, of course, attempted to
+tell who I was. But my German was unintelligible to my captors, and my
+French, a suspicious language on a Prussian outpost, only confirmed
+their opinion that I was born to be stripped. Accordingly one demanded
+my watch, another my purse, and I was in a fair way of entering the
+Prussian lines in a state of pauperism, or of being "left alone in my
+glory" by shot or sabre, when an officer rode up, whom I had casually
+known in some Parisian circle. To him I could explain myself, and to him
+I exhibited the envelope of my letter, inscribed with the words, "Grand
+Quartier General." My new friend bowed to this awful address like a Turk
+to the firman of the padisha, poured out a volley of wrath on the troop,
+ordered the instant and very reluctant restitution of my property, and
+with a couple of the squadron at our heels, took me under his escort, to
+deliver my papers in person.
+
+After an hour's gallop through rocks, rivulets, and brambles, which
+seemed without end, and totally uninhabited, except by an occasional
+patrol of the irregulars of the Austrian and Prussian forces--barbarians
+as savage-looking as ever were Goth or Hun, and capital substitutes for
+the wolves and wild-boars which they had ejected for the time--a sudden
+opening of the forest brought us within view of the immense camp of the
+combined armies.
+
+All the externals of war are splendid; it is the interior, the
+consequences, the operation of that mighty trampler of man that are
+startling. This was my first sight of that most magnificent of all the
+atrocious inventions of human evil--an army. The forces of the two most
+warlike monarchies of Europe were spread before me; nearly a hundred and
+fifty thousand troops, with all the numberless followers of a host in
+the field, covering a range of low hills which circled the horizon.
+While we were still at a considerable distance, a gun was fired from the
+central hill, answered by others from the flanks. The rolling of drums
+set the vast line in motion, and just at the moment when the sun was
+lying on the edge of the west, the brigades, descending each from its
+height, halted on the slope. The whole vast manoeuvre was executed
+with the exactness of a single mind. The blaze of the sun on the arms,
+the standards, and the tents crowning the brow of the hills, was
+magical. "Are they marching to battle?" was my amazed question to my
+companion. His only answer was to check his charger, take off his shako,
+and bend his forehead to his saddle-bow. A burst of universal harmony,
+richer than I had ever yet conceived, explained the mystery. It was the
+evening prayer. The fine bands of the regiments joined the voices of the
+soldiery, and I listened, in unbroken rapture and reverence, until its
+close. In court or cathedral, in concert or shrine, I had never before
+so much felt the power of sound. It finished in a solemn chorus, and
+accumulation of music. I could have almost imagined it ascending,
+embodied, to heaven.
+
+The fire of cannon announced the conclusion of the service; we put spurs
+to our horses, and soon entered the lines; and, on the strength of my
+credentials, I had distinguished quarters assigned to me.
+
+I now, for the first time since I left England, began to feel the
+advantages of birth. In London every man is so submerged in the
+multitude, that he who can hold his head high enough out of the living
+surge to be known, must have something of remarkable buoyancy, or
+peculiar villany, about him. Even Parliament, except to a few of the
+leaders, is no distinction. The member for the shire is clipped of all
+his plumage at the moment of his entering that colossal poultry-yard,
+and must take his obscure pickings with other unnoticeable fowl. In
+Paris, once the Mahometan paradise of stars and garters, the central
+herald's office of the earth, the royal region of the Parliament
+aristocracy, where the beggar with a _cordon_ on his breast outshone the
+banker with millions in his pocket-book, the world was changed; and to
+be the son or brother of a peer might have been only a speedier passport
+to the lamp-post. But, in Germany, the land of pedigrees, to be an
+"honourable" was to be one on whom the sun shone with double beams; the
+sex, young and old, smiled with double softness and the whole host of
+Serenities were doubly serene. In camp, nothing could be more hospitable
+or distinguished than my reception; for the soldier is always
+good-humoured under canvass, and the German is good-humoured every
+where. Perhaps he has rather too high an opinion of his descent from
+Goth and Vandal, but he makes allowance for the more modern savagery of
+Europe; and although the stranger may neither wear spectacles, nor smoke
+cigars, neither muzzle his visage with mustaches, nor speak the most
+formidable tongue on earth, the German will good-naturedly admit, that
+he may be a human being after all.
+
+But the man with whom my mission brought me most immediately into
+contact, and to whom I was most indebted for courtesy, would have been a
+remarkable personage in any country of Europe; that man was the Duke of
+Brunswick.
+
+On my arrival, I found two letters forwarded from London, and in the
+hands of an aide-de-camp of the generalissimo. The first which I opened
+was from the Foreign Office, a simple statement of the purpose for which
+I was sent--namely, to stimulate the activity of the Prussian councils,
+and to urge on the commander of the army an immediate march on the
+French capital; with a postscript, directing me, in case of tardiness
+being exhibited at headquarters, instantly to transmit a despatch home,
+and return to my post in Paris. The second letter--which I must, however
+undiplomatically, admit that I opened with much stronger interest--was
+from Mordecai. I glanced over it for some mention of the "ane braw
+name," and bitterly laughed at my own folly in expecting to find such
+communications in the letter of the hard-headed and busy Jew. All was
+brief and rapid.
+
+"If this shall find you in the Prussian camp, you will have no more time
+for me than I have for you. Let me not clip your diplomatic hopes; but
+this I forewarn you, you will not obtain a single object of your
+journey; except, perhaps, showing that you can gallop a hundred miles in
+the four-and-twenty hours, and can make your way through a country of
+lunatics without being piked or sabred.
+
+"The campaign is over already--over before it was begun. The battle was
+fought in the council at Berlin, and the allies were beaten. The duke,
+within the next fortnight, will be deciding on the merits of the ballet
+in Brunswick, and the French will be madder than ever with triumphs
+which they never won, preparing for conquests which are already gained,
+and knocking down thrones, the owners themselves supplying the pickaxes
+and hammers. You will see the two best armies of the Continent running
+away from their own shadows; the old councillors of Frederick and Maria
+Theresa baffled by cabinets of cobblers and tinkers; grey-beard
+generals, covered with orders, hunted over the frontier by boys, girls,
+and old women; and France, like a _poissarde_ in a passion, with her
+hair flying about her ears, a knife in her hand, and her tongue in full
+swing, scampering half naked over Europe, to the infinite wonder of the
+wearers of velvet, Mechlin lace, and diadems,--ha, ha, ha!"
+
+While I was trying to decipher this riddle, which was rather too
+contemptuous for my new views of things, but which I referred to the
+habitual feelings of a strong-headed man in humble life, brought just
+close enough to higher to feel his exclusion, an officer was announced
+as Count Varnhorst, on the staff of the duke. His countenance struck me
+at first sight, as one which I had seen before; and I soon discovered,
+that when I was a boy at Eton, he had been on a visit of a few days at
+Mortimer castle, in the suite of one of the Prussian princes. We had
+been thus old friends, and we now became young ones within the first
+quarter of an hour. His countenance was that of a humourist, and his
+recollections of the Great Frederick rendered him sarcastic on all
+things of the later generation.
+
+"The duke has sent me for you," said he, "with his apology for keeping
+you out of bed; but he has appointed midnight for the delivery of your
+despatches. The truth is, that hitherto we have all slept so soundly,
+that we must make up for lost time by turning night into day now, just
+as we have turned day into night for the last twelvemonth."
+
+"But what can you tell me of the duke?"
+
+"Oh! a great deal; but you know that I am on his staff, and therefore
+bound to keep his secrets."
+
+"Yet, count, remember that we have sworn an eternal friendship within
+the last five minutes. What can he or I be the worse for my knowing his
+great and good qualities?"
+
+"My dear young friend, when you are as old as I am, you will see the
+improprieties of such questions."
+
+"Well, then, to come to the point; is he a great general?"
+
+"He speaks French better than any other prince in Germany."
+
+"Is he an able politician?"
+
+"You must see him on horseback; he rides like a centaur."
+
+"Well, then, in one sentence, will he fight the French?"
+
+"That wholly depends on whether he turns his horse's head towards Paris
+or Berlin."
+
+"Count, but one question more, which you may answer without a riddle. Do
+you think that he will receive my mission cordially?"
+
+"He speaks your language; he wears your broad cloth; he loves your
+porter; and he has married one of your princesses."
+
+"All my difficulties are answered. I am ready; but what shall I find him
+doing at this extraordinary hour?"
+
+"If asleep, dreaming of the opera at Brunswick; if awake, dreaming of
+the opera at Paris."
+
+His diamond repeater, which he had laid on the table between us, struck
+twelve as he spoke; and, wrapping ourselves in our cloaks, we sallied
+forth into one of the most starry nights of autumn, and made our way,
+through long ranges of patrols and videttes, to the quarters of the
+generalissimo.
+
+The mansion was an old chateau, evidently long abandoned to loneliness
+and decay one of those huge edifices; whose building had cost one
+fortune, and whose support had exhausted another. But the struggle had
+been over for the last fifty years, and two or three shrivelled
+domestics remained to keep out the invasion of the bats and owls. But at
+this period the chateau exhibited, of course, another scene;
+aides-de-camp, generals, orderlies, couriers--all the clang and clamour
+of the staff of a great army--rang through the wild old halls, and
+echoed up the long ghostly corridors. Every apartment was a blaze of
+light, and filled with groups of officers of the Prussian and Austrian
+guards; all was billiard-playing, talking, singing in chorus, and
+carousing in all the noisy gaiety of the soldier in good quarters.
+
+"All this is tempting enough," said the old count, as we hastened along
+a gallery that seemed endless, but on which the open doors of the
+successive apartments threw broad illumination. "I dare say, Mr Marston,
+that you would prefer taking your seat among those lively fellows, to
+the honour of a ducal conference; but my orders are, that you must not
+be seen until the duke gives you _carte blanche_ to appear among human
+beings again."
+
+The count now opened the door of an apartment, which appeared to have
+been more lately tenanted than the rest, yet which exhibited signs of
+the general desertion; a marble table, covered with a decaying drapery,
+a Carrara alabaster of Niobe and her children on the mantelpiece, a huge
+mirror, and a tapestry of one of the hunts of Henri Quatre, showed that
+Time had been there, and that the Prussians had not; but the indistinct
+light of the single chandelier left me but little opportunity of
+indulging my speculations on the furniture. The count had left me, to
+ascertain when the duke should be at leisure to receive me; and my first
+process was, like a good soldier, to reconnoitre the neighbouring
+territory. The first door which I opened led into a conservatory, filled
+with the remnants of dead foliage, opening on the gardens of the
+chateau, which, wild as they now were, still sent up a fragrance doubly
+refreshing, after the atmosphere of meershaums, hot brandy, and Rhine
+beer, which filled the galleries. The casement distantly overlooked the
+esplanade in front of the chateau; and the perpetual movements of the
+couriers and estafettes, arriving and departing every moment, the
+galloping of cavalry, and the march of patrols, occupied me until a
+valet of the duke came to acquaint me that supper was served, by his
+highness's commands, in the apartment which I had lately quitted, and
+that he would be present in a few minutes.
+
+I returned of course; and found the chamber which I had left so dark and
+dilapidated, changed, as if by a fairy wand, into pomp and elegance. The
+duke was renowned for splendid extravagance, and the table was covered
+with rich plate, the walls glittered with a profusion of gilt lamps, and
+all round me had the look of regal luxury. But one object suddenly
+caught my gaze, and left me no power to glance at any other. In a
+recess, which had hitherto been obscure, but over which now blazed a
+brilliant girandole, hung a full-length portrait of a nun, which, but
+for the dress, I should have pronounced to be Clotilde; the same Greek
+profile, the same deep yet vivid eye, the same matchless sweetness of
+smile, and the same mixture of melancholy and enthusiasm, which had made
+me think my idol fit to be the worship of the world. I stood wrapped in
+astonishment, delight, pain, a thousand undefined feelings, until I
+could have almost imagined that the canvass before me lived. I saw its
+eye all but glisten, its lips all but open to speak; the very marble of
+its cheek begin to glow; when I was awakened by a lively voice, saying,
+in French--"Ah, Mr Marston, I perceive that you are a connoisseur." I
+turned, and saw the speaker, a man somewhat above the middle size; a
+remarkably noble-looking personage; in full dress even at that hour,
+powdered and perfumed, and altogether a court figure; his hands loaded
+with jewels, and a diamond star of the order of the garter upon his
+breast. It required no introducer to tell me that I was in the presence
+of the Duke of Brunswick.
+
+"Come," said he, "we have no time for etiquette, nor indeed for any
+thing else to-night--we must sup first, and then talk of your mission."
+
+We sat down; a double file of valets, in liveries, loaded with
+embroidery, attended at the table; though the party consisted of but
+four; Varnhorst, and a Colonel Guiseard, chief of the secret diplomacy,
+a pale Spanish-featured officer--to whom his highness did me the honour
+of introducing me, as the son of one of his old friends.
+
+"You remember Marston," said he, "at Brunswick, five-and-twenty years
+ago, in his envoyship--a capital horseman, a brilliant dresser, and a
+very promising diplomatist. I augured well of his future career,
+but" ----the infinite elevation of the ducal shoulders, and the infinite
+drooping of the ducal eyes, completed the remainder of my unfortunate
+parent's history; but whether in panegyric or censure, I was not
+sufficiently versed in the science of saying nothing and implying all
+things, to tell. Guiseard fixed his deep sallow eye on me, without a
+word: at that moment he reminded me exactly of one of the
+Inquisitors--the deep, dark-visaged men whom the matchless pencil of
+Velasquez has immortalized.
+
+Varnhorst burst out into a laugh.
+
+"What, Guiseard," said he, "are you reconnoitring the ground before you
+make the attack? Your royal highness, I think we ought to vindicate our
+country to this English gentleman, by assuring him that the colonel is
+not a cardinal in disguise."
+
+The colonel merely smiled, which seemed an effort for his cloistered
+physiognomy; the duke laughed, and began a general conversation upon all
+possible topics--England forming the chief; the royal family--the
+court--the theatres--parliament--the people--all whirled over with the
+ease and rapidity of one turning the leaves of an album; here a verse
+and there a portrait--here a sketch of a temple, and there an outline of
+a cottage--the whole pretty, and as trifling as pretty, and cast aside
+at the first moment when any thing better worth thinking of occurred.
+
+In the midst of our gaiety, in which the duke had completely laid down
+his sceptre, and taken his full share, the great clock of the chateau
+tolled one. The table was instantly swept of supper--the valets
+withdrew. I heard the tread of a sentinel at the door of the apartment;
+and the duke, instantly changing from the man of fashion to the
+statesman, began to enter into the questions then so deeply disturbing
+all the cabinets of Europe.
+
+I found the duke a very superior man to what I had conceived of him. He
+was frank and free, spoke of the intentions of the Allies in the most
+open manner, and censured the errors which they had already committed,
+with a plainness which I had not expected to find out of London. He had
+evidently made himself master of a great variety of knowledge, and with
+the happy but most unusual power of rendering it all applicable to the
+point in question. My impressions of him and his order, imbibed among
+the prejudices of England and the libels of France, was that of
+frivolity and flutter--an idle life and a stagnant understanding. I
+never was more surprised at the contrast between this conception and the
+animated and accomplished prince before me. He seemed to know not merely
+the persons of all the leading men of Europe--which might have naturally
+been the case with one who had visited every capital--but to be
+acquainted with their characters, their abilities, and even their modes
+of thinking. He seemed to me a man born to rule. It was in later days
+that the habits of a voluptuary, of which his peculiar love of dress
+might have been slightly symptomatic, produced their effect, in
+enfeebling a mind made for eminence. I saw him afterwards, broken with
+years and misfortune. But on this night I could only see a man on whom
+the destinies of Europe were rightly reposed. I pay this tribute of
+honour to his memory.
+
+He spoke a great deal, in our conference, on the necessity of a strong
+European combination against France, and flatteringly addressed to me a
+strong panegyric on my country.
+
+"If we can obtain," said he, "the cordial co-operation of the English
+people, I see no difficulty before us. We already have the Ministry with
+us; but I know the Englishman's hatred of a foreign war, his horror of
+public expenditure on continental interests, and his general distrust of
+the policy of foreign courts. And until we can give the people some
+evidence, not only that our intentions are sincere, but that our cause
+is their own, we shall never have the nation on our side."
+
+My remark was, "that the chief difficulty with the nation would be, to
+convince them that the Allied Powers were not influenced by personal
+motives; I said that the seizure of territory, while the French remained
+in their defenceless state, would probably excite strong public
+displeasure in England; and plainly stated, that the only thing which
+could engage the public spirit in the war, would be a conviction of its
+absolute justice and stern necessity."
+
+The conversation was here interrupted by the arrival of a staff-officer
+with despatches from Berlin. A number of papers were laid on the table,
+and handed over to Varnhorst and Guiseard to read. They proved chiefly
+notes and orders relative to the advance of the army. One paper,
+however, the duke read with evident interest, and marked with his pencil
+down the margin.
+
+"I am delighted," said he, "that this paper has reached us at last. Mr
+Marston will now see what my real advice has been from the beginning.
+The French journals have attacked me furiously for the declaration
+issued at our entrance on the frontier. The journals of England have
+partly echoed the French, and I am held up to the world as the author of
+the _Declaration of Pilnitz_. This paper, which Mr Marston will do me
+the honour to send at daybreak to his court by a special messenger, will
+clear my character with his countrymen at once--with the rest of Europe,
+I am content to wait a little longer."
+
+He then read the paper in his hand; and it was a long and striking
+protest against the idea of partitioning France, or having any other
+intention in the movement of the troops than the security of the French
+throne. This document had been sent to the Council at Berlin, and been
+returned by them for revision by the duke, and the softening of its
+rather uncourtly decisiveness of expression. It stated, that even the
+conquest of France, if it could be effected, must be wholly useless
+without the conciliation of the people: that it must be insecure, that
+it never could be complete, and that even the attempt might rouse this
+powerful people to feel its own force, and turn its vast resources to
+war. The first measure ought, therefore, to be an address to the nation,
+pronouncing, in the clearest language, an utter abjuration of all local
+seizure.
+
+The paper thus returned, and containing the observations of the council,
+was given to Varnhorst, to be copied. "And now," said the duke,
+"gentlemen, I think we may retire for the night; for we have but three
+hours until the march in the morning."
+
+I said some common-place thing, of the obligations which Europe must owe
+to a sovereign prince, exposing himself to such labours, honourable as
+they were.
+
+"No," he smilingly replied; "they are part of our office, the routine of
+the life of princes, the vocation of men born for the public, and living
+for the public alone. The prince must be a soldier, and the soldier must
+make the camp his home, and the palace only his sojourn. It is his
+fortune, perhaps his misfortune, that but one profession in life is left
+open to him, whether it be the bent of his temperament or not--while
+other men may follow their tastes in the choice, serve their fellows in
+a hundred different ways, and raise a bloodless reputation among
+mankind. And now, good-night. To-morrow at five the _advance_ moves. At
+six I shall be on horseback, and then--Well! what matter for the
+_then_? We shall sleep at least to-night; and so, farewell."
+
+
+
+
+INDEX TO VOL. LIV.
+
+
+Aberdeen, Lord, remarks on his church bill, 545.
+
+Adventures in Louisiana, No. I., The Prairie and the Swamp, 43
+  --No. II., The Blockhouse, 234.
+
+Adventures in Texas, No. I., A Scamper in the Prairie of Jacinto, 551
+  --No. II., A Trial by Jury, 777.
+
+Ahmed-Kiuprili, career of, 175.
+
+Anti-corn-law League, proceedings of the, 539.
+
+Ancient Towns, a plea for, against railways, 398.
+
+Aristocracy of England, the, 51.
+
+Armada, the, from Schiller, 143.
+
+Armansperg, Count, administration of, in Greece, 348.
+
+Arne the composer, 26.
+
+Art, British, present state of, 188.
+
+Athens, population, institutions, &c., of, 352.
+
+Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, on the best means of establishing a
+communication between the, 658.
+
+Austria, commerce, &c., of, 251.
+
+Ballads of Schiller, the. _See_ Schiller.
+
+Balzac, M., Two Dreams, a sketch by, 672.
+
+Banking-house, the, a history in three parts. Part I. Chap. I.,
+Prospective, 576
+  --Chap. II., Retrospective, 578
+  --Chap. III., The beginning of the end, 582
+  --Chap. IV., Miching mallecho, it means mischief, 585
+  --Chap. V., Matters of course, 588
+  --Chap. VI., A discovery, 592
+  --Chap. VII., The end of the beginning, 594.
+  Part II. Chap. I., A negotiation, 719
+  --Chap. II., A lull. 723
+  --Chap. III., A sweet couple, 725
+  --Chap. IV., A speculation, 730
+  --Chap. V., A landed proprietor, 733.
+
+Bankruptcy of the Greek kingdom, the, 345
+  --means of averting it, 361.
+
+Barrett, Elizabeth B., Cry of the Children, by, 260.
+
+Bavarian government of Greece, effects of the, 345.
+
+Bennett's Ceylon and its capabilities, review of, 622.
+
+Blockhouse, the, an adventure in Louisiana, 234.
+
+Bridge over the Thur, the, from the German of Gustav Schwab, 717.
+
+British institution, exhibition at the, 203.
+
+Brownrigg, Sir Robert, conquest of Kandy, by, 632.
+
+Bulwer, Sir Edward Lytton, Bart., translation of the poems and ballads
+of Schiller, by. Part the last, 139.
+  --Love and Death, by, 717.
+
+Bute, lines written in, by Delta, 749.
+
+Byrd, the composer, 24.
+
+Cabinet, the Greek, construction and powers of the, 350.
+
+Canadian corn bill, the, 543.
+
+Canal, proposed between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 658.
+
+Carlyle's Past and Present, review of, with notices of his other works,
+121.
+
+Ceylon and its capabilities, by Bennett, review of, 622
+  --its climate, 626
+  --sketch of its history, 627.
+
+Chapters of Turkish History; No. X. The Second Siege of Vienna, 173.
+
+Charles Edward at Versailles on the Anniversary of the Battle of
+Culloden, a poem, 107.
+
+Chronicles of Paris--the Rue St Denis, 524.
+
+Cinghalese, character of the, 627.
+
+Cobden, Mr, refutation of his statements regarding the colonies, 407, 637
+  --his misrepresentations on the corn question, 539.
+
+College Theatricals, a tale, 737.
+
+Colonies, the, examination of Cobden's statements regarding, 409, 637.
+
+Commencement of the New Century, the, from the German of Schiller, 151.
+
+Commercial Intercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, on the
+best means of establishing, 658.
+
+Commercial Policy, Europe, 243
+  --ships, colonies, and commerce, 406
+  --the same continued, 637.
+
+Comparison of the protective and free-trade
+systems, 243, 406, 637.
+Conflict, the, on the German of Schiller, 144.
+
+Continental nobility, comparison of with the British, 56.
+
+Corn-law Question, the, 539.
+
+Council of State, the Greek, 350.
+
+Creswick, Mr, remarks on the style of, 188.
+
+Cry of the Children, the, 260.
+
+Darien company, the, 661.
+
+Davie, Major, conduct of, in Ceylon, 628.
+
+Death from the Sting of a Serpent, lines on, 798.
+
+Delta, a Vision of the World by, 343
+  --Lines written in the Isle of Bute by, 749.
+
+Devil's Frills, the, a Dutch illustration of the water cure,
+  --Chap. I. 225
+  --Chap. II. ib.
+  --Chap. III. 227
+  --Chap. IV. 228
+  --Chap. V. 230
+  --Chap. VI. 232.
+
+Disturbed Districts of Wales, notes on a tour in the, by Joseph Downes,
+766.
+
+Downes, Joseph, tour in the disturbed districts of Wales by, 766.
+
+Dutch, landing of the, in Ceylon, 627.
+
+Early English Musicians, notices of, 23.
+
+Early Greek Romances, the Ethiopics of Heliodorus, 109.
+
+Education, institutions for, in Greece, 357.
+
+Education, the government scheme of, 548.
+
+Emma, lines to, from the German of Schiller, 150.
+
+England, the aristocracy of, 51.
+
+English music and musicians, 23.
+
+Epigram on Dr Toe, &c., 263.
+
+Erigena, letter from, to Christopher North, 263.
+
+Ethiopics of Heliodorus, account of the, 109.
+
+Europe, commercial policy of, 243.
+
+Exhibitions, notices of--the Royal Academy's, 188
+  --the Suffolk Street gallery, 199
+  --paintings in water-colours, 201
+  --the British Institution, 203.
+
+Factory bill, the, 548.
+
+Fanariotes, character of the, 351.
+
+Farewell to the Reader, from the German of Schiller, 152.
+
+Fate of Polycrates, the, 483.
+
+France, conduct of, towards Greece, 359.
+
+Frederick Schlegel, review of the works and character of, 311.
+
+Free-trade and protective systems, comparison of the, 248.
+
+French academy, 519.
+
+French and German works of fiction, comparison between, 672.
+
+Fuseli's Lectures at the Royal Academy: his introduction, 691
+  --Lecture I., 694
+    --II., 697
+    --III., 703.
+
+Game up with the repeal agitation, the, 679.
+
+German and French literature, comparison between, 672.
+
+Gibbons the composer, 24.
+
+Gifts of Terek the, translated from the Russian of Lermontoff, by J. B.
+Shaw, 799.
+
+Gods of Greece, the, from the German of Schiller, 146.
+
+Goethe, remarks by, on the Schlegels, 311.
+
+Great Britain, proceedings of, towards Greece, 359.
+
+Greece, present state and prospects of, 345
+  --peculiarities of its inhabitants, 350
+  --its present revenues and expenditure, 361.
+
+Guizot, M., opinion of, on the union of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans,
+659.
+
+Heliodorus, the Ethiopics of, 109.
+
+Heber, Bishop, the Whippiad, a poem, by. Canto I., 100
+  --Canto II., 102
+  --Canto III., 104.
+
+Hendia, the history of, 479.
+
+Hullah's method of teaching, strictures on, 37.
+
+Humboldt, M., on uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 659.
+
+Hymn to Joy, from the German of Schiller, 142.
+
+Inscription on the foundation stone of the new dining-hall, &c., 79.
+
+Invincible Armada, the, from the German of Schiller, 143.
+
+Irish arms bill, the, 549.
+
+Jacinto, a scamper in the prairie of, 521.
+
+Jack Stuart's bet on the Derby, and how he paid his losses, 67.
+
+Jolly Father Joe, a tale from the Golden Legend, 255.
+
+Joy, hymn to, from the German of Schiller, 142.
+
+Jury trial in Texas, a, 777.
+
+Kandy, description of the district of, 627
+  --its conquest by the British, 632.
+
+Kerim Khan, travels of. Part I., 453
+  --Part II., 564
+  --Part III., 753.
+
+King Arthur, Purcell's opera of, and its revival, 25.
+
+Last Session of Parliament, review of the, 538
+  --the corn question, 539
+  --the Canadian corn bill, 543
+  --the Scotch church bill, 545
+  --the factory bill, 548
+  --the Irish arms bill, 549.
+
+Letter to Christopher North, 263.
+
+Lectures at the Royal Academy--Henry Fuseli, 691.
+
+Lines written in the Isle of Bute, by Delta, 749.
+
+Lloyd, Mr, report by, on uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 663.
+
+Locke, Mathew, the composer, 25.
+
+Logic, Mill's elements of, reviewed, 415.
+
+Louisiana, adventures in; the Prairie and the Swamp, 43
+  --No. II., the Blockhouse, 234.
+
+Love and Death, by Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, 717.
+
+M'Dowall, General, proceedings of, in Ceylon, 628.
+
+Maclise, Mr, remarks on the style of, 188.
+
+Mainzer and Hullah, comparison of the methods of, 37.
+
+Marston; or, Memoirs of a Statesman. Part II., 1
+  --Part III., 207
+  --Part IV., 325
+  --Part V., 608
+  --Part VI., 801.
+
+Maurer, M., administration of, in Greece, 348.
+
+Meeting, the, from the German of Schiller, 149.
+
+Memoir on the best means of establishing a communication between the
+Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 658.
+
+Mill's elements of logic, review of, 415.
+
+Minstrels of Old, the, from the German of Schiller, 152.
+
+Modern painters, their superiority in the art of landscape painting to
+the old masters, review of, 485.
+
+Municipal institutions of Greece, the, 352.
+
+Music, something about, 709.
+
+Music and musicians, English, 23
+  --present state of, in England, 33.
+
+My country neighbours, a tale, 431.
+
+Napier's (Colonel) reminiscences of Syria, review of, 476.
+
+Nobility of England, characteristics of the, 56.
+
+Non-intrusionism, remarks on, and on the proceedings of the party, 545.
+
+Notes on a tour in the disturbed districts in Wales, by Joseph Downes, 766.
+
+O'Connell, Mr, present position of, 264
+  --proceedings of the government against, and their consequences, 685.
+
+Otho, King, state of Greece on his accession to the throne, 345
+  --effects of his government, 348.
+
+Over-production, effects of, 243.
+
+Pacific and Atlantic oceans, proposed communication between the, 658.
+
+Panama, the isthmus of, its advantages for a communication between the
+two oceans, 658
+  --description of the town, 665.
+
+Paris, chronicles of--the Rue St Denis, 524.
+
+Parliament, last session of, review of its measures, 538
+  --the corn-law question, 539
+  --Canadian corn-bill, 543
+  --Scotch church bill, 545
+  --Factory bill, 548
+  --the Irish arms bill, 549.
+
+Past and Present, by Thomas Carlyle, review of, 121.
+
+Patent law, effects of the, 519.
+
+Peel, Sir Robert, review of his speech on the Irish question, 270.
+
+Persian princes, notices of the narrative of the, 453.
+
+Philhellenic drinking-song, by B. Simmons, 41.
+
+Physical science in England, state and prospects of, 514.
+
+Plea for ancient towns against railways, a, 398.
+
+Poems and ballads of Schiller, the. _See_ Schiller.
+
+Poetry--Philhellenic drinking-song, by B. Simmons, 41
+  --inscription on the foundation stone of the new dining-hall, &c., 79
+  --the Whippiad, a satirical poem, by Bishop Heber, Canto I., 100
+    --Canto II., 102
+    --Canto III., 104
+    --Charles Edward at Versailles on the anniversary of the battle of
+      Culloden, 107
+  --Poems and Ballads of Schiller; Part the Last, 139
+  --Jolly Father Joe, a tale from the Golden Legend, 255
+  --the Cry of the Children, by Elizabeth B. Barrett, 260
+  --a Vision of the World, by Delta, 343
+  --the Fate of Polycrates, 483
+  --Lines written in the Isle of Bute, by Delta, 749
+  --Death from the sting of a serpent, 798
+  --the Purple Cloak, or the return of Syloson to Samos, 714
+  --Love and Death, 717
+  --the Bridge over the Thur, from the German, ib.
+  --Gifts of Terek, the, 799.
+
+Polycrates, the Fate of, a poem, 483.
+
+Poole, Mr, critique on his painting, "Solomon Eagle," &c., 189.
+
+Portugal, the French invasion of, causes of its success, 53.
+
+Prairie and the Swamp, the, an adventure in Louisiana, 43.
+
+Protective and free-trade systems, comparison of the, 243, 406, 637.
+
+Puppet-show of Life, the, from the German of Schiller, 150.
+
+Purcell the composer, revival of his opera King Arthur, and remarks on
+it, 25.
+
+Purple Cloak, the, or the return of Syloson to Samos, 714
+  --Part II., 715.
+
+Railroad, proposed, across the isthmus of Panama, 658.
+
+Railways, a plea for ancient towns against, 398.
+
+Reading party during the long vacation, a, 153.
+
+Rebeccaites in Wales, the, 766.
+
+Reminiscences of Syria, 476.
+
+Repeal agitation, the, 264
+  --game up with, 679.
+
+Resignation, from the German of Schiller, 145.
+
+Reviews.--Scrope's Days and nights of salmon fishing, 80
+  --Carlyle's Past and Present, 121
+  --the works of Frederick Schlegel, 311
+  --Woman's rights and duties, 373
+  --Mill's elements of logic, 415
+  --Colonel Napier's reminiscences of Syria, 476
+  --Modern painters, their superiority in the art of landscape painting to
+    the old masters, 485
+  --Bennett's Ceylon and its capabilities, 622.
+
+Roads, deficiency of, in Greece, 336.
+
+Royal Academy, exhibition of the, 188
+  --Fuseli's Lectures at the, 691.
+
+Royal salute, the, a tale, 504.
+
+Royal Society of London, the, 518.
+
+Rue St Denis, chronicles of the, 524.
+
+Russia, conduct of, towards Greece, 359.
+
+Salmon fishing, Scrope's days and nights of, reviewed, 80.
+
+Scamper in the prairie of Jacinto, a, 521.
+
+Schiller, the poems and ballads of, translated, Part the Last,
+introduction, 139
+  --remarks on those of the second period, 140
+  --hymn to joy, 142
+  --the invincible armada, 143
+  --the conflict, 144
+  --resignation, 145
+  --the gods of Greece, 146
+  --the meeting, 149
+  --to Emma, 150
+  --to a young friend devoting himself to philosophy, ib.
+  --the puppet-show of life, ib.
+  --the commencement of the new century, 151
+  --the minstrels of old, 152
+  --farewell to the reader, ib.
+
+Schlegel, Frederick, review of the works of, 311.
+
+Schwab, Gustav, the Bridge over the Thur, by, translated, 717.
+
+Scotch Church, remarks on the bill for the settlement of the, 544.
+
+Scrope on salmon fishing, review of, 80.
+
+Second siege of Vienna, the, a chapter of Turkish history, 173.
+
+Senses, a speculation on the, 650.
+
+Simmons, B., Philhellenic drinking-song, by, 41.
+
+Singers, English, notices of, 31.
+
+Singhalese, character of the, 627.
+
+Sketch in the tropics, a, from a super-cargo's log, 362.
+
+Sobieski, John, deliverance of Vienna, by, 184.
+
+Society of British artists, exhibition of the, 199.
+
+Something about Music, 709.
+
+Spain, effects of the want of an aristocracy in, 52.
+
+Speculation on the senses, a, 650.
+
+Stahrenberg, Count, defence of Vienna by, 181.
+
+Statesman, memoirs of a. Part II., 1
+  --Part III., 207
+  --Part IV., 325
+  --Part V., 608
+  --Part VI., 801.
+
+Suffolk street gallery, exhibition at the, 199.
+
+Supercargo's log, sketch from a, 362.
+
+Switzerland, commercial policy, &c., of, 248.
+
+Syloson's return to Samos, 714
+  --Part II., 715.
+
+Syria, Colonel Napier's reminiscences of, 476.
+
+Tallis, the English musician, notices of, 23-24.
+
+Taprobane of the Romans, the, 623.
+
+Taxation, pressure of, in Greece, 358.
+
+Texas, adventures in. No. I., a scamper in the prairie of Jacinto, 551
+  --No. II., a trial by jury, 777.
+
+Thirteenth, the, a tale of doom, 465.
+
+To a young friend devoting himself to philosophy, from the German of
+Schiller, 150.
+
+Travels of Kerim Khan. Part I., 453
+  --Part II., 564
+  --conclusion, 753.
+
+Trial by jury, a; an adventure in Texas, 777.
+
+Tropics, a sketch in the, from a super-cargo's log, 362.
+
+Turkish history, chapters of. No. X., the second siege of Vienna, 173.
+
+Turner, J. W., strictures on the works of, 497.
+
+Two dreams, from the French of Balzac, 672.
+
+University of Athens, the, 358.
+
+Vienna, the second siege of, a chapter of Turkish history, 173.
+
+Vision of the world, a, by Delta, 343.
+
+Wales, notes on a tour in the disturbed districts of, 766.
+
+Water-colour paintings, exhibitions of, 201.
+
+"We are all low people there," a tale of the assizes. Chapter I., 273
+  --Chapter II., 288.
+
+Whewell's philosophy of the inductive sciences, remarks on, 422.
+
+Whippiad, the, a satirical poem, by Bishop Heber. Canto I., 100
+  --Canto II., 102
+  --Canto III., 104
+  --Letter relating to, 263.
+
+Woman's rights and duties, review of, 373.
+
+Women, the wrongs of, 597.
+
+Wood-paving for locomotives, advantages of, 398.
+
+World, a vision of the, by Delta, 343.
+
+Wrongs of women, the, 597.
+
+Young, A., on the habits of the Salmon, 82.
+
+
+END OF VOL. LIV.
+
+
+_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine -
+Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH ***
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